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Simone delivers the lost Linderman painting to Nathan, only to have Nathan splash it with black paint before we can see what's on the canvas. Simone totally tattles on Nathan to Peter and then shows him a PHOTO of the painting, like, she couldn't have DONE THAT BEFORE? Whatever. In the painting, Peter appears to die at 8:12 in the evening. Peter decides to go to Odessa. ikiN/Jessica goes to the desert to play with guns and practice shooting DL's brains out with a sniper rifle. While at a roadside diner, Micah tells DL all about his mother's split personality issues. Mohinder has a change of heart with regard to his father's research and decides that he's going to follow in his father's footsteps after all. This leads to him discovering the list of all the heroes on his father's computer.
Peter calls Hiro and Ando and tells them to get to Odessa, Texas but quick. Hiro's in the past, unfortunately, but Ando says they're already in Texas, so Peter should just fly out on the teleporter available and come see what the Alamo's all about! Then Ando actually sees the picture of Hiro and Charlie on the wall and realizes that Hiro might not be coming back. He asks a waitress where Hiro is and she has no idea, saying that Hiro disappeared weeks ago. Isaac's drug-induced painting from last week elicits unsatisfactory results for Bennet, so he decides to have Eden "take out" Sylar while he makes sure that Claire doesn't leaves the house on homecoming night. This plan backfires slightly when Bennet inexplicably grounds Claire and sends her to her room and Zach shows up to rescue her from her imprisonment.
Peter ends up at Odessa High after briefly meeting up with Ando at the diner. He runs into Claire, but is under the incorrect assumption that Jackie is actually the cheerleader to save. Sylar has the same wrong idea and, once Peter's out of range, he attacks Jackie, attempting to slice off the top of her head. Claire intervenes to try and save the bitch, only to have Sylar throw her against a wall. Claire, of course, begins to regenerate and, when she stands, Sylar realizes his mistake and comes after her. Peter steps between them, only to run away once Sylar starts mind-flinging a bunch of locker doors at him. In the end, Claire gets away, Peter and Sylar fight and fall off a roof, Sylar disappears, Peter regenerates because he touched Claire (ew, not like that!), Claire decides to tell her father the truth about her abilities, Peter gets arrested because bloody guys who run around screaming at cheerleaders are clearly the devil, and Sylar comes up against Eden who persuades him to take a little nap at the hands of the Haitian.
For our finale, we catch up with ikiN just as she takes a shot at DL from her sniper's perchâ¦then we catch up with Ando who's getting another cup of coffee at the Burnt Toast Dinerâ¦then we catch up with Hiro, who's just arrived in the past, six months ago to be exact, and told Charlie that he's there to save her life. "Six months earlier" says the placard, which just happens to be the title of week's episode⦠Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Heroes: I moved to New York and Sars and Tara covered my ass for three weeks (I love you guys!) while I slept on the floor of a ridiculously overpriced apartment with a view of someone else's kitchen and waited for my cheap-tastic IKEA furniture to arrive. Also? The journey from the Port Authority to the Paramus IKEA is terrifying and should never be undertaken without copious amounts of alcohol and a posse.
Oh, and some shit happened on the show that ended with Hiro's new girlfriend getting her head popped open by Sylar and Hiro heading back in time to save her.
"Chapter Nine: Homecoming." Gah. Mohinder rambles about how we're creatures of habit as we see several of the high school cliques we don't want to admit we might be familiar with: the geeks, the freaks, the jocks, the bitches -- erm, I mean "cheerleaders." Mohinder keeps blabbing about how we're drawn to safety and comfort, but what happens when the familiar becomes unsafe? As he says this, Claire and her new BGFF, Zach, are walking past a group of cheerleaders on the Greek Forum steps. This is the weirdest school ever, y'all. The ENTRANCE is at the bottom of the Greek Forum steps. Like, what? Did someone excavate years ago and discover this ancient Greek high school at the bottom a well or something?
Whatever, so Claire and Zach pass the bitches, with Queen Bitch Jackie at their center, and Jackie totally shoots them the evil eye. Claire and Zach sit on the steps as the principal appears below, and Zach comments that he's going to post the homecoming queen announcement. Claire pretends not to care, but she totally does, and Zach prompts her to go see if she's won. She begrudgingly heads down to check out the list and passes Jock the Rapist as she goes. He's still bandaged and is all, "Hey, that girl is HOT! Maybe when I get out of these wrappings, I'll go corner her by the bleachers and try to force her panties off -- OW! Why does my head always hurt when I have those thoughts? OW! There it goes again!"
