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Bennet's keeping Sylar in a TK-resistant room in the bowels of the Make-Believe Paper Company. We get confirmation that Sylar is, indeed, collecting abilities from all the Heroes he's killing. Bennet makes an interesting observation in regard to this, saying that he thinks Sylar's actually gone completely insane due to his brain being infiltrated by far too many superpowers. The power, it seems, has gone to his head.
Jessica actually shoots at DL three times, hitting him once; he avoids a bullet to the brain by conveniently phasing around it, so she goes after him on foot while Niki stares plaintively at her from reflective surfaces. Niki thankfully resurfaces to take control back over her life (and body) when she realizes that Jessica would do anything to retain her power, even if it means hurting Micah. Matt and Clea interview Peter, and when Matt turns on his mind-reading power, Peter hilariously starts to pick up the power himself and then he and Matt spend a confusing couple of minutes reading each others minds. Heh.
Hiro, Ando, and Isaac meet up in Odessa and Hiro tells Isaac everything he saw in the future. In turn, Isaac tells them about the painting he did of the exploding man. Isaac finally gains the ability to paint his visions without the use of drugs and what he ends up painting is Hiro fighting a dragon with a sword. The Mindblower pays a visit to Lyle and Zach, and it seems he's going to erase Claire's memory too, but he has different plans for her. He tells her he works for her father and that she needs to remember her powers and keep this a secret from her dad.
Eden realizes that Bennet has been told to keep Sylar alive, and she thinks this is a bloody stupid idea (as do I) and that she can tell him to kill himself with her power of persuasion. She rather unwisely decides to take matters into her own hands and goes to see Sylar. He's more powerful than she thought, though, and he attacks her. But before he can steal her power, she blows her own brains out. Aw, Eden.
Nathan comes to retrieve Peter from jail, but he passes out on the front steps. He wakes up in a dream world New York and, as he walks through the city, he meets up with all of the Heroes, only they all look terrified of him and run away. Peter looks down at his hands and it would seem that he's glowing with fire or radiation or something and he explodesâ¦only to wake up in his brother's arms and declare that he's going to go off like a bomb. And then it would appear that he dies. Maybe. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Heroes: It was six months ago. We spent some quality time with Papa Suresh and the rest of the Heroes and watched as most of them discovered their powers for the first time. Hiro went back in time to save Charlie, but she had a blood clot in her brain and was going to die anyway, so he wasted a big-ass time jump for nothing. Well, except for when Charlie told him she loved him. Aw. And Sylar started out oddly normal and then discovered that he really liked dissecting the brains of superheroes with rocks of quartz, and he became a total nutbar.
Voiceover Man? STILL ANNOYING.
Odessa. Claire and her dad enter the Bennet household. Claire's still covered with blood. As her dad goes to dampen some clothes with which to clean her up, Claire asks if he's mad at her because he hasn't said a word since they left the high school. He says he's not mad at her, he just has to tell her something. Then he says that he's known about what she can do for a very long time. He even mentions the tapes she made with Zach. Claire's seriously spooked and asks him why he didn't say anything about it. He says he wanted to protect her, and she's like, uh, jackass? All this time I've had no one to talk to about how much of a FREAK I think I am and you've KNOWN ALL ABOUT ME? You are SO getting a tie for Father's Day.
Bennet tells her that he's done some things he's not proud of to keep her safe, and Claire's all, like what? Kidnap a cop and force a heroin addict to do smack in order to jumpstart his visionary paintings? Claire mentions how Jackie died because of her and asks if Sylar was really after her instead of Jackie. Bennet doesn't answer her question; instead, he just tells her that Sylar's been taken care of. He goes on to say that neither her mother nor Lyle know about her powers. Claire's like, uh, actually... Bennet asks her just who the hell else knows about her little secret, and Claire states that it's just Lyle and Zach. Bennet instructs her to keep her mouth shut about her special powers. If she doesn't, there are other bad men out there like Sylar and they'll hurt her if she talks. Way to threaten your damn daughter, dude. He tells her to talk to Zach and destroy the tapes. Claire looks at her father like he's covered in scales and goes by the name "Beelzebub."
Meanwhile, Clea and Matt are out at the site of Sylar's abduction. Matt's telling Clea about Jackie's death and how it fits Sylar's M.O. "He took her brain?" asks Clea, like she's saying, "He took the bus?" Matt tells her that Jackie had an incision on her head, so it looks like Sylar started to take her brain, but he was interrupted. Clea tells him about Peter being in custody, but she doesn't think he's Sylar. Matt pops aspirin like candy and observes that there are other footprints on the hill aside from Sylar's. Clea starts to say something, but Matt totally interrupts her to say that he has headaches and they're caused by his marital strife. Okay, that has nothing to do with Sylar or Jackie's murder, but whatever, dude.
Clea tells him to basically suck it up and deal with his wife because she's human and she made a mistake, so cut her some slack. Matt's like, uh, I never cheated on HER, so why should she suddenly get a free day-pass to the fair of infidelity? Clea scoffs at him. "Statistically speaking, law enforcement attracts a certain sort of male personality," she says. "Oh," says Matt, not a little flirtatiously, "and what sort of personality would that be?" "Dogs," says Clea flatly. "And the female personality?" asks Matt. "Bitches," says Clea. "We keep it in the canine family." Heh. Back to the case at hand, Matt wonders aloud if Sylar had accomplices, which would account for the extra footprints. Clea thinks Sylar lost too much blood to get out of there by himself, so she says they should talk to Peter.
Speaking of Peter, he's curled up on the cot in his cell. Nathan, looking devilishly handsome in a tux with his tie undone, enters the cell with a grim look on his face. Peter wakes up and asks what Nathan's doing there, and Nathan just responds that Peter gets into trouble and Nathan drops everything to fix it. "Isn't that how things work?" he says. He walks over to engage in our first BroYay moment of the evening as Peter dazedly wonders why Nathan's not reading him the riot act. Nathan says he's just glad Peter's okay. So are we, Nathan. So are we. Peter asks him why he destroyed the painting and why he tried to stop him from coming to Texas. "Because that painting showed you dead, Peter," says Nathan. "And when I got the call, I almost believed it."
