Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B- | 866 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Shouldn't That Be "The Fly Effect?"
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 2008.09.22
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Mama Petrelli has a vision (her power is prophetic dreams, btw) involving a lot of dead Heroes and, in keeping with Chapter Three's title, the apparent villains of the piece -- Adam, Niki (or whoever), Parkman's dad Maury, new guy Knox, who feeds off people's fear, and, of course, Sylar. She tells Future Peter that the horrible things she's seeing are due to his presence, offering up Claire's encounter with Sylar as something that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been there to tell her to stay home. In the wake of said encounter, Claire discovers that she's no longer feeling pain when she injures herself, which causes her to feel divorced from humanity, so she…gets hit by a train, a lot, until Peter flies in and grabs her. She tries to get him to help her develop her powers, but, already freaked by the damage he's done to the timeline, he bails.
Maya comes back to see Mohinder, who's basically The Fly now, and he tells her that soon he'll be able to get rid of her unwanted powers, and then they totally do it right there on his lab table. I wish I were kidding. Mohinder's skin then starts peeling off, although if that's due to the injection or the Maya-sex is unclear. I vote for a combination of both.
Matt's still in the desert, and there's a funny bit where it looks like he's talking to a turtle, but he isn't, and there's really not much more to say about that other than that this particular desert is in Africa and some dude wants him to spirit-walk. Boooring.
Bob passive-aggressively tells Elle what a failure she is for "letting" Sylar get away. She comes back later to suggest that they use Unit 5 (that's where Bennet and the other prisoners from last episode are being held) as bait, only to find that Sylar has already killed him. She goes straight to Bennet, freeing him to help her take Sylar on, but Sylar immediately attacks her. Bennet shoots him several times, but is horrified when he regenerates. He incapacitates Bennet and then moves to cut Elle's head open, but she literally erupts with electrical energy, thwarting Sylar but also breaking open some of the cells and freeing Peter-in-Jesse (Weevil from Veronica Mars, heh) and Knox. Mama Petrelli then shows up, as she's in command now that Bob is dead, and fires Elle from the Company. Bennet comes home only long enough to tell Claire that the people Elle unintentionally freed from Unit 5 are villains, and must be stopped at any cost. Claire begs her dad to take him with her, but he won't, instead leaving a sentry to watch over his family -- Claire's fire-manipulating real mother, Meredith.
Hiro hires some expensive private detectives to get a line on Flashette -- her real name is Daphne, and she lives in Paris. He's also being all squirrely with Ando because of his experience in the future, but he takes him along to Paris, where he finds Daphne's hoarding a bunch of priceless works of art, including the Mona Lisa. He steals a cherished memento of hers as a bargaining chip, and through various time-stopping machinations, he starts to track her as she goes on a quest for the other half of the formula.
The Governor, despite the fact that it was HIS IDEA like three minutes ago, now isn't sure that Nathan is the right choice to appoint to the vacant junior senatorship of New York, so Tracy has to talk him into it. Once she convinces him, she goes to see Nathan, who of course thinks she's Niki, but it's pretty clear that she's not, as Linderman attests. On the other hand, no one can see Linderman but Nathan, so maybe we shouldn't take his word for it. Future Peter outs himself to Nathan, even confessing to trying to kill him, before telling him to make the right choices. Like, you know, NOT killing your brother. Nathan takes the offer, on the condition that Tracy join his staff. A reporter who's convinced she's Niki then threatens to go public with a video of that time Nathan and Niki did the Nasty, so she freezes him like she's liquid nitrogen and he's Robert Patrick. Future Peter returns to Unit 5 to free his present self, only to find Sylar strapped to a table, watched over by Mama Petrelli. Future Peter heads off to try to find Peter-as-Jesse, who's just now discovering what kind of murdering people he's hooked up with. Presumably both wanting to keep an eye on them and being aware that his appearance will put him at a disadvantage, though, he stays with them. And back at Unit 5, Mama Petrelli tells Sylar she's his mother. Because she didn't have enough sons who might destroy the world?
Click here for part 1 of the premiere. Plus, read our exclusive Heroes blog written by Jack Coleman, aka H.R.G.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We start back at the Bennet house, where we first see the episode title in a chyron that's folded up to look like a butterfly. Nice. The people who design and execute these effects really deserve an award. We pan left to see Sandra sweeping up some broken glass in the kitchen, an activity she puts on hold to tell Claire that whenever she's ready to talk about what happened, she's there. Claire's cleaned herself up, and in response to her mother's suggestion that they go to a motel for safety, says that Sylar isn't coming back. "He got what he came for." Sandra's mind immediately goes to the rape place, for which she could be forgiven if she hadn't met Sylar, but she has. She should just be happy Lyle wasn't home. Sandra then sees that Claire has her right hand buried in the jagged glass, apparently heretofore unbeknownst to Claire, and goes to get her a towel. When Claire removes the shard in her hand, though, it of course heals. With wonder but no joy, she tells her mother that she didn't feel any pain from the wound, which has never been the case before. "That pain, I've always been so grateful for. Because it's the only time I know I'm still human." I'll have to try to adopt that philosophy next time I have a root canal. Sandra has no idea what to say to that, so she and her adopted daughter sit in silence.
Mama Petrelli throws open the doors to a wing of what looks like a hospital or a mental facility or some such, and takes in a series of horrific sights: Hiro, slumped dead against a door, the Kensei sword buried in his chest. Matt, sitting dead in a chair, eyes still open. Claire, screaming as Knox shoves her up against some live wires. Bennet, lying dead. And finally, Peter, with a huge wound in his upper chest, collapsing against a wall and expiring. Knox drags Claire's body away from her severed head. Mama turns in abject fear, and sees her enemies close up into a phalanx: Adam, Ali Larter (don't know which person or personality it is yet), Maury Parkman and Knox. Sylar then grips her shoulders from behind...
...before, in the back seat of a town car, she snaps out of the dream and tries to collect herself. "Penny for your thoughts?" her chauffeur sadly does not say.
Mama Petrelli then shows up at Peter's apartment, where Future Peter is being kind enough to house-sit while his present self takes a little vacation from his body. She tells him that she had another unspeakable dream, and it's because he's not where he's supposed to be, so he should go back where he came from. He thinks he's saving the world, so she tartly responds, "You never were as smart as you thought you were. I see a few more years on this planet hasn't changed that." Heh. But... Peter actually thought he was smart? He's even dumber than I realized. He tells her there are things he knows that even she can't see, and he's aware of what she becomes. She replies that screwing with time results in the butterfly effect, and explains the concept, not realizing that Peter was actually a huge Ashton Kutcher fan before he got preoccupied with learning to fly and crap like that. Peter's insouciant about the whole thing until Mama Petrelli brings up Claire, saying that because Peter told her not to come to Odessa, she "ended up being where she wasn't supposed to be, and had a pretty bad day because of it." Of course, that makes no sense, because Claire wouldn't have had a reason to go to Odessa in the first place if Future Peter hadn't shot Nathan. That seems like a really bad error on the show's part, but I can get behind Mama Petrelli making Peter feel like shit even if there's no real reason for it. Peter refuses to unclench his jaw or his facial scars, so she tells him to go see for himself, and leaves.