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Hiro convinces Buddy to travel with him to America in order to save the world. He also does this awesome time-stopping trick to save a little girls life, and it's cool and adorable, all at the same time. Nathan tells everyone that Peter's flying trip was really a botched suicide attempt, and the brothers are now at odds with each other. Peter also makes out with Simone after he tells her he's in love with her and she decides that heroin addicts make lousy boyfriends.
Niki buries her dead out in the desert, only to find a big skull ring on one of the corpses that's already six feet under. The ring belonged to one of the members of Niki's husband's gang. Her hubby apparently stole a bunch of moola from the one mobster in Vegas that everyone steals/borrows from and then killed his own gang. SeanMatt proves to Clea that he can read minds when he listens in on her thoughts of low self-esteem. Sylar shows up and tries to steal the little girl from last week, and Clea and chases him down. He uses his Jedi mind tricks to get Clea to put her own gun to her head. SeanMatt shoots him dead and Clea is saved, but Sylar just gets up like nothing happened and runs off. We never see his face, so god only knows who the hell he really is or if we'll ever find out.
Mohinder pays a visit to Sylar's pad in Queens, and he and Pixie discover that not only is Sylar a neat freak who likes plastic-covered furniture, but he's also just a FREAK freak who collects specimens of things in dusty jars, has a map of all the Heroes on his wall just like Papa Suresh, and has a gargantuan guilt complex, judging by all the "I have sinned" scratches on his bathroom tiles. Suresh calls in the police, but by the time they get there, Sylar the Super Neat has cleaned the place out.
And finally, Claire gets frisky with a jockstrap quarterback, but decides she's not ready to go all the way. He's quite the little rape artist, though, and he attacks her. Unfortunately, he drives her jugular right into a gardening tool. Even more unfortunately, she comes to on the coroner's table after the tool is removed and looks down at her chest to see that she's been flayed like a Christmas goose. How the hell she'll recover from that one, I don't know. Not so invincible now, huh, Claire? Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Heroes: That announcer guy stopped taking his antibiotics and his strep throat got worse and his voice got more annoying, if that's even POSSIBLE, and a bunch of regular Joes discovered that they had special powers, and it would seem that they, and a bunch of other Heroes, are supposed to save New York from a nuclear bomb. In light of recent events, that storyline doesn't seem all that far-fetched, now does it?
We begin the episode, as always, with the title card, which tells us that we're at Chapter Three: One Giant Leap. The camera slips up and over the side of the cherry-red convertible and shows us a sleeping Micah. Niki's in the desert, digging an incredibly shallow grave for the two dead thugs. Again, Suresh gives us his expository voice-over: "When evolution selects its agents, it does so at a cost. It makes demands in exchange for its singularity, and you may be asked to do something against your very nature." Niki hits something with her shovel and we see her discover the same skull she discovered before. How long has she been digging in the same damn spot? The Angel of Continuity is clearly on her smoke break.
Niki comes across a skeletal hand with a big-ass silver ring on one of its fingers. She removes it and sees that it's a skull ring. Suresh: "Suddenly, the change in your life that should have been wonderful, comes as a betrayal." Niki runs to the car to get the bodies, even though the "grave" that she's dug wouldn't fit a flattened ferret. Suresh: "It may seem cruel, but the goal is nothing short of self-preservation. Survival." I have no idea what he's talking about half the goddamn time. And I'm not even sure it's Suresh Junior; it might be Papa Suresh. I don't know. He sounds like fucking Confucius. Niki opens the trunk and stares at the bodies.
We head to another trunk, this time in Odessa, Texas. Bad Glasses Man is pulling a bear in a football uniform out by the noose he was apparently hung by. That is the most awkward sentence I've ever written. And I should probably note that the bear is a fake. Claire made it for the celebratory bonfire later that night. As she and her creepy father walk toward the school, Claire makes eyes at the jockstrap from the other day. BGM comments on this. Claire's all, I don't like him! Giggle giggle! BGM's all, you so totally DO like him! And I'm going to kill him later! The snotty cheertator from the last episode simpers up and fakely compliments BGM on his nerd-o-riffic glasses. He thanks her and mentions her heroine status as the girl who saved the guy from the train wreck. She's all, oh, gee! Thanks so much! You heard about that? Claire's all, uh, dumb-ass? You only told everyone to TiVo the damn broadcast. Also? You're about thirty-two and far too old to be on the cheerleading team. Now go get me something flammable so I can set my hair on fire.
Jackie the Snotty Cheertator says that her fake heroism is going to be the cornerstone of her campaign for class president. She finally, thankfully, leaves and Claire gives her an awesomely snotty, "Tee hee!" as she goes. Heh. Claire heads to her locker, but not before BGM demands a kiss on the cheek. Ew. Uncle Inappropriate Touching, much? He calls after to her to be careful, and Claire makes a mental note to coat herself in Clorox as soon as possible.
