Heroes: Collision

Claire Bennet from the Heroes mini-comic

Since this is two weeks in a row, maybe I should just plan on getting this out on Wednesday night and if I should have it done on Tuesday night, bonus for you. Before I jump in to my thoughts on the episode, make sure you check out this week’s mini-comic, from which the image above is borrowed. I happened to accidentally click on the first panel and lo and behold, a Claire Bennet MySpace page loads up. Has Google bought it yet?

I have watched this episode twice and it turns out I didn’t really need to do it, but it was still enjoyable the second time around. Speaking of which, and this is the last aside, they are running three episodes this Sunday (10/22) starting at 8pm. Looks like they’ll start with episode 2 instead of the Pilot, but if you missed any of them, check it out. Looks like they are also repeating the current epsiode on Sci-Fi channel too, so if you miss one on a Monday night, you can probably catch it later in the week there.

Okay, so the reason I say I didn’t need to watch again was because there wasn’t much that needed extra scrutiny. The only new symbol I picked up was probably obvious to anyone who watched Niki’s “Other” seduce Nathan; and by seduce I mean go down on. The picture of Chandra Suresh changed on the book from the first time we saw it in the previous episode. I recognized the actor the first time, but it was changed, so I wonder if they changed their mind on using him or if they recast due to conflict or whatever. I guess we’ll find out, but I doubt it was something to make you think about.

Niki and Micah were brought to the same casino Hiro and Ando ended up at, which was obvious, but another little catch was it was the Montecito. The Montecito is the fictional casino in which NBC’s show Las Vegas — season premiere this Friday night — takes place, although I didn’t see any of their characters used, so it is possible, or actually likely, that we aren’t dealing with the same “reality” here. Oh, and I also liked the nod to Rain Man when Ando and Hiro rode down the escalator with their new, matching silver suits. No mumbling about tighty whities from K-Mart though…

Other than the obvious collision of Claire and the ever-present-football-player-rapist at the end of the show, we had other character’s lives colliding. Niki and Nathan have been put together — apparently she wasn’t referring to him in the Pilot — and Mohinder and Petrelli boys have made acquaintances. Peter also meets up with future Hiro, who was pretty damn bad ass with the English, samurai sword, ponytail and lower-lip fuzz.

So, we see Matt for one scene getting mind wiped after making friends with Daddy Bennet and his Mysterious man. Daddy is apparently racking up the frequent flier miles as he made it home from LA that night to catch Claire coming home from the dying the next morning before heading out on another flight to Las Vegas to bag Nathan. “There will be a throwdown” by the way. What a cool Daddy…

The whole Niki and Nathan thing did nothing for me until she was kicking the $hit out the errand boy in the elevator (the heel to the temple reminded me of the curb scene in American History X). Her “Other” refers to Micah as “our son” which could be one of two things, or both. She either means her’s and Niki’s or the “Other” could be her husband D.L. who is inside her. It could explain why we haven’t seen him yet or how Niki led herself to D.L.’s old dumping ground in the dessert where members of his crew were buried. I wasn’t clear on that part when Niki was talking to D.L.’s mother. The only thing that throws me off that thought is the fact that the “Other” Niki went back and did Nathan, which is a bit disturbing if it was D.L., so I’m going to go with it being not and leave it at a passing thought.

Next week’s preview shows Nathan blasting off and away from Daddy Bennet and his man, so that is pretty cool, but it makes you wonder why he didn’t want anything with Niki too. Does Niki have an ability or does she only have a *regular* mental disability?

Meanwhile, Peter is dragging Mohinder about town trying to prove he is special. Digging the fact that I was right about Peter’s ability so far. Digging it so much that I did the raise the arms/fists in the air thing when he said it out loud to Mohinder. I was also right about time stopping around Peter from the preview I didn’t quite see last week. Future Hiro mentions Peter looks different, or he doesn’t readily recognize him, without his scar. Must be some bad freakin scar and might also mean that in the near future, they don’t meet unless Peter gets that scar soon.

The Hiro and Ando adventure in Vegas was a good shot across the bow of power abuse and responsibility. Why didn’t Hiro counter back with a quip about “with great power comes great responsibility” after Ando talks Spider-Man? True, Peter Parker does wrestle for cash when he gets his powers, but it wasn’t equivalent to theft, which is what Hiro is engaging in. I’m surprised he let Ando drag him into it, unless he justifies it as practice with his power. The comic book seems to have disappeared as Hiro didn’t reference it at all. Once again though, a scene with Hiro provides some awesome effects when he freezes time the first time in the casino.

Lastly, we see Claire exacting some revenge on the QB and his IROC. Looks like he survives based on the mini-comic, so I’m glad they have Claire keeping a good conscious. As for referencing the Butthole Surfers’ song, “Pepper” again up above, I have heard that song no less than three times since using it last week. Apparently FNX loves playing it more than I noticed or I just spaced it out as I hate the song. To me, it’s a rip-off of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died.”

“Save the Cheerleader. Save the World.” Is this the message that Future Hiro delivers to Peter? I guess we’ll see soon.

So, did I miss anything? Have anything to add?