Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Saw-lar
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 12.15.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Okay, time to wrap up this chapter that had no coherent story at all, which is titled "Duality" on Yahoo and TV Guide, but "Dual" on the chyron for the episode, not that I would care either way -- except this episode was really pretty badass. I mean, none of it made any sense, but it was still pretty cool. In the past, Hiro chats with a pigeon, which you might think would be a bit trivial for a chapter finale, and Daphne finally decides she's had enough of Matt's shit and heads off to Pinehearst to get to Mohinder. However, Peter has already accosted the only actor on the show worse than he is, but Daphne superzips in and steals the formula, and Ando injects himself with it. Meanwhile, Hiro has managed to slide down the flagpole and rescue himself without help from the future, and he enlists his younger self's help in getting hold of the formula back in the past. In the present, Ando awakens from his power injection and doesn't have the time-travel power -- but he does have the ability Hiro foresaw in the season premiere, even though it's hard for him to control, and it seems like it's a time-shifting ability that's not what it seemed -- only it's actually that Ando can supercharge people's powers, whatever. The upshot is that Ando and Daphne head back to the past and save Hiro from getting chopped in half by his own dad. Hiro and Daphne then confront Tracy and grab the formula, and whatever, none of that really matters so let's move on.
Over their father's dead body, Peter tells Nathan that the formula has to be destroyed, leading to Peter decking his brother but… leaving him there? However, Flint and Knox then unexpectedly show up and ally themselves with Peter because they don't want tons have people to have special abilities, which actually adds up, so good on the show for that. Knox kills the special Marine from last week on the way to capturing Nathan, and then they beat up on Mohinder, which is awesome because he sucks so bad. Nathan then suddenly decides he has a spine, and he fights Knox, but would still have gotten his ass handed to him if Tracy hadn't shown up and frozen Knox like Robert Patrick in T2. Tracy, however, tries to get Nathan to come away with her, and Nathan cans her ass. Nathan and Peter then face off, and I never thought I'd be rooting for Peter over Nathan, but there you go. Flint lights the place up, and in desperation, Peter injects himself with the formula, which gives him the ability to fly him and Nathan out of there. He tells Nathan he did so because he loves him, but Nathan grits that he wouldn't have done the same before flying out of there.
At Primatech, Claire, Bennet, Meredith (glad to see her, but she came from where?) Claire, and Angela realize they're under siege, and then Sylar shows up and tells them he's going to show them they're all just like him. The bunch of Primatech defenders conspire to protect Angela at all costs, and Claire gets tasked with being Angela's bodyguard. Sylar tries to get Claire to blow Angela's head off, and alludes to Bennet and Elle turning him into a monster, but Claire doesn't bend. Meanwhile, Bennet, with Meredith at his side, releases the rest of the Unit 5 prisoners, including Doyle The Puppet Master, in an attempt to contain Sylar. Soon after, Sylar catches Meredith, only to find himself caught in puppetry by Doyle, but Sylar breaks free and subdues both of them, and he gives Meredith an adrenaline injection which causes powers to freak out. Sylar then traps her and Bennet in a cell and tells Bennet to kill her or be killed himself. But Claire shows up and gets them out of the deadly situation, and she and Bennet go after Sylar, who's gone after Angela -- and after she initially lies to Sylar, she reveals the truth -- she knew she could manipulate him. However, she also knows who his real parents are -- but before he can elicit that information, Claire incapacitates him.
Volume Four, "Fugitives," lets us know that Nathan is ratting Heroes out to the government for internment, like he's going to be creating a Genosha from X-Men in this universe. We shall see what happens with that.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So the good news, for me, is that I got some enjoyment out of the last two episodes. Some interesting stuff happened, and they kept things moving along, two elements that have been all too rare this season. However, the end of the chapter forces me to take stock of the "character" and "plot" "arcs" it contained. In no particular order, and off the top of my head:
Peter: I hate to say it, but Peter was one of the most consistent characters this chapter. While many of the choices he made were moronic -- deciding that the only way to stop his brother from making a decision in the future was to murder him in cold blood; deciding that taking Sylar's power was the best way to help the world, which resulted in him murdering his brother in the future and almost doing the same to his mother in the present -- he was focused on preventing the future from containing millions of people with artificially-given powers, and, in pursuit of that end, stopping his father once he turned up. But the self-righteousness combined with the "acting"? Tough to take.
Nathan: Ugh. First off, a technical point I've mentioned before: I assumed, when Linderman appeared after Nathan miraculously recovered from his mortal wounds, that he was responsible for the mysterious happening. Only later we learned that it was Maury projecting an image of Linderman, so how did Nathan recover? Leaving that aside, Nathan was the most irritatingly wishy-washy, spineless character this season produced, as he allowed himself to be led around like a dog on a leash by both Tracy and his father who TRIED TO HAVE HIM KILLED AND WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS WIFE'S PARALYSIS. And it looks like he's going to be the biggest player in the next chapter, so I hope he at least commits hard to evil, because otherwise? Zzzzz.
Angela: Oh, Lord. So this episode reveals that she knew Sylar wasn't her son, but she thought she could manipulate him into doing her bidding. Let's think about that. For one, what did she need him for? Just to be a Company agent? She didn't even know about Arthur at that point, so it hardly seems worth it. On top of that, let's recall, she sacrificed an innocent girl just to feed him. At the time, it seemed like she did so out of desire to care for and protect her son, but now we know it was just a cold-blooded murder. Not only that, but she didn't know that Sylar would learn to control his "hunger," so how many people would she have ended up feeding to him? The season wanted us to believe that Angela was leading the righteous party here, when in fact she was the most awful stealth villain of them all. Great job!