In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Matt -- on suspension after punching his wife's boyfriend -- is brought in to the FBI to interrogate Ted. He's told he only gets an hour before DHS takes over on the assumption that Ted is radioactive because he's a terrorist who's been messing around with bomb materials. Matt discovers that Ted's experience of turning super -- drunk, Haitian guy, passed out for a few days, wake up with big headache and weird powers -- is very like Matt's own; also, they both now have neck tattoos that look like two hash marks. Unfortunately, Matt doesn't get the FBI the info it wants in time, but although Ted gets hauled off, in the time it takes Matt to go home and have an awkward conversation with his wife about her infidelity (upshot: they're going to try to make a go of it anyway), Ted starts a fire in the vehicle he's being transported in and takes off to avoid being Gitmoed. Mohinder, back in India, sends off his father's remains and makes to go back to work. We meet Mira, spparently a lost love, who discredited his father's research and is now in some big fancy job at a private genetic research company. She tells Mohinder she can get him in, as long as he doesn't make with the crazy talk about Chandra's research. Mohinder then discovers (or at least this is how it appears to me) that his power is to figure shit out in semi-waking dreams, with the assistance of a kid with a soccer ball who may or may not be Boy Mohinder; at any rate, his dreams lead him to take a key he found in Chandra's stuff and use it to open a locked desk drawer, in the back of which he finds a file full of sleep studies and a photo of the soccer kid. It's kind of awesome that the guy with the boring exposition disease turns out to be Nap Man. In Texas, we see Bennet go in to his office -- a paper company/shady front -- where Eden has been helping Isaac through heroin withdrawal. Bennet tells Isaac he believes that Isaac really can paint the future, and tells him that the cheerleader Isaac's been painting is Claire. Her Homecoming Dance is the day, and Bennet fears that she's going to be killed there unless Isaac paints what is to happen so that Bennet can prevent it. Isaac tries, but can't get his precog powers working without heroin, so Bennet gets him some and tells Eden to give it to him. She gets pissed; Bennet darkly hints that he got her off junk so she owes him, and a now super-pissed Eden does indeed get Isaac to shoot up again, possibly by whispering something super-persuasive into his ear that we don't hear. Anyway, the heroin does get Isaac all cloudy-eyed and painting again. Bennet also tells Isaac that there are a bunch of special people around the world that Bennet has been trying to protect from (without using his name) Sylar, who's been killing supers. Finally: in Midland, Texas, we meet Charlie, a diner waitress who's recently noticed that she has an extraordinarily awesome memory. She waits on Ando and Hiro, the latter of whom cutely develops a giant crush on her. Also studying her carefully? Sylar, who waits for her to go to the back and then cuts the top of her head off, killing her. Hiro tells Ando that she was killed the same way he saw Isaac killed in the future, so he says he's going to go back in time and prevent her death. He promises to be back five seconds later, but Ando tells him Hiro doesn't know how to control his powers well enough to try that shit yet...and Ando turns out to be right, and is left loitering around the diner waiting for Hiro. At least we know that Hiro has been successful in going backward, because we see a snapshot on the diner bulletin board of Hiro a while back at Charlie's birthday party. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Shut up, Mohinder. Fine: the earth is large, but not so large that you can hide from shit forever. On a beach in India, mourners watch as Mohinder dumps his father's ashes into the ocean (well, he does -- and rightly so, because ocean breezes can be really powerful and fan cremains around in unfortunate ways; if it taught us nothing else, The Big Lebowski at least taught us that), and then waves a burning stick of incense around. A woman approaches -- Mohinder's mother, obviously -- and tells him that his father's moved on to the life. Sendhil Ramamurthy does his best to weep, but can summon only the dry cries in an effort so poor as to be practically Van Der Beekian.
Isaac wakes up to his face being daubed with a damp washcloth. Of course it's held by Eden, who is perched on the edge of his bed, telling him she thought she'd clean him up a little. The room, as we pull out...well, I've never been in rehab (no matter what you've read on The Smoking Gun, thank you very much), but the room certainly looks typical of the nicer rehab facilities I've seen on other TV shows and in, like, Postcards From The Edge (a movie which, if you haven't seen it, you should; it'll give you a real endolphin rush): the bed is narrow, with an institutional-looking fake-wood headboard and matching nightstand beside it; there's a tall plant in the corner; a placid, soothing landscape hangs over the bed; and the only light comes from a pair of table lamps with mellow cream-coloured shades. Isaac looks disoriented and makes slow, fidgety movements as Eden tells him he's had "a rough couple of days," but is now doing great and will be "completely clean in no time." As Eden starts smearing shaving cream on his cheek, Isaac groggily asks her whether she's sure he'll still be able to paint. "After I teach you, yes," says Eden cryptically. She's going to teach him art? I foresee some tampons in some teacups. "The drugs were just a facilitator," Eden explains. "That mural on the floor? We're not gonna let that happen." "You seem pretty sure," Isaac tells her, taking her hand. I don't know how he can have any confidence in her teaching skills if she doesn't at least know that "murals" are seldom on floors, hello, take a Latin class. Eden says she is sure. But how? "Because I went through the same thing myself," she exposits, busting out a straight razor and gingerly shaving Isaac's cheek. What the hell kind of whack rehab facility allows straight razors? When I was at Hazelden, they...
...um, anyway, the shot finds Eden walking through some kind of rehab-centre-looking common room, in which Isaac's paintings are propped up against every available surface. Apocalypse, Hiro and Ando, exploding car, menaced teenager...diner waitress? As Eden squints at it, there's a ding...
