When Heroes went off the air in 2009, I was ready to start a petition for its return. In my mind, it was just starting to recover from the convoluted, achingly boring turn it took during the Writer’s Strike, and I held out hope that it could return to its chilling, I’m-going-to-lose-my-mind-waiting-until-Monday-for-the-next-episode drama that the first season had.

Heroes Reborn is the series’ epic second chance, but, given how abruptly Heroes ended, we immediately wondered: What direction is the show taking? Is it a complete do-over? Will it try to pick up where it left off? Or serve as a prequel to the “Save the Cheerleader” days?

In a satisfying twist, the show takes place five years after the original series ended, which gives me hope that some questions will be answered. Specifically, though, I’m curious how they’ll address:

1. How Horn-Rimmed Glasses and Claire dealt with that whole betraying-her-dad-and-revealing-the-heroes-to-the-world thing. HRG was none too pleased with the big reveal, and if the trailer is any indication, the rest of the world didn’t provide the warm welcome Claire had hoped for.

2. What happened to Claire, considering that she can’t die, but given Hayden Panettiere’s commitment to ABC’s Nashville, I doubt she’ll be appearing on the show. (Nate’s guess: She went to college! What a tidy explanation. They can throw in the occasional scene of HRG calling her on the phone, or mentioning how she’s enjoying life as a “normal teen,” and that’s that.)

3. Whether Sylar is good…or evil. Or just what the heck happened to him, too, since he’s also pretty invincible, and Zachary Quinto’s made it pretty clear he has no plans to return to the show, so they’ve got to write him off somehow.

4. What the heck happened to Caitlin?! She’s the love interest Peter Petrelli accidentally left in the past in season two — and after his initial shock of transporting back to present day without her, he promptly seems to forget about her. And no one ever speaks of her again. I know it’s unlikely we’ll ever get an answer to this one (beyond Peter is a jerk who apparently loves ’em and leaves ’em behind…way, way behind). Sigh.

5. Speaking of Peter, what’s happened to him? The original Heroes has given lame writeoffs to characters before (ahem, Maya, who could kill anyone with just one look — and abruptly moved far, far away when her powers started complicating the plot). He’s also amid the cadre of former cast members who won’t be returning to the show — at least, according to recent reports — but he was so crucial to the original series that he deserves more of an explanation for his absence than “decided to move to Miami to get his tan on.”

 

I guess we’ll have to wait until Thursday, Sept. 24th, to start getting answers.