In recent days, a seemingly random
group of individuals has emerged with
what can only be described as
“special” abilities.
Although unaware of it now, these
individuals will not only save the
world, but change it forever. This
transformation from ordinary to
extraordinary will not occur overnight.
Every story has a beginning.
Volume one of their epic tale
begins here.
And with that opening crawl begins the rather anti-climactic beginning of “Heroes,” one of the most interesting concepts for the 2006-2007 television series that doesn’t quite live up to initial expectations.
The pilot episode of “Heroes,” titled “Genesis” is essentially an origin story for a handful of the individuals mentioned in the opening crawl, except the typical origin story usually gives an explanation of the heroes powers where, here, we’re just getting introduced to what proves to be almost too many characters. The show starts to wind the characters around each other as well, creating connections (or at least hints of them) before audience members even get a chance to ponder what those connections might be.
Warning: This is an episode recap – SPOILERS for “Genesis” follow
After the opening crawl we get a voice-over that waxes philosophical. As we later learn, this voice over is by Dr. Mohinder Suresh, a professor in India whose father was investigating a similar subject that Mohinder lectures on: the evolution of mankind. The Human Genome project has begun to track tiny changes in mankind’s evolution. Apparently Mohinder’s papa was doing more than that. His search for “patient zero” led him to New York where he had established a façade as a cab driver and wound up shot and killed. Was papa Suresh killed in a random act of cab violence, or was it part of a greater conspiracy following his work? Mohinder sets out to find out. He visits his father’s home/office in India to find tons of evidence that his father was tracking the titular heroes. Videotapes are labeled “teleportation,” files are labeled “rapid cellular regeneration,” and a huge map of the world fills the wall with pushpin markers. Mohinder realizes he is not alone in his father’s office, takes a picture of the map, removes the New York pushpin, and escapes, leaving the Mysterious Agent there to put on his glasses and leave.
Later Mohinder visits his father’s place in New York to the sad discovery that “they were here too,” although he discovers a tape labeled “Sylar” that was missed by whoever went through the apartment. He decides to continue his father’s work, recreating his father’s map, and taking a job as a cabbie, allowing him to deliver more philosophical voice overs and interact with other characters, including another run-in with the Mysterious Agent, who clearly knows who Mohinder is.
With Mohinder as the narrative glue that will obviously wind up bonding the heroes together (his map is a poor man’s Cerebro) the episode features quite a number of other storylines, including:
Niki: or, as I originally started referring to her as, Mustang Sally. Niki is an internet webcam girl who is first introduced stripping to a revved up version of the classic tune. She leaves her job to go home and take her son, Micah to the private school she clearly can’t afford for him. Micah is incredibly smart, building spare parts for a computer despite barely being old enough to recount his alphabet. Niki has a paranoid feeling that she’s being watched, which is valid considering her image in mirrors isn’t quite matching up with her actions.
She discovers Micah is being thrown out of his school despite the $25 thousand dollar “donation” she paid to get him in because her last three tuition checks have bounced. She takes Micah to a friend’s house to watch him because she’s apparently in deep with some bad people over the money she borrowed for Micah’s school. The thugs sent by Linderman catch up with Niki as she hides out in her webcam studio. They force her to begin stripping for the camera. She spies her reflection in the mirror still not keeping up with her and decides she’s had it. She gives the thugs a hefty “screw you!” before they start wailing on her.
When Niki comes to, awakened by a phone call from her son wanting to leave her friend’s house, the thugs are not just dead, they are splattered everywhere. Nikki sees the camera, still recording, and goes to it to find out what happened. As she grabs the camera she sees her reflection in the mirror, which motions at her to be silent.
Hiro: Hiro aka “Spock” is kind of the comic relief for “Heroes.” A japanese man located in Tokyo, Hiro is convinced he can bend time and space because the train ran fourteen seconds late that morning. We first see him with a rather constipated look on his face focusing heavily on a clock. He then becomes convinced the clock moved back a second and brags to his friend. Lots of Star Trek and X-Men references ensue.
That night Hiro and his friend go to a bar. His friend challenges him: if he can teleport by bending time and space, Hiro should teleport into the women’s bathroom. Hiro is an idealistic person and doesn’t believe a super-hero’s powers should be used for parlor tricks or evil, but tries anyway. The next time we see Hiro he is being kicked out of the bar for being in the women’s bathroom, but we never actually see him teleport there.