...and then we cut to that very waitress, grabbing a couple of plates because the ding indicated that her orders were up. We're at the Burnt Toast Diner (awesome name and I would totally eat there) in Midland, Texas -- well known as the birthplace of America's current First Lady, and less well known as the place where she once ran a stop sign and totally killed a guy. The waitress -- Charlie -- sets her plates down in front of a couple of cops, obviously regulars. She asks if they need anything else, and the older cop, studying a folded-over newspaper section, glumly requests "a gun to shoot Will Shortz." Charlie sunnily asks what's hanging him up -- the clue is "'Gandhi burial ground,' eleven letters": "Something 'Ganges,' maybe?" "Kanyakumari," says Charlie confidently. "How the hell did you know that, Charlie?" asks the younger cop, way too angrily, like he's about to accuse her of blowing Will Shortz for crossword answers. "That one of the stops on your trip?" asks the older cop (let's call him Officer Grey) expositorily. Charlie cheerfully says that a trip around the world is pricey; right now she only has enough money saved to get to Oklahoma City. "Who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1981?" challenges the younger cop (Officer Black). Damn, give her something hard; that shit's easy enough to come up at your average pub quiz. Also, Oscar trivia? Homo. "Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond," Charlie answers effortlessly, adding that she preferred Dudley Moore in Arthur: "But if you really want to test me, you oughta ask if I remember your credit-card numbers." She slaps down their bill and perks off. Hee. She could so easily be annoying, but the actress isn't playing up the Kewpie shit too much and manages to be quite winning.
As Charlie checks with her other tables, we pan over to a booth containing Ando and Hiro. Ando is saying it's no wonder Americans are all so fat, given that their diet is so heavy in waffles and French fries: "I've gained four kilos from French fries." The French fry really is one of nature's cruelest gifts: so delicious, but with such evil plans for your organs. Hiro says that they need their strength, and then hits the expository high points: meet Peter Petrelli, save the cheerleader, fulfill their mission. At this point, Charlie approaches: "Anything look good, guys?" "Everything good-looking," Hiro enunciates in English. Charlie giggles, "You're a long way from home; we don't get a lot of tourists out here." And you're not going to attract many more, with all the First Ladies totally running people down in the street all the time. "How you know we touristo?" asks Hiro. Charlie says it was just a guess, and then indicates some Japanese characters on Hiro's windbreaker, asking him what it says. Before he can answer, she reads the words in Japanese and translates, "That means 'I don't belong here,' right?" "You know Japanese!" says Hiro, pleasantly surprised. Charlie explains that she recently read a Japanese phrase book that she received as a gift for her birthday six months ago; demonstrating, she carefully recites, in Japanese, "One Bento box with shrimp, please." Hiro goes nuts at finding his tongue in her mouth (yeah I said it), and she continues, in Japanese: "I'm still learning. Tokyo is going to be the third stop on my trip someday." Ando, in English, marvels that Charlie learned all that from a book in one week. "Very! Good! Memoly!" exclaims Hiro. Charlie supers, "Yeah, I remember lots and lots. It's just something that my brain started doing lately, whether I want it to or not." She gives her head a quick shake and then asks what she should bring them. "You! Peeck!" yelps Hiro. "Somesing delissus for me" -- Ando grins, turning from Charlie to Hiro -- "and for my friend, he need food for fatto fatto." Ando's grin falls so fast that his ears actually droop. Charlie giggles: Hiro's getting the chilaquiles, and Ando will be rocking a cottage-cheese plate. What's Japanese for "cock block"?
As Charlie takes off with Hiro's and Ando's orders, we switch to the angle on the restaurant as seen by the mysterious Sylar in the corner; he's been watching Charlie with Hiro and Ando. Sylar opens his fingers, and the steaming cup of coffee at the edge of his table slides into his hand. Ooooo...ooh? Sylar has the power to accomplish meaningless tasks without moving his forearms? DAMN YOU, EVOLUTION!!!!!
Then there's a little static from the moment where instead of hitting the power button on my TV/VCR, I hit "record," and recorded over a tiny bit of the show, and then Mohinder, still at the funeral site, is sitting on some steps with fellow mourner Nirand, last seen in "Genesis." Mohinder is saying that India is where he belongs. Nirand is glad to hear him say that. Blah blah do you think I was a fool to go to America, blah you did what you had to, everyone in America's so lonely, I don't know what I accomplished there, blah blee bloo. When Mohinder finally stops talking for two seconds, he glances up to see a lovely woman sneaking a peek at him while chatting with some other mourners down by the water. Following Mohinder's gaze, Nirand suggests that there may be more waiting here for Mohinder than his professorship. And it may be waiting in that lady's sari. That's one hot tandoori chick! Anyway, the new semester starts at the university shortly, and Nirand hasn't cancelled any of his classes; Mohinder can even move into Chandra's old office. He'll just have to burn a lot of incense in there first to get rid of the old-man stink.
Sometime later, Mohinder's changed into a collarless orange linen tunic that makes him look like he should be teaching a Saturday-afternoon pottery class at your local community center (all it needs to complete the look is some dream-catcher earrings and a pair of Taon slides), carrying an obviously empty box that is supposed to contain his office crap into the university. Not pictured (yet): a thermal coffee mug proclaiming that Biology Professors Do It At The Climax Of Their Growth Phase.
