'Heroes' premiere: The Magic Compass and Carnivale
Tonight on "Heroes," we've got some creepy carnies looking for a Magic Compass. No word on if they smell like cabbage.When we last left our intrepid Heroes, Sylar's "body" was burned and only Angela, Matt and Noah knew that Nathan was dead and Sylar is now Nathan. They thought Matt could control him but we saw a flash at the end of the season that made us (and Mama Petrelli) think Sylar might not be quiiiiite under control. Hiro and Ando headed home to Japan and Tracy came back (because no big name on this show EVER dies, except Elle, who was a favorite of mine.)
Let's take this one character-by-character, shall we? Because they are very disjointed in these episodes and hardly interact with one another.
Claire Bennett
Claire Bear is headed to college and ends up with a driven, competitive roommate named Annie. I was betting that she was a demon like Buffy's roommate Kathy, but instead it turns out she's just suicidal and throws herself out a window (under highly suspicious circumstances).
Claire makes a new friend, Gretchen, who recognizes Claire's name from the Odessa Homecoming Massacre (coming to theatres 2010!) and is obsessed with proving that Annie was murdered. Gretchen's a little... macabre. When Claire conducts her own "Jump, Push or Fall" test by throwing herself out the dorm window to see if she hits Annie's chalk outline, Gretchen sees Claire sit up and crack her bones back into place. Raise your hand if you like Gretchen for Annie's murder? Me too.
Peter Petrelli
Peter has gone all Weird Loner on us. He's a paramedic again, using his powers to save people and basically balance the cosmic ledger. He barely takes time off and at home he saves every single newspaper article about his heroics and constantly listens to the police scanner. I predict eventually he'll develop an obsession with Jodie Foster and try to kill the president.
"Nathan" Petrelli
The Nathan Facade is cracking, as glimpses of Sylar are coming out. Nathan reaches out to Peter for help because he doesn't know what's happening, but Peter won't return his calls because of the Lone Wolf thing he's got going. Angela can see the Sylar coming out and asks Matt Parkman for help in "updating" whatever it is he did, but Matt wants no part of it.
Matt Parkman
Matt is back with his family but is having some serious Sylar hallucinations. He isn't using his mind-reading powers anymore, which makes both Janice and me wonder if that's healthy. He finally snaps, at Sylar's egging on, and uses his powers to (of all htings) convince the hunky water delivery boy to get a new route because he doesn't like Roy sniffing around his kibble, ifyaknowwhatimsayin. Oh, and Matt is going to a police force recovery group and talks about his powers like an addiction. Hello, Willow. I didn't know you'd joined "Heroes."
Noah Bennett & Tracy Strauss
Tracy reformed from the melted ice chips with one thing on her mind: MURDER. She goes for Bennett but he says he can help her and gets Danko off her back. Unfortunately, she sees Danko sliced 'n diced by a new super-speedy samurai hero and calls Bennett. They find a key in Danko's stomach, it opens a safety deposit box and inside is a MAGIC COMPASS that either only works when Peter holds it or only works when a person with an ability holds it (it's not clear). Unfortunately, samurai comes back and slices up Bennett for the compass. In the hospital, Bennett calls Tracy because he's lonely (also, his wife has moved on). Do I smell a romance brewing? Who 'ships Tracy and Noah? I'm not sure if I do yet.
Ando & Hiro
Our favorite bumbling BFFs have started a company in Japan called "Heroes for Hire." We see them save a cat named "Muffin Man." Awesome. In more important news, there is now a ret-conned carnival where 13 year-old Hiro saw a fortune teller and wished he was big and ended up sleeping with Elizabeth Perkins. No wait. The fortune teller told him he would be a hero and that's when he devoted his life to doing just that.
Which now is killing him, since Hiro is dying. Presumably from powers, but the details are fuzzy. He tells Ando he saw a doctor. Was it Dr. Suresh? If it was, why wouldn't he just say it was? Was it a normal doctor? A normal doctor would've found a normal cause, not a time-traveling cause, so does Hiro have a normal disease, like cancer or lupus? Was it exacerbated by his time-traveling and time-freezing? It's very unclear and annoying.
Anyway, Hiro accidentally travels back to the Carnival and instead of keeping himself from getting the fortune, a weird carnie named Samuel inserts Hiro into the incident where Ando spilled slushee on Kimiko (Hiro's sister) and she hated him forever. INstead, Samuel pushes Hiro so that he intercepts the slushee. Back in the present, Kimiko and Ando are together now, ever since they shared their first kiss on the Ferris Wheel at the carnival 14 years ago. Maybe later Hiro will play "Johnny B. Goode" for them at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.
Hiro then decides his new mission is to go back in time, leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Or something like that. Oh boy.
