Recap: Heroes: You Can Always Teach an Old Sylar New Tricks

We’ve hit the point in the evolution of Heroes where there are just too many characters to fit on the screen all in one episode. This kind of sucks because it will always leave us wanting a little more, but it could also be a good sign. After spending so much time expanding all the characters, it should be interesting to see them all come back to try and prevent the destruction of New York. If there was anything that I wish they would fix, it is the new catch phrase. “Someone flies. Someone dies.” I know that “Save the Cheerleader. Save the world.” worked really well for them, but they have to start moving on from these gimmicks, like Sylar getting back to his takeout menu of cerebrum and medulla with cerebellum on the side (extra rare, of course).Ahh, you know what I am going to say by now. The narrator can go fuck himself in the goatass. Why have they decided to make it more annoying? People know what the show is about! You don’t need to explain it to them when they can watch all of the episodes online! UGH!

Last week, the big news was hat we found out who Claire’s daddy was. Claire’s back story is interesting, but right now it seems just as extraneous as when Hiro met his father. It was an interesting twist and everything, but I still want some more answers about some other parts of the show. I feel like all of this could have waited until the second or third season, but maybe I am just hating on Nathan because I think he is a smarmy douchebag. This guy has more skeletons in his closet than Elton John if he became an archaeologist. How in the hell is he supposed to run for office?

As we learned a little bit more about the back story, I had to back off on my “Nathan is the biggest asshole in the world” stance. He didn’t know that Claire was alive, which is believable since Meredith didn’t know that Claire was alive. Nathan also didn’t know that Meredith was alive, and even went to her funeral. If she already had a funeral and then spent the time right afterwards tooling around in Mexico, I can only think that means one thing: fake death. Then again, I am a crazy conspiracy nut. But in my favor, she did say that somebody was out to get her. At first I thought it was Sylar’s uncle, but then I thought it had to be either Linderman, who obviously likes taking people out (more on that later).

I always thought that Claire’s mom was sweet, but I guess I fell for the whole “I’m just happy our daughter is alive” act. I genuinely think that Meredith is happy to have met Claire, but the only reason she got in touch with Nathan was to blackmail him! OK, so I am not sure if that is the only reason, because it was Nathan that brought up the hush money first, but she sure as hell did take it. $100,000 to be exact. And you know Claire isn’t going to be happy when she hears this.

One of the best parts about this episode is that we got another hero vs. hero battle, and it didn’t involve Sylar. Jessica is free, but with Micah at school and DL at work, she needs to find something to do to make money. Nikki would take off her clothes, but Jessica is so over that. Instead, she receives a package with a picture of the guy who helped her get out of jail a little while ago. Oh, and there is also a gun. Poor Micah, he was hoping that his family would be the types that fight crime together. Instead, it turns out his mother is going to be an assassin. Not that there aren’t good assassins out there, as Jean Reno and Natalie Portman have taught us, but something makes me believe that Jessica doesn’t have to battle with Gary Oldman and is therefore killing just for the thrill (and money).

Jessica travels to Los Angeles, where she is waiting for Mr. Malsky outside of a building in the diamond district. I could care less about Malsky, but I was really worried about his security. In order to pay the bills, Matt Parkman decided to do a little private security work on the side. Even though he’s carrying a gun, he assures his wife that it’s not much more than glorified babysitting. But when he gets in the car with Malsky, he can tell that it’s not going to be an easy day. Not only is Malsky a dick when it comes to the conversation, but he overhears him thinking, “I hope this loser knows how to use his gun or we are both dead.” Interesting first day on the job right?

While Jessica was leaving Vegas, Hiro and Ando had just made it back. Hiro is pretty much the same; he wants to find the sword and then fulfill his destiny. It might be an impossible task, but Hiro reminds Ando that all heroes must have hope. Ando is kind of sick of Hiro’s words of wisdom, and has other things on his mind. He has his own idea about Hope, and she’s 5’10″ and blonde.

We know that Ando loves the blondes after all that money he spent on Nikki, and this blonde girl is named Hope. Hiro wanted hope, Ando found them Hope! It must be a sign! Unfortunately, Hiro is much more skeptical. The girl is crying and wants them to help, and it all seems a little too convenient. She hears them talking about Linderman, and suddenly says that she knows people who know him. Hiro is still bugging Ando, but Ando says that it is about time that they do something that he wants to do. In other words, Ando does not like his friend cock blocking him right now.

