Heroes Volume 5 "Redemption" Revealed

A few months ago, I blogged my thoughts on the current state of NBC's show Heroes. After a disappointing 4th volume (season 3.5), the ratings for the show were slipping, and NBC barely renewed it, and only renewed it for a short season at that. It was obvious that Heroes needed to step up to the plate to become the show that all its fans know it can be.

It seems they are taking steps in the right direction.

NBC has posted the trailer for Heroes Volume 5, which will officially kick off on Monday, September 21 with a 2 hour season premiere. You can watch that very trailer below.

One of the biggest issues I noted with Heroes is that it lacked a definitely evil bad guy. The elder Patrelli was killed off, and Sylar is just not cutting it any more. Low and behold, the writers went out and found themselves a potentially very dark, very evil villain in Robert Knepper. Astute readers will remember Knepper for his vicious and depraved character T-Bag in Prison Break. He was despicable, and, more importantly, audiences completely hated his character (while people still cared about the show, that is). I mean that in a good way. T-Bag was slimy, filthy, and just a heinous person. Knepper is one of the best people at what he does, and that's creating evil characters that fans love to hate. With luck, we will have an equally despicable villain for Heroes.

Knepper plays the role of Samuel, the leader of a carnival that recruits the super-powered folks for mysterious, and likely nefarious, means. He has powers as well, as we see at the end of the trailer, likely something telekinetic. Expect the character to be smart, manipulative, and full of bad guy charm.

We are also treated to our first real look at the tatooed lady, who can read the past based on what tattoos form across her skin, or so it appears. We see Claire's long-rumored lesbian lover as well. I'm curious as to what brought about this particular change in her character, so here's to hoping they actually touch on this rather than create a confusing Heroes dialog moment. WE also see that Nikki will indeed be a factor in Volume 5, as we hear her telling Noah Bennett about how she recreated herself with a thought and now only wants to kill the people responsible for trying to kill her. We see a possibly dead Noah Bennett (god, I hope not), and given the line of his brief conversation with Nikki and the water bursting into his car, he may be embroiled in some kind of feud with her. We also see Sylar, whole in body if not in mind, going after Matt Parkman and little Matt Parkman.

I am going to say it: this trailer makes me very excited to see where Heroes Volume 5 goes. It seems like the writers have their heads on straight and are moving the show in a positive direction. So long as they can avoid stagnating the story with the stupid Heroes Reset Button, I think positive things are coming for the series.

Anyway, enough talking. Behold, the trailer.