"I thought I'd be a hero," says Peter dejectedly. "Yeah," snots Nathan. "How'd that work out for ya?" Bitch. He sits to his brother and says that he's meant to do a lot of things, but saving the world isn't one of them. "You gotta learn to recognize when life is bigger than you are," he says. Oh, fuck you, Nathan. I love the Pasdar, but this moment is making me hate Nathan. Even though he's really not Nathan. More on that in a second. Nathan says that Peter's not a fighter. "But that's okay. The world needs nurses too." Shut your hole, Nathan. Peter tries to convince his brother that all of the Heroes are the same and that they're all supposed to stop the bomb Isaac painted. But Peter doesn't think he can do it. He looks away in shame. "That's because you can't," Nathan whispers in his ear. "How can you stop what's coming," says Nathan, his voice changing, "when you don't know anything about power?" Peter turns back and it's Sylar sitting WAY TOO CLOSE to him. Peter freaks out and scurries back on his bed, but Sylar's already disappeared. Dream? Premonition? Sylar astral projecting from his own cell across town? You be the judge.
Utah. DL is about to get into his car when Jessica of the Trees finally takes her shot. Seriously. It's taken, like, two episodes for her to complete the damn thing. It hits him in the upper right shoulder. DL drops and Jessica calmly readies the sniper rifle for another shot and takes it, just narrowly missing DL's head and hitting the front panel of the car. DL yells to Micah to get down, and he does. Jessica takes her third and final shot and itâs a kill shot, hitting DL in the middle of his forehead. Fortunately for DL, he has this fantastic ability to phase around shit, so he just disperses his forehead matter around the bullet and then crawls around to the front of the car. The bullet hits the front tire and Jessica's like, "Damn! How many bullets does it take to kill this bitch!" She tosses the rifle and trucker-walks her way across the road for a little close-range killing. I'm serious. She looks like she should be heading to a sixteen-wheeler with reflective stripper wheel flaps on it. She's also balls-out carrying a gun in her right hand. Yeah, that's not too ILLEGAL or anything. Jessica makes it to the car and catches Niki's reflection in the window. "What're YOU lookin' at?" she asks herself. Niki: "Nrrrrrtttt?" Jessica checks the interior and sees that Micah's missing. She slams the door so hard that the glass breaks.
Paper Company of Clandestine Operations. Eden's guarding Sylar's door when Bennet walks up and asks if anything's gone on inside. She says Sylar slept through the night and Bennet goes to enter the room, pressing a series of numbers on the keypad. There's a close-up of him doing this, but it's just a random series of numbers. Or is it? Bennet tells Eden to stay put because he's headin' in alone. Eden: "Pout. Pouty pout pout."
Inside the room, Bennet hits a switch on the wall and a cell behind some hopefully thick glass is revealed. What are we, on Lost now? Sylar's inside, lying on a bed. Bennet tells him that he lost a lot of blood and that they sewed him up as best they could. But they left him with a scar shaped like an "S" with some hatch marks through it -- hope that's okay! Sylar flips off his blanket and stares at Bennet really, really, REALLY hard. Bennet's all, oh ho no, boy-o! Your powers won't work in here! Nice try, though, Gabriel. "My name is Sylar," husks Sylar. Bennet's all, uh, yeah, NOW it is. But not too long ago, you were an insignificant watchmaker named Gabriel Gray. How is Gabe these days, huh? Still pondering how to fix a watch for seven years without going clinically insane? Or have you abandoned your former self in favor of this stubbly, limping guy with the whirligig eyes?
"I restored timepieces," says Sylar, limping around his cell. "Do you know why I was so good at it?" "Why don't you tell me?" says Bennet. "Because I can see how things work," says Sylar, moving toward the glass. "What makes them... tick." I'm ashamed to say that as much as Sylar creeps me out, those white pajamas are kind of... hot. Bennet says that they're interested in what makes things work too; specifically how Sylar seems to be the only superhero of his kind who has more than one ability. "I guess that's what makes me special," says Sylar. Oh, you have no idea, dude. You're "special" alright. If by "special" you mean, "Puts Alka-Seltzer up his ass while reciting Walt Whitman backwards. And in Greek."
"That's important to you, isn't it?" says Bennet. "Being special?" "It's important to everyone." "I think you're insane." Hee! Jack Coleman's delivery on this is awesome. It's like he's saying, "I think you're late for a meeting." "I think the infusion of so many alterations to your DNA has corrupted your mind," says Bennet. "All this power has degraded you." And made you batshit. Sylar says he's still here, alive and well. "And as soon as I get out, I'm going to collect one more ability... from your daughter." The smug smile on Bennet's face drips right off. "Sweet, innocent," taunts Sylar. Bennet: "That's enough!" Sylar: "Ripe, indeeeestructible." Bennet: "I SAID, THAT'S ENOUGH, GABRIEL!" Sylar: "MY NAME IS SYLAR!" He slams his whole body up against the glass and practically licks it with his frothy tongue. Bennet just smiles and steps back from the glass, turning off the light as he goes.
Minutes later, he's on the phone to someone, saying that there aren't options with someone like Sylar. Whomever's on the other end of the phone appears to be Bennet's boss, because Bennet just shuts the hell up with his arguments and says that he understands his instructions and hangs up. Anyone else thinking Linderman was on the other end? Bennet runs into Eden and she asks if it's true that they're keeping Sylar alive. Bennet says those are their marching orders. Eden thinks that's really fucking stupid. "I could tell him to kill himself," she says. "No one would have to know." Bennet seems to consider this, but Mindblower appears at the end of the hall and Bennet suddenly backs off the idea. "You know I'm right!" insists Eden. "I know I'm right! And if that--that Haitian could speak, he'd tell you I'm right!" Mindblower, who doesn't really like being called "that Haitian," and who really wishes the writers would just pick a fucking name for him already, just quietly stares at Eden until she can't take it anymore and runs off.