Mohinder enters Chandra's old office, which no one has bothered to clean out, despite all his dangerous theories about shit. And if you think the size of his New York apartment was absurd, his office...well, okay, it's smaller than his apartment, but it's still absurdly large for a university professor, unless Indian university professors are the equivalent of North American robber barons of the early nineteenth century. Anyway, Mohinder futzes around, looking at a U.S. map and a copy of Chandra's book, and then tries to open a drawer in the desk and finds it locked. He puts a hand down on the desktop for leverage as he tries to force the drawer, landing the heel of his hand on the mouse and waking up the monitor to display what appears to be some kind of Matrix-y gene sequencing...uh, thing. Mohinder hits a button on the keyboard, and a dialogue box pops up asking if he's sure he wants to quit. Yes, show, I get it.
Before Mohinder can decide If He Wants To Quit, the pretty lady we saw before appears in the doorway. "Mira," Mohinder ejaculates, helpfully. Looking tentative as she enters, she says she wasn't sure he would speak to her at the funeral. He says he was surprised to see her there -- "or anywhere, for that matter." "I said some terrible things to you," Mira exposits, "about your father, about his theories. But now that he's dead--" "What's done is done," shrugs Mohinder. "Is it?" she asks rhetorically. She says she heard from Mohinder's mom that he's not going back to New York, which he chalks up to the start of the new semester. So we know for sure that they were on good terms but fell out, Mira tells Mohinder that she got promoted at "the company": "Head of all genetic research -- can you believe it?" Mohinder looks genuinely pleased for her: "Good for you." "No, good for you," Mira corrects him. "It's the sort of cutting-edge research we used to talk about late into the night." "The world's worst pillow talk, I'd say," replies Mohinder, winning the Voice Of The Recapper award for this week. Mira says she was hoping to get Mohinder to come in for an interview with "the partners." "The company," "the partners" -- no, this doesn't sound too vague and creepy. But, Mira adds, if he did come in, he would have to make sure he didn't talk about his dad's crazy-assed theories. Mohinder looks affronted (despite the fact that he found said theories crazy-assed himself), and Mira quickly adds that she doesn't expect an answer right now, but that she hopes he'll think about it. She makes to leave, but then turns back to observe, "We didn't say hello." Mohinder smiles: "Hello, Mira." "Hello, Mohinder," she replies. The way she pronounces his name sounds super-hot and makes Eden, by comparison, look like even more of an insubstantial collection of tics, dimples, and vintage blouses. "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO QUIT?" demands Chandra's monitor of Mohinder. Well, are you? PUNK?!
In L.A., Matt stands in the anonymous white hallway of a depressing government building. Bitchy McFussyPants (seriously, she doesn't even have a name from what I can tell -- the hell?) is swinging her dick around to Audrey: "I need you to handle this. You have one hour." Audrey stomps gracelessly past Matt, who follows her as she barks at him that he's an idiot. "Hello to you too," he mutters. Audrey asks whether Matt thought she wouldn't find out about him "assaulting a fellow officer." Matt argues that he didn't assault the guy: "I just...hit him." "This is why I hate meeting people," says Audrey -- a non sequitur to let us know she is prickly and hard, as if we couldn't already deduce that based on the fact that she is played by Clea Duvall. Anyway, she's not done -- the reason Audrey hates meeting people is that "nine times out of ten, they let you down." Matt snarks at her "optimistic" view of the world, which she counters is "just an observation." Matt asks why she even gives a shit, and she tells him that hitting Tommy was "a stupid rookie move" that could ruin her Sylar investigation. They stop pedeconferencing so that she can ask him how serious the situation is: "Are you getting suspended?" Matt says that he'll work it out. "Did he deserve it?" Audrey asks reluctantly. Matt steadily replies, "Yeah. Yeah, he deserved it." Audrey gives him one parting glare, and they move on.
Ted "Radioactive Man" Sprague sulks in an investigation room. When everything goes up in flames, that bright-orange jumpsuit will be excellent camouflage for him. Studying Ted through a window, Matt asks Audrey if he's talking. She says he isn't, and that he only has an hour to do so "before Homeland Security sends him down a rabbit hole as a suspected terrorist." Between them, Matt and Audrey exposit everything we learned about Ted last week -- his wife, the cancer, the fact that he sets off everyone's Geiger counters not because he handles radioactive material but because he is radioactive material. Frustrated, Audrey spits, "You know, three months ago my job made perfect sense to me. And then I pulled the Sylar case. Crime scenes with no fingerprints, bodies frozen, brains removed -- and now this guy. That's two people" -- she turns from the window to narrow her eyes at Matt -- "make that three people who can do things they just can't explain." Matt takes umbrage that Audrey could think he is like Sylar or Ted, but Audrey basically tells him that there's no time for umbrage and that they have to figure some shit out. As she heads for the door to Ted's holding pen, she hands Matt a little gadget with "DOSIMETRY" ominously written across it, and explains (for those in the audience who are anxiously waiting for the commercial so that they can empty their drool cups) that it measures radiation levels. Matt taps it, and Audrey adds, "As long as that's dark green, we're good." "What's the bad colour?" asks Matt. "Not green," Audrey replies. Ha, I hope there's a scene later where they're like, "It's sort of green; maybe it just doesn't look green because it's to something green. Put it up to something white," and then the camera cuts to the dosimeter and it's, like, fluorescent red and growing tentacles -- you know, in homage to the pregnancy-test scene in Singles.
