Recap: Heroes: Believe it Or Not, This Guy Is Going to Kill Claire

First let me say that I was very excited for this past week’s episode of Heroes. You see, we have outfitted the TVgasm offices with a brang spanking new 1080p LCD Television and 6.1 Surround. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it translates to I have an HD setup that is scores high on the gnarly scale. Woo-hoo! Or I guess in honor of Hiro, I should say “Waffles!”. Heroes in HD. My life is now complete! Or at least that is what I thought. Despite ordering my HD system from DirecTV way back in October and being told I have to wait a month for the installation, I receive a call from the installer guys ten minutes they are supposed to show up, saying that they can’t get to me for another two weeks! Therefore, because of the assholes at DirecTV (and although I love them and the Sunday Ticket, they will be called assholes until they fix the clusterfuck that has become my HD install), I had to watch everything in standard definition.

Thankfully, Heroes kicks more ass than most shows and standard definition is doing me just fine. And if a regular episode of Heroes kicks ass, then this episode looked like it could kick Rosanne Barr through the uprights at from sixty yards. Finally, we were going to be able to meet the one and only Sylar. And just for good measure, we also learned a lot more about some of the characters on the show that we might not have thought were so special.Since I bitched about the assholes at DirecTV already, I will not waste your time bitching about the narrator. That doesn’t mean that I have forgotten you NBC, it just means the assholes at DirecTV are pissing me off more right now.

Mohinder also returned the opening credits this week, and he had a whole lot to say:

"The earth is large, large enough that you think you can hide from anything. From fate, from God. Only you found a place far enough away, so you run. To the edge of the earth where all is safe again. Quiet and warm. The solace of salt air. The peace of danger left behind. The luxury of grief. And maybe, for a moment, you believe you have escaped.

So, what does that mean? Well, mostly it means that Mohinder likes to hear himself talk don’t you think? The only reason I am not making fun of him a little more is because he was mourning his father at the time and preparing to commit his ashes at the end of this life to prepare him for the next life. Or something like that. I read the Ramayana in college, but how am I supposed to concentrate on Hindu canon when I’m sweating balls in Thornton Hall and all I can think about is getting out onto the college green before I go crazy and punch the kid sitting next to me in the face because he has some sort of unnatural need to mention Aquinas and causality in every answer he gives?

I know it’s nice to pay your respects to the dead, but who invited this guy?

OK, before I get too worked up about that jab, let’s get on with the show. As the characters and stories of Heroes becomes a little more complex, we have had to leave some characters out of certain episodes. Last week I was really wondering what the hell Eden had done with Isaac, especially after we had just found out she was working for Horn Rimmed Glasses, and I finally got a little love this week.

Isaac appears to be in some rehab facility and he is now off drugs. I have never been addicted to heroin, but if you’re telling me that all I need to get off the horse is to find a pixie-ish girl to secretly abduct me and feed me soup for a couple of days, maybe I should try! So maybe it is a little harsh to make fun of Isaac for kicking the habit. Now he can go back to his normal life of painting shit that nobody cares about!

Actually, Isaac’s situation is a little bit more difficult. You see, he was abducted for a reason. When our good friend HRG learned that Isaac was a “pre-cog”, or pre-cognitive, meaning he could see the future, he sent Eden to bring him back. Presumably HRG needs Isaac to be able to tell the future, and Eden sort of confirms that by saying that they are not going to let that business with the mural on the floor happen. If you don’t remember, Isaac painted a mural of New York city exploding on the floor of his apartment in New York. So, if Eden doesn’t want New York to blow up and Eden works with HRG, that means that HRG really is a good guy, right?

The most interesting part of this whole exchange is Isaac’s apprehension of not being able to paint the future now that he isn’t such a fan of chasing the dragon. Eden says that he will be fine in time because she went through the same thing herself! Wha? That means that Eden is a hero? I have to admit that I never saw that one coming.

While Eden and Isaac talked, we got a quick shot of a few more of his paintings, including one of some diner food, which they used to transition into our Hiro and Ando update. Yay Hiro and Ando! Our two favorite Japanese travelers were at the Burnt Toast Diner in Midland, TX. Why is it that all diners in any small town in every single television or movie must be Adjective Noun Diner, or more accurately disparaging adjective, utilitarian diner item noun Diner? You know, stuff like Rusty Skittle, Greasy Spoon, and, well, Burnt Toast. Can somebody please point to the Spotless Spatula? That’s where I would like to eat.

I am sure that the Burnt Toast has plenty of good food, but it also happens to have a genius waitress. Her name is Charlie, or at least I think so, the IMDB has been slow to update. Charlie is a genius, but this hasn’t always been the case. She really only stumbled onto her magical powers recently. To tell you the truth, her power really doesn’t seem like much more than having a photographic memory, although at least she isn’t always obsessed when Judge Wapner is going to be on.

