Episode Report Card Couch Baron: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT There's…Another Part?
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 11.24.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.There's an eclipse and everyone's powers go all wonky. Lots of long-standing emotional issues get dredged up, and the lighting designers get a chance to have some fun with murky shadows being cast all over the place.
Mohinder babbles on and on about the changes that are coming. They are a mystery. That is reassuring. Mohinder's all selfish, and is like "If Claire/the Catalyst dies then I'm stuck as a freak of nature forever." Way to be a team player Mohinder. Though his power is really sticky and disgusting. So I'd want to be rid of it too. He gets all excited that the eclipse made him less scaly, so he decides to go after Maya (NO!), but Papa Petrelli uses his powers of persuasion (aka muscle in the form of Meredith's pissed off brother) to make him stay until he can get everyone's powers back.
Sylar and Elle are all flirty. Sylar wants to prove himself to his father. Aw. So Papa Petrelli pairs them together for a mission to retrieve the cheerleader, because Elle's secretly evil and can manipulate Sylar like nobody's business. Elle totally gets Sylar to embrace his badass self and kill an innocent car rental employee. She gets points for calling HRG, "Glasses Himself." And Sylar gets points for using his eyebrows to display the varying complex emotions going on his head. And they got a bitchin' convertible out of the deal.
Claire's a whiny teen because she doesn't get to do anything while all the other "good guys" have cool missions. So Mama Petrelli relents and sends her and HRG off to the house where vortex man formerly lived. They get all Buffy/Giles as HRG teaches her to control her skills. Elle and Sylar arrive to take Claire, but they soon realize they are powerless. The only one in control is HRG who has a gun, but after a scuffle Elle steals it and shoots Glasses Himself, and of course Claire (now powerless) jumps in and gets a bullet in her shoulder. HRG whisks her off to her house, where mom is all kinds of pissed off and doesn't like that HRG's plan is to stitch her up and take off... like usual. Of course he's after Sylar and Elle, who are still at House of Vortex, smooching and discussing how they can still be badass, even though they are stuck being human. But Sandra's at home and finds out that Claire's got more than a flesh wound, and it's not repairing itself at all.
Nathan goes to find the Haitian with a monkey, er, Peter, on his back. Nathan loses his powers, they fall into the jungle and the alpha male refuses to ask for directions or trust Peter. They fight, as brothers do, bringing up all their old issues. It's almost like the good old days. They meet up with the Haitian, who also doesn't have any powers. The Haitian is out to stop his evil brother who has impenetrable skin (awesome), and Samedi's a real charmer and slugs Nathan with the butt of his gun (at Arthur's command). Peter and the Haitian just hide in the bushes and wait.
Matt, Hiro and Daphne hook up in a storyline, which is annoying since they are my least favorite characters of the moment. Seriously. Hiro doing the "I need to pee-pee on the potty" dance? Stupidest thing of all time. Parkman and Daphne are tasked to find Hiro, but Hiro and Ando (the only one with a brain) find Parkman because they saw it in a comic book. Then Daphne gets all wacky and insecure about her relationship with Matt and heads off to her dreaded home. Matt looks stupid when he tries to use his mind control power on Daphne's dad. Hiro actually makes a point about stepping up and being a hero even without powers, which is the smartest thing he's said in at least two seasons. Hiro and Ando head off to a comic shop and meet up with Seth Green and Breckin Meyer (which is kind of my dream comic shop). Matt finally grows a spine and confesses his love to Daphne, and we find out that without the Speedster skills she is in leg braces and can't walk.
Elsewhere, Tracy and Papa Petrelli plot and plan, but Mama Petrelli catches wind of this scheme. Papa Petrelli sits and draws all sorts of ominous visions of the future. And all the heroes/villains are left hanging to see what happens when the eclipse is over. -- Angel Cohn
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Arthur did some ADR work to add "I must steal your memory" over Hiro's girly shrieking. Got it, thanks. And speaking of which, I am starting this recap on Thanksgiving. I will leave it to you to decide exactly how ironic that is.
Mohinder babbles as we pan over a bunch of sketches apparently drawn by Arthur, one of which depicts what looks like Bennet holding Claire in his arms. In the drawing, Claire is bleeding from her shoulder, which can only mean she's going to die, in the "logic" of this show. Arthur snaps out of it...
...and in her office, Angela looks at a photograph of her family from a happier time, before turning to the window and looking up at the moon, which is approaching the sun...
...which fades into the shot of the total eclipse from the stupid comic ex machina. Mohinder tells us about "game-changers," like, if only, and Hiro and Ando look at each other like the word "eclipse" wasn't uttered so many times last week as to have lost all meaning. Arthur looks at a drawing of the eclipse too, and YOU DEVOTED AN ENTIRE BORING EPISODE TO TELLING US THAT "IT" IS "COMING"! And the TITLE of this episode is "THE ECLIPSE!" We fucking get it already!
Sylar is still practicing Elle's ability under her supervision, like, he certainly never seemed to have this much trouble with any of the other seventeen thousand powers he's lifted, but this is all so he can urgently tell Elle that he has to prove himself. She asks to whom he needs to do that, and he replies that he's not sure she'd understand, as if she of all people wouldn't get the idea of trying to please a demanding father who's never satisfied, and that he didn't SAY SO IN SO MANY WORDS LAST WEEK with that cheesy, awful line about "we" never being good enough for "them." Elle refrains from pointing this out, instead suggesting he try again, but Arthur interrupts by entering and telling Sylar that he needs him to find Claire and bring her back to him. He unnecessarily asks if Sylar thinks he can do that, which is the cue for Sylar to eagerly and obsequiously assure Arthur that he can. Elle looks chagrined at Sylar's eagerness to toe the line, and then tells Arthur that she's going too. Sylar's unpleasantly surprised, which makes no sense, so Elle pleads her case, saying "they" won't make it easy, and she was raised to be a company girl. Sylar dumbly says he thought she'd left that behind, not that I have any idea what he's basing that on, and Elle replies that it's what she knows. Sylar asks "Dad" if he's okay with this, and Arthur takes twenty years (everything he says is so fucking dramatic, God) to say that he thinks it's a "good pairing." Translation: Like I give a shit. Elle smiles back at Sylar, who looks like he got a lobotomy for Thanksgiving: "Let's go get the cheerleader."