Tokyo. The title card says "Hiro & Ando," so I guess we've finally learned Buddy's name and I can stop calling him "Buddy." Ando is watching Niki strip on his computer because obviously, in Tokyo, porn sites aren't blocked on workers' computers. He seems to be downloading it to his video iPod. Hiro pops up and Ando asks him where the hell he's been for the past two days. Hiro excitedly (is there any other way?) claims that he teleported into the future. Ando's like, yeah. And Anna Nicole Smith isn't a chicken-grease-covered drug-addled lawyer-marrying slut-bar. Hiro holds up his copy of 9th Wonders and says that it tells the story of his entire journey. He demands that Ando read it. Sure enough, as Ando pages through it, we see Hiro's trip.
Ando thinks Hiro's been hitting the sake, but Hiro just says that he found the author of the book, only he was dead. I love the way Hiro pushes his nerd glasses up onto his nerd nose with his whole nerd hand. It's so nerdish! Hiro explains about the nuclear bomb in New York and then says that it's up to he and Ando to stop it. Again, Ando's all, dude? Sake much? Hiro's all, you're in here too! He opens up the book to a page that repeats, word for word, the conversation they're currently having. Ando pretends that Hiro's crazy and says they have to get back to work. Hiro says he can prove everything to him beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hiro's wristwatch alarm starts to beep and he shouts that they have to get going because a little girl's life depends on them!
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Oh, good Christ. Peter's trying to fly again. When will he give it up already? Fortunately for him, he's decided that the whole rooftop ledge idea is a bit dangerous, so this time, he's just... on top of a jungle gym. Heh. He keeps jumping and hilariously landing face-first in the playground sand. Milo has really nice forearms. I'm not so crazy about his hair, but I can work with it. He climbs up onto the bars over and over as a little kid in a red cape made out of a towel watches him. The humiliation of falling several times in front of a child eventually becomes too much for Peter, so he heads off for some REAL humiliation at the hands of his brother Nathan.
Nate asks if Pete's going to come to his fundraiser party tonight and Pete says he is, but he needs to talk to him about something else. He tells his brother that he tried to fly again and Nate's like, dude? Ixnay on the iying-flay. Pete says he could fly last night, but today, he nearly broke his neck trying. "Well, that would've solved ONE of our problems," snots Nathan. He's such an ass. Peter says he went to the library to look up books on human flight and found Papa Suresh's book on activating evolution. He starts reading from the book out loud, which I'm sure Nathan appreciates because he's not IN THE MIDDLE OF ANYTHING. The book says that if genes determine obesity and blood pressure, why couldn't they determine human flight? Or something like that. I don't know. I'm too busy wondering if Adrian Pasdar's cheekbones taste like sugar.
Peter goes on to say that he thinks Papa Suresh knows what's going on, and that he called the university in India where he worked and was told that Suresh quit six months ago and is rumored to be living in New York. Incidentally, the man playing Papa Suresh is Erick Avari, whom I remember most fondly from the video game "Zork: Grand Inquisitor." ... What? Haven't I mentioned that I'm a royal geek?
Pete tells Nate that they have to find the Grand Inquisitor -- erm, I mean, Papa Suresh, and Nate says they have more immediate problems, namely some reporter who's poking around for answers on why Peter jumped. He says he needs to put a spin on this so that it doesn't appear that crazy runs in their family. Peter wants to figure out what's happening to them but Nathan has a campaign to win and a family to feed. He says that the one thing they can't tell the reporter is the truth. He flings the Suresh book onto a desk, and we cut to the same book on a table in Mohinder's apartment in Brooklyn. He's feverishly stabbing at the laptop keyboard when there's a sound at the door. He grabs a gun and cocks the hammer. In walks Pixie, brandishing a big white china bowl and a set of keys.
"Sorry!" she trills. "I still have your dad's keys!" Well, that's interesting. Seeing as just the other day you were talking about how you knocked and knocked but Papa Suresh was nowhere to be found. Why, if you had his keys, didn't you just, I don't know, OPEN THE DAMN DOOR? See, I don't think this is a character issue or even a bad acting issue; it's a sloppy writing issue. No, I don't think I could necessarily do better, but I do think that, if I were around, the Angel of Continuity wouldn't be over in the corner guzzling martinis and eyeballing the PAs. Get it together, dudes! You have a rockin' show here! Don't let it start sucking because someone had too many bong hits for breakfast!
Mohinder apologizes for the gun, and Pixie says she made a year's supply of macaroni and cheese for him. She comes over and plops down on the corner of his desk and tells him he looks like hell. "When's the last time you slept?" Mohinder just says he has a lot of work to do. Pixie rather clunkily asks about that program his father created and didn't he crack some code? Yeah, that wasn't too obvious or anything. Mohinder says that he thought the code had been cracked, but the algorithm is just gibberish. Pixie's turning on the flirt pretty hard, but Mohinder's not biting. He's too concerned that BGM has followed Mohinder all over the damn world to get this thing that's essentially nothing. Pixie wonders why Papa Suresh would build something that was nothing. "It was always this way with my father," says Mohinder. "Every question met with another question." Wow. Did Papa Suresh write for Lost?