Some people would call Ando gullible and easily fooled, but he still has a long way to go before he is challenging Mohinder for the title of King of Stupidity. When he came to the states, he mete Eden, and I could tell something was wrong almost immediately. Eden was obviously a ringer, and Mohinder was falling for her.

Let’s review:

Finds somebody rummaging through his apartment in India. check

Finds somebody rummaging through his father’s apartment in New York. check

Meets mysterious girl who knows his father. check

Mysterious girl who knows his father seems to ask a lot of questions about his genetic work. check

Mysterious girl calls to say he doesn’t know who she really is, but she’ll explain later. check

Mysterious girl ends up dead. check

Asks FBI for help, they laugh at him. check

Strange guy with horn-rimmed glasses pays him a visit and knows a little too much about him. check

That’s not everything, but I think we have established that Mohinder has several reasons to take a little extra precaution in his life. Therefore, I was quite surprised to see him start calling people willy nilly without any thought of repercussion. Where the hell is this guy’s conspiracy-dar? His spidey sense should be tingling like crazy! I was sitting on my couch just begging for Chloe O’Brian to walk in and open up a socket for him or something. Mohinder needs protection!

It all doesn’t really matter, because Mohinder is having no luck talking to people. If he knew what they could do, he might be able to say “Sir, I have known for a long time that monkeys fly out of your ass. I am here to help you.” Instead, he’s just blindly calling people, and forgive me for being politically incorrect, but if somebody calls my house and says, “I have something wonderful to tell you” in an Indian accent, I tell them I don’t need another credit card and then hang up. Eventually, Mohinder’s cold calling hits paydirt when Zane Taylor calls him back.

I am not sure what the hell is going on with Zane, but I do noticed that there is some sort of plastic covering almost every square inch of his apartment. There also appears to be what looks like pools of paint or some other liquid. So, Zane’s power is that he makes sucky conceptual art? I can understand why he would want to stay inside with that sort of power. After all, you can’t have him running around putting plastic everywhere. Somebody might catch him and then Brad Pitt will make a movie about it.

Zane said he desperately needed Mohinder’s help, so Mohinder arranged a trip to Virginia Beach to speak with him. A little while later, Zane opens the door and there is Dr. Suresh, except it’s not Dr. Suresh, it’s actually Sylar. How does this guy find these heroes? Once inside, Zane thanks him for coming, and says that he is just a regular guy, but there is something that he can do. He grabs a toaster, tells Sylar to stand back because this “could get messy” and…nothing. Cut to the next scene. I’m not sure what the hell Zane can do, but my guess is that Sylar will have his head, or at least his brains, on a platter very soon.

I always thought that Nathan’s mom was kind of a bitch, but she was the kind that would be fine for most of the day as long as you made sure she stuck to her strict two martini lunch regimen every day. When she heard about Nathan’s new kid, she was just dreadful. I understand that she wants her son to win the election, but when Nathan said that he at one time had feelings for Meredith, his mom called him a glorified sperm donor. I always thought Nathan was an asshole, but I believe that if he had known about Meredith and Claire, he would have at least paid child support. Does that make his absence right? Of course not, but at least he can still consider himself a human being.

Nathan decided that he was going to drop off the money to Meredith himself, despite what his mother asked him to do. Claire was very excited to see her father, but it looked like she would never get the chance. Back at her home in Odessa, Claire saw his mom and dad on their way back from the neurologist. I feel bad for picking on Mrs. Bennet for being so loopy and always talking about Mr. Muggles. Had I known that her brain was being zapped every few days, I might have gone a little easier on her.

Every day it’s getting harder and harder for Claire to pretend like she doesn’t know what is going on. Her father comes into her room to confront her about her field trip to the Aquarium, and says that he knows she faked the tickets. Claire says the thing no adoptive parent wants to hear, saying, “You’re not my real father!” HRG is hurt, but he believes that what he is doing is for her own good, so he grounds her until further notice.

Now, I will give props to HRG for being smart enough to realize that the tickets are fakes, but after he leaves the room, Claire calls her mom, and I begin to wonder how in the hell he is not checking his daughter’s cell phone records. Wouldn’t a bunch of calls to Kermit, TX set off a red flag? For that matter, how does he not have her phone tapped by now?

When Claire called her mom, she discouraged him about visiting. Meredith said that Claire’s dad had money and power, and is willing to give them cash, but hoping for anything else will just disappoint her. You see, Claire had seen how sick her mom was and hoped her dad could do something about it, but when her mother told her about the money, she couldn’t help but wonder if her father even wanted to meet her. That’s hard enough for Claire to take, and what’s worse, her mom lies about how much her father is giving them. Meredith says it’s $50,000 and Claire is entitled to half. And if you thought that Claire’s heart couldn’t be broken any further, her Mom then said she was heading back to Mexico! Some family!