Jackie snits at Claire that it's awfully nervy of her to think she could possibly win homecoming queen, what with her taking the star quarterback out of commission by, you know, trying to kill him and everything. "You're not deluded enough to think you're actually going to win?" Jackie laughs. Claire says she's under no delusions whatsoever, thanks. "It's a popularity contest and you've made it very clear that I am no longer popular." Jackie's all, it is NOT a popularity contest! It is a scholarship program! And it's all about serving your school. And you're totally a shallow cooze. Claire just rolls her eyes and crosses her arms beneath her perky little breasts.
The principal congratulates everyone as the girls shove their way toward the list. Claire shortly discovers that she actually WON queen. Jackie's so pissed, her dark roots are turning bright green with envy. Suddenly, a group of kids in the distance start cheering Claire's name and we see that Zach's leading the cheer, with a motley bunch of freaks and geeks to support him. Claire laughs her ass off as Jackie yells at them to shut the hell up. Heh.
Isaac's Studio. Nathan's unpacking a large painting. He checks with Simone to make sure she hasn't told Peter about Nathan's request to see it. Weirdly, he doesn't seem to know it's actually by Isaac Mendez, even though, if Nathan had to call Linderman to request it, he'd have to at least know the artist's name. Also? Does Simone work for Linderman now? Because... this makes no damn sense. Nathan picks up the painting and he and Simone look at it. "Is that Peter?" asks Nathan. "I don't know," says Simone. We don't see the painting, but apparently, Union Wells High School makes an appearance somewhere on it and Simone comments that Peter thinks he has to go there to save a cheerleader or something. "Peter thinks that if he saves the cheerleader, he'll save the world."
Nathan asks if that's the only copy, and Simone says it is. He then walks over to a table with paint on it and starts to put on plastic gloves as he talks about how Peter has all these whack-ass crazy ideas and delusions of grandeur. Then he opens up a can of paint. As Simone freaks out at him, he just calmly splashes black paint all over the painting, ruining our chances of seeing just what Peter is doing in the painting and if it involves anything like, say, saving a cheerleader. Simone is crestfallen. Nathan believes he's saving Peter's life. Simone shoots him a look. "What?" says Nathan. "You believe him? 'Save the cheerleader, save the world'?" Nathan just smirks at her as she says she isn't sure what to believe anymore. "I am," he says, removing the gloves with a snap. Heh. Adrian Pasdar can make the littlest gesture sort of dirty-sexy, you know? Much like Daniel Craig can make ordering a martini sound like, "Take your panties off, immediately."
Gunshots. ikiN (we know it's ikiN because she has the "S" tattoo on her shoulder; also? I refuse to call her Jessica because... I just do) is taking shots at a target in the distance. The gun she's using is an extremely sleek sniper rifle and she clearly knows how to use it. She asks some scummy guy behind her what the range is on the gun, and he tells her it's been known to pierce body armor from 400 yards away. "That'll work," she sneers. She walks away with the gun and you can practically hear the "cha-ching" in her hips as she goes. She comments that she's going to use the gun on her husband because he took her son. I'm sure Scummy will forget about that when the cops somehow trace the empty bullet casings back to him in the near future. He asks for two thousand bucks for the gun and ikiN tosses it at him. He walks away, and she looks in the side mirror of a van. The reflection in the mirror is Niki and she looks concerned (and trapped) as ikiN grins at her. "We're goin' huntin'," she says, snapping her gum. I know ikiN's a moderately evil person, but I really do like her more than Niki. She's just more colorful. You know, like circus clowns are colorful. I mean, circus clowns who go on murderous rampages.
After the break, we catch up with DL and Micah. Micah wants to go back and help his mom, but DL says they can't go back because his mother's turned into a murderous psychotic bitch. DL says he still loves her and always will, but she's changed. Boy howdy, has she. DL says that the good news is that from here on out, they're partners. "You mean, like Batman and Robin?" Yes, Micah. Except not gay. DL kind of laughs, happy that his son's sort of on board with the "partners" idea, and reaches back to get a hat. "Yeah, just like Batman and Robin," he says, putting on the hat. "Only... I ain't wearin' no tights. You can wear tights, I'm not wearing tights." Hee. Leonard Roberts has this adorable expression on his face that's all Leonard and only a little DL. Trust me -- I did a show with him back in Chicago and he always managed to stick a little bit of himself into several line readings. It used to catch me off guard during the show and then I'd laugh out loud, usually in a really inappropriate place, and then he'd look at me all, "GOTCHA!" Bastard.
DL gets out of the car and heads toward the diner they're parked in front of. I'd say it's the Burnt Toast Diner, but the placard told us that they're in Utah, so I guess it's not. A sheriff walks toward the door as DL nervously gets a paper from the machine. The sheriff basically ignores him, but it's enough to make DL think twice about entering the diner, so he just walks back to the car. Unfortunately, Micah's no longer inside it. DL runs off in search of him.