Like I said, Hiro an Ando were about to have a meal in the Burnt Toast when they bumped into the waitress. Poor Ando, he’s been eating nothing but waffles and French fries, and is feeling a little bit fat these days. Hiro, on the other hand, says that it is good, because they are going to need their strength. They mentions something about meeting Peter and then saving the world, but I wonder where they decided to meet, because Midland is east of Odessa, TX. So, if they were going to meet in order to save Claire and they were traveling from Vegas, it appears that they have already traveled too far.

However, I don’t think it is Claire that I should be worried about, though because Hiro might be in a little trouble himself. I know, I know. The saying goes “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.” not “Save the perhaps insignificant cog of a Japanese business bureaucracy. Save the world”, but haven’t we all grown to love Hiro? Why am I so afraid? Charlie strikes up a conversation with Hiro and Ando, and they begin to discuss a little bit about Japanese, since Charlie picked up a little from reading a book. In the corner, a shadowy figure is looking over the whole thing, and he has telekinetic ability. The last time we saw anybody with that kind of telekinetic power was in the FBI offices in Los Angeles. We’re pretty sure that guy is Sylar, and if he is out looking to eat the brains of Heroes, Hiro is in a lot of danger.

And speaking of the FBI in Los Angeles, Matt Parkman is back on the job with Audrey Hanson, but not before she gives him a little bit of a lecture about punching a fellow officer. It’s not that she actually cares that Matt punched the guy, especially after Matt said that the guy deserved it. It’s nice of Audrey to care about her partner, but what was that shit about people letting her down and not being able to trust people because they let her down and all that stuff? Does Audrey have a little bit of a crush on Matt Parkman? She did wear a skirt to the office for the first time, and it looked like she might have even shaved her legs. Now, I don’t think this means that Audrey is going to throw away here I *heart* Shane t-shirt, but I think if the two of them got together, it would be one hilarious pairing. If Matt’s current wife wanted ice cream after sex, what would Audrey want? Season tickets to the Los Angeles Sparks?

Audrey wanted to get some more information from Ted Sprague, the guy she and Matt caught last week who has some sort of internal fusion reactor going on inside of him. The department of homeland security decided that it would be a bad idea to have a guy walking around in public that could probably take out an entire office building if he had a little too much spicy mustard on his pastrami sandwich at lunch, and are going to take Mr. Sprague away unless Audrey and Matt can make some sort of progress. Actually, they are concerned that all of his radiation means that he might be working with a dirty bomb or something, but they still want to take him away.

Now, knowing that Mr. Sprague is really dangerous, and burned his wife oncologist to death (although it was an accident), wouldn’t it be wise not to get him upset, especially when your only protection that it is getting too dangerous for you to be there is a card that turns red when the radiation is lethal? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to conduct this interview over the phone? That way, the only thing that gets burned beyond recognition is your government issue RAZR and not, you know, your balls. Hell, even if it was a phone interview, I would probably wear a radiation suit anyway, just in case. Audrey didn’t think such technicalities were important, so she started pressing Sprague, who began to get pissed off.

Luckily, Matt was there to calm things down, but he was about to become a lot more invested in this case than he previously thought. After reading his thoughts, Matt realizes that he and Sprague have a lot in common, including those scars on the back of their neck that we saw last week. The more Sprague talks, the more Matt can relate to his story. Waking up one morning not knowing where he was, feeling sick, big headache, and one of the last things he remembers is a Haitian student. Hmm. That sounds a lot like it could be the Random Creepy Guy that is always hanging around with HRG.

By this time, Matt is no longer concerned with Sprague and whatever bomb he is hiding. OK, so he never really was concerned about a bomb in the first place, but he is now concerned because Homeland Security is taking Sprague away. Doh! Just as they were beginning to make progress! Damn interruptions! I guess next time, Matt will have to place a sock on the outside of the interrogation room, so at least somebody will knock before barging in and ruining his mojo.

With all this talk about HRG, we finally got to see what he did for a living. He works at Primatech Paper Company, which appears normal on the outside, but it has to be a front for some agency or another, right? I like how whomever he works for went through a lot of trouble to build this fake paper company in the middle of Odessa, Texas in order to protect his identity, but then has no problem when their head guy walks around with a haircut and glasses that scream “serial killer”.

HRG, who is still only called “Mr. Bennett” goes to visit Isaac. It must have been very difficult for him to see all of these pictures of his daughter, especially that latest one with half of her head cut off and her blood all over the floor. Isaac asks him the obvious question, which is “Why are you doing this” and HRG answers “I need your help.” I guess it’s official. HRG is only trying to take care of his Claire Bear, but I’m starting to think he knows a little bit more than he is letting on.

