In the second to the last episode of Heroes Reborn, we finally get Erica Kravid’s backstory that explains her vendetta against Evos, but it feels too little too late at this point. Throughout the mini-series she has been painted as a manipulative and single-minded villain who only cared about her own agenda.
As the CEO of Renautas, she had acquired Primatech and was in league with Angela Petrelli, Noah Bennett, and Mohinder Suresh until the events of June 13. This was when her real plans came to light by having Phoebe Frady negate all Evo powers at the summit in Odessa and then orchestrating a massive explosion. She then blamed it on Suresh as an act of terrorism. This was all a part of her grand scheme to save humanity from the coming of natural disaster that would wipe off most of the world. But she wasn’t saving everyone of course, just the ones she deemed worthy.
Her relationship with her only child Taylor had seemed rocky from the beginning and it had only gotten worse when she separated her daughter from her Evo boyfriend Francis (whom we met when they apprehended Molly Walker). Taylor had always felt like her mother didn’t have time for her but when she discovered that Erica was using Evos to harness their powers as tech and saw Francis plugged up and unconscious she began to mistrust her mother even more. Eventually she would join the Evos in the fight against Erica’s plans.
In this week’s episode we learned that Taylor’s father had been an Evo with healing abilities that took advantage of Erica when the Renautas CEO had been a young woman. The healer had cured Erica’s father of his sickness but in return had wanted her to sleep with him. The result of that encounter had been Taylor. When she was a young child, she had also gotten very ill and so Erica had to turn back to the same Evo for help. This time however, he had said that he was going to take Taylor but Erica’s killer instincts kicked in and she stabbed him with a pair of scissors to keep her child.
This intense moment between mother and daughter did shed some light to the cruelty Erica had endured at the hand of an Evo and provided some background into her cold calculating personality. Still, like Taylor said, this new piece of information just wasn’t enough. While her mother’s intentions may have been good at the beginning, it didn’t justify killing innocent humans, regardless if they were an Evo or not.
Erica came from very humble beginnings and somehow managed to become a very powerful woman, which certainly took a lot of cunning and skill. Her relationship with her daughter had brought some dimension to her character, but her background story it seems a little too late in the game with only one episode left.
Creator Tim Kring did put a different spin to the series by making its central antagonist completely human. In the original Heroes, most of the bad guys had been other Evos – Sylar, Daniel Linderman, Maury Parkman, Arthur Petrelli, and Samuel Sullivan. But Erica shows audiences that a human can be just as nefarious or even worse than someone with abilities. The character believes she is making hard choices for the greater good, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Now that Taylor has walked away from her, will she be even more determined in her feud against Evos? We’ll find out soon enough!
You can catch up on past episodes HERE.
Heroes Reborn airs on NBC, Thursdays 8/7 central.
