Heroes Unmasked (2007) s01e02 Episode Script

The line that I love that just sums up the show is when Claire is laying there on that, you know, that autopsy table, - and she looks down and she's like - Holy Shit! And you're like: "What?! Oh, my God! That is the reaction we want everyone to have at the end of every episode.
And I don't know one episode where we haven't been able to do that.
Heroes to me is about ordinary people in ordinary lives that discover that they have this kind of power.
And it's kind of their journey of discovering how it's gonna affect their lives.
The abilities, they appear once or twice in an episode.
It's really about what the people with the abilities are dealing with having these abilities.
And also how the people around them, who don't have any abilities, are dealing with them once they find out about them.
I'm okay! Fine! I'm okay! These are characters that everyone can relate to, ordinary people.
There's the japanese drone employee who's been living this mundane life for so long, yet he goes home and reads comic books and he just ravels in the fact that there are heroes that are out there.
There's the cop who wants to be a better cop, wants to pull his marriage together.
There's a single mother who's just trying to raise her child.
The politician, he is given this ability and, does he share it with the public? Would that scare them away? His brother, the nurse, who has never really taken a stand for himself and knows that he's got some sort of a destiny.
And then of course there's Isaac, this painter, who's struggling with the fact that he paints incredible paintings predicting the future, but he can only paint them when he's on drugs.
And trying to make sense of it all, is the teenager from Texas, a cheerleader who is growing up a little too fast.
This is Claire Bennet.
That was attempt number six.
Oh, myoh, my God! Oh, my God! How hot do you think it is in there? Turn on the camera.
The perfect setting for Claire to try out her powers was this furnace of fire and smoke.
But before she can help save the day, the Heroes special effects team had to create a scene that it was epic in scale, and firy in nature.
A lot of our effects are movie quality.
You don't have the luxury sometimes of time of prep, like a film, but having film experience it really helps and my guys are great.
Because we have our guys just coming out of Die Hard.
Take it easy.
Take it easy.
Ok, full flame up.
It's so good lot of big movie experience on the show.
You know, come up and see it sooner and don't worry that I see the ambulance as you're seeing the tractors, it's kinda cooland then wrap around the tractor and film everything else.
You have one large scene'cause the train sell Claire's ability to regenerate was, uh, her running through a fire, saving a fireman from a burning train car.
So we simulated a train crash.
Real train cars, laid over cranes in an agricolture part of California, north of Los Angeles.
Propane fed all the cars with a slaughtered pipe, and had a lot of diesel mixed in inflammable liquids to sell the black smoke.
A - mark! Action! Once all the props are laid out and the trains are laying on a side, you look at the lens and see what kind of elements you can add to that that may were unscripted or that just make the shot better.
So when Claire is running we came up with that propane explosion just to give it a little threatening business.
And we went through that and it was a big job.
Cut! Let's cut.
Boy, it just hasn't stop from there! With the special effects team having created that carnage, it's over to Claire to be the hero of the hour.
She is a normal teenage girl, cheerleader.
And, you know, through this event she finds out that she can hurt herself.
She gets a cut, she watches the blood go and rush back into the cut and, like, close itself off and heal.
And she starts doing all these tests trying to see if she can hurt herself.
Same speed! Ok, full flame.
Full flame now! There they are! This guy is stuck in the train and I basically walk in and save him.
And, you know, they're cleaning me up where my arm was on fire and they realize that there's nothing wrong with me.
There's no burns.
Him! Right, cut! Cut! And she realize that there's something seriously, I don't know whether it's wrong with her or right, but there's there's something different about her.
Then we did the scene when I stuck my hand in the garbage disposal, and I had to hold up my arm, and it's an exact replica of my arm painted, everything.
And they have these almost like puppeteers who work the hand and they bloodied it up and bent the fingers back and it was So nasty! I was cringing: "No, my hand!".
On a scale of one to ten, ten being the grossest, I actually would probably rate this at around 8,5 or 9.
Just because of the inner factor of seeing a hand that is just mangled.
So, the psychological aspect of the grossness I think would put it up pretty high.