Back in Vegas, Hiro and Ando heard their impossible mission AND chose to accept it. OK, Ando chose to accept it, but Hiro came along for the ride, literally. Hope revealed that her boyfriend was beating her up, and she escaped him, but she left her pink rhinestone bag with all the money she had to her name inside his room. In order to get inside, Ando put on a hotel uniform in order to deliver room service. His only delivery was Hiro, who was hidden underneath the room service table, which leads me to believe they just saw Ocean’s 11. Hiro kept on trying to convince Ando to stop, but Ando would use Hiro’s own words against him. “A hero never runs” is good advice when you can stop time, but is very practical in their current condition.

Once inside, the boyfriend went in the shower, and Hiro let Ando inside and the two of them proceeded to search the room. What they found was a little more than they bargained for. While searching the closet, Hiro found a shotgun, and he decided not to stick around. He thought Ando was right behind him, but Ando decided that he would continue the search. Us guys are really retards when it comes to love, wouldn’t you agree? It’s one thing to risk embarrassment over for some quality showgirl tail, but my love stops at shotguns. Ando’s love knows no bounds and he finally found the bag underneath the bed. Unfortunately, the boyfriend finished up his shower, forcing Ando to hide underneath the bed.

Being underneath some stranger’s bed is scary enough, especially when it looks like the guy wouldn’t think less about using you to floss after her was done with the buffet, but there were people out there who were in more trouble than Ando. Yes, I am talking bout Matt Parkman and Malsky. As they made their stop in the diamond district, Matt heard the clerks thoughts, and all those thoughts pointed to a big set up.

It turns out Malsky had stolen $2 million from his former employer. You probably recognize the case he was using, it was the same one Jessica had stolen and DL had handed over to Malsky the week before. Now he opened it up, gave Matt one of the diamonds and begged for him to save his life. I think Matt is a decent enough cop, but I never thought he was going to be able to stop Jessica. Luckily, he seems to be a little better at being able to pick out conversations and was able to listen in while Jessica was planning her attack.

Matt got Malsky into the stairwell, but it’s clear Malsky didn’t do much running unless the destination had a never-ending shrimp cocktail. I thought that perhaps Matt would try and give Malsky some motivation, but not having left his box of Krispy Kremes in his other suit, got Malsky out of the stairwell while he waited for Jessica to make her move.

As Jessica makes her way down, Nikki once again makes an appearance, begging Jessica to stop before she does something drastic. Jessica doesn’t want to stop, partially because it looks like she is having fun, and partially because she owes Linderman. Apparently, among the things that Jessica does when she has taken over Nikki’s body is make deals to pay off her debts to shady casino bosses by becoming an assassin.

In the meantime, Matt hears this second voice talking and begins to freak out even more. He has Malsky hide, and without the added baggage, he is able to get an advantage on Jessica and cuffs her to the railing. You know it’s only a matter of time before Jessica breaks free and whatever she planned to do to the two of these guys before this little annoyance surely got a whole lot more painful.

Matt makes a break for it. Although his clients wanted to keep the cops out of the loop, Matt calls for backup. Unfortunately, it is going to be way too late. Jessica finds Matt and Malsky. She throws Parkman out the window, and luckily he lands on a sign, saving him the pain of falling ten stories to the ground below. When he comes to, the backup is there. He makes his way inside only to find that Malsky has been torn in half.

I felt bad for Malsky, if only because he reminded me a little bit of Edgar Stiles when he waddles. I was really worried about Mohinder, because as much as I think he sucks, he doesn’t suck enough to have his brain eaten. When he gets to Zane Taylor’s place, Zane answers the door, except of course it isn’t Zane, but Sylar acting like Zane. Sylar starts talking about Maslow and some other shit, but I can only think about Mohinder dying. Sylar got rid of Mohinder’s dad, so I would think he realizes who Mohinder is. What is keeping him alive?

It just might be Mohinder’s stupidity. If Mohinder was smart and played it skeptically, he would never be in this position. I mean, if you are meeting somebody on the internet, how do you not get their picture first? Isn’t that like rule one? At the worst it is rule two, right after “get verification of their age”, right? Anyway, we learn Zane’s power. Basically, he can transform solids into liquids. All of the piles of goo were not conceptual art, but melted electronics.

