NEW SPOILERS: Tracy Strauss, Matt Parkman, the Past and the Future

By Sam | September 8, 2008 (9:09 pm)

Some new and confusing SPOILERS about the upcoming Heroes Season 3 have arrived. While these do fill in a lot more details about the character Tracy Strauss (played by Ali Larter), it also brings up even more questions. Also, more on Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and what he’s been up to. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of the future. Or do we? Well, it’s all very mysterious and “read between the lines”-ish, but let’s take a look at what Kristin over at E! Online has to say anyway, shall we?

The first bit of spoiler involves Matt Parkman, as well as a glimpse of the very confusing future:

Nathaniel in Washington, D.C.: What can you tell me about Heroes’ future?

Let’s see…Matt Parkman’s (Greg Grunberg) future is drawn for him by an African bushman, and in the world’s future, the sky is full of people who can fly. It’ll be just like The Jetsons! Except, you know, no flying contraptions needed. This is a future I’m looking forward to ’cause the traffic on the 405 is killing me.

So in the future “the sky is full of people who can fly”, eh? No idea what that means, except the obvious — that Mohinder’s power-in-a-syringe idea has taken hold and now everyone has powers. Or maybe that formula Hiro is entrusted with by his father has turned everyone into heroes. Or, to be very nihilistic about it, maybe those “sky full of people” are people getting blown up by that giant fireball Hiro sees when he, once again, time trips into the future after losing the formula?

Update:

Got an email that pointed me to these pictures of, yup, people “flying around” on the Heroes set during a shot. Pictures via Heroes-France. So, um, people ARE flying in the future, apparently!

But back to good ol Matt Parkman. Since we now know he’ll be visiting an African bushman, is the picture (below) one of those predictions involving man as seen in an earlier article? The whole art set-up certainly looks like something an “African bushman” would cook up for his version of a “studio”.

Meanwhile, here’s another spoiler bit concerning Tracy Strauss:

Emma in Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Can you tell me anything more about Ali Larter’s character’s powers on Heroes?

You know the reporter played by William Katt of Greatest American Hero who confronts “Tracy Strauss” (Ali Larter) with evidence that she’s actually “Niki Saunders”? Well, there’s a reason he’s only in one episode, and that reason is that someone kills him by accident. (Wait a minute, could Ali be playing a character with a lethal power? Noooo!) Also, after Tracy begins to believe the reporter might be right about her real identity, she sets off to find the doctor who delivered her, in hopes that he can tell her more about her origins. She finds out at summer camp she has an identical twin, and they set off on a mischievious but adorable mission to get their parents to reunite. Or wait, that last sentence may have been from another story.

Okay, now I’m really confused. This bit of spoiler would seem to indicate that Tracy Strauss is NOT simply another personality of Niki Sanders, as previously believed, but is instead Jessica Sanders, Niki’s long-thought dead sibling, now going by the name Tracy Strauss. Which would not really make sense. If Jessica is in fact alive, and has always been all this time, then where has she been keeping herself, and why does her sister and family believe she died as a young girl? Also, if Jessica has always been alive all this time, why did Niki create an alter ego named Jessica to defend herself in times of stress?

From a purely storytelling perspective, it makes sense to give Ali Larter more to do in Season 3, and certainly having her “kill” off her Niki personality and replacing it with “Tracy” would provide plenty of drama, as well as the mystery that has been sorely lacking in the Niki department. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Ali Larter as Tracy Strauss