Chennai, India. Snore. I loves me some quality time with Sendhil Ramamurthy, but DAMN Mohinder's storylines are boring as hell. I mean, really. Like, I could nap my way through them and not miss anything. Mohinder's wandering through a market, talking to the Furry Man from the first episode of the season. Mohinder's thinking the dreams he's been having are something he needs to take seriously and that the boy in his dreams must be real. Especially since he found a picture of the kid in his father's Secret Locked Drawer of Potential Kiddie Porn. Furry Man's all, whatever, dude. Just take some Nyquil and call it a day, okay? Mohinder says that the boy in the picture is one of the Heroes and that he can enter people's dreams. Furry Man tries to pass the whole thing off as a blip in Mohinder's subconscious, but Mohinder's not having any of it. He wants to find the boy.
Isaac's Studio. Peter's walking toward Simone all, hey, what the hell's so important you called me to meet you here? Also? Milo V. is adorably bow-legged. I have a thing for bow-legged guys. It's why I like soccer players. That, and they always seem to take their shirts off. Of which I am a VERY big fan. Simone tells Peter about Nathan buying the painting from Linderman. Peter's all, uh, all I see here is a big canvas filled with black paint. The hell? Simone tells him about Nathan trying to save him from his own fate. Peter asks her to describe the painting to him. She's like, you seriously believe this shit? Peter's like, dude. You have no idea. If YOU had some strange Japanese guy show up in your subway car to tell you to save the cheerleader, you'd start believing this shit too.
Simone seems to make a decision. She turns to her bag and pulls out a picture of the painting. Um, where was that picture FIVE EPISODES AGO when Peter wanted it? It might have saved us the trouble of having Nathan buy it from Linderman (and why HE'D want it anyway is a total fucking mystery to me in the first place) just so he could spray it with black paint. This is a really stupid plot device, if you ask me. I know you didn't ask me, but I am TELLING YOU ANYWAY. Whatever. Simone says the digital image came with the painting, and we finally get to see it. It would appear to be Peter, dead, with all his limbs all twisted around, lying beneath a banner that says "Union Wells High School Homecoming." The clock beneath the banner reads 8:12.
Simone asks if it's him, and Peter says he doesn't know. "If it's you, then you're gonna die," she says. She tells him not to go and he calmly says that he has to. God, he's cute when he's being earnest. Simone informs him that the high school is in Odessa, Texas; she made a phone call to find out. "Homecoming is tonight," she says as Peter grabs her and holds her to him. Aw. "Thank you," he whispers into her hair. "Look," she says, "I don't know if this is gonna happen. Just... come back, okay?" Aw. "I will," he assures her, holding her face. They kiss a couple of times. Good god, Milo is far too adorable for his own good. I'm not a Gilmore Girls fan (do NOT email me), but now I'm thinking about renting the DVDs just to catch a glimpse of the Milo. Rowr.
Burnt Toast Diner. Hiro's cell phone rings and Ando picks up all, "Mushy mushy! Hiro? HIRO?!" But it's just Peter, asking for Hiro. Ando says Hiro is gone, but he'll be right back. Peter tells him that he and Hiro need to get their asses to the Union Wells High School in Odessa, Texas ASAP. Ando says they're already in Texas, what a coincidence! He gives Peter the information on where the café is, and Peter says he's going to get on a flight and that he'll be there before they know it. Ando says he'll tell Hiro and then hangs up. A waitress passes by him and stops at a shrine in the corner. There are pictures of Charlie (and of course Hiro, who somehow managed to go back in time to Charlie's birthday six months ago and wound up in her birthday photo) and her nametag and one of her signed checks. Wait -- wasn't she just killed earlier that day? There's already a damn shrine to her? Wouldn't the place be crawling with cops and forensics people? I know it's a small town, but the girl's SCALP was removed! I'm thinking there's a little more WORK to be done before people start burning candles in a corner.
Fake Paper Company with a Secret Nefarious Organization Hidden in One of the Wings. Mr. Bennet is looking at a painting of what appears to be a person made entirely of flames. He angrily enters Isaac's room, where Eden is gently ministering to a passed-out Isaac, and informs her that the painting is useless. Eden snaps at Bennet that he can't just fill Isaac with drugs and expect the response he's looking for. Isaac's a person. A person with needs. Needs that can only be fulfilled by little pixie girls with the power of persuasion. Bennet orders her to make Isaac paint another one as soon as he wakes up. Eden refuses to give him drugs again. "Do you have any idea what we're up against?" Bennet asks her. "Come here."
