Heroes: Four Months Later

The family is the country of the heart

    ~Giuseppe Mazzini

So, here we are, together again. After a successful first season that saw Heroes become a breakout hit here in the U.S. and, if NBC's hype is even remotely accurate, across the world, Tim Kring and the rest of the Heroes crew have the unenviable (albeit welcome) task of figuring out what to do for an encore. How do they both maintain the status quo and keep giving the audience everything they love about the show, and yet also take things up a notch so as to make sure the show doesn't become stagnant? 

If you're Kring and company, you begin by putting your characters in situations and circumstances that are a 180° change from when we met them last year.  Greg Beeman, an executive producer and the director of "Four Months Later" goes on at length about this theme in his blog, which I strongly encourage everyone to check out. But just to summarize:

• Claire is on the outside going into eleventh grade, rather than being the ultimate high school insider,  while Noah is now at the bottom of the vocational food chain rather than a person of some stature. Not to mention that the girl who once fought the very notion she was special now chafes at having to pretend to be normal. 

• Calm, cool, collected Nathan, he of the nuclear family and burgeoning political career, is now an unkempt drunk with no job and only his estranged mother for family. 

• Mohinder lectures on the same subject but does so now with confidence, and is working with the man he once crashed a car to get away from. 

• Rather than looking to them for inspiration, Hiro is now part of one of the stories he loved.

• Matt's got the career status he's just failed to achieve when we first saw him, but is now unmarried and an adoptive father. 

• And Peter, who was such a prominent figure in the pilot episode, is only seen for a few moments this time around.

Beeman also discusses the directorial choices he made in fascinating detail, so it would be foolish of me to cover the same ground. Again, though, for the sake of convenience I'll note that he admits to being greatly influenced by the Jason Bourne films, as seen in the increased number of handheld, documentary-style shots, while the framing and style of all of the scenes involving the Bennet/Butler family was straight from the teen comedy/dramas of the 1980's. If you bring to mind, say John Hughes' Pretty in Pink and watch the episode again, you'll see exactly what Beeman means. 

So rather than rehash what someone else has already cogently and thoughtfully discussed, I thought I'd take a moment to point out the other theme I noticed in the stories we saw: namely, that they were all centered around family.

Nathan's storyline, for instance, is all about family: specifically, the way he's eliminated his from his life. He refuses to believe Peter's dead, and yet in his brother's absence appears to have lost himself—giving further weight to his claim, back in ".07%," that he didn't know who he was without Peter.  He's also alienated his wife and children, and as we watch he basically kicks his mother out of his life. And finally, he rebuffs Claire's attempt to deepen their relationship when she reaches out to him for solace and support.  It's far too early to discern what Nathan's motives are for self-destructing in such a deliberate and efficient manner, but if I had to guess I'd suggest he's punishing himself for not being able to save Peter.  

The Bennets, on the other hand, actually managed to survive the events of last season with their family unity more or less intact. Claire and her father are keeping things from Sandra and Lyle—and each other, but since that's exactly what they were doing when we first met them, it's almost comforting to watch them slip back into the same patterns. I actually felt kind of bad for Sandra, obviously trying so hard to manufacture a sense of normalcy by carrying on as if they'd moved to Costa Verde for the weather. All of them, in fact, seemed rather tentative; you get the sense that they're still feeling their way through things, trying to figure out how to relate to each other now that Claire and Noah's secrets are out in the open. 

Hiro and Kaito may have been separated, but Kaito's final days were almost entirely focused on his son. His desire to give Hiro his legacy was at the forefront of his thoughts, but more than that I think Kaito wanted to make sure Hiro knew that he now appreciated and was proud of the person he'd become.  In another part of town, Molly, Matt and Mohinder, heretofore to be referred to in my reviews as 3M, have apparently created their own family (and I can only imagine the squees of delight among slashfic writers over this windfall of canonical material to play with)—although Matt apparently thinks Molly is a college-age male who can live off of pizza and ice cream, if Molly's remarks are any indication.

And finally, we were introduced to a new family unit: Maya and Alejandro, Since they're not only siblings but twins, it stands to reason that if one has an ability the other does as well. Of course, if you put the words "super" and "twins" in the same sentence folks of a certain age will immediately picture Zan, Jayna, their pet monkey Gleek, and a bucket that kept appearing out of nowhere.  And indeed, it seems that physical proximity is as important to Maya and Alejandro as it was to Zan and Jayna—with an interesting twist.  Whereas the Wonder Twins needed to make physical contact with each other to kick their powers into gear, while Maya needs her brother nearby to prevent the manifestation of her ability in all its lethal glory.  What I'll be interested to learn is if Alejandro's power is to prevent any person he's around from using their gift, a la Leech, or if his ability specifically negates only hers.  Not to mention exactly what happens with Maya when Alejandro's not around, as right now my only guess—aside from a convoluted and complicated theory involving promicin crossed with the X-Files' black oil—is that when her brother's not there to keep her calm Maya turns into the Incredible Hulk and Typhoid Mary's love child. 

