By Couch Baron
So we get a total takeback on the Hiro killing Ando thing, as it turns out Hiro manipulated time to grab a trick sword and some fake blood and to warn Ando to play along with the charade. This gets Hiro in with the so-called Villains, and Daphne gives him an assignment -- capture NeoIsaac. NeoIsaac, however, with his ability to see the future, is able to bonk Hiro on the head with a shovel, which is hilarious because the last thing Hiro sees before that is a painting of it happening, and the only thing better than that is that it happens again five minutes later. NeoIsaac finally allows Hiro and Ando to find him, and after telling Hiro he relies too much on his powers, he offers to go with Hiro to the Villains if that's what he wants, but suggests he choose his own path. That would be great advice if it weren't Hiro we're dealing with here.
Claire and Sandra try to rescue Meredith from creepy, creepy puppeteer Eric Doyle, who thinks he can make Meredith love him "again," and considering he almost makes her cut open her own carotid artery, he is not kidding around. Sandra and Claire get themselves captured, and he forces the three of them to play a horrific game of Russian roulette. Luckily, Claire's the one who gets shot, and when Doyle starts to gloat, unaware of her regenerative ability, she knocks him out. Bennet turns up to retrieve him, and then asks Meredith for some help, which hopefully means she's joining The Company because she rules and I want her to stick around.
Tracy and Nathan go to see Mohinder in hopes of getting Tracy's ability taken away, but Mohinder is only interested the fact they have synthetic abilities without spider-related side effects, and he incapacitates them for some nefarious purpose. Daphne then shows up to recruit Mohinder, but discovers what he's got going on in the back room and expresses her distaste before superzipping the hell out of there. Tracy tricks Mohinder into letting her partially freeze him, because he's as dumb as Maya, but she and Nathan don't succeed in getting out, which would be a total cliffhanger if I cared one bit about Spider-Mohinder and his weboratory.
Daphne's bummed that Hiro seems to have committed murder, and tells Fake Linderman she wants out of Pinehearst, but he threatens her with unspecified consequences and implies they have something on her, so she goes through with meeting up with Matt, who tells her about them being married in the future. He gives her enough detail to convince her he's telling the truth, which of course freaks her out, but she still swings by The Company and gives Sylar a sales pitch before busting Flint out. As the episode goes on, she gets more and more disillusioned with what Pinehearst is doing, but despite that and the fact that Matt tells her being with Pinehearst gets her killed in the future, she refuses to leave them.
Knox brings Adam to see Papa Petrelli, who unceremoniously and literally sucks the life out of him, healing himself but turning Adam into dust before our eyes, and I will miss David Anders terribly but that was still a pretty dramatic twist. Sylar, meanwhile, wants to be good, although letting Peter loose on the world wouldn't have been the way I would have demonstrated that. Sylar brings Peter to Mama Petrelli, who still seems to be in a waking coma, and asks Peter to look inside her head and find out what's wrong. Peter pulls the Pinehearst logo from her mind, and Sylar recognizes it from the card Daphne gave him. Peter wants to go charging over there, but Sylar is worried about his lack of control, and before you know it, Peter is beating the crap out of his brother and putting him in the coma he was in to start the episode. Well, at least he can't say Sylar didn't have a point. Peter busts into Pinehearst, only to have his father steal all his powers, because that's apparently how he rolls. And while Papa Petrelli seems to be evil incarnate, I still think the world should breathe a sigh of relief.
Come back on Monday for the full detailed recap. Until then, see which heroes/villians have the best powers.