Back at the diner in Midland, Hiro and the Charlie seem to be hitting it off. Hiro is helping Charlie work on her Japanese, and for her part, Charlie is giving Hiro a tingling in his pants that he hasn’t felt since he bought his first Playstation. They are working on the flirt section of the “Lost in Translation” handbook. Charlie is a pro, and Hiro sort of blushes at tall the fake compliments, but then Charlie gives her a real compliment as well. During this conversation, Claire mentions that her ability to remember things is almost like a super power, and then Hiro mentions that he has a power too. I think he is about to tell her about his ability to bend space and time, but somewhere between Texas and Nevada, somebody installed a little bit of a filter on him, so he just says “I can teach Japanese to anyone!”.

Hiro goes to use the bathroom, and the guy we think is Sylar watches him go in. Meanwhile, decides to go into the storeroom in the back. Well, if Sylar was going to hurt Hiro, why did they show Charlie? It looks like Hiro’s reluctance to tell Charlie about his power saved his life, because the next thing we see is Charlie opening a huge can of something or other, with a huge can opener. Ironically, the same thing is happening to her. We see her stop, then some blood dripping down her face, and then she just falls over.

As Hiro comes out of the bathroom, he has a smile on his face. Unlike his buddy Ando, he doesn’t have to pay women to talk to him. But then he looks over and sees what happened to Charlie. Two officers happened to be eating at the diner, and neither of them had seen anything like it before, but Hiro had. The last time he saw a body like that was in Isaac’s apartment, and then New York City blew up a few minutes later. Hiro knows something is wrong, but what is he going to do?

While all of this was going on, I sort of glossed over what was happening to Mohinder. I’ve always thought that he sucked, but he seemed to suck a little bit less this time around. I think it was quite obvious from all of the scenes that he would eventually be coming back to New York. First his colleague came in to say that he could head up his father’s old department at Chennai University, then we saw his old lover, Neela, come back. Neela works for a company that does research in Mohinder’s field, and she thinks Mohinder should come in for an interview, but if he decides to come in for an interview, he has to promise to never mention his father’s silly theories again.

What will Mohinder do? it seems like everything is reminding him of his father. Remember that computer program we saw on the laptop way back in the second or third episode? The same program is running on one of his father’s computers. Mohinder goes to shut it down, and a dialog box pops up that says “Are you sure you want to quit?”. Hmm, is there any way that they could make this analogy more obvious? I know! What if Mohinder dreamed about his father? Well, he didn’t dream about his father, but he did dream about some kid with a soccer ball.

To get some answers, Mohinder decides to ask his mom for some help. BTW, I know that that cost of living is a lot less in Chennai than it is in New York City, but how is it that Mohinder’s dad was able to afford this huge mansion in India if he had to work as a cabbie in New York? Or did Mohinder’s dad just marry up a few castes? Mohinder might have been looking for some answers, but the answers he received only gave him more questions. For example, his mom decides to tell him that he had a sister named Shanti who died. They didn’t tell Mohinder because it was just too painful for everybody.

STOP IT!

STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

Dead sister? Is this the reason why we had to follow this douchebag to India? I can understand not wanting to tell your son that he used to have a sister for a while, but by the time Mohinder was an adult, why hide it from him? I still love this show, but Mohinder’s story kind of jumped the shark to me at this point. We all know that he is going to go back to New York, so let’s skip all of the bullshit and just go there. I can’t believe we missed out on Niki, DL, and Petrelli updates this week for Mohinder’s dead sister? Somebody shoot me now.

What makes the Mohinder part even more stupid was that we still had lots of crazy shit going down in the states. For example, HRG knows a lot more about what’s happening than I would have guessed. He knows about Sylar, and he knows that Sylar is going to kill Claire. He even knows that Sylar will kill Claire at the homecoming game, which is tomorrow. His only problem is that he has no clue where Sylar is. Now, I’m not a genius, but HRG has connections. Couldn’t he just find a bunker somewhere and take Claire Bear there until things settle down? Is Sylar really that powerful?

Anyway, HRG wants Isaac to paint a picture to help him find Sylar. The only problem is that Isaac can only paint when he’s high, and although Eden is pretty sure it is just a mental block, HRG is not going to take any chances. He has some heroin ready, just in case. Isaac, finally clean for the first time in years, resists, but HRG tells him that his people can help him use his abilities without drugs, but there just isn’t time. On top of that, he says that there are a number of them that have been tracking and locating “you folks” for “a number of years”. And then we get a story I presume is about Claire. After saying that sometimes things go right, and sometimes things go wrong, he mentioned that there was an incident 14 years ago with a death hat left a baby girl with nobody to take care of her, except one very creepy looking guy who loved his old Marine Corps haircut and his wife.