Back in Midland, as a crazed Laura Bush barrels past a crossing guard in her Buick Town Car and continues down the road with seven first-graders splattered on her windshield (offscreen), Hiro and Charlie are sitting at the counter, studying her Japanese phrase book. "The dance floor lights are cool," reads Charlie, in Japanese. "Perfecto!" cheers Hiro. "You ready for disco!" Of course, he throws an arm up in the air, aiming to evoke Tony Manero but forgetting to point a finger and landing closer to Herman Goering. "Almost," Hiro adds, of Charlie's pronunciation, and she urges him not to let her off easy. Hiro repeats the phrase in Japanese for her, she repeats it after him, he beams and claps like a seal, and Wing Chun giggles delightedly. "I don't like this song -- let's get a drink," tries Charlie in Japanese. Hiro looks enthralled -- as though she weren't just reading, but might actually be hitting on him -- and breathes, "You learn very fast." Charlie tells us again about her super-memory, and Hiro informs her, "My skill much more...compleecate." Charlie chuckles, asking what that might be. He considers for a moment, as she regards him expectantly, and he finally replies, "I can teach Japanese to anyone." Charlie giggles and even tips him the tiniest wink, and then rhymes off like fifteen Japanese syllables that we are to believe just add up to "You're sweet." Hiro looks at her heart-meltingly for a moment, and then back to the book, flipping through the pages to see whence she's reciting. "'Sweet' means nice," Charlie explains. "Cute." "That's not in book," Hiro tells her shyly. Charlie smiles and shakes her head, earnestly saying in Japanese, "No. It is just true." Hiro looks up at her, and then down again sheepishly, tittering. Charlie adds that she likes the way Hiro's cheeks wobble when he concentrates. Hiro obligingly makes his time-stopping face, without actually stopping time, and she laughs appreciatively. Then one of Charlie's orders comes up, and she goes to get it, telling Hiro in Japanese that she'll be right back. Hiro adoringly watches her go, and then instantly turns around to Ando, throwing up his hands in a triumphant V and screeching (in Japanese): "I'm sweet!" Nothing like playing it cool. Back in the booth with the paper, Ando gives Hiro a sarcastic "okay" hand. And, at the dark and stormy corner table, Sylar takes a sip of his coffee. His black, black coffee. Sylar's cup returning to the table segues us straight back to...
...Ted's holding room, where Audrey sets a glass of water in front of the detainee. Ted looks into it sadly, expositing, "You wouldn't even let me go to my wife's funeral." Aw! As Audrey takes a position holding up the wall, she tells Ted that they need him to answer some questions. Ted bitterly asks if she can't just get her "partner here," indicating Matt, to look inside his head, but Audrey explains that they need it on the record. She reminds us that Ted burned up a bunch of stuff and probably gave his wife cancer, and asks how he did it. Taking the "Good Cop" gig, Matt eagerly swoops into the chair across the table from Ted and tells him that if he doesn't let Matt and Audrey help him, Ted will get taken away where no one will listen to him. Exasperated, Ted sighs that it doesn't matter: "Nothing matters! I killed my wife!" Ted slams his palms down on the table, causing a jittery Matt to check his dosimeter, now -- like Audrey's -- displaying a bar the colour of tomato soup. So...not dark green. Matt tries to draw Audrey's attention to the fact that they're sitting in a giant microwave right now, but she is focused on the agitated Ted, who's ranting, "You know, just lock me up. Execute me. Leave me the hell alone! ...I don't know anything about any nuclear material!" Matt starts to twig that they wouldn't like Ted when he's angry, and tries to soothe him, but Ted's not having it: "Do you want me to be a terrorist, huh? You want me to be the bad guy? Fine. I'll blow this place apart!" Ted closes his hands around the glass of water, and of course the water immediately starts boiling. Matt stands up, still trying to calm Ted down, but of course Audrey has to escalate the situation by drawing on Ted, who screams, "Do it! DO IT!" Matt's like, "Y'all, let's just mellow out," trying to explain that he knows what Ted is going through. Ted is dubious, but Matt reminds him, "You've seen what I can do!" The soundtrack is all alarmed and the camera keeps cutting back to the glass gripped in Ted's hands, but...like, it's four ounces of boiling water. Okay, he boiled it with his mind, or whatever, but let's not all freak out like he's menacing Matt and Audrey with a cup of lava; this whole situation could be defused if only someone could bust out a sachet of Top Ramen.
Anyway, Matt reminds Ted about his crazy powers and how he read the late Mrs. Ted's thoughts, pleading that something is weird about both Ted and Matt and that the FBI is just trying to figure out what their deal is. Ted sobs, looking desperately down at his Tea Of Mass-Destruction-Related Program Activities, as Matt urges Ted to take him back to when this all started. Ted's inner monologue says that he blacked out, and that when he woke up, "everything started dying." For Audrey's benefit, Matt repeats, "You blacked out." Ted nods. Matt asks, "How long were you out for? Were you drinking?" Ted doesn't answer, so Matt asks, "When you came to, did you have bruises on your arms?" With a shock of recognition, Ted stares at Matt a second, and then his inner monologue says, "I'll do you one better." He tilts his head to the right and pulls the collars of his jumpsuit and t-shirt away from the right side of his neck, where two little black hash marks are visible. Matt hyperventilates a little, looking at Audrey, and she's like, "What?" Matt mirrors Ted -- tilting his neck to the left, exposing his right shoulder -- so we can see he has the same black hash marks on the opposite side. Ted and Matt stare at each other like, "Dude! WHAT DOES YOURS SAY!"
In Chandra's old office, Mohinder continues moving in -- taking down Chandra's map, rifling through his files, flipping through a wee notebook to the back cover, which has a key tucked into its flap. Even though Mohinder is generally on this quest to figure out what his father was on about, and specifically had just been applying force to try to open a locked desk drawer, his reaction to finding this key is to...tuck it back into the flap and go take a nap. Literally -- he sits in the desk chair, and after a cursory glance at the monitor, his eyes quickly flutter closed, taking us on a trip down memory lane.