Pixie asks about the map. Mohinder says that the map is nothing unless he can decipher the principle behind it. If he could find only one of the people on the map, it would validate everything Papa Suresh believed. But he can't. Pixie tells him that his father had a lot of faith in him, but Mohinder's pissed that his dad wasted years of his life on this fruitless pursuit and now he's doing the same. We get a glimpse of the code on the computer and once again we see that bizarre DNA-type shadow within it. Mohinder picks up the computer and flings it into the room. Pixie runs after it and bizarrely finds some book somehow released from the casing. I... have no idea. It's seriously as thick as a small address book. How it got stuck into a laptop... yeah. Clearly, I need more alcohol. So, Mohinder opens the book and finds all kinds of notes scrawled within it. There are also tiny baggies of what look like blood samples stapled to pages. Mohinder turns one of the pages and sees an address for Sylar in Queens. He also finds a key taped to the back cover. Pixie (who, according to the captions, is actually named "Eden," but I don't care because she'll either turn out to be evil or stupid, so I'm not going to bother calling her by her real name) asks what it is. Oh, so she IS stupid. It's a key, dummy! You had a bunch of 'em in your hand not five minutes ago! Mohinder just says it's another question, and we head off to check on Sean/Matt.
He's at the FBI and he's still being questioned by Clea DuVall and she's not buying any of his bullshit. Someone's behind the two-way mirror taking notes, although we don't see who it is. Matt tries to explain that it was like someone was talking to him, only it was in his head. Clea pounces on this and asks if the voices tell him anything else, like, you know, "Kill your landlord!" or "Fruit is for Thursdays ONLY!" or "That beelzebang does not belong to you and it's really a muzzlepartok anyway!" Matt says that it's more like he can hear people's thoughts. Clea walks over to him. "Can you tell me what I'm thinking?" He says he can't because he can't control it; it just happens. She tells him to give it a shot. He half-assedly says she thinks he's nuts or stupid. "Stop wasting my time," she says with a sneer. Suddenly, Matt hones in on her thoughts and after a second, they become clear: "Come on, Parkman. I need this more than you. Nobody believes in me." "Nobody believes in you!" he says. "I know what that's like." Clea looks decidedly spooked. Matt rubs his hands over his face as Clea shoots a glance over her shoulder at whoever is behind the glass. Matt asks how much longer he has to be there and she says it depends. "How'd you like to work with the FBI?" Matt's stunned, but he nods his agreement.
Odessa. We're at Claire's locker as she's taking out a geometry book. Several posters pointed out that the DNA-like symbol shows up here, so I paused the TiVo and sure enough, there it is, right on the spine of the book. Nerdeo's spazzing off at Claire because she's leaving for an away game and the tape of her suicide experiments is missing and possibly in nefarious hands. Claire dismisses his concern and tries to walk away from him. Nerdeo keeps after her, amazed that she's just going to cheer and pump her pompoms and pretend she's like any other girl. Claire's quite content with being like any other girl, seeing as, if she announced her special powers to the world, she'd wind up a freak or a guinea pig or both; not really a future she relishes. "What's wrong with wanting to be normal?" she asks. "You should try it." Normal's overrated, Claire. Take it from someone who hasn't been normal since about 1975.
Isaac's Den of Iniquity. Simone is moving paintings around, one of which seems to be of Claire walking away from Nerdeo as we just witnessed in the scene. So... what? Isaac's visions capture exits from scenes? His talent isn't very exciting sometimes. Isaac enters and Simone tells him that he's late with his comic book work. He notices what she's been doing and accuses her of trying to take the paintings. She just says she was getting them ready for a gallery showing. With the money they earn, they can get him into rehab. He says he isn't going into rehab. Well, since Simone just dumped your stash of heroin down the toilet, I'd say rehab might be a good idea right about now, Isaac. He's worried that he won't be able to paint the future without it, and Simone's sick of listening to his shit. Tawny Cypress has the most amazing eyes, by the way. They kind of freak me out.
Isaac yells at her that every one of his paintings has come true. "Oh!" scoffs Simone. "And does that include this big one on the floor of New York going nuclear?" Isaac says it does; he doesn't know how or when, but he has to stop it. He takes her head in his hands and says he doesn't want to lose her. "But if you don't believe in me, then you shouldn't be here." She looks like she's on the verge of giving in, but finally, she just looks at him sadly. He backs away, realizing that she doesn't believe in him at all. "Fine," she says. "You believe you can paint the future? Paint one without me in it." She slinks off. Isaac's phone rings and he picks up. It's Hiro, hollering at him in Japanese. "Stop calling me here!" says Isaac. "You've got the wrong number!" He hangs up and we switch to Hiro, furiously redialing Isaac on his cell phone.
Ando wants to know who Hiro keeps calling and he says it's the author, but he keeps hanging up on him! Ando's like, uh duh, crazy man. Hiro stops suddenly and Ando bangs into him all Keystone Kop-like and Hiro says that this is the spot they need to be in to save the girl. He looks in the comic and we see them standing in that exact same spot and Hiro explains that a little girl steps out in front of a speeding train and they have to save her. "What schoolgirl?" asks Ando. Just then, about a billion little schoolgirls, all dressed alike, invade the square. Hiro notices that the girl in the book has a red bow, so they split up to look for a girl with a red bow.
