Heroes Reborn 1.04 “The Needs of the Many”

Many.

It’s in the title of this episode and it’s in the lifeblood of the show. A central theme to the Heroes mythos is the concept of separate becoming whole. It’s not a unique formula but just about every season began with a singular, looming threat and a splintered set of protagonists. The creative team stays true to that in Reborn, almost to a fault.

We’re about a quarter of the ways into the Volume so there is still time to wander, but this episode was just a little too loose for my liking. Still, it didn’t reveal any fatal flaws, so it’s kind of above average in terms of par for the course.

The main pipeline of the plot is Noah Bennett, the endearing HRG, and his mission to figure out what happened on June 13th and what it has to do with Renautas, a cutting edge organization that harvests the powers of Evos to develop new technologies.

Noah and sidekick Quentin Frady arrive at the company’s HQ in the Midian, Colorado and confront Taylor Kravid, daughter of Renautas leader Erica. They convince the young woman to question her mother on exactly what she is doing with Evos and about the grander purpose of her agenda. The following conversation is interesting and loaded as Erica slyly deflects her offspring’s inquiries with a story about aluminum and a generalized line about protecting her species.

To this point Madame Kravid is most certainly the big bad and if “The Needs of the Many” accomplished anything it firmly established her as that. Even more, when Noah, Quentin and Taylor later break into Renautas to find Molly Walker HRG makes a comparison between Erica to Sylar, mentioning how both were driven by the need to find and usurp abilities from the powered community.

The trio do eventually find Molly hooked up to wires in a creepy room with a bunch of other captured Evos, including the telekinetic Francis, lover of Taylor. As revealed in the last episode Molly’s power of tracking her own kind has been amplified by Renautas to locate all and any living Evos, an omen for something totalitarian. Molly then steals Noah’s gun (come on, dude) and spouts off some extremely cryptic statements about June 13th, and Erica’s plan to kill everyone on the planet, before shooting herself in the head. A sad end to a sad story.

We know that Noah willfully had his mind wiped and now it seems that was in relation to a grand scheme perpetuated by him, Molly and others (which may or may not include Hiro and Claire). The implication is that whatever they did was not a nice thing and if Noah researches it further he’ll unravel everything. Molly leaves the mortal plane with this advice: “Forget the past, save the future.”

The mystery deepens but doesn’t really gain much depth. There is certainly something strange going on with June 13th, and right now it appears there are two entities: whoever/whatever caused the destruction of Odessa, and the group Noah belonged to. Renautas fits in there somewhere, maybe as a third group or a party to the other two. There’s some weird lights also. Who knows?

That’s about it for the prime plotline, the rest of the hour had little to do with the bigger picture and were somewhat marooned to their own realms.

At the end of the last episode Tommy Clark and his mother got into a vicious car accident and much of his storyline handles that “development.” As revealed in episode three, Tommy is being pursued by some shadowy, though apparently not malevolent, group, but the accident was caused by a drunk driver (or so we’re told). Tommy teleports his moms to the hospital (good thing she didn’t have a spinal injury) and finds out that she needs a refuel on blood. So Tommy ‘ports to South Bend and back, but not before telling friend-crush Emily that he believes he’s meant for something great. That’s about it. Tommy goes and gets some blood and then flees when reported to the government. I feel like this was all a way to set up Tommy with some type of 90’s comic name like “Bloodrunner” or something.

The biggest development of the subplot-ish threads is Luke’s reveal to his wife, Joanne, that he’s an Evo. It’s a mostly predictable series of scenes resulting in Joanne pointing a gun at her spouse’s head and then abruptly leaving in disgust. What gives the whole thing credence are the performances. Zachary Levi is earnest and depressive throughout, and Judith Shekoni is conflicted, disgusted and a bit loony. The Collins are split, and I’m interested, eager even, to see how they’re roped back into the main plot.

We receive a couple scenes with El Vengador/Carlos who is still recovering from his beat down at the hands of super strong dirty cop, Dearing. In an expected, but welcome, move Carlos upgrades the El Vengador costume. It’s sudden and little vague, especially on how the suit can punch so hard now, but I don’t watch this show for its logic. In a follow-up scene nephew Jose finds the El Venga-Cave, but when Dearing shows up at the family business he’s told to flee at the behest of Father Maurico, an Evo who can turn into cloud of smoke and Carlos’ “Alfred.”

These last two segments were probably the most relevant to the overall scheme.

Miko the Katana Girl,  and Ren, gamer extraordinaire, make their way from Japan to Midian, Colorado and we see the camaraderie, possibly romance, grow between the two. The two post up outside the Renautas HQ where Ren has called in reinforcements, an army of Katana Girl cosplayers (I guess to serve as a distraction or decoys). The most interesting tidbit from their portions of the episode is Miko believing she is dead or a zombie based on her conversation with Harris, Renautas’ self-replicating muscle. Taking into account everything we’ve seen from her storyline it would seem Miko may not be an Evo, or even human, but rather a construct created by her missing “father.” I’m just spitballin’ here, though.

The final nugget is probably the most prudent but it’s still very shrouded. We travel to the Arctic, then Canada, to meet the previously invisible Farah, apparent mentor and guardian of Malina, an Evo with powers that (somehow) affect life. Farah lectures Malina on her importance, and of the impending doom foretold by the technicolor aurora that stretches ever southward. Elsewhere, Harris alerts Erica that Molly Walker is dead and their Evo detection system, E.P.I.C., will only work in close proximity. Though she never uses a proper noun Erica implies that the capture/death of Malina is extremely important to her grand plan, and orders Harris to unleash the “Shadow.” The show closes on a young person in a cloak manipulating a black ball of light. We know that Quentin’s abducted sister can manipulate shadows (as detailed in the prequel web series “Dark Matters”), so I anticipate that factoring in at some point.

Last week I wrote about how I give Heroes Reborn a minor pass in the ingenuity department. Part of that is just knowing the show’s pedigree and its capacity, another part doesn’t mind a show setting up some tropes to later subvert them. That hasn’t happen yet. Thus far the main villain is too much like the bag-and-tag organization from Volume 4, the X-Men motif is still overt, and the central mystery is not central enough and too mysterious.

We still have a good ways to go but too little happened in many of the side tales. A few new tweaks and some expediency would improve the show by a decent measure.