The first show was all about establishing these characters. We have a heroine addict that paints the future, a stripper who has some sort of alter ego, a cheerleader who's invincible, a guy who can fly, and an Asian guy who can teleport. We also have a professor that's investigating the death of his father. His father was researching a way to track these people who have powers. Also in the mix is some sinister looking guy that has been following the professor and who happens to be the cheerleader's father. Okay, reading that back that actually sounded interesting. Unfortunately, the first episode showed very little of their powers, which is all I was waiting for.
Then, something magical happened. In the middle of the last (second) episode, shite started to come together. Greg Grunberg, who we know and love from Alias, plays a cop. He showed up and things started to get better. His power is he hears people's thoughts. There's a serial killer loose and he struck again. Greg is just a patrol cop, but when the victim's child is missing, he hears her crying in his head, from a crawl space. He thought everyone could hear her so it makes the FBI a little suspicious. When he speaks to them he says things only they (or the killer) would know because he's reading their thoughts. They arrest him.
My biggest complaint about the show is no one believes these people. I mean, truly, if someone you knew told you they could paint the future, it'd be a little hard to believe. But when they showed you a picture they painted three weeks ago that matched something that happened just yesterday, you'd think you'd try to believe them. That's what's going on with the painter. The painter, Isaac, even painted what looked like the end of the world. New York in a ball of fire. He then tried to kill himself. From the end of the pilot it looked like he did die, but then in the second episode we realize his high class girlfriend just let him sleep it off. Um, ok. She's not very supportive, even with all the evidence.
Claire is a cheerleader in Odessa, Texas. Which is awesome because the movie, Friday Night Lights is set there. Anyway, she recruits some reject to video tape her trying to kill herself. She can't though because she's invincible. She pulls some guy out of a burning train and they come looking for her at school. Some dumb girl who's supposedly her best friend or something, claims it was her who did it, because she's a jealous biatch. She doesn't know it was Claire who did it, but she gets commended for doing it. Claire's reject friend, Zach, approaches her and tells her that the tape of her trying to kill herself all those times was stolen. They're both nervous about what could happened. At home, she's asked her father if she could research who her birth parents are. She doesn't tell him about the powers. Turns out though that her father is up to no good. In fact, later that night he tells her he's started the process to try and find her birth parents, and when she leaves the room, he plays the tape of her Zach lost. I'm not convinced he's all bad, but they're definitely setting him up to be.
Niki's a stripper. Wow. She actually strips on the Internet, so that's a little better. She has a kid, Micah, who's just adorable. Anyway, Niki owes people some money or something and when they don't get it they come after her. She's been spooked lately anyway because sometimes the imagine in the mirror looks at her funny or doesn't follow her normally. Anyway, these guys start to make her strip and plan bad things for her and she has a black out moment. When she wakes up the guys are dead. Driving in her car later to pick up her son she watches the video from her camera of when she killed the guys. Next thing she knows she's in the car in a clean outfit and it's probably been awhile. We find out it's been four hours. She gets her kid and goes home where, I bet you didn't call this, the garage she killed the guys in is all clean. The bodies are in the trunk of some car that she doesn't know but's registered to her. The bodies and a map leading to a spot in the desert where she's supposed to bury the bodies. I'm thinking I'd want my alter ego to take care of this part. She realizes there are other bodies in the ditch, probably from another killing spree she went on. Very Fight Club.
Peter's brother Nathan is running for some office, I think it's the Senate. Peter's the black sheep type, embarrassment to his brother. Peter also thinks he can fly. We think he may be able to fly too because Isaac painted a picture of him flying. He calls his older brother Nathan to watch him jump off the building and as he does his swan dive down, Nathan flies up and catches him. Next thing he knows he ends up in the hospital with Nathan trying to convince him that he fell onto a nearby landing and didn't get hurt because he was flying. Peter doesn't want to leave this alone though and invites Nathan back to a roof to make him fly to save him again. Nathan finally admits that he can fly, but he also admits that Peter can fly too. Peter doesn't believe him until he walks towards his brother from the ledge, without having to step down. So he's levitating above the rooftop. It's kinda bad ass.
The one non-Hero (we think) protagonist, Mohinder, is investigating what happened to his father, the researcher who was trying to find a way to track all of these people who had powers. Mohinder knows there's something up with what happened to his father because he found some mysterious guy, Claire's father it turns out, in his father's apartment. Again, in his own apartment he found some guy who pulled a gun on him. The guy got away and Mohinder wasn't hurt, but he met his neighbor and started a friendship with her. Mohinder's father and this chick were friends and she apparently told him about his research. She's helping Mohinder find out what happened. I can't say I trust her completely. They come up with the name Sylar, someone he knew his father spoke to from time to time, that's also who the FBI is investigating for all of the recent murders, like the one Greg Grunberg was at. He's some mad man.
Hiro is a cute little guy who can teleport. In fact, he teleports all the way to New York from Japan. He goes around the city and while he's walking around he spots a comic book. He's on the cover of the comic book. He begins reading it and realizes it's verbatim what happened to him that day while in Japan. He looks at the writer's name and address and it's Isaac's. Curious, Hiro makes his way there. When he goes there it's not like how I remember it from earlier. Especially since a dead Isaac with the top of his head cut off is there. In fact, that's the way this Sylar guy kills people too. There's a gun on the floor and Hiro picks it up. At this point I'm screaming at the television for him to throw it down. Of course the cops come in at this moment and almost shoot the poor guy.
He's trying to tell them what's going on but with the few words he knows of English it's not working out very well. Eventually a translator shows up and to prove his story, Hiro tells him to call his buddy, he can tell them he was in Japan earlier that day. They're still not buying this teleportation thing. They get the friend on the phone and he says no, he hasn't seen Hiro. In fact, Hiro's been missing for five weeks. They tell that to Hiro and he says that no, it's October 2nd (which it totally was when this played). The cops show him the paper, which is coincidentally announcing Nathan's win of the Senate seat or whatever. It's November 8th, not October 2nd. He's accidently teleporter way into the future. Suddenly, there's a loud boom and everyone looks out the window. It's a nuclear holocaust and right before the cloud gets to them, Hiro closes his eyes and teleports his ass out of there. Bad ass!!!
I'm ALL IN. Plus, the previews for next week look amazing. They start realizing there's a connection, which was also my fear, that it would take forever for them to come together. We see Peter at Isaac's and he's looking at a bunch of paintings lined up. It's of all our Heroes and he points to Claire and says something that made me believe he's starting to figure out what's going on. There are some other flashes and the one I really remember is either Peter or Nathan levitating. I can't wait!! Yay!