Seconds pass, but no little girl appears. A truck approaches, and Hiro looks up to see a little girl with a red bow walking directly in front of it. He hollers at Ando to stop the truck and Ando runs toward it, only to have the truck swerve completely out of the way... and directly toward the little girl. So, essentially, Hiro actually PLACED the girl in danger instead of saving her. Ando calls out to the girl, she turns and sees the truck, and Hiro shuts his eyes. And time stops. You heard me. Stops. Little girl jumping rope? Stopped in mid-jump. Some man running? Leg up in the air. Little girl about to get hit by truck? Just sitting there, as if someone hit the pause button. It's a really cool effect, by the way, and I'm not entirely sure how they did it. Which, to tell you the truth, I am totally digging right now.
Hiro runs over and shoves the immobile girl out of the way as if she's a marble statue and the second that he does, time restarts and the truck crashes into a bunch of tables, injuring no one. "Yatta!" hollers Hiro, which is really what I think his superhero name should be. Like, SuperYatta! Or something like that. He runs over to Ando, who, it would seem, finally believes him. They dance around each other like a couple of caffeine-fueled monkeys. It's awesome. "So, you believe me now?" asks Hiro. "You'll come with me?" Ando just looks at him with his mouth gaping open. Oh, just say yes, Ando! You know you can't resist the wily charms of SuperYatta!
Vegas. Home of Shallow Ditch-Diggers with Multiple Personalities. Niki's covering up the face of Greaso with a last shaking of sand. She seriously buried them about an inch beneath the surface. Also? Micah has slept through ALL of this, even though it appears to be high noon and his mother has been grunting and digging all damn night. She takes the shovel to the car and looks at the ring again. Micah finally wakes up and asks where they are. She says they're on their way to Grandma's house, and they drive off. Wonder if ikiN's going to handle cleaning out the trunk the way she cleaned out the garage? Because at this point, it's had two dead bodies in it for approximately twenty-four hours. I would think it's bloody, dirty, and disgusting right about now. But, since Niki's been digging an inch-deep ditch for a whole day, who am I to question continuity? That being said, Angel of Continuity? Tuck in your goddamn wings, buckle up your combat boots, haul your gargantuan ass off that beanbag chair, and start PAYING ATTENTION.
Once at Grandma's house, Niki looks more than peeved as Micah's grandmother runs to meet them. She warmly hugs Micah and then tells Niki that she looks thin. I don't think they're fond of each other. A bit later, Micah's in the room as Grandma and Niki basically talk all about him and his jailbird father without really being concerned that the boy ISN'T DEAF and is REASONABLY INTELLIGENT. I shit you not, they're just all, you're not taking care of your son and don't tell me what to do and my husband's a delinquent and murdered people and don't you talk about my precious baby that way, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CHILD. I'm just saying -- put the kid in the back room before you start trash-talking his father, okay? Kid's not a moron.
So, whatever, Grandma thinks she can give Micah a better home environment than Niki, and Niki wisely points out that D.L. didn't grow up to be such a model citizen, what with the jail time and all. Grandma says that D.L. is a good man and Niki slaps the skeleton ring down on the counter, asking her if she recognizes it. Grandma plays stupid, and Niki says it belonged to one of the men that D.L. murdered. She says that all of D.L.'s "crew" wore these rings, and Grandma just says that D.L. wouldn't murder anyone. Niki's all, wrong-o! He robbed Linderman of two million dollars, then killed his crew. Grandma thinks he was framed. "He'd be rotting in some prison if he hadn't escaped." Don't sound so proud there, lady; framed or not, "prison escapee" ain't exactly something you want on your résumé, okay?
Grandma goes on to say that if D.L. had two million dollars, he'd be on some tropical island someplace kickin' back with his son. Niki's had it. She tells Grandma that she wants her out of Micah's life. "Well," says Grandma in a snotty tone, "people in hell want ice water; doesn't mean they're going to get it." "Paulette," says Niki, starting to lose her temper, "you have no idea what I am capable of." Watch out, Paulette. You don't want to make her angry. Bad shit happens when Niki has a crappy day. Niki grabs the ring and walks out, and Paulette looks far too pleased with herself. I wouldn't be surprised if Paulette showed up with a slab of mirror sticking out of the back of her skull at some point in the near future.
Meanwhile, Matt's following Clea around, wondering just what in the hell he's signed up for. Clea says they need him to talk to Molly Walker, the little girl he helped save. Molly hasn't said a word since they brought her there after her parents were murdered right in front of her. "What makes you think she's going to talk to me?" asks Matt. "Well, if you're really a mind-reader, she won't need to," quips Clea. He asks her who Sylar is and what he's doing and Clea tells him that they've pieced a trail across a dozen states: all people impaled by household objects, all without any traceable sign of physical contact. "But only some of them involve any mutilation of the head and neck," she says, "so they don't see the connections." Matt surmises that Clea thinks it's all Sylar. She thinks it's going to get a lot worse if someone doesn't go after him.
Don't worry. Someone's already going after him. It's Mohinder and Pixie and they're in Queens, knocking on Sylar's door. Mohinder tries the key he found in the back of the little book, but it doesn't work. Pixie thinks they should leave. I think Pixie doesn't want Mohinder to see the inside of Sylar's apartment. Mohinder breaks in rather easily and we see that Sylar is a bit of a neat freak. Okay, that's putting it mildly. I'm a neat freak (you should see the crease in my sheets!); Sylar is... an obsessive-compulsive sociopath maniac who probably alphabetizes his underwear. Mohinder takes digital pictures of everything as they explore the territory.