They head into a room, and Bennet shows her a selection of pictures from the Stolen Brain Scrapbook. "Sylar wants to do that to my Claire," says Bennet, "and I'm going to do whatever I have to do to stop him." Eden understands, but she thinks that Isaac can't help them. Bennet finally acquiesces, telling Eden to go to the high school and use the paintings as a guide. She's to wait for Sylar. "You'll have help," he says. "When the time is right, neutralize him." Wait, so, he's been shoving heroin into Isaac's veins in an effort to locate Sylar, but now he just wants Eden to hang out around the forty-yard line until Sylar shows up? That's a plan? Pretty crappy plan, as far as I can tell. Bennet says he'll keep Claire safe at home. Eden's all, but it's homecoming! Bennet's all, worry about the brain-eater and I'll worry about Claire!
Speaking of Claire, she's wandering the grounds of her high school, getting congratulated on winning homecoming queen by an array of oddly interesting students. Claire comments to Zach that everybody who wasn't her friend is now her friend and everybody who was her friend now isn't. How the hell did THAT happen? Zach tells her that it's not a popularity contest; it's an unpopularity contest, and she rocked the freak vote. He tells her that everybody who's like Jackie voted for Jackie, and everyone who isn't voted for Claire. "In this school, the unpopular vastly outnumber the popular," he says. "Made for a good campaign strategy." Claire's all, uh, whuh? You campaigned for me? But you hate this shit. Zach's all, I do, but I know how much it means to you and I'm your super-thanks-for-asking gay-non-boyfriend, so I worked some freak magic for you. Aw.
He pulls a book out of his locker and wouldn't you know, it's Papa Suresh's book. And this time, Erick Avari really IS on the back cover. Zach thought Claire would appreciate the chapter on spontaneous regeneration. She looks at him with a stunned expression on her face. "What's with you?" asks Zach. "You're... being so nice," says Claire. "I've never been this nice to you. I mean, I've been nice, but I could be nicer." Zach looks at her shrewdly. "Then why don't you?" Man, I like him. He's sort of totally awesome. Jackie ruins the moment by coming up and fakely congratulating Claire. "Mmm, is the gay boy your date?" she snots in Zach's direction. "You should tell him, only one of you gets to wear the tiara." Jackie smirks at them both, and Claire gets this look on her face that's like, "Oh no you di'in't!" And then she hauls off and decks Jackie. Ha!
House O' Bennet. Claire is protesting loudly that something her parents have just told her is "so unfair!" It would appear that Mr. Bennet has just informed Claire that she is not to leave the house until homecoming is over. What reason has he offered for this punishment? Why, the ever-famous "When you live under my roof, you'll do as I say" argument. No, really. I'm not sure whether or not Claire's being grounded for punching Jackie, but I'm thinking that, if she is, Bennet practically fell to his knees in gratitude for this fateful gift that just pretty much dropped into his damn lap. "You are not leaving this house tonight," says Bennet. "Is that clear?" "Crystal," says Claire with hatred in her eyes. She runs to her room and Mrs. Bennet tells her husband that Claire's going to hate him for a long time for this punishment. "Let's hope so," he says with a smile.
Utah. Micah's at a Greyhound bus stop, waiting for the Magic Bus of Perfect Timing to arrive and whisk him back to his murderous mother. Too bad DL shows up just then to ruin his devious scheme. Micah starts to run away, but he's only about as tall as one of DL's legs, so I'm thinking he's not getting away all that fast. DL grabs him and shakes him and asks him if he knows how scared DL was to see that he was gone. "Now you know how we felt when you left us!" says Micah tearfully. Kid, he was in PRISON because your MOTHER PUT HIM THERE. He didn't LEAVE you, he was incarcerated. Bring it down a notch.
DL exasperatedly asks Micah what he's supposed to do here, and his son just tells him that they need to go back because Niki needs them. DL starts to say that there's something wrong with his mother, but Micah stops him, saying that he's seen the difference in her too and that it started when DL left. Except it didn't, because ikiN was the one who framed DL and sent him to jail, right? Micah says that sometimes, "she'd" show up instead of Niki. DL's all, who's "she" when she's at home? "Jessica," says Micah. He goes on to say that Niki's sick and she can't help herself. "She can't control it." DL asks if Niki knows about Jessica, and Micah says he doesn't think so. He wants his father to help her. "You're right," says DL, making a decision to somehow help his psychotic limb-ripping wife.
