Heroes Reborn Two-Hour Pilot Recap with Spoilers

The series rebirth starts with a butterfly fluttering by and the man, Horned-Rim Glasses sitting on a bench. He then narrates a voicemail to his daughter Claire, the cheerleader of the original series. There’s a rally/convention for Evos and Humans together at the headquarters of Primatech in Odessa, TX.

A shadow falls over the convention – and an explosion hits. There’s devastation everywhere as newscasts narrate what’s happened. HRG picks up his glasses, and he somehow seems to be the only one alive at first. A few others start to move, and he can’t find his daughter. This was June 13th, one year ago.

Cut to a man in just his skivvies, nine months ago, running from a couple of trucks filled with rednecks and dogs. He covers himself in water in the creek, and runs off.

We’re in a frozen tundra in Yanching, China, four months ago. “Volume 1: Awakening” shows on the Great Wall. A man is chained to a weight, and has a knife. People are chasing him, so he cuts off his own hand, and flies away, reminiscent of the original series’ fliers.

7 Weeks ago, a boy and his mother are at the Canada boarder – “They’re swabbing,” the boy says – testing for Evos. His mom slams into the cars in front of and behind her while turning around and fleeing back to the US.

Chicago Illinois, June 13th – today. Zachary Levi’s character pulls out a sheet of paper that says “Cockroach.” The boy from before walks toward a building, and sees a coach from his school. He says the password, Cockroach, at the door to a meeting room, finding people sitting watching a news report about the year before. “An Evo supremisist named Mohinder Suresh claimed responsibility for the attack.”

Cut to the meeting, and they’re mostly talking about vigilantes who are using their powers as modern-day superheroes. The government is forcing Evos to register. The man who can turn invisible when wet says “there’s someone else out there in the shadows.” The boy explains how worried he is, and that his mom is sleeping with a gun under her pillow. She texts him, and he leaves, with a customer card from Moe’s Ice Cream left behind. A man sits at the bus stop where he boards, and smiles.

A woman is chasing someone, and pulls out a gun. She also has a sword on her back.

Back to the meeting, Levi’s character starts to laugh. “The future? That’s a good one. On June 13, my wife and I brought our 9 year-old son to Odessa to watch history being made. We believed in the cause, believed that change could come form that spot. When I watched my boy die in my arms, I realized that wasn’t going to happen.” He tells everyone they seem nice, but their powers aren’t natural, and there’s only one solution. The woman, his wife, bursts in, and they open fire, start to kill the Evos in the meeting. A speedster, a firestarter – it doesn’t matter, they kill them all, seven of them. He says, “one of them got away, dropped this” and picks up the ice cream card. “For Dennis,” he says as he lights them on fire. This is Luke and Joanne Collins.

Chapter one: Brave New World.

HRG ruminates on memory, but he’s actually doing it to sell a car. That’s who he is now, in Austin. He notices a car parked outside that seems to be watching him.

East LA, two people are making out in a closet. He goes into a gym to give a talk to kids at the school. He was a soldier in Afghanistan. Now, he’s giving a speech and drinking booze.

Pinehearst High School, Carbondale, Illinois. The kid, Tommy, checks out Emily. Her boyfriend beats on him a bit. He thinks about using his powers, but holds back. Tommy hears that Coach Lewis and “six other people” died in a fire last night.

A Chicago PD precinct, and a man is waiting to be questioned. The man from the bus stop comes in with a briefcase full of pennies. He picks one out, and talks to the man. He spins the penny and says, “Penny for your thoughts?” He seems to have a power similar to the Haitian, able to take peoples’ memories. The man is left with no memory of the conversation or the boy, and when the actual detective comes in to talk to him, he knows nothing.

HRG at the car dealership is talking to a woman who apparently is his fiancee. He sees the car outside again. he’s going by “Ted” now instead of Noah Bennett.

