Recap: Heroes: Your New Year’s Resolution: Find Out If You Are on THE LIST

There was a time when the folks in the TVgasm skunkworks were envisioning a steel cage match featuring talking head types squaring off in the TVgasm circle, arguing whether Heroes or Lost, is the better TV show, but what’s the point? Lost killed Ana Lucia last year for ratings and is bringing her back this year, which would explain why Michelle Rodriguez and Patrick Duffy have been seen together so often lately. Talk about passé. Heroes is so awesome that they are throwin’ out the catch phrase that got all us so hooked in 2006, “Save the Cheerleader. Save the World.” and will have us licking our gums in anticipation of the next slogan that will feed our addiction… “Are you on the list?”I have looked at the ratings, and although it’s obvious that Heroes is a very successful show, it is obvious that there are still some people out there who have not caught on. That’s why I am here with this fall recap, which will neatly summarize the season for you in the typical TVgasm style, replete with my special touches of dry, yet breast-intensive humor. For those of you with more time on your hands, make sure to check out my full lineup of recaps this season, and if your boss has you stuck at work even when the only person you’ll see is the UPS guy delivering packages that were supposed to come last week, then you’ll love watching every episode online. Brilliant, no? Watch the greatest show on TV AND stick it to the man. Power to the people is what I say, even if the people with power are all stuck on the couch.

What is Heroes you say? What isn’t Heroes says I! Heroes is so awesome, that have summarized it all in haiku:

Our Heroes rock. They
saved hot cheergirl. Now must find
who is on the list.

With that in mind, I thought I would give a little bit of a character by character breakdown of the series, to help you along as you begin to watch, or give you something to debate as we slowly count the days until Heroes returns, January 22nd. The basic premise of the show is that there are people among us that have been blessed with special abilities. While this occupies the realm of fantasy for some people, there is a geneticist in the Heroes universe, one Chandra Suresh, who believes that these powers are a natural part of human evolution, and he wants to find out who they are.

Claire Bennet – Claire is the girl that we have been hearing so much about. She’s a young girl from Odessa, TX who is basically invincible. I like Claire, but her problem is that she is a bit of a whiner. I can understand why she wants to go on with a nice, anonymous life where her only worry is keeping beating away the would-be suitors with a stick (or pom pom, I guess), but did this girl not watch any cartoons when she was a kid? Even if your only power is yelling “Showtime, Synergy!” and jamming on the keytar, we are told that our extra powers are supposed to be used for doing good, no?

Don’t worry, they grow back.

That being said, Claire does have a lot on her mind. She doesn’t know it, but there is somebody out to kill her, and we all know that puberty is difficult enough even without a serial killer after you. Claire is the center of attention and most of the plots of the show converge around her.

Mr. Bennet – Mr. Bennet is Claire’s dad and we refer to him as Mr. Bennet or Horn Rimmed Glasses (HRG for short), because we literally don’t know his first name. Being the 21st century, horn rimmed glasses are not that popular unless you are playing a serial killer in a movie or teach wood shop in middle school, therefore we always wondered which side HRG was on. Throughout the series, he did a lot of things that had me convinced that he was a bad guy, but in the end, he only cared about one thing, and that is protecting his daughter. Things can and do change in this series, and you may not agree with all of his tactics, but I have to say that you can’t blame the guy for what he did, even if his best laid plans don’t always work the way he probably wants them to.

All of that is very interesting, but Mr. Bennett is intriguing for another reason; he appears to work for an agency that knows a great deal about the Heroes. Although we still haven’t figured out who is running that show, or if that organization is one of the good guys or the bad guys as it were. While I do love the day to day drama, this overarching conspiracy is what I’ll be looking for in the second half of the season. We’ll also be looking to see if Mr. Bennet has an ability of his own.

Chandra Suresh – Chandra is the Indian geneticist who was laughed out of his job at a prestigious university in Mumbai (or was it Chennai?) and took a job as a taxi driver in NYC in search of proof that there truly were people with super human abilities out there for us to find. Unfortunately, Chandra died, and isn’t really able to help us all that much. However, he did create THE list, the list that everybody wants to know about, that contains the names of all the people he thinks are potential Heroes.

