Heroes season 2 premiere: Four Months Later quick review

I'm just going to put a quick note here that I just saw the Heroes season 2 premiere, "Four Months Later". Much better than the season 1 pilot, and it seems to have some interesting potential for the rest of the season. Spoilers and another paragraph or two of review follow the jump.

While the main characters all sort of just pick up "four months later," only a little of plot actually develops in the first episode. Not to be outdone by the far fetched X-Men type abilities from last season, Supercop Matt Parkman survived the four bullets to the chest he got from Sylar in the season finale, which means that in addition to hearing people's thoughts, he can now survive what most doctors would classify in their autopsy as "massive chest trauma." He's now divorced, living with Molly, the spy kid from the last couple episodes, and is part of a massive conspiracy with the doctor and Claire's dad to take down "the company." They also allude to the "bogeyman" that is supposedly worse than Sylar and I guess he will make an appearance at some point. And, as suspected in my review of the anticlimactic season finale, Sylar lives (if only in the preview for next week's episode).

Other pointless storyline: Claire meets some flying outcast at her new California high school; both Peter and his brother survive the weak bomb scare from the finale, although it's not exactly sure what has happened to either of them. Town gown relations with the Senator-Elect must have been abandoned for a more interesting storyline, and left to be explained in a future episode (no doubt to be called "Four months earlier" or something comparable to "Six Months Ago" last season). Anyway, Peter has lost his memory and is found in a box of ipods (without the ipods) at the end of the episode and the preview for next week suggests some sort of Pandora's box thing with another new Irish character. Maybe that guy's power will be to drink without getting drunk. Of course, that would require much more of a suspended disbelief than I am willing to give.

What I really found more interesting with the Heroes season 2 premiere is the current doofy plot with Hiro. As much as I hate time travel plots that inevitably fail for various philosophical reasons, I will let this one go solely because Heroes has resurrected one of my favorite tv good guy-bad guy villains, Sark (of Alias fame, David Anders) as Hiro's Japanese super samurai. Apparently Sark has powers here also (and a name to be determined). I would speculate that he's the guy that kills "the company"'s founders in present day, but that would be too obvious. I'm sure he has some sort of long life attribute, but whatever it is will appear in the weeks to come.

So, Four Months Later, sort of picks up where the last season leaves off, and seems to set up the rest of the season fairly well, or at least one can hope. Since I doubt I will review any more episodes this season unless they are really out there, I will conclude with my written plea that the season finale have a little more substance than last year's.

Tags: heroes season 2 premiere, heroes four months later review, heroes season 2 premiere review, sark returns on heroes