First, let me just say, you know how excruciating it is when someone's like, "I have to tell you about this dream I had!" and even though all you want is to say, "Unless the dream was about me, I'm not interested," you have to suffer through it and pretend to be interested? Recapping a dream is like that times a thousand, and here's this episode, packed to the gills with dreams. Okay, it could be worse, from a recapping perspective, but the problem with a dream sequence on TV is that you don't know what's going to end up being important later so you don't want to gloss over anything. On the other hand, the ones here seem mostly to be DreaMohinder projecting himself into actual events, as opposed to conjuring metaphorical situations where Chandra's Chandra but he has lobster claws for hands, and Mohinder's himself but he's played by Charles Durning. So anyway, as DreaMohinder watches, Chandra and Mohinder argue, apparently about Chandra's plan to go to the U.S. Chandra's like, "You're not the boss of me," and Mohinder's like, "Daddy issues," and Chandra's like, "Get out of my grill," and Mohinder's like, "You look like a crackpot and everyone at the university is going to think I'm Crackpot Jr.," and Chandra's like, "My work is important enough that I can't bother caring whether you eat alone in the cafeteria," and Mohinder's like, "You are seriously crazy like that dude who wrote The Bell Curve and I can't keep telling people you're just 'exhausted and dehydrated,'" and Chandra's like, "No one asked you to, and I've gotta be me," and Mohinder's like, "You'll starve in America, where doctors drive cabs and hamburgers eat people, and also, don't leave me, Daddy!" and Chandra's like, "Thanks for not believing in me, dick," and Mohinder's like, "Does this remind you of that movie Quiz Show, but in reverse and with Indian people?" and then stomps off. Chandra looks sad.
Then DreaMohinder is outside of a house that is clearly in California (you can't hide your lying Spanish tiles) as Chandra complains to his wife that Mohinder told him he was abandoning his job and family. Mrs. Suresh is like, "Well, uh...you are? But you have to go because otherwise you'll never get it out of your system, which is a nice way of saying that I am super-sick of hearing about it." Chandra says that Mohinder will hate him, and Mrs. Suresh is like, "It's kind of too late for you to start making decisions on that basis, bro." Chandra looks a little shocked to have his wife confirm that his son really does hate him, and sits down on a bench, saying that he should try to stay at the university, for Mohinder's sake. Mrs. Suresh joins him, saying -- and this time I'm not paraphrasing, I swear -- "Why? He will never take her place in your eyes. That has always been the case." DreaMohinder stares in shock. I think that was the big reveal for the scene. Suddenly, a soccer ball comes bouncing down a hall and into the garden, where DreaMohinder stops it with his foot. DreaMohinder picks up the ball and goes inside, where he sees an Indian kid in retro-looking play clothes. DreaMohinder asks, "Who are you? What do you want?" The kid points at the ball, which DreaMohinder tosses to him. Satisfied, the kid takes off...
...whereupon Mohinder awakens back in Chandra's office. He still hasn't closed that dialogue box, of course. He gets up.
Back at the FBI, Ted is weaving a yarn. He was in Kansas a few months ago, having sold a bunch of dialysis machines to the university hospital: "The commission was enough for Karen and me to..." It seems from his wistful expression that he's about to say they were going to have a child, but instead of finishing that thought, he continues the story by saying he went to the hotel bar and tied one on: "There weren't many people there -- a couple from Wyoming, some professors, a student from Haiti." At Ted's mention of the student, Matt sits up a little straighter. Then Ted woke up in his car, two days later, in Tempe, Arizona, with minor but unexplained cuts and bruises. Matt is now quite involved, given all the parallels to his own experience. Ted started to notice some weird shit happening after that -- like, he'd buy his wife flowers and they'd wilt. Well, that's what cut flowers do, Ted, geez. Impatient at all the colour Ted is giving to his description of events, Matt breaks in testily to ask about Ted's health: "Were you sick? Do you have headaches?" He does, but his attention to his own health kind of took a back seat to his wife's RADIATION POISONING, Sensitivo. "I was killing her," Ted chokes out, anguished. "Are there any other bodies out there we don't know about?" brays Audrey. Matt glares at her, and Audrey sort of shrinks back into her chair: "I'm just saying." Hee. Matt tells Audrey, "This isn't his fault. He's just trying to figure this out." Audrey's like, "Excuse me, Deepak Chopra." Turning back to Ted, Matt says that the same thing happened to him: "I blacked out. I lost two days." Audrey whines that Matt should have told her about that, and Matt snaps, "I should have done a lot of things." He adds that, until this point, he hasn't told anyone, including his wife. To Ted, he explains that now he's hearing people's thoughts -- painful things that he should not be hearing. Ted asks what sorts of things. Gossipy much, Ted? "Things that could ruin lives," Matt replies grimly. "Things that could ruin marriages." Audrey looks like she's put together the puzzle pieces to form a picture of Janice The Dirty Cheating Cheater Who Cheats, but that's not so hard to do when said puzzle is one of those wooden jobs made for babies and only has, like, two pieces. Matt describes the Haitian "student," and Ted confirms that it was the same guy (...well, kind of -- "big," "bald," and "black" could describe both the Haitian guy we've seen, and Michael Jordan). Audrey's like, "Could you guys have group therapy some other time?" Ted theorizes that, given that the things he and Matt can do now aren't normal, perhaps they were "cut" or "injected": "Who knows what they did to us?" "Or how they changed us," adds Matt.