Sylar has a copy of Papa Suresh's book, of course, as well as many other books probably dealing with genetics, mutations, and good god! What in the HELL is in that book Pixie's looking at? It looks like a head peeled open to reveal a brain! Gahhhh! Pixie doesn't seem at all phased by it. Mohinder's elbow knocks into a mirrored door, revealing a hidden passage to John Doe's apartment in Se7en. He makes his way through a hallway that appears to have specimen jars lining it. As he turns the corner, he sees a map just like his father's on the wall, only with lots more strings and a ton of pictures of actual people. Mohinder takes dozens of pictures. "That map," breathes Pixie, pretending to be stupid, "those strings, it's exactly like your fathers!" "Not exactly," says Mohinder. "This map has more of them. Dozens more." Pixie steps up and points out a picture of Nathan on the map. Looks like Sylar was on the right track. "His life may be in danger," says Mohinder. Ya think? Pixie begs Mohinder to leave, but he's not ready yet. He opens some black vinyl curtains and reveals what I think is a bathroom. Only, instead of tiles, a shower curtain, and some toiletries, there's a dim light bulb and walls scrawled with "Forgive me" and "I have sinned" and "Sinner." "Dear god," says Mohinder. "What was my father involved with?"
Clea and Matt head down to an FBI subbasement to visit Molly. Too bad they aren't at the CIA; they could run into Syd and Vaughn pretending not to love each other. Suddenly, Molly screams. The lights are flickering wildly. Clea shouts that it's Sylar, and she and Matt run toward the screaming. They slam through some doors and we see a man in a baseball cap dragging Molly out of a room. Clea hollers at him to freeze, but he just drops Molly and runs off. Clea chases him. Matt runs up to Molly and sees an FBI agent pinned to the ceiling by a chair. Ouch. He crouches down to Molly and tries to tell her it's okay. She doesn't say anything, but her thoughts wonder how Sylar could have found her. Matt tells her that doesn't matter now, and she jumps up into his arms as he says she's safe.
Clea chases Sylar into a dead end and orders him to put his hands in the air. He turns, and suddenly, Clea slams back into some metal shelves as if someone's powerfully shoved her. Then she puts her own gun to her head, even though it looks as if she has no choice in the matter. Sylar has himself one powerful brain. Clea tries to stop herself from pulling the trigger, but Sylar's too strong for her. Matt runs in, just in time, and fills Sylar full of lead. Sylar drops and so does Clea. Matt turns to ask if she's okay and she says she is, and then her face fills with horror. From behind Matt, we see Sylar basically float up to his feet as if lifted by a crane. Matt turns, but Sylar's gone. He runs over to see that Sylar's actually just... flown up to the ceiling and disappeared. So, let's count that up, shall we? Sylar can hear voices, he can make other people do things with his mind, he's indestructible, and he can fly. It would seem he has a little bit of Matt's, Claire's and Nathan's powers, hm? We haven't met anyone yet who can possess other people and make them do their bidding, but the season's still young.
After the break, we catch up with Ando and Hiro as they're jetting their way to America with a big bouffant-ed lady between them. Ando's confused; if Hiro called him from the future, shouldn't he be at home, waiting for the call? Hiro explains that they're changing the future, just by taking action. Ando continues to worry and fret about how they're heading toward a potential nuclear bomb instead of away from one. "A hero doesn't run away from his destiny," chides Hiro good-naturedly. The Bouffant-ed One crams herself between the two men, trying to get comfy for her long trans-Pacific flight, as Hiro wonders aloud if he's supposed to hide his true identity behind a costume. "If you even mention tights and a cape, I'm going home," snaps Ando. Hiro's all, you can't go home! The comic book says we fly together, so we have to fly together! You ARE flying together, Hiro. And unless Ando wants to strap on a parachute and punch a hole in one of the windows, I'd say he's not going anywhere, okay? Ando's less than pleased with their current accommodations and asks if the comic book says they have to fly coach. Hiro holds out the book and there's a panel with the Bouffant-ed One snoring on Ando's disgruntled shoulder as Hiro reads in the other seat. Sure enough, the Bouffant-ed one turns just then and puts her big puffy head on Ando's shoulder. He looks like he wants to light her hair on fire. Hiro just giggles and giggles. Hee.
Simone and Peter meet up in the lobby of her father's building. Peter's leaving; he's been training his replacement and saying goodbye to Simone's dad. He's quitting the nursing biz. Simone seems crushed that Peter's leaving her father's side. She doesn't want him to go. "This is not where I'm supposed to be," says Peter. "It's not what I'm supposed to do. I can't really explain it." She tells him to try, and Peter just says he's meant for something bigger. Yes, because caring for the dying is so meaningless. I really really REALLY wish they'd picked a different profession for Peter to keep disparaging. They share a moment where they smile at each other and he touches her arm. He walks away and Simone says that she'll miss him. This makes him stop and turn and say something pithy about how they're in New York and everyone runs into each other sooner or later. That was really deep. Now go jump off a building, Peter.