India. Mohinder's shoving his way through a crowd, brandishing a picture of Dream Boyzzzzzzzzz. Oops. Sorry. Dozed off there for a second. Maybe I need to go get some Cantonese noodle soup. And leave the DVR on and playing so that, when I come back, this whole damn scene will be over. Mohinder's asking anyone and everyone if they've seen Dream Boy as Furry Man bitches at him about wasting his day. A man walks up and grabs Mohinder's wrist, saying that he knows the boy and for 500 rupees, he'll tell him where he is. Mohinder parts with his money very quickly (fool) and the man points out Dream Boy in the distance.
Mohinder runs over and kneels in front of the kid, telling him that he came into his dream last night. "I don't come to anyone," says the boy. "They come to me." Mohinder asks why, and the boy tells him it's because they have questions that need answers. Well, that's not too cryptic or anything. Mohinder isn't sure he has a question, but the boy just giggles and says he has one, all right. Mohinder says that he has two paths in front of him and he needs to know which one to take. What, the two paths that have you either hitting the "Yes" or "No" buttons on the "Do you want to quit?" question panel on your father's computer? Because, and I don't think I'm being to terribly rude here or anything, FUCKING DUH, MOHINDER. The Dream Boy agrees with me because he tells Mohinder that he already has the answer he seeks. The boy returns to his soccer game and Mohinder's all, what? Huh? What's my answer? FOLLOW YOUR FATHER'S PATH, YOU FUCKING SONAMBULISTIC MORON. God.
Burnt Toast Diner. Ando's still just... sitting there. Waiting for Hiro. Don't you think the wait staff would've been like, "Uh, dude? You've been sitting here since nine in the morning. Can we get you anything else or do you possibly want your damn check already? In case you haven't noticed, we're short-staffed due to the whole dead-waitress thing going on around here." Ando goes to put sugar in his four billionth cup of coffee and sees that the dispenser's empty. In one of the clunkiest plot-development staging moments of the series, Ando gets up and walks over to another table to take the full sugar dispenser and just happens to look up and to his left to see the picture of Hiro and Charlie above the shrine. He walks over and plucks the picture off the board and runs over to a waitress.
He asks her when the picture was taken, and she tells him it was taken at Charlie's birthday, six months ago. Ando asks if she knows Hiro and she says that she does and that he and Charlie were tight. Ando asks where Hiro is now and the waitress says that he disappeared from Charlie's life a couple of weeks ago. Ooooh, maybe she's not dead but just missing -- like some of the posters have speculated! Ando looks confused. You and me both, brother. Also? Apparently Masi Oka appeared on Conan last week and he talked about how his publicist gave him the recap in which I say that I'd like to keep Hiro as a pet. Masi seemed to think this was very amusing and wasn't bothered by it at all. He even said that as long as I fed him, he'd be totally cool with being kept in a cage. I would just like to state, for the record, that I do not have any deep-seated desire to put Masi Oka in a cage. I think he's a lovely person, with a geeky sense of humor, and I love his portrayal of Hiro. But I do NOT want to lock him up. Because that would be weird.
But if he'll give me an interview, I'll promise to throw a lot of tasty snacks his way. What? I'm sure he likes snacks! And I'll even give him water! And pet him a lot. No, NOT LIKE THAT. Ew. You're dirty.
House O' Bennet. Claire's stretched out on her bed, reading Papa Suresh's book, when her Sidekick rings. She picks it up and the message, from "FilmsByZach" reads, "Clack! Clack clack!" Claire messages back, asking him what he's doing. He responds, "Throwing rocks at ur window! Open up!" Hee. Aw. Claire goes to her window and sure enough, Zach's climbing up a ladder outside. "I'm here to rescue you," he says. Claire says she's grounded. "No one grounds the queen," he retorts. You should know, honey. He climbs in and says that you only get to be homecoming queen once and Claire's already cemented her victory in the eyes of the student body by punching Jackie in the face. Zach says she deserves this, and Claire cheerily agrees. "And tonight, you can be my date to the dance," she sing-songs.
Zach seems surprised by her statement. "Me?" he questions. "Sure, why not?" she trills. "Uh... for a million different reasons," he says. Claire asks if it's about what Jackie said about him being gay, because she totally doesn't care about that. "I don't care about that," says Zach. "You think I care about that? She can call me whatever she wants, I'm not gonna be embarrassed by it. I know who I am. I like who I am. I like who you are. I just... I just wish that you liked who you are." Hm. Not sure if he's gay anymore. I hope he is, because the more out and proud gays we have on TV the better, as far as I'm concerned, but he's deliberately not directly saying he's gay, so... not so sure. Claire says that she's finally realizing who her real friends are and that maybe being different isn't the end of the world. "That's just who I am," she says. "Exactly," Zach says happily. "You gotta embrace your inner freak. Because the only thing that you'll regret is denying who you really are." Damn. This is a mighty deep discussion for a couple of teenagers on homecoming night. Shouldn't they be getting drunk in the art closet and barfing in the punch bowl?