Mohinder Suresh – Mohinder is Chandra’s son, also a geneticist, that used to share his father’s obsession with Heroes, but later on became almost ashamed that his father wasted his time with everything that happened. I really can’t stand Mohinder, and it seemed like his story was all over the place. He sees all of this crazy shit that happened after his father’s death and the strange circumstances surrounding his father’s death, but lets himself get duped into such an obvious ruse involving a mysterious girl that just happened to be hanging out with his father at the time. That being said, it looks like his character has stopped sucking and he may just make a decent comeback, and we still need his intros at eh beginning of each episode to explain what is going on. Mohinder found his father’s list, and with all of the list talk going on, the person with the list would be very important, no?

Hiro Nakamura – Although we thought he was around simply for comic relief, Hiro has become the fan favorite of the show, and the actor who plays Hiro, Masi Oka, is the breakout star of the series. Although it seems like Masi Oka could write his ticket as Hollywood’s go-to guy for quirky Japanese programmers with Stark Trek fetishes, the humble Masi has not yet quit his day job for Industrial Light and Magic.

As for Hiro, I guess I should quote my friend HA, who says “He is too adorable for words!”. Hiro’s power is time travel, and although he is just beginning to learn his powers, we cheer with glee at the sheer joy he gets whenever he uses it, hoping to continue along his way becoming a proper Hiro, worthy of one of the many comic books he reads. Our hearts broke when Hiro learned that he can’t save everybody with his powers, even the ones that he loves. We have had a glimpse into a future wehere Hiro is a bad ass, and we’ll be waiting to see how long it takes him to get there. We can’t mentioned Hiro without Ando, his faithful sidekick. At times, it appears like he doesn’t want anything to do with what is going on, but he still sticks with his good friend.

Peter Petrelli – Other than Hiro and Claire, Peter is the one that gets all of the face time, which is annoying because his face is always contorted in these strange positions and he has this annoying habit of talking out of the side of his mouth. More than anyone else, Peter believes that the Heroes have a destiny, and his ability is the power to absorb, at least for a short time, the abilities of any hero that he touches. This has already helped him numerous times, but because he needs another Hiro to have any powers, he sometimes feels like a second-class citizen.

Peter, who gave up his life as a hospice nurse, is probably the character that is most involved in the series. There have been many strong hints throughout the series that it is pretty easy to anticipate some sort of grand conspiracy will be reaching us soon. Until that time, all roads travel through Peter, who has had a face to face interaction with almost everybody on the show. And although our questions for the fall centered around Claire, our questions for the new year start with Peter. In one of the final scenes of the season, Peter dreams that he is in New York. The other heroes are racing all around him as if a disaster is about to happen. We know this disaster is some sort of nuclear explosion, but we could only guess where it started. Peter normally doesn’t have pre-cognitive dreams, but if he is correct in this dream, he is the one that explodes and destroys all of New York City.

Nathan Petrelli – Nathan is Peter’s brother and he has the ability to fly. If most of us were suddenly able to fly, we would say “Kick ass!”, but Peter is an up and coming politician and cares more about votes than flying faster than a speeding bullet. Nathan is still an important character and has the closest ties to Mr. Lindermann, an as yet unseen shadowy figure that figures prominently in several areas. Nathan takes bribe from Lindermann to finance his campaign, and cheats on his wife with Niki Sanders. For now, his main focus is keeping Peter out of trouble.

Niki Sanders – Niki is the (legal) sexpot of the show, played by Ali Larter. Depending on who you ask, she is either one of the most interesting or the most boring of the heroes that we know about. She doesn’t really have a super power, and to most people, she would simply be an ordinary person with multiple personalities. Her alter-ego, as plain as it may be, appears to have super strength and definitely has a killer instinct. This alter-ego appears as if it is Jessica, Niki’s deceased sister, and she’ll do anything to protect Niki, including murdering anybody who might get in her way. The only person she seems to care about is her son, Micah.