The last we see of Hiro in this episode is riding the subway with a clock prominently displaying the time (11:43). As Hiro focuses on a poster for New York City, the clock goes nuts, eventually stopping on 1:00. Suddenly Hiro finds himself in New York. Perhaps he is special after all…
Isaac - Isaac gets the least amount of screen time of any of the potential heroes, although his presence is probably the biggest setup of the cast. Isaac’s girlfriend Simone discovers him frantically destroying his own paintings, claiming they are works of evil that he doesn’t remember creating – they were all made while he was high.
Isaac is freaked out because the events he painted are coming true. He painted a firebomb three weeks ago that appeared in the morning’s news. He also painted an image of the eclipse that the episode features prominently (including appearing in the series' logo, although it has little obvious effect on the action other than giving all the characters a moment to look contemplative), an image of the fire Claire encounters (below), and an image of Peter plummeting (also below). Most frightening is Isaac’s painting of New York City, engulfed in some sort of demonic flame. This is “Heroes” moment of an apocalyptic future a la “The Dead Zone.”
Claire: Claire is a Texas teenager who we first see videotaping herself falling from around eighty feet. She gets back up, resets her dislocated shoulder, and then appears unharmed. Claire’s friend is enthusiastic about her abilities, but the teen is less than thrilled, aware that her life is about to change forever. According to Claire she’s broken every bone in her body as well as put herself through a variety of other ill fates and turned out without a scratch every time.
As Claire and her friend are walking home they see a huge inferno blazing. Claire sees it as another opportunity to test her powers, but when she engulfs herself in the flames she sees a man cowering, trapped by the flames. Claire saves the man, and then flees before anyone can ask any questions while paramedics apply CPR.
At home Claire attempts to tell her mother what happened, stating she walked through fire but wasn’t harmed. Her mother thinks Claire is just using fire as a metaphor and tries to be supportive of whatever trials her daughter has faced. Claire gives a second attempt at talking to her mother, telling her mother she loves her and telling her that she thinks she’s old enough to know who her real parents are. The conversation is cut short though as Claire’s father comes home. She goes to greet her father, a Mysterious glasses-wearing Agent we met in another storyline.
Nathan and Peter: The key storyline of “Genesis” revolves around brothers Nathan and Peter Petrelli. Peter is a nurse who watches over dying old people; his patient at the beginning being the father of Simone. Nathan is running for city office. Their father passed away a few years ago leaving the two brothers with their mother, who attempts to get attention by doing petty things like shoplifting socks.
Peter goes through the episode haunted by a reoccurring dream of himself falling from a building (also painted in one of Isaac’s pictures). Peter is convinced he can fly. He is also convinced he and Nathan share a special connection; that when Nathan was injured an unmentioned amount of time ago, Peter knew Nathan was in pain despite being 300 miles away.
When the brothers’ mother steals the aforementioned pair of socks, Nathan goes a little nuts. With election day only eight days away and Nathan ten points behind in the polls, he has to cover this little scandal up. He offers Peter a job as a volunteer coordinator in an effort to look like he’s more of a family man. Peter declines and goes off in a cab to contemplate his dream. This leads him into all sorts of philosophical discussions with the cabbie and then back to Simone who takes Peter to Isaac where he sees the painting of him falling.
Peter takes the painting as a sign and calls Nathan to a building where he awaits on the rooftop to prove he can fly. Peter falls gracefully and… he can’t fly… but Nathan can, allowing him to catch his brother. Sadly this clip was revealed on YouTube months ago (we even reported on it) ruining what should have been a climactic moment for the episode… until Nathan drops Peter. Oops.
Peter being dropped doesn’t appear to put the show in too big of a fallback, since previews for the upcoming weeks show Peter all right, if hospital bed bound.
As a pilot episode, “Genesis” undermines itself by telling us about the special individuals appearing instead of showing us them and allowing us to wonder about them. It also ruined its own climax with a YouTube leak. That doesn’t mean the show isn’t worth following as it leaves viewers with quite a few questions: what is the link causing these super-powers to appear? Who are Claire’s real parents? What exactly is Niki’s power? Is Peter crazy or does he really have abilites too? What part will both Mohinder and the Mysterious Stranger play in this little drama? What future is Isaac’s cityscape painting leading towards?
I promised I would give “Heroes” at least three episodes to get interesting. This less than stellar introduction is enough to keep me interested for at least three episodes though. I’m excited to see what the show can do without spoiling itself in future episodes, and the if the character connections can be played down a little bit, leaving a little more for fans to speculate upon, “Heroes” has the potential to go somewhere.