Bonfire of the Vanities and Underage Drinking and/or Sex. Jackie the Snotty Cheertator is entertaining the drunken masses with her made-up tale of fire heroism. Claire stands a few feet away, watching the bear mascot go up in flames on the bonfire. The jockstrap quarterback joins her and they make mindless flirty chit-chat for a second or two. Jockstrap says he'd like the mascot better if it was filled with firecrackers, and Claire agrees. At one point, he pulls her back from the flames, saying that she'd better be careful or she'll wind up like the mascot. And when he does this, I have to tell you, I got an immediate vibe of "teen rapist" off of him. But that could just be because he's wearing a douche-o-riffic leather choke collar around his neck.
Jock the Rapist invites Claire over to the keg for a drink and she worries that the drinking thing may not be a good idea. He assures her that they're thirty miles from home and, apparently, none of their parents own cars nor do any of their teachers, so who's gonna know? Jock the Rapist mentions that Jackie the Snotty Cheertator told him Claire wants to meet her real parents. Claire's like, what is this, ADVERTISED SOMEWHERE? He asks if the adoption thing, just finding out like that, is what's bumming her out. Claire says her parents told her when she was young, so it's not that. And why would he think she's bummed? He says she hasn't seemed like herself lately and he thought something might be wrong. "You don't know me well enough to know when I'm not being myself," she says, but her face is shyly glowing as she says it. Jock the Rapist then runs down a litany of things that he's observed about her that any girl with a modicum of sense would immediately flag as stalker-tastic. She never drinks plain milk, only chocolate; she draws mermaids in the margins of her notebooks; she puts crackers in her sandwiches and so on. This is a guy who, if he weren't going to be attempting to rape her here in a minute, would totally wind up dripping wet in her college dorm room with a goat's heart in a box and a picture of HER wrapped around it. I am so not kidding here.
Jock the Rapist says that Claire's usually the first person to laugh at a joke, but he hasn't heard her laugh in awhile. "Lately, you seem sort of sad," he says. She's not sad, dillweed, she's INDESTRUCTIBLE. That look on her face is a look of anti-destructiveness, not melancholy! Claire asks, rightfully so, if he's been spying on her, and instead of saying, "HELL YES I HAVE," Jock the Rapist just says his goal tonight is to hear her laugh. Just then, the mascot's head explodes in a shower of small firecrackers, and Claire does indeed laugh. She giggles and asks Jock the Rapist if he put firecrackers in the head just for her, and he answers her with a kiss. He takes her hand and they walk off as Jackie the Snotty Cheertator looks after them with an expression of, "Why oh why can't I be the one he attacks on the bleachers?!" Don't worry, Jackie. You'll get your chance. You're not even out of high school yet; you have your entire college career to fend off drunken eejits.
We then see a woman lounging on a bed, staring into a laptop computer. Matt enters and comments that the woman waited up for him, so I guess this is his wife. The wife he was supposed to attend counseling with earlier, before he got arrested for sticking household implements into innocent people and removing their brains. Mrs. Parkman is immediately cheesed off at her husband, and he immediately starts apologizing for missing the session. He meant to call her, but he forgot because he had the most amazing, incredible, insane day today and he doesn't even know how to begin to describe it. Save your breath, Matt; Mrs. Parkman stopped listening right about the minute you opened the front door. In fact, she just tells him not to bother telling her about it. "That's it?" he says, incredulous. "That's it? You waited up all this time so you could tell me you don't want to talk to me?" Pretty much, Matt.
She says that she doesn't want this to turn into a fight, and if they talk, she's sure it will. She then pulls that passive-aggressive "our marriage means nothing to you" bullshit that some people are really good at. I'm an expert at the strategically placed "Nothing" myself. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Really? You seem weird." "Huh. That's funny. Because I don't FEEL weird." "No, really, what's wrong?" "Oh, NOTHING." My boyfriends LOVE that. Matt blows up at her, saying that he does care about this marriage, but he has a lot of shit going on right now; you know, like SAVING THE WORLD? She just gets in his face and says that she has a lot of shit going on too and that it was supposed to be a good thing when she made associate at the firm but ever since she did, it's been like he's mad at her for getting what she wanted because he hasn't. Oh, burn. Not his fault he's dyslexic and a bad test-taker, lady. Why don't you go put your bra on and go get us some damn Dove bars and make yourself useful instead of bringing everybody down?
The second she drops the insult in his lap, she immediately looks regretful and pushes past him so her back is to him. Matt says he doesn't mean to be unhappy about her success, it's just that it's hard for him. "I can't do this anymore," she says in her mind. "I wish he would just leave." It's unclear whether or not Matt realizes that she hasn't actually said this out loud, but he responds, "Fine. I will." Mrs. Parkman looks baffled as to how her husband somehow heard her thoughts. He leaves to go get drunk and listen to the thoughts of sad barflies.
Oh, ew. Claire's making out with Jock the Rapist on the bleachers. He leans her back and they both seem to be enjoying it thoroughly until Jock starts sticking his hands up her spanky pants. ("Where the HELL are my spanky pants?") Claire stops him and tells him they should take a little break. He asks if she wants to go back to the party in a kind of annoyed tone, and she just says she's going through something and she doesn't know quite how to handle it. Jock totally understands. If by "totally understands," you mean "starts to stick his tongue in her ear." She tells him to stop, and he grabs her by the shoulders and turns her around, saying, "You know what? You just need to relax." Yes, because being grabbed is so RELAXING.
