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Arthur turns Hiro's brain to Swiss cheese, not that that's a big change, but the effect we see this week is that Hiro regresses to thinking he's a child, although Ando does manage to get him to teleport the two of them away from Arthur and back to Japan. He also gets Hiro to access his powers in an amusingly immature way, and they see that an eclipse is coming, as if the two episode titles weren't enough of a giveaway.
Arthur tells Sylar that their powers are the same -- if Sylar can access his empathy, which he knows he has from his saving of Peter, he'll be able to steal powers just like he does. As a test, he puts Sylar together with a crazed Elle, who lights him up with her full strength plus as repayment for her father's death. She doesn't kill him, but she does at least succeed in disintegrating his shirt, which makes up for the really zappy self-help session that leads to the two of them pulling each other up by their parent-hating bootstraps, and also to Sylar absorbing her power without stealing it from her. I can only imagine that their flirting will lead to the revelation that they're somehow related.
Knox and Flint show up to grab Peter, but Claire runs interference for him, and they escape into the sewers, where Peter tells Claire about her future self killing him. She then tries to save Peter again, only to find out that Knox and Flint have actually come for her. Peter returns to save her, though, using Flint's extremely low IQ against him, a tactic of which Meredith would no doubt approve.
Matt and Daphne show up at Primatech, and Matt uses his powers to see what Angela has been through. Daphne reports back to Arthur and asks him to leave Matt out of the situation, but when Arthur threatens her, she toes the line for the moment. She then returns to Matt, who uses his powers to try to free Angela, but in their mental communication, he envisions Daphne betraying him. Daphne, however, is wracked with guilt, and, seeing Matt in physical distress from his vision, gets him to take her into the dream state with him. In front of Arthur, she confesses that she almost betrayed Matt but that she loves him, and this declaration not only frees Daphne and Matt but also Angela. Love conquers all! At least all ambiguous mental barriers!
A lab-coat-wearing Mohinder is whining about how hard it is to give people abilities, and realizes that there's a human catalyst involved. Nathan in turn whines about his dad to Tracy before they go into Pinehearst and confront him. Arthur tries to get Nathan to join him, and a confused Nathan sends Tracy back to Washington to cover for him while he goes to see Angela. Tracy, however, goes back in to see Arthur and offers to try to turn Nathan to his side. Villain!
In the end, there's a big confab at Primatech, and Angela tells the people in attendance about the human catalyst. Claire realizes from what Sylar told her when he cut her open that she's the catalyst, and everyone seems to pick a side. Well, everyone except all the people who weren't in the episode or who have memory loss, but we'll get to them in due sunless time.
Want more? The full recap starts right below! Lord, Mohinder won't shut up as we get flashbacks of the first eclipse. He mentions dwelling on his own insignificance, which I wish he would take up as a full-time job. It's not like he'd have a lot of down time.So as Arthur holds Hiro's head in his hands and tells him he can't have him dreaming about him, as it's too dangerous, Hiro continues to yell like the world's foremost disciple of primal-scream therapy. This season's been rough on all of us, dude. We then get a little Crouching Ando, Hidden Dragon action, but Arthur telekinetically catches Ando mid-hurtle and tosses him away. As Hiro stops yelling in favor of staring blankly ahead, Arthur tells him he had one simple job to do, and instead he had to come clean up the mess. "That's what I get for sending a boy to do a man's job." In fairness, the men on this show haven't been giving a great account of themselves either, a case in point being that Arthur doesn't just KILL HIRO ALREADY. We get an odd closeup of NeoIsaac's decapitated head, I guess because when you spend that kind of money to produce that effect you want to show it off, and then Arthur is startled when he looks back and sees a new painting -- one depicting an eclipse. Of course, with all the upcoming references to it you could be forgiven for thinking there will actually be seventeen eclipses in the near future, but we'll just go with the one for now. Arthur walks over to take a closer look, giving Ando the opportunity to tackle Hiro, which snaps him out of his daze. It does not, however, snap him out of the apparent Arthur-induced idea that he's a child, and as Arthur turns back and starts to approach them again, Ando desperately asks Hiro what he's thinking about. Hiro gets the Homer Simpson drool face as he says that waffles are on his mind, so Ando runs with that, telling him to blink. As Arthur reaches a hand out for each of them (again, why he didn't just kill them both is beyond me), Ando actually closes Hiro's eyes, as if that should have a chance in hell of working, but we focus on Hiro's face...
