TV REVIEW: The Heroes Reborn Premiere Is A Second Chance to Do It Right

A New Age, A New Threat

During the Heroes’ fifth volume finale, our famed cheerleader, Claire Bennett helps make it publicly known that “others” like her exist. Those last moments on the screen — where she moves an entire population from the shadow to the light — gives us hope that maybe once the world knows, evolved humans have a chance.

We are all wrong.

Reborn drops us into the aftermath of Claire’s choice, a reality that is almost too dire to bear. What started as a world that could co-exist has, in only a short matter of time, rapidly evolved into a state of fear, paranoia and deadly discrimination. We are  brought into this dystopian universe by a great many new faces, but the story is undoubtedly relying on the original series’ old ones to propel it.

After an unexplained attack, a Humans and EVOs united celebration goes sour, bringing Noah Bennet back to the forefront of the story and presumably “killing” his daughter. As the next two hours unfold, we see that their inability to save the cheerleader has sent the world spiraling into a nightmarish landscape.

Teams chase down EVOs who literally give life for limb to escape their grasp. EVOs realize that the border between them and regular “humans” is thin on the outside, but a deep divide on the inside. They are disappearing at an alarming rate, and no one knows exactly what is happening to them. 

HEROES: REBORN — “Awakening” Episode 101 — Pictured: Zachary Levi as Luke Collins — (Photo by: Christos Kalohoridis/NBC)

We begin to suspect who is at the center of some of the more grisly disappearances as a sweet faced Zachary Levi makes his official debut. While Primatech has fallen, a new enemy has arisen in the form of EVO hunter Luke and his wife, Joanne. Their son was a victim of the attack, and now they are bent on ridding the world of the people they blame for his death. As they make their way through the premiere, they bounce from place to place, putting an end to every EVO they systematically set up to bite the bullet.

Noah doesn’t come face to face with the threat of this duo, but not to worry, he has his own problems to work out. Having re-imagined himself after the death of his daughter, Noah is now a car salesman with a rather perky and unassuming soon to be wife.

It seems he thought he was out of the EVO loop, but — if you can believe it — things for him may have just begun. A strange car parked outside his dealership turns into a wild trip down memory lane as conspiracy theorist Quentin attempts to prove there was more to the attack on Odessa. 

Noah begins to unravel what happened to him, and in the process we see some rather familiar faces. That includes Mohinder and The Haitian, though the latter meets his untimely demise at Bennet’s hands. The circumstances surrounding this event push Noah to learn why his memory of June 13th was erased — at his own hands. From this we begin to realize that the return of old faces may spell their demise and that, like always, something big is coming.

NEXT: WE COULD BE HEROES …