DL and Micah are making their way through the wild Utah forest. DL's in a considerable amount of pain, but he still manages to remember to remove his bloody jacket, throw it over a bush, and then instruct his son to walk backwards in his own steps in order to misdirect Jessica when she comes to hunt them down. As they walk in search of shelter, Micah rightly guesses that the people shooting at them weren't the police. They come upon an abandoned house and walk toward it. DL tries the door, but it's locked. So he uses his power and morphs through the door, opening the lock from the inside. Micah watches with a barely contained smile of glee on his face. Hid dad's so cool! Wait til it's Career Day at school! DL grabs some rags from inside the house and gets Micah to help him tear them up. "It was her, wasn't it?" asks Micah. "Jessica." "It sure did look like your mom," says DL. Unfortunately, DL's little power play takes a lot out of him, and he starts to pass out on the front steps of the house. Micah rushes to his aid.
Back with Peter, he's sitting in an interrogation room as Clea enters and says that Nathan's pretty well connected. Matt's right behind her. Peter looks like hell. He's all sweaty and gray. Clea asks if he's okay, and he says that his head's about to split open. Matt tosses him his bottle of aspirin and tells him to help himself. Peter states that he didn't kill Jackie, and Clea says that they already know that because the blood on his shirt turned out to be his own. Too bad he doesn't have any injuries that might have CAUSED that much blood. Peter just asks if he's free to go. Clea's like, what's a hospice nurse from New York doing at a damn homecoming dance in Odessa, Texas? You picking up young girls or something? Matt, standing behind Peter, appears to be trying to read his mind. Clea gives Matt the signal and he dives headfirst into Peter's brain.
Suddenly, Peter gets this look on his face like, "What the fuck just happened to my head?" Matt pointedly shoots a look at Peter's head and Peter looks like he's just been brained with a shovel. Then Matt feels the pain that Peter's feeling and Peter feels the pain that Matt's feeling and then they're just paining back and forth at each other. "What're you doin' to me?" asks Peter. Matt gets something from him. "Save the cheerleader," he says, sitting down. "Too late for that, Matt," say Clea's inner thoughts. "The cheerleader's dead." Peter hears this, of course, because now he has Matt's power, and he's like, "WAIT WHADDYA MEAN THE CHEERLEADER'S DEAD? CLAIRE'S DEAD? OH FUCK." Matt looks over at him and thinks, "Did he just read her mind? Is he one of them?" Peter looks back over at him, hearing every word. There's some back and forth about Jackie and Claire and Sylar, until, finally, Peter just stands up and says that if they want to catch Sylar, they need to find Claire and protect her. Matt listens in on Peter's head and declares that he's telling the truth. Clea gets up and says that they'd better find Claire, then. Peter's all, but... aren't ya gonna let me out? "You get out when I get answers," says Clea, shutting the door behind her. Peter does not look well at all.
Brooklyn. Mohinder's returning to his father's gargantuan apartment. There's a note taped to the door. It's from Eden. It says that she knew he'd come back and not to look for Mohinder the Lizard because she set him free in Central Park weeks ago. Seriously -- did anyone think about the lizard in all this? Mohinder gallivants off to India to deal with his daddy issues and just leaves poor MohinderLizard at home with no crickets to eat? That's just bad parenting.
After Mohinder settles in, he immediately begins calling places like the CIA and the FBI about his List of Heroes. He's pissed because he faxed the list to the CIA's Quantico office and no one's bothered to start warning the people on the list about Sylar the Brain Sucker. Mohinder gets nowhere with the CIA because they have better things to do than listen to a crazy man with a fluctuating Indian/British/American accent talk about Heroes and brain suckers and total eclipses of the sun. He hangs up sees a sticky with Isaac's name on it. Ravi Shankar's wail over the soundtrack would indicate that this is a potentially good thing for Mohinder.
Speaking of Isaac, he's in his rehab room, sketching furiously. Eden enters and delightedly notes that he's drawing again. Isaac's annoyed that he's drawing but it's nothing really significant. Certainly nothing prophetic. She's pleased nonetheless. He doesn't think he can paint the future without drugs. She's convinced he'll get there eventually. Isaac says that, to be honest, he likes that he's just drawing for the sake of drawing now, instead of painting the future. That's why he likes comics; you can't take them too seriously. I don't know about that, dude. Have you ever BEEN to a comic book store? Or seen Unbreakable? I think Elijah Price would beg to differ, Isaac.
Eden tells Isaac that Claire is alive and that his paintings helped save her. "Thanks to you," she says, "Sylar won't be able to hurt anyone anymore." Isaac says that this means they can change the future and maybe stop the bomb. Eden stands and says she wishes him the best of luck, because she's leaving the compound. For good. Isaac's all, you're leaving? But we haven't made out yet! And what good is painting the future if no one's going to do anything to change it? I don't know what he's talking about, really, because Eden has so far had nothing whatsoever to do with changing the future. She leans down and kisses him on the cheek while handing him her PDA phone and a keycard. "So change it," she whispers. She leaves, and Isaac stares at his painting of Hiro and Ando beneath the homecoming banner in Odessa. The painting changes to...
... a live shot of Hiro and Ando in front of the homecoming banner in Odessa. Awesome effect there. Hiro's whining that he couldn't save Charlie and now he didn't save the cheerleader, so what the fuck good is his gift anyway? Hiro says that because they didn't save the cheerleader, now they can't save the world. Ando disagrees, saying that maybe it's more of a save the cheerleader first and then save the world. "No," says Hiro. "It's an 'if, then' statement." Computer geeks everywhere fall off their sofas. Ando's all, how do you know? Hiro's all, because I said it! Ando's all, no, FUTURE YOU said it! And that doesn't count as you! Hiro stops. "Never mind," he says, clearly confused by his own ability.
