Heroes: Death Kid For Petey

I’m going to leave the boring preambles to Samuel this week. He’s doing another voiceover and beating us over the head with the episode theme. Sylar can’t remember who he is, so he’s a broken vessel, a ghost, a blank slate. He has no compass to guide him. BUT Hiro does, because the body thrives when the heart has a mission blah blah Sambabble. Now we’re in the hospital room with Hiro and Peter watching over him. The episode title is written on Hiro’s blanket. FOREIGN EPISODE TITLE STOLEN FROM LOST ALERT!! “Tabula rasa” means “blank slate” in Latin and the phrase comes from psychology, if I remember right from when they used it on Lost. You can read more about it here.

Gotcha! You’ve just been herolled again! (I decided to change the name from Katt-rolling. Call it retroactive continuity, and if you don’t know what that is, I have a massive Comic Book Lecture coming up on the subject one of these weeks.)

So if you paid attention to the comments from last week’s recap, you know that’s two titles in a row that come from the land of Freud. I heard next week’s episode is titled Penis Envy. Hiro wakes up and Peter hands him his glasses. Peter says the doctors told Peter that Hiro is going to die of a brain tumor, which Hiro knows already.

I hope Hiro brought his Tamagotchi Industries checkbook. I saw Sicko, you know.

Peter, always the pal, offers to help Hiro die with dignity and grace. He has experience, you know. Thing is, Hiro is on a mission from God and can’t just sit around and wait for death. In fact, maybe he’s there to save Peter! But no one outsaves Peter Petrelli, and there are umpteen hundred ways to cheat death on this show, so he’s going to do the saving, thanks. He grabs Hiro’s power and prepares to teleport out of there.

Emma stops Peter on his way out, and asks him if he sent a cello to her apartment. I confess the cello confused me too. But the 10th Wonder guys figured it out. Early last episode, while the carnies were eating breakfast, you could see Edgar wheeling away a big box. Later, Emma comes home and sees the same box in her apartment. It even has the carnival logo on it. I didn’t know the carnival had a logo, but whatever. So the cello came from Samuel. Mystery solved. If you caught that last episode, I will make you my official recap researcher.

Emma thinks something is wrong her Emma’s power, and I assume she means how she broke her wall playing cello. Peter has no time to talk now, he has to go save his dying buddy, but hey! Hiro will talk anyone’s head off about powers and destiny and waffles. So he sends her in to see Hiro and pops out of there. Peter hasn’t used Hiro’s power in like 2 years. He could end up anywhere. I don’t think I’d just take off without a few practice runs.

Carn-evil #9

Lydia and T-Sam talk about what a letdown Sylar turned out to be. They bought into the supervillain-Sylar marketing, but ended up getting weenie good-guy Sylar instead. Caveat emptor, baby.

I went to the State Fair last week and our Ferris wheel is way better. Plus, chocolate-covered bacon. QED.

Samuel knocks on Sylar’s trailer (good thing they had an extra one sitting around; maybe it was Joseph?) and Sylar is confused when T-Sam calls him Sylar. The cops said his name was Gabriel, but Sylar feels more like a Nathan. NOT what T-Sam wanted to hear. He takes Sylar on a tour of the carnival, Sam-babbling about how great his powers are and everyone there can do special stuff. One guy makes a cart full of stuffed animals disappear. Color me unimpressed. Chocolate-covered bacon still wins. Sylar startles when he shakes Lydia’s hand. He remembers shaking a lot of hands. Like a politician, maybe. So he can’t remember hot and cold, but he remembers what a politician is? Tabula rasa, my asa.

HRG’s Sweet Bach Pad

Claire shows up at HRG’s doorstep looking for quarters. I guess as a rush candidate her job is to procure equipment for drinking games. Suddenly Peter steps out of the bathroom. He teleported into the bathroom by accident. Yep, rusty teleporting skillz. I wouldn’t go in there just in case. Hospital food, ya know. Meanwhile, T-Sam sends Edgar off to deliver some complimentary carnival tickets to Winston the cop. He thinks maybe he can return Good Sylar to him and exchange him for Bad Sylar. That only works three times a year at Target without a receipt, BTW. But hopefully when Sylar sees the cop he will go berserk again. They watch Lydia flirt with Sylar, and she’s probably under orders, but still. Three dudes in six episodes?