Isaac promises to try again without the drugs, and so HRG leaves. A little bit later, he bumps into Claire, who has an emergency. I really shouldn’t admit this but after the way HRG stood up for Claire and hearing him talk about losing her like there is nothing he could do, I think I actually got a little choked up. Folks, I think I am getting a little soft. HRG hugs Claire Bear, who says she needs some banner paper to make a sign for homecoming tomorrow. Ahh yes, the last thing HRG needed was a reminder as to how close his daughter’s death was. Eden comes out and says she has a situation of her own, so Mr. Bennett sends Claire to the sample room to find the things that she needs.

Eden, who seemed very apologetic that she let herself be seen by Claire, was a little upset about this whole get Isaac high so he can paint thing. You know, the next time Hiro decides to go back in time, I hope he runs into Eden and tells her “Save the cheerleader. Save the world”. Maybe if she knew keeping Claire alive would save the world, she wouldn’t be so upset about giving Isaac the heroin, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Isaac can’t paint, but Eden says that he worked so hard to be clean, they can’t just give him drugs. HRG has another idea. Not only is Isaac going to take drugs, but Eden is going to ask him to do it. I guess we know what Eden’s power is, don’t we?

Hey Eden, stop trying to be a low-rent Rachel Bilson

I was a little confused towards the end because we had seen a few of Isaac’s paintings at the beginning and had seen all of the scenes that they corresponded to except one, which was a sort of car bomb. But what could it be? We found out a little later as Matt Parkman is talking to his wife. He’s really upset with her, but after he admits to punching the guy she was cheating with, she admits that something happened. Matt asks if it is over, and his wife says yes. His wife asks if their marriage is over, and he says no. I think she is relieved, especially considering all the good sex and ice cream Matt’s been good for lately, but then there is an interruption. Matt gets a phone call from his new significant other, Audrey Hanson. Sprague has escaped. He blew up the car that was carrying him, and now he is gone.

I’m going to end off with Hiro, but first we need to get caught up with Mohinder. He eventually had a dream about his father, and then he had another dream where he was chasing that kid with the soccer ball. He went through a door, and suddenly he was in an alley in New York city, watching his dad get killed in his taxicab. Mohinder finally catches up to this kid that was bothering him, and the kid has a key in his hand. I would say that this was stupid, but it eventually led to something. All through the episode, Mohinder had been trying to open a drawer in the desk of his father’s office, but it was locked. He just happened to have the key all the time, but never put two and two together until this strange kid was in his dreams. Mohinder uses the key on the drawer and inside is the file of Iyer Sanjog. Inside that file is a picture. A picture of the same kid he kept on seeing in his dreams. OK, I know I said this was kind of cool, but after writing it out, I actually think it was kind of stupid. Whatever it was, I think we know Mohinder is going back to the states.

Do the barbers in Chennai have nothing but pictures of Erik Estrada from CHiPs to go on when cutting hair?

The coolest part of the episode was with Hiro. After what happened in Vegas, he never wanted to stand by and watch as people were killed. He doesn’t have much control of his power, but he wants to go back in time and prevent all of this from happening. Ando says that Hiro does not know enough about his powers, but Hiro says that if he wants to be a Hero, he can’t be afraid to use them. He tells Ando that he’s going to go warn Charlie not to come to work, and he’ll be back by the time Ando finishes counting to five. Ando counts to five, but there is no Hiro, but there is something else. On the bulletin board in the diner, there is a picture of Charlie, with Hiro. He made it back in time and warned Charlie, but wasn’t able to come back. Perhaps it was a rift that he was talking about, or maybe her sweet lovin got him to stay. Where is Hiro now? I wouldn’t be surprised if we find him at Charlie’s house, and when Ando asks where Charlie lives, I wouldn’t be surprised if the manage says “The next town over, Odessa.”

As we leave, Isaac is starting to paint, and Mohinder serenades us with an outro.

You can run far. You can take your small precautions. But have you really gotten away? Can you ever escape? Or is the truth that you do not have the strength or cunning to hide from destiny?

What does it all mean? I am not sure, but we learn next week if Sylar does his job or if the heroes will come together and (all together now!) “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.”

I thought this was a good episode. Yes, the Mohinder stuff sucked, and I really thought DL and Niki’s story would be really awesome because Jessica was going to be on a rampage. However, the part we learned about Claire’s back story and how there have been people searching for heroes for many years, really piqued my interest, and then, of course, is Hiro. I just have to know what happened to him.

So will Claire be saved? I can’t figure out how it could happen right now. If all the heroes are supposed to come together, then she has no chance. We have no clue where Peter is, and the same goes for Niki, DL, and Nathan. Matt Parkman is in Los Angeles, as is Sprague. HRG seems like he knows his shit, but how can he pull this altogether? I guess I’ll just have to wait until next week to find out.