He states that they have to continue on their quest or Jackie and Charlie will have died for nothing. He thinks they have to find Peter Petrelli and then find Isaac and then stop the bomb. "Destiny hasn't forgotten us," says Hiro as his phone rings. It's Isaac. "Hiddo? Hiddo Nakamooda?" says Isaac, pronouncing Hiro's name with a properly lovely Japanese accent. "This is Isaac Mendez." "Mystery Sock!" says Hiro, pronouncing Isaac's name with his jacked-up but adorable Japanese accent. Isaac says they need to meet. Ando asks who it is and Hiro tells him it's destiny. "I wish," says Ando, "Destiny would lose our number." Heh.
Elsewhere in Odessa, Claire's getting interviewed by Clea as Bennet watches protectively. Matt's behind the spy mirror, trying to listen in on their inner thoughts. Claire repeats the story of Jackie's death, but Matt's not getting anything from behind the glass. Clea asks if Sylar exhibited anything out of the ordinary, clearly fishing for clues from Claire. She shoots a look at her father and snots back at Clea, "You mean, besides killing my friend?" "No," says Clea. "I mean like falling five stories and walking away without a scratch." Claire's all, the hell? Clea's all, dude, you said Peter tackled Jackie's attacker and they both fell over the edge of the building, right? Pretty long fall just to walk away from, eh? Matt's still got nothing except feedback.
Claire asks if Peter's okay, and Clea tells her that he walked away without a scratch. "How do you think he did that?" Claire just says that Peter saved her life and that she was lucky to have survived without a scratch. Clea starts talking about Claire's blood being found at the crime scene and Claire's had enough. She gets klimpy with Clea and Bennet intervenes, saying that the police have all they need from his daughter. Clea shoots Matt a look through the glass and when he doesn't deliver any info through her earpiece, she says that Claire's free to go. But Claire wants to see Peter first.
Once outside the interrogation room, Matt quickly walks up to Bennet and Claire and says that he's sorry for everything they've been put through up to this point. He wants them to know that they're doing everything in their power to get Sylar. Bennet, who recognizes Matt from that time when he had him strapped down to a table with a bunch of machines monitoring the action in his head, looks momentarily surprised but then covers by thanking him and hedging for his name. "Well, we appreciate that Mr... " "Uh, Parkman," says Matt, shaking Bennet's hand while he looks at Claire in search of an inner monologue. Inside of Claire's head: "[White noise. Tumbleweeds. Like the inside of Britney Spears' head but with more blowing wind sounds and less crotch.]"
Bennet and Claire leave and Clea thinks they're hiding something. Matt says he got nothing out of them, and Clea's surprised. Matt says there was an absence of sound, and Clea's all, what, you mean like, SILENCE? And Matt's all, no, dumb-ass, like there was something there and then something took it away leaving an absence of sound. He says that he heard this noise before at that bar he went to. He heard it right before he passed out. They enter an office and, sure enough, Mindblower's right around the corner, throwing interference all over the damn place.
Wild Forests of Utah. Jessica's linebacking through the hills, looking for that annoying bald guy and his even more annoying kid. Seriously -- is she even really looking out for Micah now? Or is she just one of those people who can't move on to another task until they've completed an earlier one? "Monday: Kill DL. Tuesday: launder money. Wednesday: tea with grandma... oh, shit. I didn't kill DL on Monday! Okay, have to get that done before money laundering, and tea with grandma will have to wait until the weekend. Now, what'd I do with my bowie knife?" She comes across DL's discarded bloody jacket and we catch a glimpse of Jessica's "S" tattoo on her shoulder. There's a pause, and then suddenly, Jessica's not holding the jacket as tightly or viciously as she was before. Niki has returned and she's like, oh, shit. What the hell did that bitch do now? She starts to cry and runs off in a panic, only to stumble and fall at a stream. Jessica's reflected in its surface.
"Get up!" she snarls. "What did you do?" gasps Niki. "What I had to do to get Micah back," says Jessica. Niki says that if she really cared about Micah, she wouldn't have taken the shots at DL; she should have missed. "I don't miss," says Jessica, even though she kind of did. I mean, if DL didn't have the ability to warp his flesh around inanimate objects, she totally would have hit him right between the eyes. So, I guess it's not really her fault that she missed him, but she STILL MISSED HIM. Also? Shut up, Jessica. Niki says that DL is Micah's father and Jessica throws a whole heap of rationalizations Niki's way, starting with DL being a criminal and how he brought danger into their home. Except, see, Jessica's really the one who brought danger into their home because she was the one who set DL up and killed all his buddies. People with multiple personality disorders who live in super-powered glass houses shouldn't throw ex-husbands, Jessica.
Niki tells Jessica that she's out of control and Jessica just chortles at her. "What do you know about control, Niki?" "You're part of me," says Niki. "You do what I say." Jessica says it doesn't work like that anymore and Niki desperately asks why she's doing this. "Because you're not strong enough," says Jessica. Just then, Micah calls out for his mother and she goes to run to him, but we see Jessica pull out her gun and it's anyone's guess which one of them actually leaves to see their son.
After the break, Peter's sitting in his cell, intermittently coughing and looking like death slightly warmed over a Bunsen burner in the corner of a dirty meth lab. Claire approaches with a cop and her dad. Peter immediately leaps up off his bed and looks as happy to see her as a man who looks like he's about to hork up a lung can look. He's relieved to see that she's okay and she says, "Thanks to you." Aw. Bennet introduces himself and shakes Peter's hand and thanks him for saving his Claire Bear from a second visit to the morgue. Although, on a side note here, if Sylar really had attempted to take Claire's brain, wouldn't she just have healed as quickly as he would have tried to cut into her? He'd be all, cut cut cut and she'd be all, I'll see your cut and raise you a heal and it would just go back and forth until finally, exhausted, Sylar just dropped her and ran off to steal some other Hero's invisibility or something? That's the problem with these superpowers -- some of them just lead to too many damn questions.