Two words: tramp stamp.

Peter tells the Bennets that he just dropped in to see if HRG happens to have any healers on his contact list. What about my blood, Claire wants to know. Oh yeah! You mean the magic stuff that brought your adopted dad back to life in season 2, but no one thought to use on your bio-dad in season 3? Won’t work, says HRG. Hiro has a tumor, and Claire’s blood would just make the tumor grow faster.

I’m sorry, what?

Can you repeat that, please, for the record? You say Claire’s blood can heal anything except cancer? It makes cancer worse?

That has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve heard yet on this show. Even dumber than the eclipse that happened all over the world and lasted for 45 minutes. Claire Bear, if I were you I’d stay away from the cigarettes and Sweet & Low. Oh, and hope you’ve got sunblock.

So HRG goes to his box of X-Files that he’s been carrying around for 2 seasons (the company must not have heard you can fit quite a few documents on a DVD these days) and digs out a file on a kid named Jeremy Greer, down in Georgia.

So “bagged and tagged” is official Company terminology? Silly interns!

Peter takes HRG by the arm and if I were HRG, I think I’d take a plane instead, considering where Peter popped out on his last teleport. Two guys coming out of a stall together in Georgia… no thanks.

Sylar’s skanky new tour guide points out people chopping wood and hauling water and making furniture by hand and driving carriages with reflectors on the back. Joseph started them all doing daily chores, because powers or no, hard work builds character. So Sylar starts shoveling dirt and Lydia tells him he’s hot-again, probably on orders from Samuel.

Who likes to watch.

This has the bonus effect of making Edgar want to throw something. “That Lydia always had a thing for bad boys,” he says, tossing a few knives into Sylar’s shovel for emphasis. Lydia asks Samuel if he’s going to stop the fight. Stop it? He started it. Sylar, in self-defense, TKs Ray into a wheelbarrow full of cement.

Some fighter planes fly overhead, and this triggers more Nathan memories. Sylar morphs into Nathan for a second, which looks pretty cool. Samuel is starting to realize that someone else’s memories were put in Sylar’s head. He should really know who by now. Nathan was a public figure, and they know all about Peter already. Besides, U.S. Senators don’t just disappear. That’d be all over the news. Look what happened to my governor. T-Sam introduces Sylar to an irie-looking dude named Damian. Everyone in de Islands got da mind-bending powers, mon. It’s da ganja. “Take him to the house of mirrors,” says Samuel. Is it me, or is Samuel gradually losing his faux-Irish accent like Princess Leia in Star Wars? (If that counts as a gratuitous geek reference, sorry. I blew my quota on those about 2 episodes ago.)

Back at the hospital, Emma takes Peter’s advice and introduces herself to Hiro. So the deaf woman is going to chat with a Japanese guy who barely speaks Engrish? This ought to go well. Sure enough, when Hiro sees Emma he starts hollering “No more brood left! No more brood!” because he thinks she’s a nurse coming to take a blood sample. She can’t read his lips and he can’t understand her deaf-speak. This is the funniest thing I’ve seen on Heroes all season. Emma asks how to turn her power off, and Hiro says no no, you have a gift, and let’s fast-forward through the typical Hiro pep talk. It’s not what Emma wanted to hear either.

Peter and HRG arrive safely in a yard full of dead plants. HRG says the house smells like death inside. He’s seen this before, of course. See, sometimes your healing power goes into reverse and turns into a killing power. Sure enough, there are two dead parents in there. The kid they’re after is hiding upstairs. He shoots at them, probably just to scare them away. You know that has to be one screwed-up kid. Poor guy.

Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Damian takes Sylar around back of the funhouse, cranks up some Marley, lights a giant doobie and hands Sylar a plate of mushrooms to eat. Kidding! That would be stereotyping and we don’t do that on this show. Just ask Hiro or the Haitian. He takes Sylar into the funhouse, into a round mirrored room with paintings on the floor. I fully expected the exploding world that was painted on everything last season, or maybe the DNA symbol that was everywhere the first season. But no, on Heroes we change our logos more often than the main characters change personalities. Damian touches Sylar’s face, and it looks like the Vulcan mind meld trick, which is funny when you realize he’s doing it to the new Mr. Spock.

Pretty sure that’s intentional.

Yoda-with-dreads leaves Sylar alone in the room to face his inner demons. Those frickin clocks start up again as he’s forced to watch scenes of all the killing he’s done, starting with his mother.

You mean I always had these eyebrows? NOOOOOOO!

Over at Our Lady Of All The Good Hospital Names Were Taken, Emma’s picked up another stalker. Hiro’s followed her back into the file room asking her about her power. He tells her he was the master of time and space, but “lately time and space have been the master of me.” LOL. She’s looking at a scan of her brain trying to figure out how to turn the pretty colors off. Seriously, I hear synesthesia (the real thing, I mean) is pretty cool. I think I heard LSD can produce the same effects. Just sayin. Don’t try it at home though. Hiro sees a flyer for a hospital-wide talent show and has a lightbulb.

Why am I suddenly reminded of South Park?

Down in the Georgia House of Death, the kid is still shooting at Peter and HRG. They split up. Idiots! That never works! HRG starts up the stairs, puts his gun down and picks up his TV Hostage Negotiator Phrasebook. Maybe it would help if he said something useful, like “I kidnapped you once and learned all about your power and I can fix you”? “Everything I touch ends up dead!” says Death Kid.

But on the plus side, you have the power to write emo lyrics.

Winston Zeddemore shows up at the carnival with the tickets Edgar brought him. If a guy came to my house with comp tickets to a dodgy little carnival, I’m pretty sure I’d toss them out like all the other crap free offers I get in the mail every day. Winston pulls out a mugshot of Sylar that he’s been keeping under his pillow. Don’t they usually post photos of escaped felons like, on the news and stuff? Or is the Baltimore PD that broke? Meanwhile, the man he’s looking for is still sitting through a screening of the slasher movie that was his life. He’s finally seen enough, runs out and pukes.

Puke scenes always make me want to puke, so let’s get back to Georgia. Death Kid is getting a pep talk from HRG. He killed his parents by accident when he was angry, and that’s enough baggage to write a whole box set of emo tunes. HRG feels guilty that he left Death Kid on his own after “bagging and tagging” him. (Phrases that Jack Coleman is probably sick to death of uttering: Bagging and Tagging, One Of Us One Of Them, Morally Gray, and Company Man. Just to name a few.) Peter teleports into this touching and tense scene, because it’s always a good idea to surprise an unstable minor who’s got a shotgun. Death Kid shoots, but Peter stops time just in time… or did he? Peter looks behind him and he sees a time-frozen spray of his own blood. This is the perfect opportunity for Death Kid to learn that he can still heal people. HRG says he has a power too and that power “is understanding people like you.” Nice one, Bennet. HRG also points out to Death Kid that they are touching each other right now, and HRG is still alive. Death Kid decides to try, and whaddaya know, Peter heals up and starts laughing like a maniac.

Emma returns to her computer to find a flyer left by “Hiro the Magnificent, Appearing Live at the Rec Room!” She can’t resist checking it out and he calls her up on stage. He’s going to make her disappear “for the next feat of magicalness”. Hiro stops time while the kids are all clapping so she can see the light show. This seems like an awful lot of setup just to convince her that her power is cool, especially since every time it happens she looks amazed and delighted anyway. I’m seeing plot holes but Emma is seeing pretty sparkly lights. So whatever. Hiro sends Emma to hide behind a curtain at the back of the room while he starts time again. He has them all make jazz hands for her. Is that how deaf people clap and, if so, how did he know?

