TV Review: Heroes Season 3 Premiere – The Second Coming / The Butterfly Effect

Posted by Adam Sweeney (adam@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 23, 2008

Heroes, NBC, Airs Monday 9/8c

Episode: “The Second Coming” (Season 3, Episode 1)

Synopsis: Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) returns from the future to prevent Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) from outing the heroes. Hiro (Masi Oka) finds his destiny and a secret formula he must protect from a speedster nemesis, Daphne (Brea Grant). Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) have a meeting of the minds. Matt (Greg Grunberg) finds out about future Peter, who promptly teleports him to an African desert. There, he finds an image of a world split in two. Sylar steals Claire’s powers and reveals that Claire can never die, and now neither can he. Mohinder (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and Maya (Dania Ramirez) make a discovery concerning the origins of superhero abilities, resulting in a serum that can give normal humans superpowers. Mohinder decides to test it on himself and is initially thrilled to see he results. Nathan believes he’s been touched by an angel. (No, Moira Downey doesn’t guest star.) Governor Maldin and Tracy (Ali Larter), possibly Niki’s alter-ego, decide Nathan is the man for the senate position. Mrs. Petrelli (Cristine Rose) confronts future Peter and demands to know what he’s done with her son. Future Peter tells her present Peter is somewhere safe and it turns out he is in Level 5 near H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) and trapped inside a villain’s body.

Review: The first episode of the third season was certainly ambitious, perhaps a bit too much. While season two left Heroes fans wanting more of story, season three looks like an attempt to develop as many plot-lines as possible. This definitely will keep viewers entertained, but you have to wonder if the “Heroes” writers can maintain a strong sense of character development while trying to piece together all of the stories. The show has officially put itself next to Lost in terms of complex plot structures.

We were promised an introduction of villains this season and we were given a fair share of baddies in “The Second Coming.” What wasn’t expected was that all would be characters we are familiar with, including a darker Peter, Niki as a consultant to Governor Maldin, and Claire doing her best Trinity from The Matrix impression. The choice to create conflicts within each hero will serve to separate the series from other shows. As fun as it is to create a story that is strictly polarized, it’s clear that the writers have learned from missteps like Superman Returns that not all characters can be invulnerable.

The one character who may be, Claire, has her own set of problems. Is she human at all? If Sylar can’t hurt her, who can? And if Peter has every superpower known to man, as it seems he does, will he continue to go on trial and error rescue missions every time something goes wrong?

Episode: “The Butterfly Effect” (Season 3, Episode 2)

Synopsis: Claire begins to question if she’s human or has a soul while Future Peter learns for every action there’s a reaction. Elle hunts for Sylar, loses her father, and accidentally opens the floodgate for a new set of villains into the community. Mohinder becomes superhero with side effects, but not before he bangs Maya. Matt meets an African prophet with crappy cell phone service. Tracy avoids becoming the next Paris Hilton by putting the freeze on an investigative reporter. Hiro questions his friendships and sets a trap for Daphne, who has half of a secret formula. Nathan plays chess with his invisible friend, Linderman (Malcolm McDowell), and decides to take the seat as Senator. Meanwhile, present Peter is stuck escaping with the villains of Level 5. The show wraps up with Mrs. Petrelli revealing that she’s Sylar’s biological mother.

Review: Episode two finally revealed the characters that the third season is being built around. Unfortunately there are now seemingly 200 characters fans are going to have to keep up with. Maybe NBC can have a two hour event every week so each story can get a fair amount of resolution. Also, can we stay away from the product plugs within dialogue? The last thing Sprint needs is MORE advertising. I love the show but I don’t want Hiro going Ricky Bobby on me. It’s insulting and compromises the integrity of a great show.

Why the hell wasn’t Ashton Kutcher a guest star in this episode? He could have walked in, interrupting Mrs. Petrelli’s longwinded explanation of the butterfly effect to Peter by saying “May I interject, I did make an entire fucking movie about the subject!” Throw in The Butterfly Effect co-star Amy Smart, who teamed with Ali Larter on Varsity Blues, and you’d have a hell of a six degrees of Kevin Bacon moment. you also have to wonder if the writers watched Back to the Future 2 before making the episode. Hmm… the Cubs won the World Series in that movie and they’re favorites to make it this year. Eerie.

Times, they are changing for all our favorite heroes. Mohinder has heightened strength, agility, and apparently sex drive as he nails everything that moves. Peter is still trying to protect Claire from herself, but what’s the point really? She can’t feel pain anymore, so maybe he should do like she asked and train her to defend herself. Throw some adamantium claws on her and you have a pint-sized Wolverine. But is that a good thing? Without anything that can keep her grounded to humanity, things could go really bad really quickly.

Memo to Tim Kring and the Heroes writers: Find a way to get Kristen Bell more time on the tube. She’s a great actress and her character has a lot of room to grow. Now that Mrs. Petrelli has let her go from duties at Primatech there will be plenty of time for Elle to seek vengeance for her father’s death. Or will she go another route? Every other character seems to be taking a turn.

We even got a Vader-esque revelation as Sylar, or should we call him Gabriel, found out who his real mother is. So the whole time Mama Petrelli is telling Peter he’s hell spawn and then it turns out she gave birth to a guy who goes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on everyone’s asses? That’s cold-blooded.

Up Next Week: With escaped villains, including present Peter, creating a storm of mayhem, H.G.R. and a deadly partner are sent by Angela Petrelli to stop them.

What did you think of the Heroes season premiere? Whose story are you most interested in?

Read more articles by Adam Sweeney