Her hand goes in, garbage disposal spins, so it would probably twist her finger as well.
So we have this motion, that actually turns the fingers in a lateral, so you got that.
We have the grasping fingers to hold the ring that she drops and Erin was actually underneath placing the ring in her fingers, so that when it came out she had the ring.
And then the fingers will rotate and when we pull, they mangle.
At about as awkward an angle as fingers can possibly go.
And they go back to normal again.
- Honey! I'm home! - Your father.
Claire's ability is regeneration, end, she's not indestructible as she has been described.
You see her on the slab and she is dead.
Had that thing not been removed when it was, she would have died.
And from that moment on, it is clear that she is touched, she's one of the specials and everything changes from that point forward.
I really loved the idea of teenage, you know, that sense of being, feeling that you're indestructible.
But I also was fascinated by that feeling most teenagers feel that their parents aren't exactly who they say they are.
The world feels like, at that age, that somehow the world is lying to you.
Your mother told me that you've been asking about your birth parents.
I think it's time that I know.
Well, I have a few questions first, not the least of which is "Why now?" Just wondering, that's all.
You know, what they're like.
What thay can do.
What they can do? The beauty about Claire's character is all of those things are actually true.
As opposed to most people, where is kinda not true.
In her case is very much true.
Her father really isn't who she thought he was, and, the world really is lying to her and there are conspiracies.
I'll promise I'll be your little girl for as long as I can.
But you can't protect me forever.
I know.
And it breaks my heart.
I think that moment really kind of set the table for how much of the season would be played.
Where you would see moments of genuine caring and love for Claire, combined with this other spin which was creepy and dark and sinister and possibly not at all looking out for Claire's best interests.
This is Claire Bennet.
That was attempt number six.
That really does break my heart.
But what connects our heroes besides their extraordinary abilities? All the characters on Heroes have many things in common, but one of the things they do have in common is that they don't feel fulfilled.
I think most of us feel that way, we feel like we're not living up to our potential, we feel like we could be, you know, bigger, better, faster, stronger, whatever.
I think everyone at any point had a dream of being a superhero, I mean I had a phase of putting a cape on me running around the house.
And I think it's just an idea of being, you know, believing that you have something special, something unique.
I think Heroes has tapped into wish fulfillment the way any superhero story would do.
But in the best tradition of Spider-Man or something, you have somebody with this ability, but the ability is as much of a curse as it is a blessing.
I've got the Bishop Game next week, S.
A.
T.
is in october, Homecoming is three weeks from today and I'm a freak-show.
You're being a little melodramatic, don't you think? No, I don't think! It alienates you and it makes you a freak, and it's not necessarily the greatest thing in the world.
My life as I know it is over, okay? If this happened to me, if I could if I woke up one day and felt my foot hover over the floor for a split second and had been consumed with flying dreams and premonitions that I can fly, I might start to get a little concerned about it.
This morning, my God, I've had my foot hover before hit the ground, hover! For a split second like I was, like I was floating.
I'll tell you, I think I can fly.
What would you do if you woke up in the morning and found out that you could read people's mind or bend time and space? What would you do? Would you be Would you use it for good? Would you use it for evil? Would you be excited? Would you be scared of it? These are the questions we ask.
I did become fascinated by the idea that most of us would treat this as some sort of an affliction or a curse.
And very few people would sort of embrace it as something very positive, to begin with.
That's this morning paper.
Look at the number on the bus.
This happened yesterday.
Yesterday.
Something's wrong with me.
They don't want this power.
They're freaking out by it.
They don't know what's going on with them.
They're kind of: "What is this?".
They don't know where it's coming from.
I'm seeing things.
Like I keep feeling someone's watching me.
Someone I can't see.
I think maybe Hiro's character is the only one that which is a very good element and, I mean, very refreshing, 'cause he takes us somewhere else when he's the only one who embraces his abilities.
We hope that audience would connect to at least one of the characters, if not all of them.
And find there's a piece of them in everyone of the characters.
And know that these guys are just normal human beings.
Just like you and me.
Put your damn hands up! Leave me alone! To destiny.