Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Always Connect
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 16 | Aired on 01.18.2010
amuel: "Says who?" He asks if she can honestly say she doesn't look back on their time together with a hint of fondness. While the correct answer would be, "Ever since you kidnapped me? Yep, I can say that," Vanessa holds her hand up and puts her fingers an inch apart. He drinks out of one of the straws in the milkshake and pushes it to her, who drinks out of the other. Oh, gross. What is wrong with this show?Hospital. Ando watches through a window as doctors say things like, "What's your prognosis?" Hiro wakes and we cut into court as Adam asks Ando, in Japanese, to tell him about the day at the carnival and what happened to the "slushy" in question. The kids tell Adam it slipped out of Ando's hand and hit a strange old man. They point at Hiro and say it was that strange old man. Ando objects and says that wasn't selfish, but helped two people fall in love. Hiro agrees, and says no one got hurt, so what's the crime in that? Adam, for clarity, asks if, on Hiro's scale of temporal justice, it's okay as long as no one gets hurt. Hiro says, yes, that's his definition. Adam says good, because his next witness is here. Hiro looks over and sees Sylar in the window as clocks tick.
The real Sylar is back at college with Claire, who asks Sylar to just tell him where Gretchen is. Sylar says Claire's been holding out on him, and now he knows why he was supposed to find her: They're the same. She does the same thing as him. She builds walls to keep from connecting with people. Like Gretchen. Then he says that all the memory hits he got from her stuff while he was tying her up have such a different context now. That room is so full of ... pauses. She asks what he said, and he repeats "Pauses. All these moments so full of ... subtext." I think that TV shows are supposed to actually have subtext, not talk about it. Just as an FYI to the writers, if they actually know how to read, which I tend to doubt. He tells Claire that she can't say the one thing she really wants to say to Gretchen. Then: "Heck, you keep this up, you might end up alone forever, too." Then he adds that she's the indestructible girl who can't put herself out there to get hurt. He scoffs and she grabs a pencil from her pocket and sticks it in his eye. She says he is off his game, since he just told her where Gretchen is. Sylar groans (and the pencil in his eye is pretty disturbing-looking) as she leaves.
Diner Court. Sylar's apparently been asked how many people he killed. He says he supposes it's hundreds, all thanks to an agreement with Hiro, who told him he could kill whoever he wanted as long as he saved Hiro's girlfriend. Adam says it seems to him that a lot of people were hurt as a result of Hiro's time-tampering. Hiro jumps up and says he was trying to save Charlie with changing the space-time continuum. Ando says his client was trying to do what's right, and Jackie, the cheerleader Sylar mistakenly killed shows up with a sliced forehead and asks, "Really? Does this look right to you?" Ando: "Crap." Adam asks who else Sylar killed after his deal with Hiro. Sylar says there was her, and "Eden-ish" (nice that he takes at least some responsibility for that). "Two Primatech guards. The melty guy. The mechanic. Isaac. My mother. Ted something, Ted..." Okay, not even close to all of Sylar's victims (complete list here), and not even the right number of Primatech guards. But Adam interrupts to say these murders are Hiro's fault, and then Sylar snaps his fingers hilariously: "Sprague! Ted Sprague!" Adam says Hiro's actions were not for the heroic good, but for the good of Hiro. Hiro stands up and -- instead of saying that Sylar had done all of those things before Hiro went back in time, so he didn't actually manipulate time to cause those things -- says that Charlie was a good person and the world is better with her in it, so he stands by that decision. Adam calls his final witness: Charlie. Hiro looks over hopefully, but Adam says, "Oh, that's right, we can't bring Charlie here." He says she's lost in time, and asks Hiro why. Hiro says he made a deal with Samuel, who double-crossed him. Adam says the prosecution rests. But I cannot rest because ... Sylar is at college with Claire and Ando is at the hospital watching Hiro ... do whatever people do in the hospital, but they are there, too. So, this isn't real, so why no Charlie (I mean, other than the obvious: Jayma Mays is too busy winning awards and stuff for being on a show that doesn't suck)? The only explanation that can appease me somewhat is that this is in Hiro's head and he thinks Charlie can't be there so she can't be there.
Carnival. Samuel describes Vanessa's dream cottage to her in minute detail, and she wonders how he remembers it all. He says he knows all the details (because he's a stalker), and he says it was hard to forget because of the way she painted it as he held her close. He says it was so real, like it came from her soul, and was her. Vanessa says he always knows what to say; he has the perfect scrap of poetry in his pocket to ... He asks, "To what?" And she leans in and tickles him. Then they finish describing it together, and he's happy that she remembers it too. He shows her a drawing he made of it, and they keep being cheesy about the house. Vanessa asks how he does it, every single time? They lean in and kiss each other. Then they're holding hands and frolicking through the grass and flowers Ian grew for him, and she asks how he did it. He says he and his friends can do amazing things. They come up to a house, and he says this is her dream cottage, so no more traveling; they'll make a real home. He says it's for her if she'll have him. She smiles, and says, "Sam." He says she doesn't have to join the carnival this way, and this can be their life. She smiles and then says she can't live here. She knows what she said, but didn't think he'd actually do it. She says this dress, and the milkshake, and all of this is a fantasy. He says he made it come true for her. She says, no, he did it for himself. It's his fantasy. Her life isn't here. He says he changed everything for her, and she asks him to please not say this was all for her. He lies, "No, of course not." Then says he should get her back home. He thanks her for indulging him, and she tries to kiss him. He does, but then pushes her away and says it was really nice to see her again. She watches him and touches her lips, hopefully thinking, "Holy shit! I just kissed my crazy stalker."
College. Claire runs across campus and finds Gretchen tied up in their room. They hug, and Claire says it's her fault, but Gretchen's just happy it's over. The lights flicker, and Claire says Sylar's not done... and the windows both break, blowing all the glass in on them. Commercials, after which Claire and Gretchen (still in partial bondage gear with her mouth tie now around her neck) run down the hall. Claire explains how she knows what Sylar will do, because she "gets the way he thinks." They hide in a closet, and Gretchen's like, "So, Sylar, huh? The Sylar?" Claire says yes, but no, actually "kind of the emo-apologist version." Ha. So true. And if there's anything worse than evil Sylar it's emo Sylar, isn't it? Claire says Sylar found Claire to figure out his issues, and Gretchen asks how that went. Claire replies, "Pencil in the eye," then apologizes to Gretchen for sometimes keeping her at arm's length. Gretchen says it's cool if she doesn't want to, but Claire says she does want to, but she's scared so she uses her specialness to build walls instead of jumping off bridges. She (and the writers) suck at metaphors, but s