Comic-Con: Heroes “The Second Coming” recap and spoilers!

(note, there will be spoilers in this article, but I will warn you in big bold font first.)

Heroes creator Tim Kring and executive producer Jeph Loeb knew what they were doing this year at Comic-Con. After Kring admitted the show was broken back in November, the man behind the superhero saga knew that they had to create some buzz going into this third season in order to bring the skeptics back.

Because, let’s face it: A lot of people were ready to, or in fact did, get rid of Heroes from their DVR season passes last year.

So when he held up a disc labled Heroes: Villains, “The Chosen One”, you had this feeling it was going to be awesome. You don’t show the first episode of your season to 6,500 rabid fans if it’s going to suck.

To everyone in attendance on Saturday morning, being treated to an entire episode was beyond unexpected. It was like manna from heaven. Other than Fringe, full episode screenens were non-existent.

The first year Heroes was at Comic-Con, Loeb had one request of those in attendance: “Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it.”

Before we all got to see The Chosen One, Loeb didn’t need to make the same request. He was pretty confident.

“This year, I promise each and everyone of you that’s here…that you will want to talk about it. As they say, it’s completely off the hook.”

I’m here to to tell that it was indeed, “off the hook.” Although I’d have used “chain” instead of “hook”, but that’s just how much cooler I am than Kring.

I’m going to give you two versions of the episode, so that some of you who wish to avoid spoilers can skip them, and others who crave that stuff can get their fill.

Non-Spoilered Look/Recap

This new episode had all the deep mystery and mythology of the first season.

Peter and Sylar are fully featured with some amazing scenes. Sylar is at his evil, evil best. Hiro and Ando have fun adventures with some great comedy, but we see looming danger ahead for both of them. Claire also has great moments and a new revelation about her powers.

Most important of all, at least to me, is that Suresh finally becomes something more than a guy looking through microscopes all the time. Thank you!

We find out who shot Nathan Petrelli, see the brand new speedy hero, some people who we thought were dead are in fact very much alive and devastation lies ahead for the world. As usual.

The special effects were fantastic and plentiful.

Okay, that was the tame and safe version for The Second Coming…if you want to know all the goodies from the episode totally spoiled and ruin for you, then read on:

The SPOILER LOADED Recap (a few big spoilers)

You sure you want to know what happens?

Okay then, here we go.

The show opens four years in the future with Peter Petreilli (and his scar) running from something, we don’t know what. He goes through a door into a parking garage and Claire is there holding a gun…pointed at him.

She wont drop the gun, and something dark has changed who she is. She wants to kill Peter, despite his protests that he can change everything if he just goes back. Change what? No idea yet. But we’ll soon find out who supposedly caused it.

But she wont listen, and pulls the trigger. An amazing scene takes place with the bullet stopping in midair, Peter walking around it almost offhandedly pulling the gun out of Claire’s hand and disappearing into the past (or our present).

A great opening. Beautiful special effects.

In the present, Nathan is giving his speech and a man in a dark cloak walks up in the back and pulls the trigger twice, hitting Nathan in the chest on both shots.

It’s Peter. Scar and all. Nathan was about to tell the world about these people with abilities and that somehow much have changed things in the future.

Peter (future) runs, and the other Peter chases him, followed by Matt Parkman. Peter (future) goes into a bathroom after ditching the gun, Peter (present) follows and then Parkman runs in only to find one Peter there, holding the dark cloak.

It was pretty obvious that this was the future Peter, and the one in the present is now gone. But you weren’t sure why Peter didn’t have his scar. And where did Present Peter go?

Maybe I forgot last season, but I know there was a shape-shifter at one point. I don’t recall if Peter ever interacted with her, but in the future, he has those powers.

He changes the way he looks. Younger, no scar, so no one knows it. Except his mother. That’s later.

Parkman finds out that it’s the wrong Peter, and then just like the Present Peter, he gets zapped away. To where? That’s later!

We jump in on Hiro in his big office, where he’s taken up residence with his father’s death. He’s worth a quarter of a million dollars now and Ando works for him. A mysterious DVD shows up, and it’s his father telling him to not open the safe, and to protect it as did his father and his father’s father before him.

That’s it. Ah, but Hiro is too curious to stand by.

Hiro opens this safe that’s located in his office, and in it he finds another DVD and a piece of old paper. The DVD is his father saying “I told you not to open it!” which brought down the house in a storm of laughter.

People love that Hiro Nakamura. They also cheered at seeing George Takei.

He holds up the paper, which is a recipe for something which we do not know yet but it looks like some kind of genetic code. But before he can even really study it, a wind blows through the room and it disappears.

Hiro stops time and follows this cool wake trail left by whoever had just ran through the room. It reminded me a lot of The Abyss and the “water snake” that probed their ship.