...as the lighting changes, and they're back in Tokyo, in a bowling alley at which they apparently make Hiro's favorite waffles with chicken. Hiro is excited, but then asks Ando why he's so old, and while his mind may be addled I still think he'd wonder why HE'S IN AN ADULT'S BODY TOO. Oh, there he goes, looking in a mirror and wondering why he's so old. Ando asks what age he thinks he is, and the answer is ten. As someone with a comparable mental age, I'm insulted.
At Pinehearst, the camera takes approximately three thousand years to pan around Sylar, who's watching some workmen replace the window Peter went through. After his face is in full view, Arthur materializes behind him and claps him on the shoulder. After some boring talk about Peter surviving the fall, Arthur tells Sylar to come with him. "I've got something to show you." My mind goes to the Petrelli family incest place...
...and in a hallway, his follow-up declaration of "It's time I started acting like your father" does nothing to turn it away. He tells Sylar that the hunger he feels isn't about killing, but power, and he can take all the abilities he wants without sacrificing any more lives if he'll just access his empathy. As he opens a heavy door, he adds that he knows Sylar saved Peter's life, which he says demonstrates his capability for empathy. I think it demonstrates his capacity for extreme stupidity and for pissing me off, but I can see where Arthur might disagree. Also, though, if Arthur's so smart, wouldn't he wonder why Sylar pretended to want Peter dead and then saved him? It suggests some duplicity in his intentions toward Arthur, no? Sylar enters the darkened room, the door to which Arthur shuts behind him with a smile, and at the other end of the room, bound by heavy chains, he sees Elle, who seems to have ridden a high-voltage electrical current right around the bend. She stands and lets Sylar have it but good, and a season that has not exactly been subtle with the religious references does itself one worse by giving us a look at Sylar, arms splayed out to the sides as electricity courses through him, before going to the title card.
Back at Peter's apartment or wherever they are, Claire tells Peter they have to get out of there, and Peter says he knows -- but Claire can't come with him. She of course is not trying to hear that, saying she has to protect him, but he tells her he needs her to stay..."innocent." Okay, I have resisted many a joke about these two dating in real life, but that line just makes it absolutely impossible. So: EW. Just then, someone starts trying to break down the front door, so Claire tells Peter to run, and assures him she has a plan to hold them off. Peter heads down the fire escape ahead of Knox and Flint busting through the door. Claire overacts the smug nonchalance as she tells them they'll never find Peter, and when Flint notes that she's protecting Peter and holds up his burning hands, she tells him, "Don't you know? I'm the defensive player of the year!" Even Gossip Girl drunk and on meth wouldn't utter a line that nonsensical. Claire runs and jumps through the window, and we get a very cool shot of her plummeting past Peter to the ground below. Peter rushes down to his innocent niece-girlfriend as she snaps her knee back into place (that shit never gets old), and then, seeing Flint and Knox heading down after them, they run -- except Peter stops to stare at yet another painting of the world, and it looks like something bad is happening but I don't know or care what. Claire rushes back and snaps him out of it, and the two of them pull off a manhole cover and retreat into the sewers.