Of course, at just this moment of breakthrough, in stomps Bitchy McFussyPants with a couple of hired goons: the hour is up, and it's time to send Ted to Gitmo. Audrey asks for a couple more minutes, but Bitchy crabs that Matt shouldn't even be there, since his badge has been suspended. Turning her bitchery at Audrey, she demands, "Did he tell you where the nuclear material is?" Audrey doesn't answer, and the goons muscle Ted out of the room, but not before he can huskily tell Matt, "Find the Haitian." Bitchy slams the door, bitchily, and Matt implores Audrey to get Ted back in there. Audrey says she can't, but Matt pleads that Ted could help Matt to understand what happened to him. Audrey is pissed that Matt lied to her about being suspended. Matt brushes that off, reminding her that she's come asking for his help and he's always given it, so now it's her turn to help him. Audrey, frustrated, says that getting Ted back to the interrogation room is out of her hands. Matt stomps out, slamming the door pretty bitchily his own self.
A black SUV pulls into the parking lot of what is chyroned "Primatech Paper Co." in Odessa. Yay! Bennet gets out, brightly striding into the building, and then purposefully exiting a service elevator full of paper in various forms. A security guard posted by the elevator tries to snag Bennet to give him a new parking pass, but Bennet politely blows him off. He nearly runs into a female co-worker in a narrow, wood-panelled hallway, and then leaves his briefcase on a message center of some sort before swiping a key card to enter a warehouse. Where's Roy? Across the bare and dimly lit warehouse floor lies another door...
...which Bennet opens to enter Isaac's ersatz rehab facility. Eden waits for him expectantly in the common room full of Isaac's art, as Isaac himself sits up in bed, sketching. Eden gets up to debrief Bennet through a window. The heroin is out of Isaac's system, she says; his body doesn't need it anymore, but he's still mentally addicted. Bennet asks whether Isaac's coherent, and Eden confirms that he is: "You ready to meet him?" Before answering, Bennet looks up at the painting of the cheerleader on the steps, a dark shadow looming over her. "Yep," he answers Eden.
Eden opens the door to Isaac's room, where the patient sits with his knees up and his ankles crossed, looking much younger and very vulnerable. Eden introduces "Mr. Bennet, the man [she told him] about." Isaac doesn't answer. Bennet gives Isaac a hearty hello; when it goes unanswered, he gestures toward Isaac's sketchbook and asks, "Drawing anything interesting?" Isaac flips through the pages, sighing in frustration: "It's nothing." "Oh, you know that's not true," says Bennet, with his trademark kindness/threat. "You have the ability to paint the future. That's something. Something very important." "Feels like a curse," says Isaac trepidatiously. "No, it's a blessing," says Bennet paternally. "Don't let anybody tell you differently [sic]." Isaac looks from Bennet to Eden, who's standing back near the door. "We're gonna help you understand that," adds Bennet. Isaac says he's grateful that Eden and Bennet are helping him: "I'm just not sure why." Bennet, gazing steadily into Isaac's eyes, confesses, "To be 100% honest with you, I need your help." I want to believe that this episode will find Bennet being "100% honest," but for some reason I am not so sure.
In Midland, as Laura Bush drives her Explorer into a bank window, pinning helpless customers against a back wall by their broken spines (I think that scene was cut for time), Sylar threateningly sips coffee and watches as Charlie checks on Hiro and Ando, now tucking into their meals. After Charlie moves away, Hiro excuses himself to the restroom.
In a store room, Charlie takes an industrial-sized can of food (I think it's fruit salad) off a shelf and opens it with some kind of giant can opener. While she does so, with difficulty, there is what the captions identify as "muffled clinking" around her; she looks around a bit, but doesn't seem overly concerned about it (since there is certainly lots of clinking involved in running a diner at the best of times). But presently we see a bead of blood running down her temple, and then another down her nose, and then she falls over, and we feel kind of bummed, because Charlie seemed quite lovely.
Out on the restaurant floor, Ando is "enjoying" his cottage cheese plate when he is suddenly interrupted by a loud crash. Another waitress goes to investigate, and Ando kind of shrugs and takes another bite, and then the waitress screams, and we see her backing out of the store room in terror. Officers Grey and Black leap up to see what's happened; Grey steps into the room, but we don't get a full view of what he sees -- just see a pool of blood and Charlie's arm. As the waitress sobs, Ando gets up to see what the commotion is. Officer Grey comes back out and unsteadily tells Officer Black, "Charlie. She's dead." Black puts on a determined look and heads for the store room himself. At just this unfortunate moment, Hiro emerges from the men's room, beaming and rubbing his palms together in anticipation of spending more time with Charlie. Ando reaches out to touch his arm reassuringly. Poor Hiro!
India. Mohinder tells his mother about his dream, and confronts her about the "her" that Mohinder could never live up to, and she admits that Mohinder had an older sister, Shanti, who died when she was five and he was two. Chandra and Mrs. Suresh never told Mohinder about Shanti because it was too painful: "Especially for your father. He loved her so much he was afraid you would compare his love." Translation: "If you ever heard your dad talk about how awesome Shanti was, you would realize that he kind of thinks you suck." I mean, what? Okay, Mohinder does kind of suck, but your parents aren't supposed to think that! Anyway, surprise surprise, Chandra "was convinced that [Shanti] was special. And she was special." Too special to have something so pedestrian as a cause of death, apparently.
Texas. Bennet quizzes Isaac about his predictive paintings, eventually pointing out the various cheerleader depictions and identifying her as his daughter: "My Claire." Isaac leans forward. Bennet crosses toward a painting of a creepy looming figure and declares, "This man here goes by the name of Sylar. He's going to kill her tomorrow night at her homecoming game." "Why?" asks Isaac, not sounding particularly surprised or alarmed to hear this. "Because she's special," says Bennet. "Like you. And that makes her a target." "Like me," repeats Isaac, still without affect.
