Tai Freligh reviews episode 9 of Heroes Reborn, ‘Sundae, Bloody Sundae’…
This week’s episode of Heroes Reborn picks up the threads that were missing from the two-parter. We also see how the future was changed by Noah going back in the past. We come back to Carlos and Dearing as well as see a bit more about Tommy. Spoiler warning- there are a few character deaths as well as a few big reveals in this episode. Let’s get to the recap and review!
Turns out Dearing was not betraying Carlos when he gave him the test tube of fluid. He escorts him into Sunstone Manor and turns him over to the people there who test Carlos to see if he’s an EVO. He tests positive (thanks to Dearing). We learn that Sunstone Manor is looking for EVOs who have essential powers like teleportation (Tommy!). Must be run by Renautas. Carlos just has to avoid The Director who can look inside people’s heads. The show has some fun with not showing his face and talking about him by name, but we all know exactly who he is. Come on…how many people do we know that can look into people’s heads on this show?? Carlos is escorted inside while Dearing waits in the lobby. Turns out they decided to start testing bounty hunters this week and before he can escape, he’s subdued. He wakes up in The Director’s office who mindf**ks him into going into another room, picking up a gun and (SPOILER) killing himself. Holy shit! Matt Parkman has gone to the dark side bigtime. Meanwhile, Carlos has escaped and heads outside to try and find the priest and his nephew. Everybody is outside in white smocks listening to the hypnotic voice of The Director. Carlos finds them, but they are too far gone, having drunk the Sunstone Kool-Aid. They want to stay and Carlos has to run, but he’s captured and tasered. He has a similar conversation with Parkman who messes with his head and sends him into the other room to also kill himself. Carlos relives the traumatic moment in Afghanistan where he was a coward and abandoned his squad. This sequence is a fantastic feat of special effects- switching back and forth between Carlos in the present and in the past, in fatigues and in civilian clothes. When Parkman “sees” that he knows Farah, then he spares him, saying he’s more useful than he thought.
Joanne and Luke are on their own paths this week. Luke and Malina are driving to Carbondale to find Tommy while Joanne is also heading to find Tommy at the ice cream shop, but both have very different reasons. Joanne has been spurned and rejected by Luke and now she wants to kill Tommy. Luke has been fated to join Malina in her quest to find Tommy. We see Tommy and Emily walking hand in hand, still in Paris. He decides it’s time to come back to reality, so he heads back to the hospital to see his mother while Emily heads back to her job at the ice cream shop. He has the conversation with his mother that he did in the previous timeline- his powers, his destiny to save the world, etc. He doesn’t believe it, but Noah shows up and confirms it. Meanwhile, HRG has sent Caspar to the ice cream shop to erase Emily’s memories and tie up loose ends. He decides that some memories are worth saving, like your first love, so he spares her memory wipe, but Joanne comes into the shop and takes Emily hostage. Caspar tries to drop pennies on the floor to wipe Joanne’s memory, but she doesn’t fall for it. Caspar is in the process of calming Joanne down with the promise of not feeling the pain anymore and how all the killing doesn’t make it any better. It looks like he’s going to convince her to grab the penny and wipe her memory. Yay! But not so fast!
Tommy gets a call at the hospital from what he thinks is his girlfriend, but it’s actually Joanne who has her held hostage. Tommy leaves without saying where he’s going. Just when it looked like Caspar had the situation under control, a very stressed out Tommy shows up and riles her up so much that (SPOILER!) she shoots and kills Caspar. Crap! I liked him. Luke shows up at that moment after telling Malina to stay in the car. He tells Joanne he didn’t enjoy killing EVOs and that he only did it for her. He threatens to use his powers to stop her, but she doesn’t care. She turns to shoot Emily and Luke uses his fire hands to try and fry her. Tommy amazingly figures out how to freeze time (just like Hiro!). He surveys the frozen scene in amazement and then adjusts Luke’s hands so that the flames will miss Joanne and he moves the bullet so it won’t hit Emily and then he notices that Malina is hiding in the back. He has no time to chat and teleports himself and Emily away before unfreezing time. Joanne realizes they are gone and she takes off. Luke leaves Malina there and chases after Joanne who gets picked up by Mr. Harris (what??). Tommy and Emily appear at the hospital and tell them that Caspar is dead and Malina is there. Noah and Tommy try to rush back to the ice cream shop, but they are stopped by Phoebe and Quentin, who reveals himself to be a traitor. Quentin threatens to kill Tommy if HRG shoots his sister, so he stands down and lets them take Tommy away. Noah then rushes to the ice cream shop and takes Malina with him.
Meanwhile, Quentin and Phoebe take Tommy to Erica Kravid’s house where she walks him outside to a table set for dinner and tells him she’s going to let him know how he’s going to save the world. The entire scene is very creepy and Hannibal-like and the meal served is venison. Kravid was shown earlier coldly shooting and killing a deer that had wandered onto her property to eat some grass. It was a bit of overkill, to pardon the pun, but we get it. She’s bad news.
Taylor Kravid, who previously contacted the Hero Truthers, gets a message on her computer to meet. She shows up and is grabbed and tossed in a van. When she gets her hood pulled off, she’s in a warehouse and her mother is there. She interrogates her for information about the truthers. Oh no! We had our suspicions that she was being set up! Taylor says she would rather die than tell her anything. Turns out it not her mother after all and is a shape-shifter pretending to be to test her. She is indeed with the Hero Truthers and our friend René is alive in this timeline. They need Taylor’s help to find their leader…who is Mica! Remember little Mica from Heroes? He’s all grown up and has been captured by Renautas and is being held at Sunstone. They need her help to rescue him.
Finally, the biggest WTF moment of the entire show- we go almost 8,000 years into the future and out in the middle of the desert is….Miko! WTF?? She’s alive and in the future. How she got there and what she’s doing there is completely unknown. She heads towards a group of buildings in the distance. We see from the promo for the midseason finale that Tommy and Erica Kravid show up there next week, but we don’t know why.
Next week is the dreaded midseason finale that nobody knew was happening, but probably could have guessed the network would do. Boo! It should be good and I’m sure there will be some surprise twist that will impact the final four chapters. This episode gets an 8 out of 10.
Official Episode Synopsis: As HRG tries to help Tommy prepare to save the world, Carlos infiltrates Sunstone Manor and Taylor Kravid connects with Hero Truther. Greg Grunberg guest stars.
Heroes Reborn airs on Thursday nights at 8pm EST on NBC.
Tai Freligh
(Article originally appeared on Flickering Myth)