Burnt Toast Diner. For some reason, Ando's now standing outside the diner, instead of sitting at his table. Doesn't this diner ever close? Ando's standing there with his back to the street, hoping that maybe his change of position will make Hiro miraculously appear. Someone does miraculously appear, but it's just Peter, who's taken Tesseract Airlines from New York to the sticks of Texas to meet up with the boys from Japan. Milo's so cute, I don't care how ludicrous this timeline is. Peter introduces himself to Ando and asks where Hiro is. They go inside the diner and Ando shows him the picture of Hiro and Charlie, explaining about the time-traveling back to the past to save her life. Peter asks what happened to Charlie and Ando tells him the whole story. He even calls the killer a boogeyman. Hiro seemed to think Charlie's killer would be the same man who attacked the cheerleader. Ando tried to convince him not to go, but Hiro said that a man who is too afraid to use his power does not deserve to have that power.
Peter shows Ando the picture of his death and says that he knows when and possibly where the killer will strike. Ando asks if Peter has a power and Peter gets this hilarious "Keep it on the QT, dude" look on his face as he says, "Sort of." Ando asks if he bends time and space like Hiro and Peter sort of sheepishly says, "I... kind of absorb the abilities of others. But only when they're close." Ando's all, huh? What the hell kind of power is that? Also? Thanks for tossing that load of exposition my way, dude. I'm sure that'll be valuable information here in a minute. "Truthfully," says Peter, "when I'm by myself, I'm not really... anything." You're CUTE! That's something! He looks at the clock on the wall and says that he's got less than an hour and that he has to go. Ando chooses to stay behind and wait for Hiro. "Without him," he says," I am not really anything either." Aw. He wonders if maybe Peter shouldn't stay too. "There's no time," says Peter seriously. "I have to save the cheerleader." Heh. I know it's serious, but... heh. "But Peter!" Ando calls after him. "You die!" Peter just glowers at him from behind his bangs and resolutely heads off to his fate.
House O' Bennet. Mrs. Bennet and her creepy pouf of a dog are enjoying the latest People magazine when Mr. Bennet walks in and demands to know where the hell Claire went. Mrs. Bennet cheerily tells him that she saw Claire and Zach creeping across the lawn just ten minutes ago. "She must have climbed out her window!" says Mrs. Bennet without looking at her husband. Hee. But also, STUPID. Bennet gets understandably pissed off at his wife. He reaches toward her, and I totally thought he was going to shake the shit out of her or smack her upside the head, but he just snatches the magazine out of her hands and tells her that she doesn't know what she's done. He runs out after his daughter.
India, Land of Dreams. And Snores. Mohinder's in the middle of yet another one of his useless and repetitive dreams. Dream Boy shows up and Moyawnder runs after him. He sees his father having a conversation with Furry about Dream Boy. Blah blah blah, he's a figment of your imagination, blee bloo blee, he's not, he's real, he can give me answers, blow blie blik, you're wasting your life, et cetera. Nap time, everyone! Furry tries to convince Papa Suresh that the Heroes research is a mistake and that he should let it go. Papa Suresh decides that his research is more important than his tenure at the university, so he tells Furry to go fuck himself.
Later in the dream that won't end, Moyawnder is watching as his father packs up his office belongings. He watches himself enter and wax rhapsodic about his father's book. Papa Suresh is all, what the hell are you doing with my book? Who told you that you could read it? Moyawnder's all, well, I've been reading on my own now since I was four -- I basically figured out that I could read it. And it's AWESOME. It's FAR more entertaining than my own dream! We learn that Moyawnder at one point wanted to join his father in the search for the Heroes but that his father forbade him to follow in his footsteps. Papa Suresh blathers something about how a man of science should have a heart of stone, something Moyawnder doesn't have. Dream Boy appears and tells Moyawnder that he has his answer.
Moyawnder conveniently wakes right in front of the computer with the "yes or no" question still displayed on the screen because, obviously, no one's attempted to use the computer, like, EVER, since that screen first appeared. Moyawnder FINALLY hits the "no" button and a password screen appears. Moyawnder enters "Darwin" and "Sylar" and round about the year 3082, he finally figures out that the death of his sister, Shanti, gave his father a heart of stone, so "Shanti" is clearly the password. He enters it and is treated to a list of all the Heroes his father located, complete with addresses. And no, I'm not listing them here because I want to get through this recap without falling asleep on my keyboard.