Bennet perches on the arm of a nearby chair, folds his hands, and explains, "You're not the only one with special abilities, Isaac. There are others. Sylar is killing them, one at a time." Isaac: "If you know who he is, then why can't you stop him?" Yes, Isaac, all it takes to apprehend a criminal is to identify him -- hence the FBI's infamous Most Incarcerated List. "Because nobody knows where he is," says Bennet urgently. "I need your help. I need you to paint this painting!" Then draw this drawing, sculpt this sculpture, and dance this dance. Isaac apologizes, saying he's been trying, but that he can't. That's okay, Isaac. It happens to all guys eventually. Bennet's like, "Well, I have your artistic Viagra," putting a hand into his pants pocket and pulling out a dainty little parcel of heroin gear, unsnapping it, and rolling out the contents onto a table. Seriously, this little bundle is so ingenious that if someone saw it in your purse, they might assume it was a manicure set. Can you buy that at Sephora? "I promise we will help you use your abilities without this," says Bennet, "but right now there just isn't time." "I'm fighting to get my life back and you want me to just throw it away?" grits Isaac. He shoves the table with the paraphernalia spread out on it, but unfortunately, the table is on wheels and just rolls away, which is not as dramatic as having it fall over so he could then kick it and smash the needle under his heel or some damn thing. Bennet meaningfully takes off his glasses to narrate, "You know, for many years now, a number of us have been tracking, locating, monitoring people like you. Sometimes the process goes smoothly, as in your case; and other times...well, let's just say some people misinterpret our motives and then it can go very wrong. Fourteen years ago, there was just such a case, which, sadly, ended in death. The woman left behind a baby girl who had no one to take care of her. My wife and I had been having a hard time conceiving a child of our own at the time. And it was like God had reached down and given us a miracle. Isaac. This is my daughter we're talking about. I'm begging you." Isaac looks moved by this tale of self-interest, and after taking one last look at the painting of the cheerleader up close, reaching out a hand toward the edge of the canvas, he asks, "Let me try one more time. Without it." Bennet's like, "See you after you totally fail, Scott Weiland," but doesn't insist on a China White drip just yet.
Mohinder walks into what I assume is Chandra's study at home, which appears to be devoid of people, though we can hear the sound of someone jiggling the handle of a locked desk drawer. "Who are you?" Mohinder calls out. Oh, great -- it's the soccer kid again, so I guess we're dealing with DreaMohinder. "What are you doing here?" he asks the kid, who doesn't reply, and takes off running out of the office and down the stairs. DreaMohinder chases after him, opening a door...
...that leads to a dark alley in New York; you can tell by the police sirens. Chandra is sitting in the driver's seat when a pair of hands -- apparently belonging to Sylar -- smash through the partition, grab Chandra by the head, and...you know, kill him up. DreaMohinder runs toward the car, trying to intervene, but it's a dream, so he can't. He starts crying, "Stop! Stop!" as if at his father's assailant, but then he just stands up straight and squeezes his eyes shut, repeating, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" as if to his conscious self. When he opens his eyes, he's still in New York, but the taxi is gone, replaced with the soccer kid, who holds out his fist to DreaMohinder. DreaMohinder walks toward the kid -- getting ready to give him dap, I guess -- but the kid turns his fist palm side up and opens his fingers to reveal the key. Shocker! DreaMohinder takes it...
...and then Mohinder wakes up in the office at the university. He finds the wee book, flips it to the back cover, and pulls out the key, staring at it like it's the Ark of the damn Covenant. Dude? It's a key. It's not even a special, cool-looking, old-timey key. It actually looks like the key to my back door. My mystical back door of mystery and genetics, that is!
At Primatech, Bennet emerges into the hallway we first saw, outside the elevator, where he's greeted by Claire. He exposits that she never visits him at work, and she tells him about a banner she needs for the school trophy case, requiring a super-long piece of paper: "And Jackie was all, 'We don't have paper that big! They don't make paper that big!' So I thought I'd stop by and try to be a hero!" They cutely goof around in a realistic daddy-daughter way -- Bennet hesitates like it's a huge favour she's asking, Claire holds her breath waiting for his answer -- and then he relents: "Well, if it'll make you a hero and maybe knock Jackie down a few notches, we might be able to find something that'll work." They fondly throw their arms around each other but have only proceeded a few steps down the hall when Eden comes out a side door and reacts with not-at-all-concealed terror and shock at the sight of Claire, like, smooth move, secret operative, not. Eden apologizes for interrupting them, telling Bennet they "have a little situation." You'd think Claire would be like, "What, some of the paper turned back into trees?," but Bennet casually directs her down the hall to the sample room, and Claire takes off without Bennet's having to make any introductions. Once she's gone, Bennet's like, "Well, you're uninvited to the black-ops Christmas party," and Eden immediately apologizes again, saying she didn't know Claire would be there, and explaining the situation: "It's not working. He can't do it."