Tokyo, Japan. A boy holds up an address, and walks into an apartment with loud music playing. He clearly doesn’t know where he is. The music gets louder, and he opens a door to see a girl making origami swans. His name is Ren, and he’s a famous video gamer, an expert at “Evernow.” A secret message unlocked in the game brought him to her address. He has met Miko – on a door in her apartment, he sees a painting of “Evernow.” Miko looks at the door as if she’s seeing it for the first time. “Evernow?”

Back to HS, Emily approaches Tommy and talks to him about the Ice Cream shop she works at. She asks him to come in and interview for a job there. She apologizes for Brad, her boyfriend’s behavior. Tommy gets a random unknown text that says “Don’t Trust Anyone.”

Back to East LA, Carlos and his nephew Jose talk about “El Vengador,” the Evo vigilante who’s cleaning up the town. Carlos’s brother Oscar isn’t happy about Jose’s hero-worship of the vigilante. The shop Oscar runs is a matter of contention between the brothers – it used to be their dad’s.

HRG – er, “Ted’s” house and his fiancee is talking about wedding plans. He sees the car from earlier outside, and someone getting out. He lures the guy away, and confronts him. The guy, Quentin Frady, is a conspiracy nut, and knows that HRG is really Noah Bennett. He worked for Renatus, which secretly owned Primatech. He is convinced HRG knows something about June 13th that “no one else does.” But it doesn’t seem like Noah knows what he’s talking about. Quentin shows him a manuscript by Suresh that wasn’t ever published, talking about the drastic increase in Evos. “If they were here to save us, I would know,” “Ted” says to Quentin. The cops come up, and he says, “June 13th did not happen like they say it did.” HRG says “I went over that day a thousand times. My daughter died on that day.”

Back to Tokyo, Ren says Miko is “Katana Girl,” a special character in Evernow that has never been unlocked. She looks exactly like her, as he shows in a comic (with Paul Pope art! Neat!). He says she swore vengeance on those who took her father and is basically the coolest. On the back of the comic is a picture of her father. Hmm.

HRG opens a stashed away notebook and sees a card for Lumiere Opthalmology, relocated from Odessa to Dallas.

East LA: Carlos is drinking. He sees a news report about El Vengador, the hero in a Luchador mask, and now we get to see him in action. A woman is being chased, and he goes to work. He has slightly increased speed, reflexes, and greatly increased strength. Two gunshots – from the girl, it was a setup. He’s hurt – and he throws a knife at her, killing her. He manages to escape into the darkness.

The next morning, Carlos goes to the shop. There’s blood leading down to the pit under the car ports. Oscar is very hurt, and Carlos puts the pieces together that he’s El Vengador. Oscar falls to the ground – the gunshot is bad. He, too, has been tracking a conspiracy. He tells Carlos that Jose “and others” will need a firm hand, a hero. Oscar dies.

Back to Luke and Joanne. He seems to have second thoughts about tracking down the kid from the church meeting, saying they should just go to LA and track down the vigilante. She says “he has powers” and therefore needs to die. Little do they know, Emily and Tommy are in the back doing the interview. “Can you scoop ice cream?” “Yeah!” “You’re hired!”

He sees Luke sitting alone in a booth, and runs up to him. “I can’t believe you made it out alive.” Joanne comes back and shows her gun, and they bring him out the back. Emily follows, innocently saying “You forget to try on your uniforms!” Joanne turns her gun on Emily, and Tommy reaches out. He zaps Joanne and Luke both away.

After Tommy ran off, Emily drove after him. “Where did they go?” “I don’t know.” She tells him he doesn’t have to worry about his secret of being an Evo, and thanks him for saving her life.

East LA: Carlos and Jose talk on a rooftop. Jose says, “I never even got a chance to tell him. To show him,” then asks to be alone. Evo alert! Yup, Jose reaches down, and phases his hand through the edge of the roof.

HRG goes to Lumiere Opthalmology in Dallas. The receptionist insists he’d never been there before. There’s no one on the sign in sheet at all. He says “See more clearly,” and she jokes, “Sorry, we have no doctor here named Seymore,” then pulls a gun on him. The Haitian, Renee emerges from an office. There’s surveilance and computers in the room behind him.