Carnivale
Finally we come to... the Big Bad for season 5. Joseph, an unseen carnie, dies and Samuel takes over as Lead Carnie. He has a Magic Compass, a tattoo of said Magic Compass and also a magic ink pen. Rounding out his band of carnies are super-speedy samurai Edgar, Lydia the Tattooed Lady and an old man who sends Samuel back in time to Hiro's carnival. Samuel puts Hiro on his path of redemption and now wants to collect Sylar, Claire and Peter. For what purpose? We don't know. But I bet the Magic Compass is involved.
Thoughts & Tidbits
- Not my favorite season premiere. Was it just me, or did not that much happen tonight? It really seemed like an awful lot of disjointed filler to me.
- Did anybody notice that Gretchen is the little girl from "The Nanny?" Weird.
- I loved the sight gag of Ando wheeling unconscious Hiro around the office on a dolly, trying not to be seen
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Nope, but she did get her kit off in Californication a couple of seasons ago. Not impressed by her acting either way.
I wasn't that impressed either. Could there be a more obvious plot twist than Claire Bennett throwing herself out of the window and being caught doing by the person she just befriended?
And how many times can one character (Noah Bennett) have a "change of heart?" I think we're up to about 18 already. No doubt they'll get another 3 or 4 in before the end of the series.
It was just you. The opener neatly reshuffled the characters for the upcoming season, thankfully got rid of Danko, and effectively introduced Robert Knepper's character. What else was it supposed to do?
As an aside, Gretchen already knew about Claire's ability, likely due to a connection to Samuel, so that discovery was not meant to be a revelation, nor was it meant to be a plot twist in and of itself.
Also, why would not knowing the details of Hiro's illness at this point be annoying? There are more shows to come, presumably.
Found the premiere moderately interesting, but the pace dragged too often.
Personally, I think they ought to ditch Claire, Hiro, Ando and Sylar; what is this a BSG thing with Sylar appearing to Parkman in visions? I noticed ex-Cylon Rick Worthy was in the Parkman scenes. Coincidence?
No Mohinder on display -- they should keep it that way.
Robert Knepper has easily become the series most interesting character, even if his tattoo powers are a little wonky. It would be too predictable if the Heroes had to band together to fight the Carnivale ala the S1 ender. I'll credit Tim Kring and Co with more originality that that (I hope).
Do wish they'd resolve the storyline with Peter's Irish girlfriend, though. That loose end has always nagged at me.
All said, I'm willing to give the new season a shot.
But in all honesty I wonder if I'm watching Heroes out of spite; I hate to give up on a show after following it for years. And it really was compelling at one point.
I myself could have handle a 1 hour premier,
instead of the extra hour of filler before Leno,
of all the character I was more interested and wanted to see more was samuel
and his magic ink pen...oh wait
didn't I see the magic ink pen on "warehouse 13" on the Syphilis channel?
oh well I guess I'm going back to watching "House".
and taping "Heroes"...
how long do I have to wait before "Chucks" comes back?
@ZigZag I too seem to be watching purely "out of spite" and not expecting anything...
Heroes has become a show I love to hate, weird!
Best thing in the whole premiere: no Mohinder!
I seriously hope they start to kill some of the characters off pretty soon, afterall didn't the show have massive bugdet cuts this season?
I really liked this premiere. Like someone else said, it set up the season really well. It set up all the heroes and storylines. Can't ask for more than that.
Thankfully, they also killed Danko off which was needed a long time ago.
I thought this was a good episode. Getting back to the season 1 feel and tempo. They need to take their time developing the stories for each character and not rushing through them. The Carnivale plot has potential. They need to have more conflict they just catching Sylar. I was also glad no Mohinder, but I am sure he will show up eventually. I was so tired of the Tracey plot last season, but the writing does make the difference and I like her teamed with Noah.
I'm sorry, but I think NBC Universal used up its LUPUS quota last year. :)
I literally only watched heroes because there was nothing else on.
i couldn't even make it past the first hour.
The direction the show went into after season one is disappointing. It is clear they are trying to focus more on the intimate r/ships between the initial characters rather than the relationship between man and its destiny (which I find more interesting).
If it were me, I would get rid of clair, her father, syler, hiro, and ando. And focus on the Petrelli's.
Personally, I think if this show has any future in story telling, it needs to get rid of Sylar. He is too much of a loner to be the big bad forever. The main villian is supposed to give orders and have minions doing all the nasty work. The Carnivale guy has potential to be this season's villian. Then next season (if there is one) should be a new villian. They should just kill of Sylar so they don't have to keep coming up with a story for him. The show is called Heroes not Sylar. Now if Sylar were to get some minions...maybe he has some potential.