Heroes: Hello McFly

***This is Part 2 of the Heroes season premiere recap. Check out Part 1 here! ***

We’re back for the second part of the premiere, this one titled Jump, Push, Fall. When we left for the break, Parkman was dreaming his giant kid was still a baby and kidnapped by Sylar in exchange for his body back. Because it just ain’t Heroes unless it starts with a Mohologue and ends on a Sylar one-liner (Syliner?). So, we pick up right where we left off. Imaginary Sylar is taunting Matt while holding the ex-baby. Matt snaps out of it when his wife walks in and sees him standing over Big Baby Matt Parkman’s crib. With Big Baby Matt Parkman still in it, of course.

HRG’s chillaxing in his bachelor pad. The smoke detector’s going off, because he’s busy burning something in the toaster oven. I don’t know what he’s cooking in there, because there’s nothing in the fridge but Grey Poupon and milk.

Pardon me, but do you have any cheap plain yellow mustard?

He pours a bowl of cornflakes and dials his wife, but another man answers. Wow, who knew Mr. Muggles had such a sexy voice? He hangs up the phone and it rings right back but this time it’s Tracy. Probably calling from Danko’s place. He goes to meet her and finds her sitting by Danko’s body in the dark. Creepy! “I didn’t do it,” she says.

14 Years Ago

Hiro’s still at the carnival in the past. He tries to teleport out of there but no joy. He’s checking his photo of that very night, probably to see if anyone has disappeared from it yet. Young Hiro interrupts him to ask if… he can take the picture for them.

Doc Brown is going to beat the crap out of you guys.

Young Hiro says he looks familiar, because duh, Old Hiro was just there like 6 months ago when their mom died. Old Hiro follows him to the fortune teller, talking out loud to himself because that’s how Hirolls. He doesn’t want to see but can’t time travel out of there so he’s stuck. In the past. Again. This show is Hiro’s own personal Groundhog Day. And wouldn’t that be a cool plot idea? How about Hiro’s power malfunctions in such a way as to keep him stuck in the same day over and over again? At least they’ve figured out that the future is all played out as a plot device, so the next thing to try is… Back To The Future! Evel Dick Alpert strolls up, having just taken his own hop back in time courtesy of the old wheezy guy. He speaks perfect Japanese and introduces himself as Samuel. I knew it would be Biblical but… Samuel, Joseph, I got nothin. Unless you consider that Samuel was the prophet who found the boy David and chose him to be the next king. Maybe there’s something there. But I geek out again.

College

Claire’s being interviewed by a detective with a standard-issue Law & Order haircut. Dead Psycho Roomie left a suicide note, but Claire said she didn’t notice it, so where did it come from? It must have been planted there by a murderer! Detective chica is skeptical, of course. Cops are always geniuses if you’re watching CSI-type shows, but morons if you’re watching anything else.

Andoland

Hiro-sis pops in to harass the Dynamic Duo some more. Ando pretends Hiro is in the bathroom, but finally says “he left, probably to a carnival 14 years ago.” Hiro-sis speaks for all of us.

Enchantment Under The Sea Dance, 1955

Samuel is chatting up Hiro and showing him a cool tattoo of a compass. It even spins. I’d really like to know what this guy’s power is. Control over ink? Young Hiro is Yatta!ing just a few feet away. Samuel’s nail polish job is way overdue for a retouch.

That or he’s terrible with a hammer.

Hiro is spilling his guts to Samuel about how he can’t change the past. Seriously, I don’t know what he wants to change anyway. If he wants to make it so he never hears his fortune about becoming a great hero, then the world blows up because no one saved the cheerleader. Not to mention that whole samurai nonsense never happened. Right? Oh why do I bother. Samuel says save the drama for your mama, don’t try and change everything, just change one little thing. He demonstrates by tossing a ball at a pyramid of bottles and only knocking out one of the bottom ones. Seriously, how does he do this stuff? His power makes no sense, unless he’s like Peter and can just take any power he wants. But then he wouldn’t have needed the old guy to send him back in time. I don’t get it. Hiro gets the hint and decides he can at least make his sister not hate Ando. Samuel gives him a shove in the right direction, literally, which puts Old Hiro, instead of Young Hiro-sis, in the way of Young Hiro’s flying slushy. Mission accomplished. He immediately pops back to the present like in Quantum Leap. Once back there, he asks Ando if anything’s changed. Doesn’t he know that no one in the present will know the difference? Of course Ando says nothing has changed, and of course he and Hiro-sis are hooked up now. Yatta!

Danko’s Place

HRG is mad that Tracy went after Danko after he told her he was going to take care of everything. He examines Danko, sees his wounds are to the stomach and not to somewhere like the throat or the heart, which means it wasn’t revenge. Darth Maul was after something. He sticks his hand in a baggie, shoves it into Danko’s guts and pulls out… a key.