Tokyo: Miko enters the room. She finds, under the floorboards (like in the comic) a sword. “Save me… the sword is the key” is written on a note. She unsheathes the katana, and turns into… a digital version of herself? She’s in Evernow, and starts fighting like a bad ass against samurai warriors. She takes out several in short fashion, and one says “You will never save him.”

HRG and Renee meet up – the Haitian gives him his glasses, then starts to strangle him. HRG pulls a gun, and in the struggle, eventually shoots his old friend. “Why were you trying to kill me?” “You told me to,” Renee responds. He tells him he needed to forget, and “It’s coming,” then dies.

Mohinder Suresh is narrating – that can’t be good – we’re in the arctic, and a girl raises her arms, setting out the Northern Lights, and controlling them. They start to circle. “It’s happening faster than we thought, I don’t think I can control it much longer.”

PART TWO

HRG cleans his hands of his friend’s blood.

High school: Emily and Tommy are sitting in a shed talking about his power and how it works. He compares having a power to “being a witch in Salem. People hate us, want us dead.” When he was 7, people took him to a place for those with powers. He was in a room with toys and no windows (hmm Primatech?). He thinks about it whenever he’s scared. Emily holds out a flower and asks him to make it disappear, and he does. “So cool!” Oh crap, Brad was watching through the window.

HRG bails out Quentin, and tells him up front about his encounter with Renee.

Emily goes off, and Brad tells Tommy he saw what he did.

Luke and Joanne are in, well, a room with no windows and a lot of toys. Hmm. “Kid was a teleporter, where the hell are we?” Joanne says. Luke finds a toy T-Rex their son had, and reminisces. “Maybe we’re in hell,” he says. She says, “My drive, my itchy trigger fingers keep us going. None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t convinced me to take Dennis…”

Tokyo, Ren goes to apologize to Miko for his forwardness. He enters the silent, empty apartment, and sees a computer with Evernow playing on it – specifically with Katana Girl fighting, and kicking some creepy samurai ass. Her dad sees her and says “finally you’re here.” She gets overwhelmed, though, and Ren jumps into the game with his character (um, virtually, not mystically/Evo-style). He holds back the enemies while she goes after people.

High School: Tommy tells Brad that if he wanted to make him disappear he could’ve, but didn’t. Brad wants a favor, and drives him to his house. The man from the busstop is watching.

Carlos and Jose are eating, after Oscar’s funeral. A priest comes in to talk to Carlos. He seems to know about Oscar’s secret, and seems to be encouraging Carlos to do something similar.

Tommy and Brad get to Brad’s house, and he asks him to make his abusive step-father disappear so he’ll stop beating on him and his mom. Brad leaves, and Tommy thinks about it for awhile, but chickens out and leaves. The busstop man watches him go.

HRG and Quentin are talking about Renatus and the way they’re framing Evos. HRG says they need to go to Odessa and get his files, track down Molly Walker, who can find any Evo just by thinking of them – original series aloert!

Inside Evernow, Katana Girl finds her father, but he says there’s more for them to do. Just as she gets knocked out, she sheathes the sword and reappears in her apartment.

A club, “No Evos” sign and people gambling. An attractive red headed girl sits alone at the bar. A raven-haired girl walks in and sits next to her. The redhead goes to the Craps table, starts flirting with a guy playing. The way his dice are falling, it sure seems like he’s using a power. The two of them leave (with a big bag of cash).

Busstop man visits stepdad, with a penny in hand. Sorry, stepdad.

Carlos is drinking, looking at Oscar’s board of conspiracy. El Vengador had been accused of killing three police officers, by a patrolman. He makes a connection.

Ren is taking care of Miko, who he calls a miracle. She wakes up and realizes everything Ren had told her was true. she feels she has a mission and must go back. She realizes the office building, Yamagata Tower, looks just like the tower in Evernow that her father was taken to. She unsheathes the Katana, determined to go there.

