The second-to-last episode of the series.
The penultimate episode of Heroes Reborn, “Company Woman,” borrows its title from one of the best episodes of Heroes’ initial run, “Company Man.” Like that episode, it delves into the motivations of its seeming villain — in this case, Erica Kravid (Rya Kihlstedt). But like Heroes Reborn compares to the first season of Heroes, which it is seemingly hearkening back to, this episode is a shallow copy of that which it is trying to honor.
Full spoilers for “Company Woman” continue below.
The mystery behind Erica’s hatred of Evos was finally revealed in “Company Woman,” and it was a bit of a bust. It turns out that a young Erica was coerced into trading sex against her will (even though she ultimately consented, she did so simply because she had no other choice to save her father) to an Evo doctor who used his powers for his own selfish gain. Erica got pregnant as a result of that — thus explaining her complicated relationship with her daughter Taylor (Eve Harlow) — and killed the doctor when he tried to take her daughter from her. A young Caspar Abraham showed up to help her take care of the dead doctor situation, and she used that chance to wipe Taylor’s memory and not have the weight of that traumatic experience weigh on her young shoulders. Instead, she carried it alone.
We want to hear it.
Even if creator Tim Kring had developed this concept at the start of Heroes Reborn, it’s not something that’s been reflective in Erica’s behavior up until this point. The writing has been all over the place with her motivations (and everyone else’s, to be perfectly honest) and one emotional scene between Erica and Taylor does not justify this contrived and hackneyed backstory. “Company Man” grounded HRG’s motivations for protecting Claire and completely changed how the audience viewed him as a character, but “Company Woman” simply shaded in Heroes Reborn’s villain in a manner that was too little, too late.
This reveal would have been better served coming earlier in the season when it could have given Erica an opportunity for an interesting arc. Cramming it into the already overstuffed penultimate episode just made it feel like a flimsy callback to Heroes: Season 1 without offering much substance to the series. If it had come earlier in Heroes Reborn’s run, this episode could have replicated “Company Man’s” format of focusing the narrative on one character. Instead, “Company Woman” had to balance tying up the season with fleshing out the character of Erica.
Because of that, most of the other storylines were short-changed. Tommy (Robbie Kay) flitted around space and time before being captured by Otomo and stuck in Evernow, while Quentin (Henry Zebrowski) made a quick side shift to team with Luke (Zachary Levi) and Malina (Danika Yarosh). Ren (Toru Uchikado) and Emily (Gatlin Green) were off doing stuff in conveniently convenient locations, and Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman) is still MIA.
We want to hear it.
Oh, and Luke finally killed Joanne (Judith Shekoni) in an altogether unsatisfying manner considering how obnoxious she’s been, and it seems like the Matt Parkman’s (Greg Grunberg) disappointing storyline has finally sputtered to a halt.
There’s one episode left before Heroes Reborn comes to a close — and no, it’s not coming back for Season 2 — and the story is currently so all over the place that it’s hard to imagine how Kring is going to tie up the finale in a satisfying way unless it’s having every character burn to a crisp when H.E.L.E. arrives. Many fans have been asking for Heroes to come back and recapture what made Season 1 of Heroes a hit, and it’s a shame that Heroes Reborn instead encapsulates what didn’t work about the show. The flaws with this season were highlighted best with the use of an old stock photo of Claire (Hayden Panettiere) used to hit viewers over the head with nostalgia for what came before; it understands the elements people cared about when Heroes launched, but it doesn’t know how to replicate them without simply showcasing two-dimensional versions of them.
Maybe “Company Woman” wouldn’t have been such a frustrating episode if it hadn’t intentionally hearkened back to arguably the best episode of the Heroes franchise, “Company Man.” Instead it underlined all the things that aren’t working about Heroes Reborn, with sloppy, convoluted writing and a plot that is flimsy and all over the place. Erica Kravid’s backstory didn’t pack the same punch as Noah Bennet’s, and came too late to offer anything substantial to the story being told.