Bennet and Eden head back to the faux-rehab wing -- let's call it Empty Promises -- with Eden pleading for Bennet to give Isaac more time, but Bennet heads straight for a drawer in a nearby cabinet and fills a syringe: "We tried his way, now we do it mine." Eden yips about how hard Isaac has worked to get clean: "You can't ask him to do this." "I'm not going to ask him," Bennet replies. "You are." Eden's like, "Oh hell no," like it's never occurred to her that working for a shady government agency might someday require her to compromise her personal integrity. Bennet reminds her that she always knew this would be a possibility, but she spits, "You said when we started that I would never have to do it again. You promised me." Bennet's like, "Yeah, right, and I never lie." What he actually says is, "Who do you think taught you? Do you even remember what you were when I found you?" Eden looks chastened. The syringe filled, Bennet sums up the situation: "You're the easy way. I think we both know the hard way." Eden takes the gear and stomps off to Isaac's room, closing the door behind her. After a moment, Bennet follows and watches through the glass window: at first, all we see is Isaac, cowering away from Eden on the bed and apparently yelling in protest, though we can't hear anything. Eden walks slowly toward him and sits on the bed, Isaac still remonstrating angrily. Eden leans forward. The camera zooms in so that we can see she's whispering right in Isaac's ear, but we can't hear what she says. Once she's finished pushing (I assume), she leans back to get her equipment ready, and looks back over her shoulder to shoot Bennet one last hateful glare. Bennet doesn't seem to give a shit, obviously.
In Midland -- where, in the wake of Charlie's death, police have put out an APB on Laura Bush -- we start on a snapshot of Charlie, apparently celebrating her birthday at the diner, pinned to a bulletin board on the wall. Then we see her covered body being wheeled out on a gurney, past Ando and Hiro. Officer Grey pulls up a chair to their table, sounding quite agitated as he asks them whether Charlie said anything that sounded like she was scared. Ando shakes his head: "She seemed very nice." Officer Grey agrees that she was: "Too nice to die like that -- head ripped open!" Hiro seems to start a tiny bit at this bit of information about her murder. Ando tells Grey, "We're very sorry." Getting up to return to the store room, Grey tells Ando and Hiro to wait, and that someone will come to take their statements. Once he's gone, Hiro tells Ando that Charlie was killed the same way Hiro saw Isaac killed in the future: "That can't be a coincidence." "Then we should be extra-careful," says Ando. "There must be something I can do," says Hiro. "She's already dead," says Ando gently, reaching out a hand across the table. "I can bend time," Hiro reminds us. "I can go back." "No," says Ando quickly. "Why else did I get these powers if I'm not supposed to help?" asks Hiro calmly; he's evidently already made up his mind and seems confident and assured about it, much like the English-speaking, sword-wielding FutureHiro. Ando exasperatedly points out that they're "already on one stupid mission" and don't need another. Hiro brings up his failure to intervene in the deaths of "those poker men." Ando continues trying to dissuade Hiro, but his mind's made up: "I'll just go back to yesterday. I'll stop her from coming to work. If she's not here, she can't be killed." "But you can be," Ando points out. "You don't have control over your powers yet. The last time you teleported, you ended up in the future, in another country!" Still with steely resolve, Hiro replies, "If I'm too scared to use my powers, then I don't deserve to have them." Ando looks perplexed, and Hiro concludes, "I have to try." "What about the cheerleader?" asks Ando. "I won't be late," promises Hiro. "Just count to five, and I'll be back. We'll celebrate my victory." Ando doesn't get a chance to say anything more than "please" before Hiro makes the kidney-stone-passing face and disappears. Ando sadly closes his eyes and counts: "Three...four...five." Mississippilessly? When he opens his eyes again, Hiro hasn't returned. Ando's like, "Worst vacation ever."
Oy. Okay, Janice is sitting on the marital bed on which she took a metaphorical shit by cheating with Tommy, sadly leafing through a photo album of her and Matt's happiest moments -- which apparently span about three occasions, if the low number of outfits in evidence is any indication. Matt comes in, acting cold, and Janice reveals that she heard about the punch. "He knows," she thinks. "Dammit, I knew it." Um, duh. Janice breathlessly asks whether his punching "a superior officer" won't have consequences for Matt, and he tells her about his suspension. She has the gall to act bitter that he'll be off with no pay for the month, and he somehow refrains from punching her, too. Having figured out that Matt knows about the cheating, she decides to try confessing. Matt asks whether it's over between Janice and Tommy, and she says it is: "Are we?" Matt says no, but just so we know he's not a total chump, he manages to sound reticent about it.
At this moment, Matt's cell phone rings. Since he's in the room with Janice, the caller is the only other person who ever calls him: Audrey. She's standing in front of a car on fire, delivering to Matt the totally unsurprising news that Ted has escaped -- on the way to Gitmo, Ted firestarted and then slipped away in the ensuing melee. See? Orange jumpsuit. Try white time, doofuses. Matt hangs up. Both the women in his life look confused.
Mohinder FINALLY uses the fucking key to open the locked drawer. It's empty, but he pulls the drawer out entirely and reaches into the space in the desk, finding a file full of clippings about sleep research. Clipped to the inside cover is a photo of the soccer kid. You guys, seriously, if it turns out that the soccer kid is just young Mohinder, I'm going to be very irritated that we are to believe he can't recognize WHAT HE HIMSELF LOOKED LIKE AS A CHILD. I mean, honestly!
So, voice-over time. Isaac, white-eyed, paints at Empty Promises, Eden looking on. Mohinder tells us you can hide, and take little precautions, but you can't really get away.
On the floor of a den at home, Claire uses a marker to colour in the last letter of the giant "Homecoming" banner, like that shit wouldn't have dried out after the "C." What the hell kind of spirit squad member doesn't use poster paint? Anyway, with Bennet watching her... well, watchfully, Mohinder says we don't have the truth or cunning to hide from destiny. Speak for yourself, Nap Man.
In Midland, as Laura Bush leads law-enforcement personnel on a high-speed chase, Ando paces in the diner, still waiting for Hiro. This is when we push in on the bulletin board, where the snapshot of Charlie alone at her birthday party -- six months ago, remember --has been replaced with a shot of Charlie with Hiro! Overshooting his mark just slightly, there; what, did he take the TARDIS?