“Zoe” the redhead and the dude with some kind of dice-playing powers have a drink in his hotel room. She throws a knife at him, and he catches it with telekinesis. She tries to blackmail him, asking for the money. Instead, he goes to attack her. She burns his face, and he starts force-choking her Vader style. Two randoms come to her rescue and knock him out. The raven-haired girl from the Dragon Lounge comes and picks up “Zoe” off the ground and takes her out of there.

HRG and Quentin show up at the ruins of Primatech, and bust in. HRG is convinced something is still going on deep underground. “Level 5 is where things happen.” He pulls several books (all with titles that link to powers we’ve seen on the show. Hmm) and opens a secret room with his files, and others. A list of “individuals missing from the summit” is there, and Claire Bennett and Molly Walker are the top two names on the list. Oscar’s name is third. Quentin is desperate for information, and reveals that his sister is an Evo, and someone took her. “I couldn’t stop them. I’m just trying to find her.” They vow no more secrets. Level by level we see Primatech, and three levels down, it’s the Collins family!

Luke is discovering something, while Joanne tells him, “I feel in my bones that what we’re doing is right.” He realizes there’s no light switch, and starts shooting out the lights in the room – yup, the big chalkboard was actually a one-way mirror. He works on busting it out.

Brad comes to Tommy and hugs him, thanking him for disappearing his stepdad. He promises not to mess with him or let anyone else mess with him, and says his secret is safe. Emily sees them hugging and is… confused.

East LA: Carlos confronts the officer that lied to setup El Vengador. He gets a name from him of the man behind it with… some violence.

Taylor, the black-haired girl, and Zoe, are at a new bar having a drink and icing Zoe’s head. “The money in his room was all I had, and I need it to disappear.” Taylor offers to write her a check because she has “way more money than I need.”

Carlos goes to talk to the priest – yes, he knew that Oscar was El Vengador. He also had an underground railroad for Evos to help them escape to Canada. Capt. James Deering and other police are trying to take the railroad down. The priest asks for Carlos’s help in getting two Evos out of the country, and reveals he too is one, with the ability to turn into mist.

Emily and Tommy talk, and he was honest with her about what happened, that he didn’t do what Brad thought. He tells Emily about the anonymous texts helping him out. She opens a vat of ice cream, and they find the flower. “When I touched it this morning I was thinking about the first time I saw you. I ordered Maple Walnut” and that’s where it is, in the ice cream. He said when he disappeared the Collinses he was thinking about the place they took him as a kid.

Speaking of, the Collins couple has broken out, and someone opens a door to find them there. They bring him further at gunpoint, and find a fully operating room. Joanne opens fire and guns down everyone there. HRG goes toward the gunfire (like ya do), leaving Quentin alone outside, and sees that all data is lost on Molly Walker. “We figured out a way to monetize the Evos… to save the world,” one of the workers tells HRG with his dying breath.

East LA, a mother and daughter come down into the secret room to get to the boat to take them to Vancouver. She has a midas touch, and turns a bolt into 24K gold to thank Carlos for his help.

The Collinses are in HRG’s car, with his files – a full list of “all the freaks, names, addresses.” Luke is worried about it. He doesn’t seem happy to have this list at their disposal. Cut back to Quentin – he was shot, and they stole the car. Renatus is going to launch a product called “Epic” and they need Molly Walker to launch it.

Back to Zoe, she’s coming out of a drugged sleep, and Taylor and the TK are making out. Yeah, she’s bad news. The Teke calls someone and says, “We have Molly Walker.” Zoe – er Molly – looks freaked out.

Miko gets to the tower, and there’s a ton of Samurai enemies. She sheathes the katana and instead is in the real-world tower at Yamagato and surrounded by a bunch of guards. One of them tries to take the blade. “Don’t touch my sword.” She then commences kicking some butt, this time IRL.

To be continued…