All roads lead to Odessa
What They Say:
Set years after the events of the original Heroes series, people with powers, now called “Evos” are now known to the entire world. However, their existence has led to conflict with the rest of humanity and resulted in a terror incident at Primatech headquarters. A year after the incident, Noah Bennet finds himself caught up in the mystery behind the truth of the event and an organization called Renatus that may involve the fate of the entire world.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
So after a rather lengthy break for the holidays, Heroes Reborn is back and in full form. Of course given there’s only a couple of episodes left before the finale, it was hard to expect anything less with how much is left to do. Still the show managed to get quite a bit done this week, and despite some…goofiness managed to connect a few more threads as things continue to chug along nicely.
We’re finally down to about three major plotlines, but just about all of them carry the same amount of relevance this time around, so might as well go in order. Going off of the previous cliffhanger, Miko manages to rescue Tommy before Erica can completely brainwash him, and realizes her identity as Katana Girl. Seeing she has an important role to play in everything, Tommy sends her back to the past to take care of Harris at Sunshine Manor while he tries to maintain the ruse that he’s on Erica’s side and pretends not to know what happened to her.
Things at Sunshine Manor end up taking an interesting turn though as Carlos’s group manages to break Matt’s mind control over the prisoners but when it comes time for Taylor and Renae to have a standoff with Matt, he manages to turn the tables on them and takes Taylor as a hostage, figuring he can use her pregnancy for some leverage with Erica. Once again it’s kind of weird to see how much his character has fallen, and there’s an attempt on his part to justify his recent actions but it’s hard to say if the show’s going to end up taking the route of redeeming him at this point.
While this is all going on, lastly we have Malina and Luke continuing their search for Tommy as they decide not to worry about Noah’s disappearance for the time being. However they’re also being tracked down by one of Harris’s clones, Quentin and Pheobe and it’s not too long before a hectic chase begins. Luke manages to put a stop to them and kills the clone before taking Quentin and Pheobe hostage in order to learn Tommy’s location. Quentin is still having doubts about how ruthless Erica’s methods are and decides to concede for the time being, but Pheobe seems more out for blood than ever and it probably won’t be too much longer before than ends in some kind of conflict between the two of them, though I kind of expect that to end up going one of two predictable routes in her switching sides or outright dying.
Back with Tommy and Erica, the latter continues her attempts to persuade Tommy to join her side, and reveals her strategy for moving everyone to the future through his powers as well as ensuring the safety of Emily and Tommy’s mother. This all ends up getting cut short though when things connect back to Miko’s arrival at Sunshine Manor as Erica quickly realizes Tommy is trying to dupe her. Miko herself finally ends up having her long awaited showdown with the real Harris and it’s…something. And by something I mean it’s goofy. While Heroes has always had it’s share of silliness in regards to it’s sense of style, everything from the dialogue between the two of them, to the fight choreography is extremely comic book-y and not all in the good way. Still it’s certainly entertaining and it achieves the desired result as Harris and his clones are finally removed from the equation rather violently, though Miko ends up exiting the stage herself in the process as defeating Harris means she’s finally achieved her programmed objective. Feels kind of weird for the show to pull this with her twice, but I still have the feeling she’ll be back again anyway, so can’t complain much I guess.
With all that said and done, the episode throws a couple last bombshells at us, when Carlos and Farah go to rescue Micah. Their attempt is successful (though it also results in the pastor dying which I guess is supposed to be a big deal but it didn’t do much for me) and he ends up exposing Erica’s true nature to the world as he shows just exactly how she tricked everyone regarding the June 13th incident. Despite this rather significant setback though, she doesn’t seem too fazed as she instead takes the opportunity to bring Joanne on board to her cause, convincing her the allegations about her are a lie (seems kinda dumb anyone’d fall for that at this point, but I guess she’d be the one if any) and to go after Luke and Malina which should make for a pretty interesting turn of events for next time. Everyone starts making their journey towards Odessa, and as the show sets up the final stage for this season, it’s finally time for this puzzle to really come together.
In Summary:
Heroes Reborn returns after a long break, and delivers on another strong episode as more of the show’s storylines start coming together. The events at Sunshine Manor make for a few good shakeups and while the Miko v.s. Harris fight was a lot goofier than I would have liked it to be, the other stuff being set up here is good enough to overlook that. There’s just a couple of episodes left before this season ends, and I’m glad to see how nicely it’s all managed to come along.
Grade: B+
