Hiro returns.
Full spoilers for Heroes Reborn’s sixth episode, “Game Over.”
This is the Heroes Reborn episode we’ve been waiting for. Finally, some stakes that feel high, some real answers to big questions and some interesting character development. “Game Over” did much better than just bring back Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), as it saw a death of a major character, brought together storylines to give them greater purpose and got us much closer to finding out what happened on June 13th.
It’s easy to call this the show’s best episode to date, and it finally was the one where I felt a solid connection to these characters. Quentin (Henry Zebrowski) asking HRG (Jack Coleman) if he saved his sister Phoebe (Aislinn Paul) before he died felt very earned and emotional, and Taylor’s (Eve Harlow) reaction to finding out her mother killed her boyfriend actually carried some weight. It only took Heroes Reborn six episodes, but in “Game Over” it finally delivered on the weeks of set up to show that dangerous times really are afoot, and these characters might actually be capable of stopping the end of the world.
We want to hear it.
After briefly crossing paths in last week’s episode “The Lion’s Den,” Miko (Kiki Suzekane) and Ren’s (Toru Uchikado) storylines fully connected with Noah and Quentin’s as both pairs tried to release Hiro from his prison (though Miko only thought she was solving her Evernow quest). As many people suspected, Hiro was locked inside the game, though his imprisonment had a slightly different backstory than viewers assumed. Hiro isn’t Katana Girl’s father, and she’s not actually real: Miko was the daughter of Evernow’s designer, but died in a car accident, and Katana Girl is a digital recreation of her. Lucky for her, Ren says he still loves her no matter where she came from (aww).
Erica (Rya Kihlstedt) had imprisoned Hiro to harness his powers that control time and space, which she is using to power her humanity reset. She is quickly losing all her best assets between Hiro being freed and Molly (Francesca Eastwood) killing herself — and based on Erica’s reaction at the end of the episode, she’s not too happy about it — but Renautas surely isn’t going down without a big fight. At least some of the corporation’s backstory will be revealed in the next two episodes, “June 13th – Part One” and “June 13th – Part Two,” so we’ll understand some of the “hows” and “whys” beyond what’s already been revealed.
We want to hear it.
Meanwhile Malina (Danika Yarosh) found some purpose when she crossed paths with Luke (Zachary Levi) and then stopped him from killing himself. Her mysterious package from last week was a photo of Tommy (Robbie Kay), who Luke obviously knows, and thus these two are set off on a joint mission to find him. Tommy, meanwhile, took an impromptu trip to Paris with Emily (Gatlin Green) to help cope with the news that he’s adopted and that the fate of the world is on his shoulders. Also they kiss and it’s pretty cute (aww 2.0).
Then there’s Carlos (Ryan Guzman), whose road trip with Captain Dearing (Dylan Bruce) took a turn south when they showed up to the place where the Evos are being held and Dearing tricked Carlos into taking a concoction that caused him to pass out. Dearing said this liquid would give Carlos an Evo false-positive, but I wonder if it’s actually going to trigger Evo powers in him. This would be a new reason why he’s been included as one of the titular world-saving “heroes” despite being one of the few people without powers.
We want to hear it.
Oh, and final plot twist, Taylor is pregnant. No wonder she is out for revenge against her mom.
Next week Heroes Reborn will kick off its second two-part episode mini-arc (the first being the two-hour premiere), and the series has grown and strengthened much since that first doubleheader. Finally in “Game Over” it felt like the show trimmed out the fat and got to the core story that it’s been dancing around for the sake of keeping a mystery alive. This episode had plenty of momentum, and I’m hoping the step back in time to June 13th will keep that going.
Also, we’ve now gone two weeks without Joanne (Judith Shekoni). Two whole weeks! What did we do to be so lucky? Maybe she’ll be more palatable when we meet her as the person she was before the traumatic death of her son.
Thanks to increased stakes, renewed momentum and a stronger sense of purpose, Heroes Reborn could focus on its strengths and deliver an episode that left the viewer excited for more. For the first time in the show’s run, the new heroes of Heroes Reborn felt like they could stand alongside the fan-favorites of its parent series.