Arthur comes into Mohinder's lab to ask after his progress. By way of answering, Mohinder points out his latest test subject, and we don't see much of him at this point, but for those familiar either with H.G. Wells or the X-Men universe, the word "Morlock" will undoubtedly come to mind. Arthur then notices that Mohinder's got images of an eclipse up on his computer screen, and Mohinder tells him that most of the powers he's documented manifested during that event. Except for the ones that had already manifested (all the ElderHeroes, for example), and the ones that manifested later (just about any character introduced after Season One; Monica comes to mind), and those that were synthetically made (Nathan and Tracy had nothing to do with the eclipse), so whatever, show. However, given that Mohinder seems to believe his own statement, his follow-up of "It's probably just a coincidence" officially makes him the WORST SCIENTIST EVER. Even turning himself into a spider was not as bad as this statement, but without it Arthur wouldn't have cause to stare meaningfully at the screen for eight hundred years. Mohinder babbles that he thought he had succeeded in combining his research and that of Pinehearst, but he thinks there's a catalyst missing that would allow the serum to bond with each individual's enzymes and OH MY GOD why am I bothering with the "science" of this? The point is that the catalyst would have to reside in a human host, so Arthur intones, "You're saying this catalyst isn't something, it's someone." He realizes that Kaito must have hidden the catalyst, and leaves Mohinder to look at the destruction he's wrought on his poor subject. On the plus side, Arthur can keep him around to use in those empathy tests of which he's apparently so fond.
Sylar's shirt has seen better days, and he rests on his hands and knees as Elle grits that she'll kill him for murdering her father. He tells her that she deserves her vengeance, and he'll take whatever she's got, so she zaps him again with the full force of her electrical anger. You'd think his eyebrows would fall out under the assault, except I always figured those things had superpowers of their own.
Daphne and Matt have made it to Primatech, and Daphne, noting the empty halls, opines that it's "like a ghost town." On cue, Matt sees NeoIsaac standing silently down the hall, and for that to happen you'd think she'd at least have had to chant his name five times while looking in a mirror. NeoIsaac moves, and Matt chases after him...
...right into Angela's room. He's chagrined to find her in a waking coma, and when he uses his power to try to mentally connect with her, he only sees a brief flash of her horrified reaction when she saw Arthur before convulsing in pain. He says he has to help her, and Daphne tells him she's going to get a nurse. Once she's out of the room, though, she superzips away, so either she's up to something, or she meant a wet nurse for some reason I can't quite figure.
Arthur looks at a file and sees a picture of Kaito, then of Claire, before Daphne arrives and urgently tells him that Matt's trying to help Angela. More haltingly, she asks if he's responsible for her condition, and Arthur answers by non-answering: "Mrs. Petrelli will be fine." Daphne asks if Matt can be left out of the situation, but Arthur threatens her with the specter of Whatever The Shit She Did That Got Her In So Much Trouble, so she asks what she needs to do. Arthur tells her to stay with Matt, and if he tries to help Angela, "then I'll be waiting." You've been in like five scenes already -- could you wait off-screen for a change?
Peter tells Claire they need to split up and blah, and eventually confesses why he's being so insistent about shielding her -- the alley they were in is the very scene of Future Claire ending his future self, and she's on the path to becoming a killer. He begs her to go home, but better people than he have tried that this season already, so it's no surprise when Claire says it won't happen, and what's more, it's his fault. "You should have never come to Odessa to save me. You should have never become my friend, or my hero. Or my boyfriend." Once you start on those, it's kind of hard to stop. She adds that she can't leave him now because she owes him a debt, and then Knox and Flint catch up to them again and Claire sends Peter off. But when they face each other, Flint tells Claire: "We didn't come for Peter. We came for you." As Grandpa Simpson would say, that's an onion in the ointment. Claire at least doesn't waste time with words as she tries to hightail it out of there, but she gets approximately two feet before Knox tackles her. Damn, Claire, that would be embarrassing even if you hadn't been making yourself out to be such a badass. Peter hears Claire's outburst and pauses, but it doesn't seem like he can do anything as Knox starts to lead Claire away. I wonder if Flint would act differently if he knew it's his niece Knox is manhandling? Or what his reaction would be to learning that he and Peter are kind of hookups-in-law?
Waffles upon waffles arrive at the table amid the sound of crashing pins, and those are easily the most interesting things to happen in the scene, in which Ando tries to get Hiro to stay on point and Hiro acts like a ten-year-old who's had thirty too many sodas as he and some girls at the table shoot spitballs at each other. Ando eventually succeeds in getting Hiro to freeze time, although his first attempt only slows it down. Upon a successful second attempt, then, Hiro follows Bart-Simpson-as-Stretch-Dude's superhero code of "I must only use this power to annoy!" and runs around fucking frozen people up, so when he restores time, some dude sits in ketchup and another falls over because his shoes are suddenly tied together. Ando's amused until he tries to salt his fries and the whole shaker empties out, upon which he intones, "We've got a lot of work to do." No argument here, especially if you're including the writers and producers.
