Review: Heroes - The Second Coming

The premiere was split into two episodes, so I'm going to review each one individually. Within the reviews I'm going to try and look at each review from the perspectives of each of the main characters, but because there are so many some of these could get lengthy. These are not spoiler free, so please be mindful of that when reading. Well we're finally back. Nine months have lapsed since the second season was abruptly ended due to the writer's strike. The original trilogy arc was supposed to be the entire second season, but we only got to see the first of the three as season two. Which brings us to "Villains," the focus of season three. So far Heroes hasn't had any traditional "villains" to fight against with the exception of Sylar/Gabriel, but even he wasn't necessarily looking to wreak havoc like true villains tend to do. So where do we begin? Well Nathan's season ending assasination would be as good a place as any. Because of Nathan Petrelli's speech alerting the world to what they can do as heroes, they begin to be hunted and tested on. The whole storyline seems to revolve around Peter stopping the one event he feels is responsible for the horrible future they live in, however he doesn't realize his actions are not self-contained (more on the butterfly effect in the next review). "The Second Coming " opens four years in the future with Claire confronting Peter, preparing to go back in time to stop Nathan from telling the world about them. Yes, that means that Peter is the shooter, and no, Nathan isn't really dead (one of the cardinal rules of comics is that no one is ever really dead). So Peter shoots Nathan and runs off. Or so it seems. The future Peter has absconded off with the present Peter, and then does the same with Parkman, dropping him off in the middle of Africa. How do we tell which Peter is which? A scar. For some reason (which I'm sure involved Hiro and his sword) future Peter has a gnarly scar across his face. And now he hangs around to ensure that Nathan doesn't tell anyone the truth. But that's ok. Because Nathan has found God. Yep. They went there. So where did present Peter go? Future Peter somehow trapped him in the body of a villain at Level 5, along with other villains and Mr. Bennett. Claire confronts Sylar (not by choice) and from that we learn that she really is special. As Sylar takes her powers, he doesn't kill her like he normally does with his victims. He can't. He even tells her so. So now Sylar is running around, still powerless but now with Claire's healing ability. And while Claire didn't die, she was left with an unfortunate side effect: she can't feel pain. She can still heal quickly, but she doesn't feel pain which is an interesting twist on her character. Honestly, I really think they're keeping her character around because she's played by Hayden Panettiere and fanboys would flip if she was taken out. Her character is really getting stale, and I hope that this new twist livens her up a bit. Hiro and Ando are back, much to everyone's delight I'm sure. Hiro learns that his father was the guardian of one half of a formula that could potentially destroy the world. Upon receiving it, we're introduced to a new character called Speedster (read The Flash) who apparently wants to steal it for someone. Hiro has vowed never to go into the past again when Ando recommends he do so to prevent the theft, but will go into the future. In the future he sees Ando betraying him for the formula. And by betray I mean kill. Yeah. I'm sure this whole season will escalate the tension between Hiro and Ando as they search for Speedster to get the formula back. Mohinder and Maya. Mohinder is still trying to solve the Heroes dilemma. He realizes that his father was wrong sort of, and that the cure should focus on the mind as opposed to the body. Mohinder extracts some power from Maya and in a rather startling change of character decides that all of a sudden its awesome to have the powers. He goes from wanting to cure her to wanting to use it to give himself powers. I've said this in the past and I'll say it again now, Heroes is trying their hardest to work in the Days of Future Past storyline from X-Men, which makes sense I guess when you have Jeph Loeb working on the show. I've watched this episode twice now, and its growing on me. The first time I watched it I think there was the initial rush I had to get over because the show was finally back on. I still think the show overall suffers from some of the same problems I've mentioned in the past, including too many character and disjointed editing. But it appears that they've picked up right where they left off, and this season looks to have promise. We can expect more of the same really from all characters but with the addition of true villains this season we have what could be the best season yet. Overall score: 85 out of 100