Mohinder is amazed and wants to get a DNA swab for his experiments. Luckily, Sylar left Zane in the kitchen, allowing him to get a swab. This would have been a great time for Mohinder to run, but instead he sneaks back towards the kitchen. Luckily Sylar stops him before he can turn the corner, saving Mohinder from certain death.

Feeling that he has a new friend, Mohinder goes on to exlplain how there are lots of people with abilities and he is trying to find them. Doesn’t he remember what happened the last time he met a stranger and started with all of this talk? It turned out the person he had confided in, Eden, was feeding him a bunch of lies. WTF? Mohinder, get your head out of your ASS!

It seemed like everybody was putting themselves in danger this episode. After Ando locked him out of the hotel room so he could find Hope’s purse, Hiro went downstairs and heard hope talking to a friend about how she was able to get these two Chinese guys to get her money and how she was going to take the bus from Primm to Barstow. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the trip on I-15 South out of Vegas. Primm is the last town before the NV/CA border, home of outlet malls and Whiskey Pete’s, which itself is home to the best $6.99 prime rib special you’ll ever see. Barstow is the first big town after you get into California, but I do wonder if Hope will stop at Baker on her way there. It’s not every day you get a chance to see the world’s biggest thermometer.

Back on the subject, Hiro is crushed, not so much because this beautiful girl duped them, but because he knows Ando will be crushed when he gets back and Hope is not going to give Hiro a chance to warn him. Hope smacks him in the face, says “Thanks for the help Sulu!” (which I hope is the last of the George Takei cameo mentions) and locks him up. By the time Ando gets down, Hope says that Hiro left without him. Ando doesn’t really believe it, but Hope starts sucking face before he gets a chance to say anything.

As for Hiro? He’s trapped in a closet, and when he finally gets out, it looks like things are actually worse. Hope’s boyfriend? He was part of the Nevada State Gaming commission, and I wonder if he is looking for a rhinestone bag.

Once again, nobody believes Matt Parkman. There is no evidence to be found that there were two assassins there (Matt hear Nikki and Jessica as two distinct people) and the diamonds were nowhere to be found. Matt remembers Malsky saying something over and over in his head right before he was torn apart, and uses that to find the diamonds, but instead of giving them back, Matt decides to pocket them. It really seems out of character, but when he realizes that he is once again a laughing stock, it doesn’t look like he even cares.

Nathan finally visited Meredith, and there is nothing more stealthy than driving up to a trailer park in the boonies of Texas in a brand new limo. You just know something bad is going to happen, just ask J. Howard Marshall. (I know, I know. Too soon?) Nathan gives Meredith the money and they share some awkward moments. I am actually kind of surprised Nathan didn’t try to sleep with her again. Meredith had thought Claire had left, so she took a picture of her to show Nathan. At first Nathan doesn’t look for fear of becoming too attached, but I think he stole a glance of the camera phone picture and while it didn’t register right away, I think he had to have recognized her from the last time he was in Texas bailing out his brother.

Anyway, Claire never actually left. She snuck behind her mother’s trailer and listened to the conversation. When she realizes her Nathan isn’t interested in seeing her, she waits for him to leave then throws a big rock at his car. Nathan is startled, but figures it was just the kids running around, and drives away. Poor Claire is left to cry, and it only gets worse when she gets home. She finds her mother in the kitchen and I am not sure if her brain has been zapped again, but she doesn’t remember Claire OR Mr. Muggles.

Mohinder’s words of wisdom came at the end of the episode this time:

To survive in this world, we hold close to us those people on whom we depend. We trust in them our hopes, our fears. But what happens when trust is lost? Where do we run when things we believe in vanish before our eyes? When all seems lost, the future unknowable, our very existence in peril, all we can do is run.

It’s too bad we were the only ones who received this advice, because Nathan could have used it. When Jessica returned home, she had a happy family waiting for her, and another package. Inside of the package was her next target, and he was very familiar. And in case you weren’t reading the first sentence, or haven’t figure it out, it was a picture of Nathan Petrelli.

So, I thought this was a pretty good episode. I sort of missed Peter, but I think Claire’s story is getting really good. Hayden Panettiere gets a lot of flack for being cutesy and aloof, but I think she did a good job. I loved the Matt and Jessica fight, especially when Matt told Jessica he heard two voices. It surprised Jessica, but makes sense if Nikki is really just another voice in her head. Then there is the part where Sylar says he will help Mohinder convince the people with special abilities to come forward. I just don’t know how this guy is still alive.

What did you think of this episode?