Daphne returns to Matt and tells him she couldn't find anyone, and he opines that he's got to try to get inside Angela's head, as if he was doing something different when he got that mental bitchslap earlier. Daphne asks if he could possibly get hurt, and he admits that he doesn't know. He asks her to keep an eye on him, as he might "disappear for a while," and he takes Angela's hand. His consciousness seems to slip away, and as Daphne anxiously asks if he can hear her...
...we cut to Elle, who's still freaking the hell out on Sylar, calling him a murderer and zapping him to the floor. Sylar calmly tells her he didn't want to kill Bob, or anyone, as she should well know from what we saw last week. Especially since she wasn't around in Season One to see Sylar practically tap-dancing on the corpses of the people he offed. He stands and says he's not going to let the hunger control him anymore, and Elle replies by lighting him up again and shrieking that she'll kill him. When she pauses, though, he steps forward once more and says he understands. "You need to let it out." After some more zappy-zap and Christ imagery, Sylar's shirt has finally had all it can take, and as they look up from the floor, Elle, her energy spent, listlessly invites Sylar to kill her before putting more energy into adding, "Please!" She cries as Sylar points his finger toward her and into a commercial break.
Outside Pinehearst, Nathan is mumbling to Tracy about the name of the company coming from some spot in the Berkshires to which Arthur took him and Peter fishing or some nonsense. Tracy looks like she just overdosed on antihistamines as she asks Nathan if he's sure he wants to go in, pointing out there might be a reason Arthur hasn't contacted him. Nathan, however, says that his father has influenced every decision in his life. "If he's alive, I've got to see him."
Cut to Nathan...well, seeing him. Arthur invites Nathan to give him a hug, but Nathan is of course smarter than Peter, so he keeps his distance as Tracy and Arthur shake hands. Nathan asks if he has any idea what he's done to the family and to him. Arthur: "Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I should have told you sooner what your role was in all this." That's a really convoluted way of expressing the "I'm sorry you feel that way" non-apology. Arthur dismisses Tracy, and once she's gone, he tells Nathan that his destiny is to lead the nation, but Nathan isn't falling for this crap, and calls his father insane. Arthur tells Nathan that he's always been his favorite. "The one most like me. The strong one. The one who would never, ever become a male nurse." He tells Nathan they can save the world, and that can be the Petrelli legacy. He then puts a hand on Nathan's shoulder, which brings to mind another part of the Petrelli legacy.
Instead of cutting her head open, Sylar releases Elle from her bonds, and then gets up and goes to her. As I mentioned, he's now fully shirtless, which I suppose is the logical last step in him taking Peter's place. Elle's still having trouble controlling her power, and commands him to kill her and take it. She begs him: "Kill me and make the pain stop." Sylar sinks to his knees and says he wants to make it stop, but he's not going to kill her. I think he's supposed to be exuding empathy, but even an actor as good as Quinto is going to have a tough time selling that through eyebrows bushier than you'd find on a Sesame Street character. Elle tells him that he's a monster, just like her, but Sylar tells her that her father made her this way, just like his mother made him. "We were never good enough for them, Elle!" Ugh, horrible line. He adds that she wanted to be normal -- she just didn't know how, and that she gave him the will to live. When she tells him even that came from an evil place, he says she was following orders. "But I forgive you. Now you need to forgive yourself." He touches her, and she gasps in shock as she realizes the pain is gone. Sylar's stunned too, as he holds up a now-crackling hand, and they look at each other in wonder and happiness. I'd get grossed out, but at least I like these two.
