As Heroes Reborn gets underway with episode three (one and two made up the season one pilot) Under the Mask continues with the things that made the first Tim Kring series so appealing. For one, that marvelously melancholy score (that is so evocative of whale’s singing, but in-tune, crossed with very soothing, yet expectant, Indian music) that is so addictively appealing even without Mohinder Suresh’s soothing philosophical voice over.
Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvin have lost nothing between Heroes and Heroes Reborn in terms of addictive music.
This week sees a focus on Miko Otomo, El Vengador Carlos Gutierrez, killer couple Tommy and Joanne Collins, Tommy Clarke and Noah Bennet. On the villain side, Renautas head Erica Kravid and her cloning henchman Harris Prime are explored more as well. Non-evo players Ren Shimosawa and Quentin Frady are also along for the ride as the sidekicks of Miko and Noah respectively.
There is more of the mysterious Malina (Danika Yarosh) and her equally mysterious and invisible female companion who is “training” her in the frozen Arctic.
Equally frozen are the eyes of Renautas head Kravid whose peepers never warm up, even when presenting the new “Molly” powered glasses called EPIC.
Molly Walker, the carry over character from Heroes is played this time around by Francesca Eastwood (daughter of Clint and Frances Fisher). Molly can find any other evolved human anywhere in the world and the Renautas corporate head has the woman hooked up to a machine and Walker powers the device.
Miko is overpowered, not by the guards, but Harris in the Japanese headquarters of Renautas. Ren come stop help, the the kick-a** game girl cuts off Harris’s arm and escapes to meet up with her new helper. Harris, it is revealed clones himself as well as new body parts as required.
Carlos Gutierrez takes on the mantle of El Vengador and helps the Evos in the neighborhood escape from Renautas. Tommy is tracked down by the penny man, Caspar Abraham (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and after Clarke’s mother sticks a gun in his ear, she grabs Tommy and they make a run for it.
Ren and Miko head to Midian in “America,” the same place that Molly, Noah and Quentin, Kravid (and her daughter who brings Molly in) as well as a Harris Prime clone. Miko loses her Kensei sword, which appears to be the same one that Hiro Nakamura sought and obtained in Heroes.
Hiro has yet to make an appearance in Heroes Reborn, but Noah realizes that the Hiro was in the hospital on June 13, there are time shifts on the cctv footage of Bennett with a blonde headed female body on a gurney. The implication of the footage is that Noah was talking to Hiro.
There are some memorable moments in Under the Mask, most notably Molly being plugged into the EPIC mainframe (The Matrix style) and screaming her lungs out as the machine uses Molly’s power to reveal Evos the world over.
The car crash with Tommy and Anne Clarke (Krista Bridges); all slow motion bits of airborne glass and movement. The regrowing of Prime’s arm, the fight of Miko in the office building, El Vengador getting his costume wearing a** handed to him by the crooked cop and then being saved by the priest, and the “almost” view of that invisible coach for Malina in the Arctic.
The Evo killer couple, Joanne and Luke Collins, after escaping from where Tommy sent them, are about to get a lesson in karma, or at least Luke is. If not karmic in nature the fact that Danny’s father is suddenly evolving contains a heavy dose of irony. All the more so since it appears he has morphed into some sort of hot white light; rather painfully from the look of it.
Molly’s fate is easily the most disturbing, since she choses to go with Renautas rather than let Noah Bennet help her. It is, perhaps, another instance of irony, or karma, that the locator suffers horribly for her decision to run from Bennet.
This version of Tim Kring’s verse of “heroes” aka evolved humans, has no Skyler as the Big Bad as yet. There is the mantra of “the world will need your powers soon” being bandied about so presumably, as mentioned in the pilot review, Skyler would be pretty small potatoes this time around.
It looks like Hiro (Masi Oka) may be making an appearance soon, whether to reclaim his Kensei sword or to help Miko is not clear just yet, although he could be planning to help Noah further as well. Heroes Reborn airs Thursdays on NBC. Tim Kring has made this new “batch” of evolved humans almost as interesting as his first lot, tune in to see what has replaced Skyler as the new villain.