So, anyway, back to The Peter and Claire Are Too Damn Cute Together and We Feel Kind of Dirty Even Thinking That Show. Bennet tells Peter that he owes him his life and Peter just humbly says that he was in the right place at the right time. He's sweating and gray and consumptive-looking at this point. "Maybe one day I'll be in the right place," says Bennet, "and can return the favor." Peter starts coughing again and insists that he's fine when Bennet asks. Claire asks her father to wait outside. Because he's kind of scarily obsessed with his daughter's well-being, Bennet cocks an eyebrow at her, all, really, sweetie?, but he goes outside eventually and then just... stands there staring in at them. Well, in his defense, if my daughter were in a closed cell with Milo Ventimiglia, I'd probably stand there staring at them too. But I'm not sure whether it would be out of protective instinct or just plain jealousy.
So, Bennet leaves and Peter gives him a sickly smile that's supposed to reassure him that he's not going to rape his daughter, and the second he leaves, Peter looks like he can barely stand up. Claire asks him how long he's "known" and Peter's like, what? Known what? And Claire's all, that you're like me, dude! We're kin! "You would've died if you couldn't--" Peter interrupts her by saying, "Wait a minute -- can you? Do you heal? Is that it?" Claire smiles at him and says that all this time she thought she was alone in the self-healing arena. "Now there's you," she says. Aw. Yes, there is. Hayden Panettiere is an awesome actress, by the way. You'd never guess that she's only eighteen. She really holds her own in scenes like this. I'm so proud of our little girl!.
Peter is amazed that he's met another Hero. I don't know why, they seem to be flinging themselves at him from every direction. He sits on his bunk and Claire joins him, asking if that was why Peter asked her if she was "the one" back at the school. "I just knew I had to save you," says Peter, looking at her intensely. Actually, they're both looking at each other intensely. Everything in this scene is very intense. The damn commode is all, "I feel this scene intensely. We must save the world! And get more toilet paper! Intensely!" Claire asks why he had to save her and he just simply says, "To save the world." Claire asks what she has to do with saving the world and Peter says he doesn't know yet. "I do know that I think I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," he says, leaning back. "I think I died." "I've died before," Claire says with a wry smile. "It's no big deal." She laughs and Peter swallows hard and tells her that he's not like her. He's just about to tell her what he's really like when Bennet the Obsessive Daddy knocks on the glass. Claire gives him the one second finger sign instead of flipping him the bird and Peter tells her that "this healing thing" is new for him. Hm. Maybe that's why he looks like a less-healthy version of Karl Lagerfeld.
Claire's all, wait a second -- you didn't know you were going to heal when you dove off the building? Peter's all, uh, nope! He finds this humorous and starts to laugh and dissolves into another coughing fit. Either Peter's not completely healed inside because he's not a natural healer, or he's suffering from what we like to call Sylar Syndrome: the result of excessive overexposure to multiple superpowers; patient will appear pale, sweaty and weak; oh, and also batshit crazy. "That's kinda stupid, huh?" Peter says to his Rogue. Claire smiles back at him and says, "No, it's not." She's already got a little hero worship going on with him. Bennet knocks again, some more, because nobody gets to love his little girl except him! She gets up to leave and turns at the door. "You're totally my hero," she says, throwing Peter some serious bedroom eyes. I'm not making this up, you guys. She looks at him like she wants to throw him down on that bunk and find out what this "orgasm" thing is that everyone's talking about.
Back with the most dysfunctional family on the planet, Micah's still calling out for his mom, and she's running toward him. It's totally Jessica, though, because she seriously runs like a linebacker. It's kind of awesome that Ali Larter has picked up a distinctly different physicality for each of her personalities. Niki's slower, gentler, smoother and Jessica's like a Spanish bull on acid with a grudge toward anything that gets in its way. Jessica hugs Micah and he tells her that DL is hurt and that he's inside the cabin. He leads her inside and she grabs the gun from her waistband. She busts inside the house and DL hits her in the gut with a shovel. Ha! That's for throwing me up against the wall, bitch! , I will hit you in the head in retaliation for the bullet in the shoulder! Ah ha!
Jessica tumbles out and the gun goes flying. DL stumbles toward it and picks it up before she can get to it. She high-kicks it out of his hand and knocks him about twenty feet away. Micah tries to intercede, begging them to stop fighting, and Jessica just goes, "It's for your own good!" To prove this, she actually flings him away so hard that he falls into some rocks and appears to be injured. DL immediately gets up and goes to his son and Niki's mother instinct takes over and shoves Jessica out of the way. She tentatively walks over to her family and DL tries to keep her away, but she tells Micah that it's her and he asks if it's her and she says it is and he immediately hugs her. "I am so sorry," she says to her son. She turns to her husband. "I am so sorry." DL reaches out to her and they all embrace.
Zach and Claire meet up on the soccer field. She asks him for the tapes and when he hands them over, she puts them on the ground and steps all over them. She claims that they are now destroyed. I'd take a match to them as well, but whatever. Zach apologizes for breaking her out of her house arrest to go to homecoming. Claire says he shouldn't feel bad; he did it because he's her friend. "Probably the best friend I've ever had." Aw. Zach points out that he's only been her friend for two weeks and Claire says, "Hey, I didn't say it wasn't pathetic." Zach looks at her for a moment. "You know, you could've been killed." "I know," says Claire. She says she has to go and Zach promises that he won't say anything to anyone. Pretty soon here, it won't really be up to him to keep his mouth shut.