Jock the Rapist decides that this can go one of two ways: he can either lull her into a false sense of security by saying that she's pretty and he'll take care of her, or he can just start shoving his tongue into every available facial orifice she has and hope she's not strong enough to fight him off. He chooses the latter. He pushes her back on the bleachers, and she does her best to get him to stop, but he's got about a hundred pounds on her and a hard-on for young flesh. They fall to the ground and Claire starts screaming as he rips open her sweater and tells her to be quiet. He then -- oh, this poor actor -- puts his forearm up against her throat and says, "Don't be a bitch! Let it happen!" Guh. I sincerely feel sorry for any actor who has to perform a rape on someone, or be the rape victim. That shit is NOT fun, especially if you happen to be a nice person. I don't know if this actor is nice or not, but still. Gross.
At any rate, he doesn't get a chance to rape Claire, because she manages to get her knee up and give him a hefty kick. He falls off her and she tries to run away, only to have him get up and grab her and slam her against the chain link fence. She falls and is immediately silent. That can't be good. Jock the Rapist goes to her and calls her name, but she doesn't answer. He tries to pull her up, but there's this sticky sound and a branch breaks and it would appear that Claire has a big twig stuck into her head. Don't worry. She's indestructible. That'll probably just give her a headache.
Jesus. We're back with Niki and Micah. I'm sorry. I'm so bored with her storyline right now. Like, figure out what the hell your mirror-ganger is already! Actually, I want EVERYONE to figure out their damn powers already. Get on board with Hiro, okay? I'm tired of Nathan fighting his, I want Peter to stop whinging about how his doesn't always work, I want Isaac to stop taking smack to see the future, I want Claire to own up to hers and start kicking some ass, and I want Matt to start doing shows in Vegas because that shit makes money, yo. I realize it's only three episodes in, but if some serious shit doesn't start happening soon, I'm going to ride a pogo stick to Tim Kring's office in L.A. and drive it right up his butt.
Ahem.
Niki says to Micah that he hasn't spoken during the entire drive and asks him if he's hungry. When he doesn't answer, she tries bribing him with ice cream, but Micah's just had a front row seat to The Grandma and Mommy Hate Each Other Show, so he's not really taking the bait. He asks her why she doesn't believe that daddy's innocent. She says that she knows he wants to believe in his dad, but she knows what's best. "They're gonna catch him and he's gonna go away for a long time." "They'll never find him," says Micah with a chortle and quite a bit of confidence. Niki's all, uh, how the hell do you know that? Do you know where your father is? Before he can answer, sirens can be heard from behind the car. Niki pulls over. The cop walks up and tells her that Mr. Linderman wants to see her. Oh, shit. "I'm with my son," says Niki under her breath. The cop doesn't care and just opens her car door. They both exit.
Petrelli's Party for Overly Ambitious Assholes. Everyone's having a grand old time at the fundraiser. Even Peter, who seems to have gotten his hands on a nice suit, a quart of hair gel, and a vat of vodka. Speaking of which... Peter runs into Simone, although what the fuck she's doing there, I don't know. She's neither a politician nor a person who gives money to politicians. She wears the hell out of a red dress, though. Peter holds up his glass and says, "To destiny. May we recognize it when we see it." Simone holds her glass up in kind and says, "To love. May we stay away from it when it's no good for us." Now that's a toast I can get behind. Cheers, everybody!
They clink glasses and sip and then Simone says that she's noticed a change in Peter. "It's like... a look in your eye," she says. "A confidence." Peter bites his lip and says there's something he should tell her. "Something I didn't think was right to say when I was still working with your father. Something I wouldn't even have told you two days ago." Simone smiles at him. "I've been in love with you since the moment I first laid eyes on you," he says. Before Simone can respond or Peter can elaborate, Nathan the Interrupting Jackass gets on the microphone to bring the evening to a crashing end. He apologizes for the rain outside and promises that, if he's elected, he'll try and do something about that. Don't joke about shit like that, Nathan; you can fly -- what's to say you can't make a few storm clouds go away too? Simone, by the way, doesn't look displeased by Peter's announcement; rather, she looks kind of flattered and bemused. Peter, meanwhile, looks a bit uncomfortable and keeps checking back to see if she's run for the hills yet. Buck up, little soldier! You're hot! She's hot! It'll all work out for the best, I swear. Or Nathan will just announce that you didn't fly the other day but you were attempting to commit suicide because you're suffering from depression. That could happen too.
Before Nathan gets to humiliate his brother, though, he has to mention that his "brave wife" would be here if she could, but she can't. She's totally in a wheelchair, y'all. Or she's being kept in a coma to keep Nathan's flying secret from hitting the presses. Nathan says that his father's death is what prompted him to run for Congress and that Papa Petrelli hid a deep depression up until the day he died. You can see where this is going, can't you? "As many of you may have read, my brother Peter had an accident," says Nathan as Peter looks up at him with a warning in his eyes. "What I have kept from the press thus far is that Peter barely survived a suicide attempt." Oh no he didn't! Mama Petrelli looks back at Peter, and I can't tell if she looks like she knew about this or if it's a complete surprise. She looks concerned for Peter, but I'm still on the fence as to whether or not she's a bad guy. Nathan goes on to say that he wanted to keep Peter's illness hidden, but "no one should suffer alone." I have to say that Mama Petrelli looks awfully proud of Nathan here. "Because we are all connected somehow," says Nathan. "Everyone in this room." Peter finally leaves as Simone looks after him.