Eww.

Chez Parkman

Papa Bear Parkman, on his way out the door to work, finds his baby boy playing with the water boy. So this is where Jason Castro ended up after washing out of American Idol.

But Daddy, Mommy plays with him all the time.

Daddy Matt is impressed that Baby Matt warmed up to a stranger so quickly. “He’s not a stranger,” says Janice.

Because this guy never met a stranger.

Matt is just a bit jealous, of course, not that Janice would give him any reason to be. I don’t know why they let this woman back on the show. Least likable supporting character EVAR. Janice distracts him with puppy dog eyes and the straighten-the-tie thing. Matt doesn’t read minds to get ahead at work anymore, so he’s going to have to rely on his wits to get him through. Might be a long day ahead.

Manhattan

Peter is listening to a scanner when HRG pops by. Just making the old rounds, I guess. HRG sees Peter’s place is empty, almost like the guy who lives there is in serious superhero withdrawal. Peter offers Bennet water or mustard. How cute! They have fridge taste in common! Peter says he got his old job back. And here I thought he was a hospice nurse, not a paramedic. Or do I have my alternate timelines mixed up? HRG asks Peter about his Wall of Fame and if he’s putting the powers he got from Mo-Mo to good use. Peter says he’s singlehandedly trying to make up for all the damage the company did. The company, huh? What about your dad, and your brother, and the government? HRG shows Peter the key he fished out of Danko’s stomach.

Sterilized, I hope.

HRG figured out that it goes to a certain safe deposit box. How, I have no idea. Details, details. He needs Peter to provide backup when he goes to open the box, so Darth won’t Maul him. One of us, one of them, yeah, we get it. Peter wants so badly to go do some hero stuff that he’s got the shakes. He’s probably drooling over the chance to steal a new power, too.

College

Mama Bennet is visiting Claire at school. No mention of whether she moved to DC or still lives in LA. Claire wants to tell Dead Psycho Roomie’s parents about the suicide note but mom says not to. Enter Gretchen. Did we mention she’s a MISFIT? Check that center-parted hippie hair.

Wanna see my pits?

Three’s a crowd, so Mama B leaves, and her parting advice to Claire is: “Remember, new life, new beginning…

New ways to give the teenage fanboys fits.

A Bank Somewhere

HRG tells Peter he needs to give up the whole great-power-great-responsibility shtick. Don’t be that guy, he says, I was that guy. The safe-deposit box is brought in, and inside is… a little pouch. With a compass in it, of course. It’s broken. Stupid Locke screwed the pooch again. There’s a knock on the door. It’s not the bank guy who brought the box in. Well, it is the bank guy, but he’s been recently made dead, thanks to Darth Ray, who is right behind him flashing about eight knives.

Pete uses his super strength to throw Darth Park across the room, and steals both his knife and super speed power. And apparently his skill with knives too. Is that part of his power or something he learned? I thought the chick who could learn stuff just by watching was written out of the show? Peter’s also learned kickboxing from somewhere, and this is just too much for poor Darth Ray. Peter takes the compass from HRG and it starts spinning. So I’m thinking it’s a power detector. Kind of a lame bit of kit, but ok. Peter’s focused on saving the bank employee. He seems to be happy in semi-retirement. Saving all those lives is doing him good. Maybe he should try saving poor Caitlin sometime, though. Remember Caitlin? Stuck in a dead-end alternate future? HRG gives up on re-recruiting Pete, tells him to call his mother and leaves.

College

Gretchen rolls up to meet Claire, driving a Nissan Cube because that’s the most counterculture model Nissan can scrounge up. She’s got a load of forensic textbooks Kring had left over from the Crossing Jordan set. She mentions this thing called the “jump, push, fall” test (EPISODE TITLE ALERT!!!), which she saw on an episode of… wait for it… Crossing Jordan. Gee, thanks for spoiling my joke, writers. The test says that a body takes a different trajectory depending on whether it jumped, fell or was pushed. She tosses an orange onto the next table full of Mean Girls just to make her point. SO all they need to do is steal a dummy or, better yet, a cadaver or two, and defenestrate it and see where it lands. If you see where they’re going with this, raise your hand. And then stick it in a running garbage disposal.

Los Angeles

Parkman’s in some sort of 12-step therapy group of some kind, making up crap about using drugs… except what he’s really talking about is being in withdrawal from not using his mind-reading skillz. Sylar walks in on the group and starts talking trash. It’s all in Matt’s head-and he knows this, of course-but neither this nor his considerable experience at having his head effed with keeps him from talking out loud to Imaginary Sylar and generally acting like a lunatic.

Duck… duck… GOOSE!