Knox and Flint are still dragging Claire away through the sewers when Peter appears in their path and threatens them with death if they don't let Claire go. They're not particularly scared, so Peter looks up COMPLETELY OBVIOUSLY at this gas that's leaking from an exposed pipe between him and his enemies before goading Flint into taking a shot at him. Knox smells the gas and tries to stop Flint, but he's too late, and Claire is live to the situation, running under the resultant wall of flame to her uncle as Knox and Flint go reeling back. Of course, I'd expect Flint to be impervious to fire just like Meredith is, but he's also an idiot so I'm not going to question his reaction. When the fire recedes, Flint and Knox get to their feet, but Peter and Claire are long gone.
In the aftermath of Elle and Sylar's connection, she tells him no one's ever done anything like that for her before. You mean no one has ever used his empathy-based mutant ability to relieve the blinding pain caused by your own mutant powers mysteriously misfiring? Or, you know, some such? I find that hard to believe. Sylar senses that being human is to be at war with yourself, and the trick is finding a way to live with that. They then each have some Fun With Zappy Hands, so I guess Sylar never needed to kill to take someone else's power -- he's now learning to do so through empathy. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence. Also, empathy aside, did he just magically make Elle forget he killed her dad? Or is she just riding the wave of having forgiven herself? Whatever, Bell and Quinto are great but the writing in this entire subplot has been flirting with an "I don't like sand" level of uninspired ridiculousness, so let's just say that Elle teaches Sylar a thing or two about using her power, which gives him a chance to flex his arms and other things, and then they gaze soulfully into each other's eyes as Arthur watches them impassively on a monitor, like, wasn't Matt trying to wake your wife up about half an hour ago?
Ando is telling Hiro how to use his power, which is completely ridiculous for reasons too numerous to list, but it nonetheless works, and once Hiro figures out the teleportation thing, they pop out of there...
...to a comic-book store, which Hiro says is "the source of all knowledge." If the writers actually believed that, we might have a better show.
As they exit Pinehearst, Nathan is telling Tracy that Arthur wants to give half the population superpowers so they can save the world together, with Nathan as President. If I gave you a page to talk about how nonsensical that is, do you think it would be enough? Tracy reminds him that he's a U.S. Senator, and it's nice of her to bring that up considering he hasn't spent ONE MINUTE in D.C. since he fucking got appointed, and she orders him to get himself together. He tells her to head to Washington and cover for him while he goes to Primatech to see his mother, and takes off into the sky. That, I never get tired of, and I think Tracy agrees with me...
...but inside, she comes back in to see Arthur. Without looking up, he speculates that she wants him to take away her power, but she smiles that she's actually getting used to it before telling him she thinks they can help each other, and asking him just to look out for her "once the dust settles." He doesn't seem interested until she brings up the fact that he has a "PR problem," and for his plan to succeed, he needs a public face, and it can't be him, because the world thinks he's dead. However, she thinks Nathan would be a workable substitute and that she can get him to agree to do it. So she's suddenly over her guilt and is back to being a political opportunist? I mean, her guilt was certainly boring, but this development seems a little sudden and dramatically unsatisfying. She may be an expert on spin, but any way you look at it, this is a manipulation and a betrayal of the guy that saved her life. She concludes, "You scratch my back, and I will make sure he lands on the right side." Arthur smiles, because what else is there to do when someone tosses metaphors into the Cuisinart and hits "puree"?
Daphne is still asking Matt if he can hear her, so either she's gone simple or they're in a part of the show where time doesn't move. Matt sees jumbled images from Angela's last scary vision, and then he's sitting in that same hallway. When he gets to his feet, he sees Angela waaay down the hall, and the way the shot is framed makes you think she's going to tell Matt to come play with her, forever and ever and ever, but she simply shows him that her wrists are chained to the chair she's sitting in. Cut to him trying to get them loose as she says he shouldn't have come, because Arthur's too dangerous. "Even if you get them off, Arthur's locked all the doors." We then see Matt trying to open them, to no avail, until he tries two at the end of the hall that are unlocked. Daphne then appears, and this whole scene is shot from creepy angles like the hallucination it is, so it's no surprise that after they hug, Daphne stabs him in the gut with a big knife. In the real world, Matt starts to sputter in shock, and Daphne sees that he's bleeding from his stomach. She urgently tells him to wake up, but he looks both comatose and ready to expire. With one act to go, I think we have something in common.