Something else I'd like to kick around is the significance of what Nathan saw in that barroom mirror: himself, but clean-shaven and with half his face disfigured by what appeared to be burns.  The thing that struck me about the image is how strongly it evoked a visage just about any comic-book reader would be quite familiar with—that of Two-Face, a longtime nemesis of Batman. Two-Face's story goes a little something like this:

Back when Batman was just starting out, he often worked with a young district attorney (Wait... Nathan was a lawyer, wasn't he? Hmmm...) by the name of Harvey Dent. They had a friendly relationship, or as close as the Batman could come to one, and Dent was one of the few folks in law enforcement Batman actually trusted.  Eventually, Dent put crime boss Sal Maroni on trial for murder.  As Dent was questioning Maroni, he produced Maroni's good luck charm, a double-headed coin, telling Maroni it was found at the crime scene with his prints on it, the enraged mobster threw sulphuric acid at Dent's face.  Harvey tried to turn away, but wasn't quite fast enough to prevent the acid from hitting its target: when he awoke later in the hospital, he discovered the left side of his face was now permanently disfigured, although the right side remained unblemished—he now literally looked like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fused into one body. And the similarity to Robert Louis Stevenson's character didn't stop there: seeing what had happened to him caused a latent multiple personality disorder to take an express train to the top of the queue: re-christening himself Two-Face, Harvey Dent set about becoming the embodiment of everything he'd once fought against. 

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm providing all this detail because I believe the story of Two-Face may provide us with some clues as to what's going on with Nathan. Specifically, I wonder if perhaps Nathan was the hooded figure who killed Kaito Nakamura and is now presumably after Angela. For starters, we know that Nathan's current existence is the polar opposite of what it was last season—given how little resemblance this Nathan bears to his former self, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's almost as if he's become an entirely different person.  His internal struggle last season was at its heart between the good and evil sides of his nature, and it has to gall him on some level that doing the right thing apparently cost him the person he loved most. 

The duality theme continues when you consider the Kaito/Angela storyline.  Both Kaito and Angela found their death threats moments after encounters with Nathan: he could have easily slipped Kaito's pic into the paper when he bumped into Ando, and Angela found hers shortly after Nathan's return from grocery shopping.  The images themselves were two halves of a whole photo, and the drawn symbols essentially bisected each of their faces (Kaito's was right down the middle, while Angela's was slightly off-center).  And together they represent two ends of the familial spectrum: the father who helped his son and the mother who used hers. 

Plus it's worth noting that while Kaito pulled his killer off the edge of the building with him, only one body hit the ground—and the two most likely reasons for this are that his attacker could either teleport...or fly.  

Yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the flaws in my argument: the killer seemed smaller than Nathan, Kaito's line "out of all of them, I never expected it to be you" implies a fellow member of the Company did him in, and as far as we know Nathan's never even seen the symbol outside of its placement on Kenzei's sword, much less knows its significance to the Company. And, personally, my first instinct was that the hooded figure was a woman, not a man. However, I still think it's a damn solid theory, and I wanted it out there in case there's a snowball's chance I'm right. 

Other thoughts:

• Hey Nathan?  Jack Shepherd called: he wants his beard back.

• Molly's nightmares.  I'm thinking the man she sees (and apparently hears) isn't Sylar, but the unnamed man Molly told Matt was the only person she couldn't locate with her ability:

MATT: Is it someone bad, Molly, like the boogeyman?

MOLLY: No. He's a lot worse.

MATT: And why don't you want to find him?

MOLLY: 'Cause when I think about him ... (whispers) He can see me.

• The shot of the arrows against the eclipse? Very, very cool. 

• Hiro's reaching back into his pocket to put his glasses on again after Kensei removes his mask? Best reaction shot ever.  Oh, and Kensei's being a gaijin? Now there's a twist I bet no one saw coming.  Or at least everyone who hadn't read Heroes casting news over the summer. 

• I thought Matt and Molly's debate as to whether his use of his power to pass his exam was cheating was really interesting. I can completely understand where Molly's coming from, and yet Matt has a very valid point as well: is what he did all that different from someone using a natural physical gift to achieve their goals? For example, would someone who has 20/10 vision be asked to neutralize that advantage before participating in a sharpshooting contest? Ultimately I'm inclined to take Matt's side this time around, primarily because he employed his telepathy during the test exactly as he would in a real crisis—it's not like he read minds just to pass and thereby misrepresent his ability to deal with such a situation when lives are at stake; instead he simply demonstrated how he'd handle the scenario using all the tools at his disposal.

• Noah and Momo, working together to bring down the Company?  I so entirely did not see that one coming. How incredibly awesome of them. 

• So very, very happy to see James Kyson Lee in the main credits.  But James? The next time your hair stylist says "go ahead, grab that electrical wire," don't listen to them, 'kay? Make 'em at least work for their paycheck. 

• Is it me, or was it almost too pat how quickly and efficiently supporting characters were taken out of the equation?  Although since I'm always harping on how characters disappear without an explanation, I suppose I shouldn't complain that they at least acknowledged the existence of Heidi and Janice before consigning them to the sidelines.  Now I just wonder when we'll find out if Matt's wife is still pregnant. 

• Alejandro? If a skeezy guy eyeing your sister asks if you two are married, it's probably best to lie and say "yes." I mean, it's not like he's going to make you prove it by sleeping with her in front of him. At least, I hope not...

• I know that most people think of Stephen Tobolowky, who played the man with the Midas touch, as the annoying Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day—thus making it difficult to buy him as a villain.  However, the first time I saw him in an attention-catching role was when he played a serial killer on Picket Fences, so I have absolutely no problems in this regard. 

• I thought the scene with Zack 2.0 West hovering outside Claire's window had a very Peter Pan/Wendy feel to it. I also liked his robot/alien theory—I wonder where he stands on the cavemen vs. astronauts question.

• Noah, dude.  Way to maintain a low profile. Although you can hardly blame the guy, as he apparently worked for the bastard child of Dwight Schrute and the mouth-breather from Wonderfalls. 

• "I broke history." It was just too good a line not to repeat. 

• Mmm... half-nekkid Peter... 

Hm. I guess that about does it for me.  Tune in for the next episode of Heroes, "Lizards," (can't wait to find out what that title's all about...), and then be sure to check back for Erin's undoubtedly awesome review.  'Til then, stay heroic.