At the end of the trail is the new hero, Daphne, played by Brea Grant. She’s like The Flash and apparently the stopping of time doesn’t slow her down. She can still move at regular speed and even questions whether Hiro is actually “stopping time” or not.

Since he can’t stop her, Daphne runs off with the recipie.

Afraid to go in the past after everything that has happened, Hiro jumps to the future leaving Ando standing there again, hoping he returns.

He lands in in the same street and sees himself looking a lot like the guy who appeared to Peter in the subway car in season one. But he is at odds with Ando and tries to grab the piece of paper that Daphne had stolen. Why it was here is unknown.

But as Hiro goes to grab it, Ando BLASTS him in the chest with flash of red rays from his hands. Yikes! Ando has powers???

Hiro then hears a boom and turns to look at the city, which has become engulfed in an explosion that wipes everything out, and the shockwave careens towards him as he blinks away in the nick of time.

So where did Ando get his powers? Suresh may be responsible. He finds out through Maya that the adrenal glands may actually be the root cause for powers manifesting themselves in people. So he takes a sample of hers and finds out that his hypothesis is true. He puts the new “power serum” into a needle, ready to be injected.

Maya begs him to not use it, but Suresh has strangely become attracted to having the same powers that he sees everyone else have all around him. Perhaps he’s feeling like the fans: Give Suresh something to do!

Battling the idea of tossing the serum or learning what his ability would be, Suresh chooses the latter and drops unconscious on some docks where he was pondering the decision.

When he comes to, a couple of thugs are trying to steal his watch and he tosses one of them about 60 feet through the air! Suresh has powers! Suresh strong!

And finally we get the Sylar story, which interacts heavily with Claire. When we last left him, Sylar had lost all his powers save a few that he picked up along the way  back from Mexico. Again.

Now he wants Claire’s gift of healing…and something else?

He appears at her door and they have a pretty intense, thrilling chase through the house.

But before the chase, Claire asks where Sylar has been and he tells her about his “detour” in Mexico:

“That’s all behind me now….it was like a long night after a bad taco.”

That line could only have been Tim Kring’s doing. A nice little shout out apologizing for Sylar sucking so much last season.

Claire kicks his butt a bit and then embeds a giant kitchen knife in Sylar’s chest. Without his old powers, he’s a lot more vulnerable now.

But he is not to be outdone. Sylar uses his abilities to pin her up against the way ala-Peter in season one and starts slicing open her head. We next see him poking and prodding around in Claire’s brain.

Yes, her brain. Right there in front of us. With Claire wide awake.

We finally see what Sylar does. He uses his fingers to locate the person’s power and how he can use it himself. It’s like he’s working on one of his watches from season one. You hear little wierd clicking sounds.

When he’s finished, the knife wound heals up (to thunderous applause from fans) and suddenly Sylar is back to being mega-powerful. But in some way we weren’t expecting.

He returns the top of Claire’s head to its rightful location, and it heals back up. Terrified and curious, she asks why he didn’t kill her.

“There is so much about yourself you don’t understand. Your brain is not like the others. You are not like the others. You’re different. You are special. And I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to.”

“You can never die. Now I guess…neither can I.”

OMG. Sylar is immortal and so is Claire. Sort of like Adam Monroe/Takeo Kensei.

So much more happens. Here are the big, Back From The Dead spoilers:

• Nathan doesn’t die and decides not to tell the world that there are people with abilities out there.
• Mr. Linderman is alive and appears to Nathan. He and Nathan are meant for great things he says.
• Nicky is alive and with some politician, who also has an interest in Nathan.

No one ever dies! And I love it! (Although Nicky going away wouldn’t bother me too much)

This season it appears there will be this special symbol that looks like the world exploding from the middle and creating two halves.

Suresh sees it after he gets his powers, and Parkman sees it on a rock as he wanders the empty grass fields where Peter sent him (and we have no clue where that is).

Angel Petrelli knows it’s not Present Peter who is with us now. She confronts him, asking what HE did with her son.

It’s weird…almost as if this isn’t truly Peter. But we know it is…and he’s from the future.

Then, at the end of the episode, we pan through a prison where we see people with powers in cells, including Claire’s dad, Noah. And next to him is a guy shouting “This is a mistake! I’M PETER PETRELLI! I’M PETER PETRELLI!”

Of course, it looks nothing like Present Peter, so perhaps Future Peter can control someone’s shape even when he’s not around. Cool.

The episode ended with a standing ovation and much love from the fans.

Loeb’s first words afterwards:

“Do you think there is something to talk about?”

More screaming and cheering.

Yes there is Loeb, and I’m doing it. Thanks Kring and company for bringing back our beloved Heroes. Let’s hope they can keep this up.