Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Taste the Rainbow...
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.12.2009
lk about it anymore. Dr. Ratched says it's been six years and is time for Emma to stop blaming herself for Christopher's death. Ooh, Christopher died?! Oh, wait, we don't know who he is. NOR DO WE CARE. Dr. Ratched tells her to stop grieving and take her life back. Emma actually speaks, and says she's not grieving, then goes back to signing as she says she's not hiding, not anything, and storms off. Peter's finishing breakfast with Angela, when he says he has to get to work. She's going to stay awhile, since Nathan might be running late. She tells Peter she hopes he knows he works too much, and he refrains from telling her that if she'd been listening at all, she'd know he realizes that. Instead, he kisses her sweetly and leaves. Angela needs to get over this whole Sylar-as-Nathan thing, tell Peter the truth, and focus on the one son she has left. I am not a fan of wimpy, whiny, brooding Mama Petrelli. She's almost as bad as gloomy HRG. Peter leaves at super-speed.Claire and Gretchen show up late for rush, thankfully keeping us from having to listen to Becky's whole spiel. They enter at the end of said speech, when she says it's now time for her favorite part of rush: speed-dating. She walks between Claire and Gretchen and divides the group right between them. I'm not sure what purpose this serves, but I guess it will make it so that they don't get to speed-date each other? You'd think that would be true if they were in the same group, especially based on what happens during said speed-dating. Before we get to that, I'd like to point out that Claire's been in school for a while now and rush should already be over, since it usually starts before school does. But this isn't Greek, so I'll cut it some slack. We get to see Claire as if we're the person speed-dating with her, as she says this might be the scariest moment of her life, and her mom raises professional show dogs. Before you ask why, then, we have only ever seen Mr. Muggles, Claire corrects herself: "Show dog." She doesn't have a boyfriend, hasn't ever. Her dad works for the government or paper or something. Then girls begin to already know stuff about her, and they all found it out from Gretchen: former cheerleader, lived in Texas. Claire's stuck with Becky for the last round, who also says she heard all about Claire from Gretchen, and then adds that Gretchen's cool and "edgy." I don't think that's even meant to be a compliment. Claire looks at her stalker, clearly annoyed at the realization that she is, in fact, a stalker. Gretchen asking if she could cut Claire wasn't a clue at all, I guess.
Emma's walking down the street. We hear street noise as we're away from her and then silence when the camera's close up, so we know what it's like to be her. She watches a siren in silence, and sees red. Then she watches a jackhammer and sees even more red. Apparently, the color red scares her so much that she backs into traffic, in front of a bus. Lucky for her, in the entire city of New York, Peter Petrelli happens to be right there to whisk her out from in front of said bus. He asks if he's okay, but we get silence (her perspective), then we hear him say, "You almost... you all right?" They both look confused. Commercials, the first of which is one of those Liberty Mutual Responsibility Project ads that are mini-movies made by NBC actors. This one's made by Milo, who introduces it by telling us how much like Peter he is: heroic and full of himself. The movie, Dave Knowle Finds His Soul, stars Masi Oka, who is totally adorable, trying to help people but continually being punished for it. In the end, a hot girl gives him her number for being such a nice guy. Because, haven't you heard? The nice guy always gets the girl in the end.
Emma's taking off again, and we get silence as the camera's close-up. Then the camera backs off to see Peter following her, trying to talk, but she just storms off as he tries to ask if she's okay. He finally gives up and just mutters, "You're welcome." Peter dashes into an alley and hilariously tries to run super-speed. It doesn't work, so he tries again, and again. In frustration that the power's gone, he kicks a garbage can, and watches it roll and make noise as yellow shoots off of it. He realizes he must have borrowed the lamest power in the world from Emma.
Samuel's crouching down looking over a canyon when Lydia the Tattooed Lady saunters up. He orders her to hand him a cloth to wipe the dirt he's been playing with off of his hands. Lydia asks him who the new family member is, and he wonders why she's interested. She says he used her body to find them, so she's vested. She asks if it's Petrelli, Nakamura, Tracy, or Claire. He won't answer, so she asks if he even knows. He doesn't know, but he felt something. In his bones and in the earth. But the dust hasn't settled yet. She thinks it's a gamble to make promises to the family based on a feeling. He says it's worth it for the chance to grow the family, and that there are plenty of cousins out there, like planted seeds. She wonders who will break ground first, and he says we'll have to wait and see as he does this sort of conductor-like movement and the earth rises up and then falls in front of him. It looks cool and everything, but I don't know what the point was. Which is actually how I could describe the majority of this show lately: Pretty to look at, but why? Lydia walks off and we see they're across the canyon from the carnival.
Claire's in her dorm room asking Gretchen if she's seen her frilly white sweater, then turns around and sees Gretchen's wearing it. Gretchen wonders if that's cool, and Claire says to go ahead, but even Gretchen can tell she's annoyed at this point. Gretchen goes to use the restroom, and a book falls off of her shelf, turning Gretchen's computer on. Claire notices the website Gretchen has open is about her, and that every other tab open on her computer is also about Claire, except one about the science behind "Jump-Push-Fall." Oh, and just some crazy article about murder-suicides. Gretchen comes back and Claire pretends she didn't see any of that. She does tell Gretchen to go on without her, though, and she'll catch up. Gretchen wants to wait, but Claire says they should mix with people they don't know, since it's a mixer. Gretchen's sad, but it's hard to care.
We get table reflections of Sylar and Dr. Gibson as he compliments this "amazing" beverage he's drinking. He asks what it is, and says "tea." So his brain really seems to be totally wiped, other than the fact that he can talk a little. She asks if he's ever had tea, and he says he's never had anything; everything feels so new, like he's feeling it for the first time. He practically snuggles his tea and a pocket watch in front of him, describing them as "hot" and "cold." I wonder if Sylar can even find his own brain in there without Parkman, who seems to have Sylar inside him, right? Sylar describes all of these sensations as scary, but also "overwhelmingly beautiful." Dr. Gibson says it's jamais vu, the opposite of déjà vu, which is quite common in cases such as seizures or amnesia. She thinks he's still in there somewhere, but a traumatic experience blocked it out. She'd like to play the memory game with him. She asks him to relax, with his eyes closed. He does, and then he freaks out because the clock's ticking doesn't match the ticking of her watch. That distracts him. She's amazed that he can hear that her watch is running fast, which it has been for years. She says this ticking thing is good, and is probably a clue to his past. She wants to try again, but Warden Leo interrupts and asks to see her in the hall. She promises