Odessa, Texas. Peter's standing in front of a trophy case, looking for evidence of... cheerleaders, I guess. Luckily for him, there's a banner reading "Jackie You're Our Hero" and a picture of Jackie holding up the award she won for saving all the people in the fire. Claire careens around the corner and, even though the hallway is about seven feet wide, she has trouble missing Peter and knocks right into him so they can meet cute in front of the trophies. She apologizes for hitting him; she's not wearing her uniform, so Peter has no idea that she's a cheerleader. He asks her if she knows Jackie, and Claire says she does and that Jackie will be out on the field in about five minutes. Peter smiles at her with the corner of his mouth. Aw. He says he's an alum, and they share a moment, and Claire walks away.
She stops and turns back. "You know, between you and me, she's not that special," says Claire. "She can't stick her ribs back inside herself and she sure as hell can't seal herself up after an autopsy. Can you believe that?" Peter begs to differ. "She rushed into a fire and saved a man's life," he says. "Sounds kinda special to me." Claire just agrees with him and says she's jealous. "Me? I don't win too many popularity contests," she says, walking toward the locker room. "Hey," Peter calls after her, "it gets better!" "What?" she asks. "Life after high school," he says. "It gets a lot better." Aw. I know he's, like, thirty, and Claire is jailbait, but damn, they're cute together. Peter exits the high school and goes to stand outside to wait for the eventual appearance of Sylar. He holds the picture up to the real banner above the clock and compares the two. Yep. Twelve minutes to go before he dies.
After the break, we see Sylar hanging out in front of Jackie's shrine, mentally storing Jackie's picture in his scary little head. Inside the locker room, Claire's dressing up in her uniform as Jackie and her band of merry cheerers enter to get fired up for the halftime show. Jackie sees Claire and immediately goes over to pick a fight. Claire just calmly asks how Jackie's eye is, and she responds that it's nothing she can't cover up. The rest of the cheerleaders sense that a catfight isn't coming, so they all run off to do the halftime show. Jackie takes this opportunity to tell Claire that she's a menace. She says that they used to be BFFs; what happened? Claire says that she's gained some perspective -- i.e., it's her perspective that Jackie sucks. "I'm tired of trying to be someone I'm not," says Claire. Jackie says Claire's been trying to be her since the second grade. "And now you're trying to be me," says Claire. Jackie's all, the what now? "Your little heroic act, pulling the guy out of the burning train car?" says Claire. "It wasn't your heroic act, it was mine." Jackie's all, the hell it was. Claire's all, got the tape to prove it, beeyotch! Jackie kind of freaks for a moment. Claire tells her about what Zach said about how it's more important to be honest with yourself and be happy than be popular. "I think he got it right," says Claire. "Really?" says Jackie, making a bitch face. "Sounds like a loser to me."
She walks off, and the lights go out. Claire channels Wolverine and senses that something's not right. There's a shadow on the wall, and a sound. Outside, Bennet looks for his daughter in vain. Peter waits outside the gym for Jackie. Back inside the locker room, Claire calls out for whomever's there. Jackie thinks she's imagining it, but suddenly Claire tells her to stop. She grabs Jackie's hand and they run around the corner as Claire says that something's not right. Jackie starts snotting at Claire about how they're starting the coronation outside and they'd better get out there and then WHAM! Sylar grabs Jackie and hauls her off. He puts his hand around her throat and holds her up against some lockers, her feet flailing and kicking. Claire jumps on his back but he easily throws her across the room. He throws her hard enough to do some serious damage. Jackie screams.
Bennet hears this outside and calls out for his daughter as he runs inside. Peter hears the scream and runs inside too. Sylar holds Jackie up as Claire slowly comes to on the floor. He holds out his finger and makes an imaginary line with it and we see a line of blood appear on Jackie's forehead. Man, he doesn't even have to use a knife! She's gasping and bleeding and Claire's watching the entire thing. She straightens out a few bones and stands up. As she turns to look at Sylar, her face heals itself, and Sylar realizes the mistake he's made. Jackie looks over at Claire and gasps, "Run!" Sylar dumps her body on the ground as Claire runs off.
She runs right into Peter, who asks if she's okay. They both turn and see Sylar in the distance and Peter orders Claire to get the hell out of there. Very brave, Peter, but Sylar's not your average psycho. As is soon evidenced by Sylar flicking his little finger and all the locker doors flinging off their hinges in Peter's general direction. Peter's like, uh, fuck this, and he runs off too. Bennet runs into the locker room and sees Jackie's body on the ground, pooled in blood. He thinks it's Claire at first, but quickly realizes it's Jackie. The doors to the school open up and Claire comes running out, screaming. She bolts up the Greek Forum stairs with Peter following directly behind her. He catches up to her as Sylar's shadow appears in the doorway. He grabs her arm and they run up the stairs together, basically proving wrong Isaac's painting of Claire being shadowed by the evil Sylar on the steps.