Hiro and Ando are trolling around the Greyhound bus station, waiting for someone. A bus pulls up and out of it comes Isaac. They run over to him. "Hiro Nakamura, I presume," says Isaac, again pronouncing Hiro's name correctly. For some reason, this makes me kind of love him. It's not "Heeeero Knockamooora," after all. But the only reason I know that is because I know a couple of Japanese people and I love any movie that comes from Tartan Video or Asia Extreme. Yes, I have a sick love of Asian horror movies, what of it? So, Isaac greets Hiro and Hiro responds, "Mystery Sock?" And then he flashes the damn Spock sign at him because that's what geeks do when they meet each other, right? Except, no. Not so much. (And special thanks to jeromycraig on the boards for the inspired nicknaming of Isaac as "Mystery Sock"; bloody genius, man.)
The three men enter the Burnt Toast Diner as Isaac looks over the comic that Hiro and Ando have been using as their bible. Isaac comments that "this book hasn't even gone to the printer yet" and that it's incredible that Hiro actually went to the future. They all sit at a table and Hiro says that Isaac's power is very strong. Isaac's not sure. "I can only do it when I'm chasing," he says. Hiro and Ando: "Whuh?" "Uh, stoned," says Isaac. Hiro and Ando: "[Crickets.]" "On drugs," says Isaac. Hiro and Ando: "Mystery Sock!" Isaac finally gives up trying to explain heroin to them and instead asks Hiro what else he saw in the future. Hiro tells him about the bomb and how it exploded the city and destroyed many things. "And I saw you!" he says, excitedly. And then he remembers how he saw Isaac in the future and immediately regrets saying anything about it.
Isaac asks what he saw and Hiro looks over at Ando. Ando gives him the "go ahead" nod and Hiro tells Isaac that he saw him dead on the floor with his head cut off. Well, it was more like cut open, but whatever. Isaac kind of leans back and puts his hands in his glorious mop of hair and shakes it back and forth as if to determine he still has a head. He also has this hilarious look on his face like, "Well, that's the last time I ask about MY future!" Isaac tells them that the man who cuts off heads is taken care of. Hiro looks over at Charlie's shrine and asks if this means Sylar has been caught. Ando says this is very good news because the brain man killed Hiro's very good friend. Aw. Suddenly, Isaac looks like he's remembered something.
He pulls out his sketchbook and flips to a couple of pages with panels illustrating Charlie and Hiro and Ando meeting in the diner for the first time. He says that he drew these two days ago when he was dead sober. He realizes now that he can actually draw the future without drugs. "You say your mission is to stop the bomb," says Isaac. "In New York." "Yes, uh," says Hiro, "it is our destiny." "I think it may be mine too," says Isaac. Hiro shows him the last page of the comic and Isaac sees the floorpocalypse (tm Wing Chung) that he painted. He comments that he recently painted a picture of a man exploding. "How do you stop an exploding man?" whispers Hiro.
I think we have our new tagline, people.
Casa de Claire. Lyle's at the kitchen counter, just waiting to annoy me. Claire enters and calls out for their parents. Lyle says they're both out and he doesn't know where their dad is. She asks if their dad talked to him, and Lyle's all, 'bout what? "About me," says Claire. "He knows. And he knows that you know." Lyle's like, uh huh? And? Claire's like, dude. You know. My thing. How I can't get hurt. Lyle just reaches out and punches her in the arm. Hee. Claire's expression is like, "Dude? If I didn't have to save the world, I would so kick your ass right now." She asks him what their dad said to him and Lyle says he hasn't seen their father all day. He was supposed to pick Lyle up from practice, but he didn't. Claire's like, well, then, retardo, how'd you get home? Lyle gets this spacey confused look on his face and goes, "I don't... I don't remember." Claire immediately knows that something's gone wrong with her brother. Something with a bald head and an "S" symbol on a chain around his neck.
Dysfunctional Family Picnic. DL is insisting that they can get Niki some help, and Niki says that Jessica's stronger than her. DL doesn't believe that. "You've seen what she can do!" says Niki. "I mean, how do you explain that?" "I can't explain a lot of things," says DL. "Like, why you shot me." Um, dude? Aren't you paying attention? Niki didn't shoot anyone. Jessica did. I think DL might be a little slow. Pretty, but slow. Niki says that Jessica's going to come back at some point and take their son and there's nothing she can do about it. Niki realizes that she can't be trusted. For no reason that I can see, Micah spontaneously drops to the ground and starts cradling his knee. DL, of course, goes to him, and this, of course, gives Niki the chance to leave. She leaves the money behind and walks across to the diner, stopping a sheriff who just happens to be there. DL and Micah watch as Niki turns herself in for murder. Oooooh, Jessica's gonna be PISSED when she wakes up in jail!
Clea and Matt are sitting in a car outside Bennet's Imaginary Office of Paper Products. They're discussing the distinct "absence of noise" Matt heard back at the precinct. She doesn't think this warrants a stakeout, and Matt just cutely says, "You always say I don't take you anywhere." Heh. "Well, you sure know how to spoil a girl," she quips. He hands her a plastic knife and fork. "Eat your Tex-Mex," he says with a smile. Hee. I love Greg Grunberg. So does Clea, because her inner voice goes, "What can I say? He can be cute." Matt shoots her a look and then her inner voice goes, "Oh, god. Did he just hear that?" Hee. Yeah, having flirtatious thoughts around a telepath is probably not a good idea. She gets all serious on him. "Did you just read my mind?" Matt snickers at her. Hee. "You can't do that!" she chides him. "It was a stray thought, I--you can't do that!" "You really think I'm, uh, cute?" he asks with a self-satisfied grin on his face. Heeeee. "I really think you're married," says Clea decently. "And I really think you love your wife."