Daphne shifts tacks, telling Matt he has to take her in there with him, and after a moment, she gasps...
...and is in the dream state with him. She tells Matt they need to go, but thinking she's her evil doppelganger, he recoils and tells her to get away. Dream Daphne appears to them, though, urging him not to trust the real Daphne, and then Arthur is there, telling him that a woman will betray him at every turn. Unlike you, who were merely going to KILL YOUR SON. Arthur adds that he knew where Matt was because Daphne told him, and she betrayed Matt, like Angela betrayed him. Daphne babbles that she was afraid, and didn't want to go back to her crackwhoring ways or whatever, but says she didn't know how much she'd care about him...
...and back in the room, she's telling Matt that he has to wake up or he'll die. So she can be in the dream and still be awake, while Matt is catatonic? Seriously, show, what the shit?
In the dream, Daphne tells Matt that she can't lose him -- she loves him. They embrace tenderly, and it's a nice moment but don't you think you should test-drive each other first? Actually, even though this has a rushed feel to it, I'm inclined to allow it. Seeing their affection, Angela tells Arthur that they were once like that...
...and then they're all in her office, as she continues that he loved her, and there's a part of him that still does, so now he's going to let her go. After she repeats her declaration, Arthur gets a resigned look on his face, and the handcuffs clatter to the floor...
...and back in the room, everyone regains consciousness and Matt's stomach is fine. He asks Daphne if that was really her in there, and she acknowledges that and affirms what she told him in the dream. Angela's voice wearily cuts in, and Matt goes to get a doctor...
...but out in the hall, he and Daphne run into the just-arriving Peter and Claire, and Matt, still miffed about having to follow a turtle around the desert, throws Peter against the wall as Claire tries to intervene. Peter tells Matt that it wasn't him, and Matt confirms this with a little mind mojo. Claire asks Matt where Angela is, and Matt's response is that she's awake. Claire does not point out that that's not what she asked, which makes me wonder if she's secretly no longer a teenager. That would make a certain relationship slightly more palatable, I'll admit.
Mohinder has inflicted more torture on this poor Morlock, and when he apologizes, the guy begs Mohinder to kill him. Mohinder silently injects him with something, so I'm guessing he's acceding to the request. Usually the acting would give me a clue, but...well, you know.
Okay, so now there's a comic book called 9th Wonders that you can buy in any store and predicts the future, and Ando totally breezily tells Hiro about it like it's the best-known thing ever, like, seriously, fuck off, show. I'm trying not to be overly negative, but this is just bullshit. Anyway, there's an eclipse coming, like, you don't say.
Back at Primatech, Nathan shows up, and he and everyone else listen as Angela tells them that Arthur has two pieces to the formula, and she and Peter have both seen the future and it sucks ass. Matt pipes up his confirmation of that assessment, and Angela goes on to tell them about a third piece -- the catalyst Mohinder theorized about earlier. She says that Kaito was the only one who knew the identity of the host, but as we look at the understanding on Claire's face, we can of course recall that Kaito was the one who personally gave her to Bennet to raise. Claire tells them about what Sylar told her when he attacked her -- that she was different from everyone else. "I didn't understand what that meant until today. I think I'm the catalyst." Dramatic drumming kicks up...
...and as we intercut between Primatech and Pinehearst, we're meant to think the lines are drawn: The Primatech team, as I mentioned, is Angela, Peter, Nathan, Claire, Matt, and Daphne, while Pinehearst is fielding Knox, Flint, Elle, Sylar, Tracy, and Arthur. Mohinder babbles as Arthur, surrounded by his minions, looks into the future and sees something I believe is referred to in some esoteric circles as an "eclipse," and tells his group that said phenomenon will arrive at some point in the future, or, as he puts it, that "it" is "coming." But not until time, because we're done, thank God.
John Ramos is a writer and producer living in Los Angeles. You can reach him at couchbaron@gmail.com.
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