They idiotically stop at the top of the stairs to have a little chat about just who Sylar is and what he wants, and then Peter tells Claire to run and find people and lights because Sylar doesn't want to be seen. Clearly, Sylar isn't too worried about that, seeing as he's just stalking after them in plain sight. Claire's all, but what about you? Peter heroically tells her not to worry about him and then shouts at her rather viciously to get the hell out of there. Damn. That was kind of sexy. Might have to watch that again. Or get a date. One or the other. Claire runs off and suddenly, Sylar's right there, his telekinesis somehow giving him the ability to transverse great distances in a single bound. He grabs Peter and suddenly, they fall over an edge or something and smack! They're done. Just like that. They're both dead.
Or are they... ?
After the commercials, Claire comes running out to Peter. It's twelve minutes after eight, according to the clock. Oh, and Sylar's nowhere to be found. As Claire nears Peter, he suddenly comes to, although he's a bloody mess. Also? The cut on his temple and cheek greatly resemble the freaky "S" symbol without the hatch marks in the middle. Interesting. Peter's sputtering and spewing and Claire's stunned that someone else on the planet has her miraculous ability. Peter starts hilariously straightening out his various body parts as Claire watches. His cuts and scrapes all disappear. "How did you --" Claire begins, but Peter cuts her off, asking where Sylar is. She doesn't know. Peter tells her to go get the police and she runs off, saying she'll be back. She stops and asks him his name. "Peter," he says, gasping for air. "I'm Claire," she says, smiling. "Are you the one?" asks Peter. "By saving you, did I save the world?" "I don't know," she says. "I'm just a cheerleader." Aw. They really are kind of sweet together. I mean, as sweet as you can be when you're covered in blood and your limbs are all twisted.
Claire runs toward the football game and comes across her father. They embrace and he tells her that she's okay and Claire starts to tell him everything and that they have to go back for Peter. Bennet says that Peter will be fine and that the police will take care of everything. He tells her she's lucky to be alive and she says it's not luck. "I have something I have to tell you," she says.
Before we can learn what that something is, we catch up with Sylar, who's grunting and gruffing his way up a hill. Eden's calmly waiting for him. He starts to throw some superpower her way, but she just tells him that he doesn't want to hurt her. Suddenly, Sylar stops. "We just need to talk," she continues. "You can tell me all about yourself. But first, go to sleep." When she says "go to sleep," there's a weird echo to it that's a nice effect. "You need to sleep," she says, again with the weird echo. Sylar hesitates, and the Mindblower (a.k.a. "The Haitian") shows up and does something to Sylar's head and he drops like a stone.
Back at the school, the police are arriving. Peter looks down and sees his leg all twisted around and quickly jams it back into proper alignment. Heh. We hear one of the cops saying that the janitor identified Peter as the "guy in the overcoat." Considering that Sylar also was wearing an overcoat, this isn't the most accurate identification known to mankind here. Also, the fact that Peter's covered in blood probably isn't going to help matters. Long story short, the cops arrest Peter for the murder of Jackie the Cheertator. Peter protests, but they're not listening.
India and the Neverending Moyawnder Story. Moyawnder's mother walks up to him and asks him if he's going back to New York. He says that his father's theory was correct, and asks why Papa Suresh never told him. His mother tells him that his father wanted him to live his own life. She wants to know what he'll do, now that he knows about them. Moyawnder says he'll find them and tell them who they are, if they don't know already. Warn them of the dangers they'll face. She asks who will protect him. They hold hands and Moyawnder doesn't answer.
DL and Micah are STILL at the damn diner in Utah, even though, like, seven hours have passed. DL says that their stop is Vegas, and Micah says they don't need to go back there because he's already called Niki and told her where they are. She's on her way to meet them. DL rightly thinks this isn't such a good idea. He tells his son to get in the car and then runs to his own door. Moyawnder's voice over tells us that we are all, at our cores, the sum of our fears. We see ikiN, up in the hills, taking aim at DL. Moyawnder says that in order to embrace our destiny, we must conquer our fears. ikiN takes a shot, but we don't see where it lands. Instead, we head back to the Burnt Toast Diner and see the waitress pour another cup of coffee for Ando. The camera passes behind her...
... and it turns into Charlie pouring a cup of coffee for Hiro. "My name is Hiro Nakamura!" he says to Charlie. "I'm here to save your life!" The placard informs us that it's six months earlier as someone across the diner calls out to Charlie to come blow out her candles. Everyone laughs, and Charlie runs off to make a wish on her candles. She beckons Hiro over, and he smiles at her.
To be continued...
on Heroes: Why were they chosen? How did they get their powers? All will be revealed...