Matt says he does love his wife, and Clea asks why he hasn't called to yell at her so he can go home already. "That's what you want, isn't it?" "I don't wanna be a chump," says Matt. "So still loving your wife after she has sex with someone else makes you a chump?" asks Clea. Well, no. But it does make him a masochist. Even if it was a one-night stand with the cop, she still cheated on him. Sorry to get up on my moral high-ground (it's lonely up here!), but cheating is cheating is cheating. Flirting is one thing, but the second you start even THINKING about crossing the line, you've gone too far. If you don't work on your relationship before that line is crossed, all bets are off. And you can still love your cheating partner, but that don't mean you gots to stay with 'em. I'm just sayin'.
Clea lectures him that if he wants to make his marriage work, then he has to find a way to make it work. He just kind of nods at her and makes faces and she spots Bennet coming out of the building. The Haitian walks up to meet him and Matt immediately recognizes him from the bar where he collapsed. He tries to listen in on them both, but nothing's coming. Clea thinks they should leave. Matt thinks he should try to pass a watermelon through his urethra. Seriously, his face looks like he's in all sorts of pain. Still, he's getting nothing off them. He grunts. Nothing. He grunts some more. Dark blood drips out of his right nostril. Clea looks horrified. "I was only able to get one word," says Matt. "Sylar."
Claire's standing on an athletic field, waiting for someone. Zach pedals up and demands to know what the emergency is. His tone of voice is kind of rude. She tells him something's going on. "It's like The Stepford Body Snatchers or something," she says. "My brother doesn't remember anything. What I can do, nothing. It's like they made him forget." Zach looks at her like she has pompoms coming out of her ears. "Alright," he says. "So this is another one of your little cheerleader initiation pranks, right? Is that it? Hmm, is it?" Claire insists that something is going on, and Zach channels Heather and asks what Claire's damage is. Hey, if you wanna fuck with the eagles, you have to learn how to fly.
Zach says that Claire hasn't talked to him since the six grade, and now she calls him out of the blue and acts all crazy on his ass. They're not even FRIENDS. "What is this about?" he asks angrily. Claire understands that "they" got to Zach too. She's alone now. "Are you on crystal meth or something?" he asks. "'Cuz this is really cracky behavior." Heh. I'm totally using that from now on. "Why are you ignoring me? That is really cracky behavior!" "I'm suffering from PMS, so you may witness some seriously cracky behavior from me this week." Awesome. Claire runs off and Zach makes a mental note to never accept any future phone calls from cracky-ass cheerleaders.
Sylar's Cell of Insanity. Sylar's sitting with his back to the glass, his knees drawn up to his chest. Bennet enters and turns on the lights. Sylar looks eerily calm. Bennet puts a tray of food through the pass-through and Sylar says, without turning around, "You see yourself as some sort of humanitarian, don't you? A do-gooder, a hero. Kidnapping men and women who are different. Does that make you feel powerful? We're quite alike, you know. You collect special people. So do I." Yes, but Bennet doesn't slice their heads open and steal their brains, you psycho. "We're gonna take you apart, Gabriel," says Bennet coldly. "Like one of your little watches. Sorry -- timepieces." Ouch. "And we're gonna find out exactly what makes you... tick." He turns off the lights again and Sylar just stares at the wall and listens to the gongs going off in that scary little head of his.
Hiro, Ando and Isaac are all holed up in a motel room. They've purchased a blank canvas for Isaac to paint the future on. But he's having problems channeling his inner oracle. "I don't think I can do this," he says. Hiro runs over to him and insists that he can. "Concentrate," he says, making his bowel movement face. Heh. Isaac takes inspiration from this and Hiro runs to the other side of the canvas to stand to Ando. Ando doesn't look so sure about all this. Seconds later, Isaac suddenly sits up and closes his eyes. When he opens them back up, they're glowing with white oracle light. He rips off his shirt (I don't really know why, but I'm grateful for whatever reason the writers want to throw my way) and starts to sketch in charcoal. Hiro and Ando watch with their mouths hanging open.
Bennet's driving home from the office when his cell rings. It's Claire and she's freaking the hell out. "Tell me you remember," she gasps into the phone. "Y-you r-remember what I told you last night. Don't you? You remember what we talked about?" "Of course I do," Bennet says calmly. "What's going on?" Claire reminds him that he said there were people who might want to hurt her and she thinks they got to Zach and Lyle. "They don't remember anything! It's like it never happened!" Claire doesn't know what to do. Bennet asks where she is and she says she's at home. "Where's mom?" she asks, her expression suggesting that she smells a rat. "Where's... where's Lyle?" Bennet just tells her to stay put and he'll be right there. She gets off the phone as the door to her room opens and Mindblower quietly enters.
She turns and sees him and immediately panics. He grabs her and holds her, putting his hand over her mouth. She's screaming and kicking until he says, "I work for your father." Claire calms down slightly. "He sent me here to make you forget," he says. "Like he sent me to your friend. And your brother. And to your mother... so many times." Heh. And also, so sad. Poor woman probably has cheesecloth for a brain right about now. Jimmy Jean-Louis knocks this short scene out of the park, giving it a combination of deadpan delivery and subtle regret at what he's had to do at the behest of Bennet. "He'll be here soon," he continues, "expecting that you won't remember anything. But it is very important that you do. Tell me Claire," he says, looking down at her. "Can you keep... a secret?" She seems to consider his question. What her answer is, we don't know, because we cut back to...
... Hiro and Ando and Isaac the Oracle Painter. Hiro and Ando go to check and see if Isaac's okay and to look at what he's painted. It's Hiro, with a sword, fighting a large dinosaur. I thought it was a dragon originally, because they seem to be surrounded by fire in the picture, but it's clearly a sort of Tyrannosaurus Rex or something. Ando's like, uh, I thought this guy only painted the future? And Hiro just says, "Oh no! What if I step on a bug? I could change history... " They both seem to think that Isaac's painted Hiro in prehistoric times. "Change history?" says Ando. "You're gonna die!" "I really need to find that sword... " says Hiro with a grim smile. Heh. You really do. And, while you're at it, locate that cool coat and your soul patch, please.