Unfortunately, Niki’s story seemed like a side show for much of the first half of the season. She has ties to other heroes because of her contact with Lindermann, and the fact that Ando used to pay Niki to take her clothes off when she was stripping on the internet to pay her bills. I go back and forth between liking her and thinking they should get rid of her, but I do feel she will be more connected soon enough. Then again, this may be difficult because Niki turned herself, or Jessica rather, into the police.

DL Hawkins – DL is Niki’s husband and towards the beginning of the show, we were trained to believe that he was a real bastard because Niki was really scared of him, not to mention the tales of him killing his whole crew and burying them in the desert followed by a daring escape from the police. In real life, DL says that he is innocent, and he just wants to find who has set him up and get back together with his family. All of this looks like it is going to work out until we all realize that the person who killed his crew, set him up, and took his money was his own wife. OK, Technically, it was Jessica, but DL doesn’t quite know what to believe. Luckily for DL, he has the ability to sort of “phase” his body parts in and out, meaning he can walk through walls, or punch through people….

Micah Sanders – Micah is the progeny of DL and Niki. Both of his parents want to protect him, but both of his parents think that the other is the person that would be most likely to hurt Micah. In all of the mess that ensues, Micah’s parents don’t even notice that Micah has some abilities of his own; the ability to fix electronics with only a touch.

Matt Parkman – One thing I have noticed about a lot of Heroes is that they all try to convince us that their lives are really terrible and now all of these super powers are going to make it unbearable. I think that most of them are overreacting a little bit, but not Matt Parkman. He’s a smart guy, has a good job as a cop, but has dyslexia and cannot pass the detectives exam, which is all written. His wife cheats on him with his own partner, and there are voices in his head. Not, it’s not another case of multiple personalities but rather the ability to read minds, which is great, except when you can’t control it and it gives you headaches and nosebleeds.

Isaac Mendez – Isaac looked like he would be a really cool hero early on because he can paint the future, but now I think he kind of sucks. He complains a lot, and his drawings aren’t very convenient. Painting the future sounds cool, but if every piece of art has to be a mural half the size of my apartment wall, I think I would give up and do drugs to dull the pain, which is what Isaac did.

Sylar – Gabriel Gray was the first person contacted by Chandra Suresh as a possible hero, and was named “Patient Zero”. Chandra thought he had no powers at all, but we all know that his powers were a little more esoteric, and by esoteric I mean that he has to kill Heroes before he can get their powers. During the beginning of the show, we believed that Sylar would be the most evil person that we would encounter, but Sylar was captured and although he escaped, we are not quite sure where he fits into this new threat of the bomb.

We do know that Sylar has killed several heroes already and we assume he will be on his quest to find more Heroes. He doesn’t have the list, but he has seen the map Dr. Suresh had in his office, which gives him a general idea of where to find people. And remember, he sucked down the brain of Charlie the waitress, the woman with the amazing memory. If he ever sees the list, he can do some damage.

Creepy Black Dude – I won’t write up too much about Eden McCain, the wannabe Rachel Bilson who used her mind control abilities to help Mr. Bennet in his quest to protect Claire because she is dead, but I do have to mention Creepy Black Guy, or “The Eraser” as I call him. Mr. Bennet has alluded to meeting many heroes but those heroes never remember what happened next because The Eraser has the ability to erase memories and possibly block the abilities of other heroes.

We thought that The Eraser would always be some sort of sideshow, but the last episode hinted at an increased role. We always thought that he couldn’t talk and just did whatever Mr. Bennet told him to do, but bother are false. In the aftermath of what happened to Claire with her almost getting killed by Sylar and all, he erased the memories of many people in Claire’s life. Mr. Bennet asked him to do the same with his daughter, but the Eraser refused, meaning that he is answering to somebody who either outranks Mr. Bennet, or has a plan of his own.

I have left out a few characters, but that should get everybody caught up. What did you think were the best parts of this season so far? What questions are you looking to be answered this year?