Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Jump, Die and Fail
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.21.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Remember when back-to-back episodes would have been something to get excited about? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, Claire sees her roommate dead on the ground and insists that it is murder, not suicide. Her strange new friend Gretchen, who has an unhealthy obsession with dead bodies, says that they should try the age old Jump, Push, Fall test to determine the real cause of death, if only they could find a cadaver. Claire naturally leaps from the window herself, and new pal Gretchen sees her ribs sticking out and whatnot and is notably wigged out.
HRG gets a call from Tracy, who swears she didn't kill Danko. Instead, HRG determines that speedy knife guy must have wanted something, and after some digging in Danko's guts, HRG pulls out a key. The key leads to a safety deposit box, and HRG enlists a reluctant Peter's help to get it. Peter's the muscle in this scenario. Go ahead, laugh. I'll wait. Done? Nope? Yeah, it's a pretty hysterical concept. Anyway, they eventually find the box, containing a broken compass, and then speedy knife guy shows up and tries to kill them. Peter steals his power and they battle all blurry for a while, while HRG stands to the side and does literally nothing. Then knife guy runs off. The compass works for Peter, so HRG asks Peter to be his partner, but Peter turns him the hell down. Later, Peter gets called in for an emergency and it's a sliced up HRG who just got his little compass stolen. Then Tracy weirdly goes to the hospital and now she's friends with HRG or something and it is just strange.
Also strange, Hiro accidentally sends himself back to the carnival, but doesn't stop his young self from going to get his fortune told. However, T-Bag (also known as Samuel, apparently) encourages him to make another small change that won't rip the fabric of time apart or anything. Except that it sort of does as Ando and Komiko are dating now. Hiro sees this as a good thing (because even though he's not a pre-teen any more, he's still an idiot) and decides to go back to undo everything he's done wrong in the past. Well, that should take a long, long, while.
Meanwhile, in the storyline I just can't stand, Matt Parkman is hallucinating Sylar, who is looking for his body. Matt tries to ignore him, as he's apparently gone power-free for six weeks and isn't looking to get addicted again. There's group therapy, an annoying interrogation scene where Matt tries to do whatever job he's got this week, and then way too much of Matt's wife, who is having an affair with the water delivery boy. Matt finally caves and uses his power to send water boy away, and Sylar is delighted because now Matt will help him... in theory. Also, Nathan is having weird facial ticks, which is gross and apparently just there so that we realize the internal conflict going on inside him. Subtle.
Aside from taking advantage of stupid Hiro, who is apparently on tap to replace the ailing old time-traveling guy, T-Bag and crew need to take up a collection of heroes for some sort of mission. The tattoo seems to be of Peter, Sylar and Claire... for whatever unknown and presumably nefarious reason. - Angel Cohn
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what which Heroes have the Lamest Superpowers.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Without a break between episodes or chyrons that introduce us to Chapter Two, we keep right on going. Claire heads to the mixer, where we see Annie playing Guitar Hero. Claire sees Gretchen, who apologizes for being nosy. Claire says it's okay; she just wasn't allowed to talk about it before, so it was weird to do so. She gets philosophical about how she thought she could take what she liked about her life and leave the rest behind, but apparently not. Annie finishes her game and calls Claire over to play with her. Gretchen says Annie's horrible and has been hogging the game all night. Claire says it's her roommate, then walks over to Annie. Claire tells Annie she was going to play with Gretchen. Annie asks if Gretchen knows how, and Gretchen snits, "No, but Gretchen doesn't care." Okay, I actually prefer Annie to Gretchen, even though I don't think that's the intent. Claire says she'll play with Gretchen since they both don't know how. They start to play, and I refuse to recap this other than to say: They play. It's dumb.
Ando has wheeled Hiro on a dolly back to the office, and is hiding him from Kimiko. He manages to get him into an office, where he shakes him and finally wakes him up. Hiro doesn't know what's going on, so Ando explains that instead of freezing time, time froze Hiro. And Hiro's nose is bleeding. Ando wants Hiro to talk to a doctor, but Hiro won't do that. He says he's already seen a doctor for the nosebleeds and headaches, but didn't tell Ando, because it's bad news: Hiro's dying. Wait, that's bad news how, exactly? Ando thinks Hiro should time-travel to save himself, but Hiro says he can't. He pulls out the photo of the three of them as kids again, though, and says that was the day he wanted to become a hero, after he got a fortune at a carnival saying he would be one. But Hiro says he can't change the past. It's his code. Hiro freezes again for a moment, and then comes back and says he's not sure what happened, but he was back at the carnival, and... then he disappears. I like that better than him having to squeeze his eyes shut all the time. And now he's at the carnival 14 years ago.
Then Hiro's face shows up on the tattooed lady's back. She tells Samuel his name, and that he was at this carnival 14 years ago. Samuel leaves and approaches an old guy with breathing tubes, and says he knows he's sick, but needs him to use his power once more to send Samuel back 14 years, where there's a guy who can help them fix the past. The old guy thinks it's a good idea, so he'll do it. [Or, Samuel could wait for him to come back to the present? Maybe? - Zach]