Los Angeles Airport. Hiro is repeating "Nissan Versa" at a car rental counterperson over and over again. She says it's a popular car choice and she'll go check to see if there are any left. Ando says they have a connecting flight for New York, so why the hell are they renting a car? Hiro says they're not flying; the comic book has them renting a Nissan Versa and driving all the way. Luckily, the counterperson has one last Nissan Versa in the lot. Imagine that. Hiro holds up the keys with a serious expression and says, "It's our destiny." Once in the car, Ando holds up his video iPod and watches his Niki video for a second. I really don't know why he's so obsessed with her; she's not even naked or doing naughty things to a donkey. Ando asks where they're going; after consulting the comic book, Hiro says, "Las Vegas." Now it's Ando's turn to say, "It's our destiny." He's VERY excited about going to Las Vegas. Well, who wouldn't be? I had Elvis tattooed on my ass in Vegas right before I got married to Beavis. Or was it Butthead?
Speaking of buttheads, Matt's just arrived at the local watering hole. The bartender asks how he's doing and Matt, being the sad sack that he is, actually starts to ANSWER him. "God, it's a rhetorical question," says the bartender's thoughts. "Just say 'fine' and order a drink." Matt immediately does what he says and orders a beer. As he sits there, he starts picking up thoughts from everyone around him. The guy at the end of the bar is wondering if he has time for another beer because he doesn't want to go home to his shrew of a wife. Matt, having a shrew of his own, kind of nods at the guy, but since the guy has no idea that Matt can hear his thoughts, he just nods back and thinks, "What's he looking at? Barking up the wrong tree, pal." Heh.
Matt then hears a woman behind him think, "What am I doing here? Am I that desperate?" Apparently, she is, because she's on a date with a total loser who's thinking, "She is diggin' me. I'm in for sure." Hee. Matt giggles because he's been there before; hell, we've ALL been there before. He's kind of getting into his newfound ability and seems to be getting better at it too. He turns and hears a woman wonder if she just disappeared, would anyone even care? Then Matt looks across the room and sees a bald black man staring directly at him as thoughts fling at him from around the bar. The second Matt centers on him, everything goes silent. He hears nothing. Either the man has no thoughts at all, or he's hiding them from Matt. By the way he's looking at him, I'd say it's the latter. The sounds of the bar clatter back in and Matt kind of looks down into his beer, wondering what just happened. He gets up to leave and suddenly grabs the bar and then falls to the floor. Yeah. Bald Black Man is one of the baddies, I'd say.
We switch to Mohinder, leading some cops into Sylar's apartment. Unfortunately, someone has cleaned the place out of every last scrap of, well, anything. Including, I imagine, the sinner graffiti in the bathroom.
Then we're with Nathan and his compatriots as he's telling a joke or something. Suddenly, Peter comes out of nowhere and punches him in the face. "You son of a bitch!" he shouts. Nate's bodyguards shove Peter up against a pole, but Nate tells them to let him go. "Easy there, Pete," says Nathan, touching his jaw. "That's our mother you're talking about." Heh. Peter yells at him that there was never any reporter on his story and Nate says there would have been eventually. "I had to take control of things before something happened--" Peter clocks him again. Hee! Go Peter! Nate just says "ow" and then asks Peter if he gets it. Peter gets it, all right: his brother is an asshole. He walks off into the rain. "Good man!" says Nate, giving him a thumbs-up. Heh. ... I'm sorry. Adrian Pasdar is awesome at playing ambitious pricks.
While Shankar sings across the soundtrack, we see Isaac in his studio, looking through his sketchbook. There are lots of drawings of Simone. Simone catches up with Peter in the rain and he explains that what Nathan said isn't true; he didn't try to kill himself. She says she knows. And then they kiss. And lo, it is very hot indeed. Isaac keeps leafing through his sketchbook and comes upon a picture of Peter and Simone kissing beneath a red umbrella in the rain. He looks over at his heroin gear. "This force, evolution," says Suresh, "is not sentimental." We see Claire's face, her eyes filmed over, her skin the color of ash. A coroner's glove-clad hand pulls what looks like a chicken foot out of Claire's skull. Suresh: "Like the earth itself, it knows only the hard facts of life's struggles with death." The corner drops the chicken-foot branch into a steel bowl. "All you can do is hope and trust," continues Suresh as the film disappears from Claire's eyes and her skin tone returns to normal. She gasps and starts coughing. "And when you've served its needs faithfully, there may still remain some glimmer... " Claire looks down at herself and sees that her chest has been completely flayed open and her ribs and internal organs are exposed. "... of the life you once knew." Claire looks over to her left and sees all the autopsy instruments and says, "Holy sh--"
And... scene.
Holy shit indeed.
on Heroes: Matt has to take his shirt off so Bad Glasses Man can perform some Inappropriate Touching on him, Claire takes revenge on Jock the Rapist, Mohinder and Peter meet, Niki and Nathan meet, and Hiro uses his good for the evils of gambling.