So what’s up? Is Parkman losing it, or did Sylar somehow upload himself into Matt’s head like Spock in the (old) Star Trek movie? Either way, the counselor looks pretty uncomfortable, almost like he’s never had to actually counsel any recovering addicts before. Pretty sure that handling uncomfortable situations is in the standard counselor training handbook. Evs.

Japan

Hiro takes credit for retroactively fixing up Ando with his sister. Ando doesn’t believe him, of course. Hiro’s all hyped up on success and decides he likes playing Marty McFly. He’s bouncing off the walls like my 5-year-old kid after chugging sweet tea. Does anyone else wish they’d pick a Hiro and stick with it? Grim Badass Future Hiro or 10-Year-Old Lobotomized Happy Hiro: which is it going to be?

LA

Matt goes to interrogate someone over his counselor’s objections. He decides to play a little Good Cop Bad Cop and orders a mocha for the suspect.

Cuz he’s a metro crook. Can’t you tell by the pink pinstriped shirt?

So what better time for Sylar to show up again and heckle him some more? I mean, Quinto needs to get paid and stuff or all that Star Trek fame is going to go right to his head. He’s trying to get Matt to cave, use his powers and read Metro Perp’s mind. I kind of like Imaginary Sylar. Matt goes nuts and throws a chair at him, which a) gets rid of Imaginary Sylar and b) gets Metro Suspect to cough up a name. Well played, Parkman.

Peter meets up with his partner and hands him a bowl of clam chowder that he ran up to Boston to get. Anyone else get the feeling Peter is like Jessie Spano on speed in that Very Special episode of Saved By The Bell? They get a call on the radio and Peter zips off to the rescue while his partner is busy chowing down on the clam chowder. OMG! It’s HRG! Darth Park jumped him and took the compass. DOH!

HRG is recovering in the second most romantic hospital room ever, close second to the one Daphne kicked the bucket in last season. Hey Noah, you know what would come in handy right about now? Your daughter’s blood, that’s what. It already brought you back to life once, remember? Come to think of it, you could’ve used it on Nathan last season too. The Heroes writers never met a plot hole they didn’t like. HRG has a visitor. It’s Tracy! She asks if he’s going to go after Darth Park. “I prefer the old way of doing business,” he says. “One of me, one of you.” Hey, why did they need one non-powered person anyway? I never got that. Aren’t two superpowers better than one? Anyway, HRG called her and asked her to come keep him company, because Mama Bennet is kinda done with him, and Claire is getting ready to star in yet another snuff movie, and whaddaya know, Peter left some of his clam chowder behind as a little social lubricant. What a wingman.

Which gives me an idea: What say we start a regular feature called…

***HEROES FAMILY TREE SANITY CHECK***

Chew on this for a second. Peter is hooking up his niece’s adopted dad with his niece’s biological dad’s ex-girlfriend… and lest you forget, Nathan hooked up with Tracy’s twin sister before that. Heroes: barely legal since 2006.

Although I can kinda see HRG and Tracy together, I’m still not happy about the whole Ali-Larter-is-twins thing, nor have I gotten over the death of DL. Poor DL was my favorite Heroes character. But we’re stuck, so might as well make the most of it, I guess.

LA

Matt comes home to find Jason Castro the waterboy hanging out and playing with Mom and the baby.

You know, I could teach him the ukelele.

Matt gives him the stay-away-from-my-wife speech and then he finally gives in: he Jedi-mind-tricks Jason into finding a new water route. Point for Imaginary Sylar.

Set of Claire’s snuff film

Claire sits up in bed and looks out the window. Yeah, you know what’s coming. She’s managed to stay uninjured for almost the whole two hours. She’s due for a maiming. So she climbs up on the windowsill and falls out… and lands right on the outline. Which would seem to prove suicide.

Splat.

How much you want to bet Gretchen is spying on her? “I guess she did kill herself,” says Claire as she gets up and pushes those ugly fake ribs back into place again. I wonder how she would fix them if they shattered. She looks up at the dorm building and sees, staring at her out the window… guess who?

You had me at splat.

Magical Mystery Tour

Darth Ray brings the compass back to Samuel and tells him he met an empath. Well, aren’t these folks up on their superhero terminology? He also heard Samuel met another time traveler, “someone to replace Arnold.” Who? Is that the wheezy old guy? He’s not even dead yet. Samuel says he put Hiro on “a righteous path” and eventually he’ll come back to them. But now, says Sam, “we gather the rest.” I don’t know who “the rest” are or where they’re at, but gathering them involves Lydia taking her top off for the dozenth time and we haven’t even got out of the premiere yet. Does Sam’s magic ink only work on her back, not the rest of her? Always with the questions, I know. She zones out into a future-teller trance (but without the white eyeballs) as Claire, Sylar and Peter appear on her back. So that’s one question answered. And just in time! To Be Continued.

One more question: no closing Mohologue, either?