Animation
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
It’d be pretty nifty to have superpowers. I mean, who wouldn’t want one, right? And after watching NBC’s Heroes Reborn, I think I know what I’d like mine to be: the ability to understand what’s happening in Heroes Reborn.
The broad-brush plot is easy enough to follow, I suppose. The world is increasingly populated by humans with superhuman powers—called evos (a reference to the fact that they’re more “evolved” than the average Joe or Jane). A few are familiar faces from the first Heroes go-round (from 2006-’10), but most are newcomers—just now uncovering their abilities and figuring out how to best use them. Geeky teen Tommy can teleport himself and others. Pretty blonde Malina can resurrect all manner of living things. Japanese sword-swinger Miko can become a character in a video game—a trait that is actually more helpful than it at first sounds. And so it goes.
Alas, there’s no Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in which to be schooled. Perhaps the show’s producers decided that introducing a bald, wheelchair-bound telepath would officially transport Heroes Reborn into the dangerous world of plagiarism. And, really, the world these guys inhabit is plenty dangerous as it is.
See, the evos have been blamed for a massive catastrophe in Odessa, Texas, which killed an obscene number of people. As such, evos have gone into hiding, while the U.S. Government actively hunts them down. They’re doing so with the help of Renautas—a Google-like global technology company that, paradoxically, uses evos to track other evos. But even aside from those ethical conundrums, Renautas, headed by shadowy CEO Erica Kravid, has something much, much more catastrophic in mind.
Or so I’m guessing.
Dense serializations are, of course, nothing new in this age of prestige television, wherein networks don’t just want viewers to watch the show, but to then blog and tweet and talk endlessly about every allusion, Easter egg and sideways glance. To get involved with a show like that, of course, you have to care quite a lot about the folks in it. And while Heroes Reborn gives us a whole bunch of colorful superhuman characters, it cares far more about their super-ness than their human-ness. And that makes it harder for the rest of us viewer-humans to super-care.
Heroes Reborn engages in the same sort of problematic content that its predecessor did. We see lots of violence and some gore. Evos are killed at an alarming rate, with their more regular compatriots getting the ax sometimes, too. There’s swearing intermixed, and sultry wardrobe choices show up. Some of the superhuman powers on display cross over into God’s country, especially when it comes to Malina’s life-generating gifts.
Heroes Reborn does at least try to stay true to its titular concept of heroism. Most of the characters we meet are—or will be—on a quest to save the world, risking life and limb to do so. And it plays around with the idea of purpose—forcing its characters (and, by extension, us) what it truly means to be a hero.
Malina resurrects a frozen butterfly and grows a tree. Tommy and his mother barely escape from a terrible car crash. A woman offs herself off camera. An evo is shot point-blank in the head. Other evos are also shot. Three of them—carbon copies of the same guy—evaporate into dust. A passerby gets knocked unconscious.
A woman materializes in the arctic, sitting on and then rolling up her prayer rug (suggesting that she’s Muslim). She later says that women don’t sweat, but rather glow so that “God might see us better.” One evo, Father Mauricio, is also a Catholic priest (who, unfortunately, gets shot).
There’s a laugh line about pornography. There’s a discussion about zombies. There’s a wink at an s-word (without it being said). People blurt out “b–ch” and “bloody”; they twice misuse God’s name.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
While its protagonist might live a nuanced life, The Sympathizer’s problematic content can’t be described the same way.