After they kill me off, can I be on Glee? I hear it’s the new hotness.

Back at the carnival, Sylar has finished puking his guts out and is spilling what’s left of them to T-Sam. Here’s the gist of T-Sam’s speech: “It’s all THEIR fault. You know, THEM. THEY made you a monster. All the poor innocent supervillains are in danger because you’re here.” And whose fault is that, Sam? That’s right, yours. Good Sylar always was kind of an airhead, but can he be this stupid? Maybe he’s just a sucker for an on-again-off-again piratey Irish accent. Sometimes Samuel reminds me of someone else…

It’ll come to me eventually.

Hiro’s back in bed, and the nurse (played as always by an extra from 227) has just now decided to get mad about his little magic show after she sat there and watched the whole thing. Emma says he should stop using his power before it kills him, to which Hiro replies “It keeps me alive.” This makes Hiro think of Charlie, his long-lost Texas barmaid who never forgot anything. Well, it’s about time, Charlie’s ghost is probably saying. Hiro left her off the bucket list somehow. “Paper and pen, stat!” Ah Hiro, when that tumor kills you 3 weeks from now during sweeps, how I will miss your childish-yet-clever one-liners. Emma makes him promise he won’t leave until Peter gets back. This is good, because Hiro should actually think of something he can do for Charlie first. He already tried to save her and she ended up dying anyway. That’s what made him give up trying to change the past, remember?

Now that the drama down in Georgia is neatly wrapped up, Peter steals Death Kid’s power. That means Hiro’s power is gone (although I don’t think it is, really) and he’ll have to catch a plane back to NYC courtesy of HRG and the USA. HRG isn’t going yet, he’s going to stay with Death Kid awhile and work off some of that guilt. Claire needs a new brother since Lyle is pretty much written off the show. Bennet MacGyvered up something inside the house to make it look like Death Kid’s parents were poisoned by carbon monoxide. Let’s not question that one too closely, k?

Sylar finds Winston in the hall of mirrors looking for him. Good thing too, because what a Heroes fight scene really needs is more broken glass. Sylar wants to talk but his hands start shooting sparks again, so Winston shoots him and Sylar stops the bullet. See Peter, that’s how you do it. Learn a thing or two from your former fake long lost brother.

Ray, I thought you said crossing the streams was bad.

Sylar gets ahold of himself and manages to make ticking clocks stop before he kills Winston. T-Sam took no chances, though. He’s had Edgar watching the whole time, ready to step in and clean up if necessary. So poor Winston is sushi.

Emma’s hanging out in the rec room playing piano. Hiro gets out of bed to listen and everyone else is standing around clapping. Hiro teleports out before Emma can send him back to bed again. Mission accomplished.

Sylar wanders around the carnival.

And into the Beat It video. With pirates.

T-Sam gives Sylar a big hug, dresses him all in white and actually baptizes him. So do you have to kill someone to get into the carnival? I didn’t realize it was THAT kind of family. Edgar stands around tossing knives and generally feeling inadequate. Lydia does some more flirting with Sylar, looks over at her pimp T-Sam for orders and then asks Sylar to dance. Edgar goes back to playing with his knife. I’m sure Freud had a term for that.

Peter’s back at the hospital, having taken two seconds to get to Georgia by teleport from Manhattan, five minutes there and probably about six hours back. Hiro’s gone, of course. The note he left says “Save Charlie”. Not that it’s going to do Pete any good, since he lost Hiro’s time travel power when he got Death Kid’s healing power. Oh, well, I guess he can pretty much put his employer out of business, so there’s that.

We see Hiro arrive at…

Remember this place?

That’s it for this week! Quick loony prediction: Peter figures out he is all powerful again and goes looking for Hiro. Oh, and I guess we’re due for more Gretchen next week. Drat. Maybe they’ll bring Parkman and Bad Sylar back too, though. To be continued!