Brooklyn. Mohinder's phone rings. It's Eden. She tells him that she's not who he thinks she is and that she lied to him and she's really sorry. She says she's going to explain it all to him soon, but first she needs to make things right. We cut to Eden entering the code to go into Sylar's room. "Starting with killing the man who murdered your father," she says over the cell phone. She hangs up before Mohinder can say another word. In the room, she flicks on the lights. Sylar looks up at her. It's unclear, at this point, whether the security on his cell has been disabled. All I saw was that she turned on the lights.
Sylar says that he knows her, doesn't he? She pulls out a gun and says that she lived door to Papa Suresh. "That wonderful ability," says Sylar, realizing exactly who she is. "The power of persuasion, and this whole time, you were the girl door." "I'm gonna take this gun," she says, her Electronic Power Persuader Voice Generator switching on, "and I'm gonna put it in that slot, and you're gonna take it, and you're gonna blow your brains out." "You knew, didn't you?" says Sylar, his anger rising. All of a sudden, he pulls his hand back and Eden goes slamming through the glass. So, either she disabled the security because she's stupid, or Bennet has some sort of power-blocker that wouldn't allow Sylar's powers to work on him. I'm going with the latter. The Haitian prevents people from getting into Bennet's mind, but I don't think he's a multi-power-protector. The Haitian's powers are limited to the mind and how to protect it or wipe it, I think. Which is why I'm now in the camp that thinks that Bennet has a little power of his own.
Anyway, Sylar's mean and crazy and Eden's head is through the glass. "You knew what I was and you let it continue," he says. Stop blaming everyone else for your psychosis, Sylar. YOU chose to start stealing brains; no one else MADE you. Suck it up and own up to it, dude! Eden's bleeding and injured. "In a way," he says, "you helped me. And after I've consumed your power, you'll help me even more." Eden's hand moves the gun up and Sylar thinks she's aiming it at him. "Oh, Eden, you know that won't hurt me." But Eden has other plans. She quickly points the gun at her own head and Sylar gets this look on his face that's like, oh, shit, no! And then she shoots her brains out. Aw. I was just getting to like her, too! Once she stopped whisping about Mohinder's apartment, she kind of grew on me. Oh, well. Parting is such sweet sorry. Bye, Eden!
Peter's Cell of Sorrow. Peter's curled up on his bunk, staring at his navel. Nathan enters and Peter asks him what he's doing there. We know it's not a dream this time because Nathan acts more like himself and tersely tosses Peter's plastic bag of belongings at him and barks, "Let's go!" As they leave the building, Peter wonders why Nathan's not asking him what happened. "I know what's happened," says Nathan. "You got yourself into trouble and you nearly got yourself killed." Peter's all, no, dude! I saved a girl. And she's cute! "Had to be a hero, didn't ya?" says Nathan. "Got it outta your system now?" "I finally get it now, Nathan," says Peter. "I have these dreams, and when I'm around someone with an ability, I can do what they can do." We know, Peter. That still doesn't explain why you look like a plate of three-day-old oatmeal.
Nathan says as much when he tells his brother that he looks like utter hell. Peter blabbles on about Claire and Sylar and Matt, and Nathan's totally not listening. "They were all like us!" says Peter. "Dysfunctional?" quips Nathan. Heh. Peter's all, no, they're awesome, and I feel faint, and kind of quivery and I have to stop that bomb and I have to save everybody--WHUMP! Peter falls to the ground. Only, when he lands, he lands in a dream world where everything's tinged with blue. He's wearing a long blue trench coat and a watch with a square face. It's been bandied about on the boards that the coat and watch belong to Sylar, but I don't have any episodes saved on this DVR, so I can't go back and check. That'd be an awesome, thing, though, wouldn't it?
So, DreamPeter gets up and looks around. He's on a street in New York, and the place is empty. There are tons of cars, but no one's in them. Doors are open, cars are stopped in mid-traffic, but no one's there. It's like everyone saw something horrible coming and just got the hell out of there. Peter sees Nathan's campaign office in the distance and walks toward it. A cab door opens right to him and Mohinder gets out and smiles at him. His smile turns to a frown of fear when he seems to look down at Peter's midsection and see something horrifying there. He runs away and when Peter goes to follow him, he comes up against Matt, in uniform, ordering him to stay back. Behind him are DL, Niki and Micah, all looking at Peter in abject horror. Matt seems to be instructing them to run away from Peter as fast as they can. Peter's totally confused.
Just then, from a distance, Claire comes running toward him. Nathan also exits his office and makes his way to his brother. Claire runs right up to him and stops. She backs away from him after looking down at his midsection or hands or... crotch? I have no idea. Peter turns and Simone is walking toward him. Isaac appears and grabs her from behind, pulling her back from Peter. Nathan continues to walk toward his brother. Hiro and Ando are there too, only they're just watching from a distance. They don't seem to be running away. "I'm sorry," says Claire as she backs away. Peter looks down at his hands and they're glowing orange.
Simone screams at him as Isaac pulls her away. Hiro and Ando look at him sadly and slowly walk away. Claire turns and runs. Nathan appears to walk right up to his brother and just... stand there. Peter's hands burst into what look like nuclear flames. Nathan stands in front of him as Peter's eyes develop a nuclear glow and then he rears his head back and... explodes with a scream. We spin back and we're back in Peter's eyeball as he gasps for breath on the foot of the police station steps. Nathan picks him up and cradles his brother in his arms. "It's all my fault," gasps Peter. "The explosion." "What're you talking about?" says Nathan. "It's me," says Peter. Nathan tells his brother to breathe, but it looks like Peter's done with all that breathing stuff and he appears to flatline in Nathan's arms. "Peter! Peter! Peter!" his brother shouts, to no avail.
To be continued... on January 22nd!