Recap: Heroes: This Fever is Not A Lovely Way to Burn

If you talked to me one year ago, I would have said that there is nothing that can beat an hour of Jack Bauer on Monday nights (unless, of course, there were two hours). However, fast forward to 2007, and I really don’t know if that is true anymore. Heroes now occupies that same 9PM time slot that has been filling us with so much CTU-themed entertainment, I started calling my bedroom hard perimeter (Because I let anybody through without much effort. Get it? Ha ha ha. ) But this is no longer the case. Heroes has become my number one love, and I have decided that on Mondays I will first spoon with “The List” and Jack Bauer will get the Tivo’d sloppy seconds. Thankfully, Two and A Half Men isn’t very funny, or I would be an even bigger slut.Before we get to the recap, I will mention that the narrator is still hanging around, but I didn’t really notice this time. Why? Because I was finally enjoying Heroes in HD. Even though I had to go through dozens of hoops to finally get it installed, it is well worth it. Of course, this was the episode that they decided to keep Claire buttoned up. But that’s OK, because HBO gives me plenty of BCE nudity in HD with Rome, so I still had my HD boner for the week. (Did I just say that out loud? Oops.)

The last episode left us with a lot of questions. First of all, Niki decided that her alter ego Jessica was too dangerous. She loved her little boy, but once she realized that her not-so-better half was actually the person who framed her real better half, DL, for murder, she knew that she had to turn herself in. It was a really easy decision for Niki, but Jessica wasn’t too happy about the decision, as evidenced by the various cuts and bruisers the corrections officers were sporting when they came in to take her to meet her lawyer. Listen, I know that Jessica is dangerous and all, but after 1991, there is no excuse to have a prisoner give you trouble like that. Silence of the Lambs taught us all how to take care of problematic prisoners. And really, the worst thing Niki has done is break a nose here or there. It’s not like she ate one of the guard’s livers with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, so why sweat the small stuff?

Back in Texas, Claire is still trying to sort out everything that happened. Slowly but surely, things in her high school are getting back to normal, but that’s because most of the people there didn’t actually see anything that was going on. And don’t forget, Claire was not supposed to remember anything either, but Creepy Black Guy a.k.a. “The Haitian” a.k.a. “The Eraser” for some reason decided to go against the wishes of Claire’s father and keep her in the loop. While I am still in the camp of people who think that HRG really does have what he thinks are Claire’s best interests at heart, it has clearly bothered Claire. As she is talking with her father about everything that happened, Claire asks him questions to see just how often he is going to lie. She still loves her dad, but considering it took her so long to get to a point where she could trust her father in the first place, you can tell it hurts that she will have to keep those secrets from him again.

I think HRG has a sense that his relationship with his daughter might not ever be the same, but he has a lot to worry about. At the end of the last episode, I speculated that Sylar might have escaped because it suddenly looked like he had his power back. Well, Sylar didn’t escape, and after knowing what he did to Eden, is taking the gloves off. Whoever is pulling the strings says that Sylar is to be kept alive, but in the mean time, Sylar has enough glycimerine in him to kill an elephant. What is glycimerene you say? Well, we don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s powerful enough to stop Sylar. Could that be the stuff that is giving the heroes headaches after they are abducted? Perhaps. For now, HRG wants the doctors to dig as deep as possible to get whatever they can from Sylar.

The most interesting part about this whole conversation was that they couldn’t find any indications that Sylar had any power besides telekinesis, which sort of threw me for a loop. It has sort have been accepted that Sylar’s ability was to absorb the abilities of other heroes, simply by eating their brains. If they couldn’t find a trace of anything else in Sylar it meant that the shadow conspiracy guys weren’t trying very hard, or Sylar is doing something else with the brains that we haven’t thought of. My best guess is that Sylar is weak, but not broken. We see him lying on the floor, looking like he is going to die, but if he has survived all of that glycimerine, their must still be some fight left inside of him. Whatever it is, I hope they come up with the answer quickly, because I really got sick of them showing that huge cockroach whenever he is on the screen, agonizing in his cell. Why must it always be a cockroach or spider that find their way into cells like this. Just once I would like to see a rabbit or a beagle or something sniffing around in a place like this. It might not be realistic, but I think the audience would still appreciate it.

Now although it could still be possible that HRG and his friends are part of a government conspiracy, but if it is the government that is running things, the FBI isn’t in the loop. Audrey and Matt Parkman have become a little bit of a team, and based on one of his “hunches” the FBI decided to barge into Primatech Paper with orders to find Sylar. We have all seen HRG walking around the secret corridors of Primatech where they keep suspected telekinetic serial killers and precognitive beatnik artists who are going through detox, but the FBI was having a lot of trouble. They were having so much trouble that Audrey’s boss has to come in to apologize to HRG, and effectively takes the two of them off the case.

Audrey, who was just getting used to the idea that her partner had special abilities, decided that she was no longer going to work with Matt, fearing that her personal feelings for Matt, whether they be sympathy or attraction, cloud her judgment, and that it was never going to happen again. Matt tells HRG that he’ll figure out what he is doing, and HRG says “Good luck with that” with the patented HRG smugness that we have learned to love. Eventually, Matt finds his way back to his wife Janice, and decides that there will be no more secrets between them, which is easy for him to say because he’ll know all of hers anyway, but you get the idea. Matt tells Janice (looking kind of frumpy today) that he can read minds they go on from there.

With all of the bad news that came at the end of our last episode, it was really great to see at least one happy ending. I’m talking about the Ando/Hiro reunion, and yes, it was purely coincidental that I used “happy ending” when referring to these two Asian characters, although now that I think about it, perhaps I should have worked on that happy ending joke a little more.

Anyway, Ando was very happy to see Hiro back in Midland, and vice versa, but there was something very wrong about the meeting. Hiro got back to Texas only after purchasing a plane ticket. This would be the preferred method of transportation for almost everybody, including most heroes, but this Hiro had the ability to bend space and time, so what happened?

According to Hiro, his powers have been weakened every since he lost Charlie, so he was in search of something that he was sure would focus his power. When he met with Peter earlier this season, Hiro had a sword. At the end of the last episode, Hiro was shown about to fight a dinosaur, which kind of sucks, but he did have that sword, which is kind of cool. Hiro decided that his next priority was to find that sword, and his first stop was the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Peter and Nathan Petrelli also made the trip back to New York, and you really have to feel sorry for Nathan. All he ever wanted to do was win an election, take millions in kickbacks, and see his wife walk again, although I really am not so sure about that last one. Unfortunately, his brother has been making a lot of trouble for him, whether it be flying down to Texas and being accused of double murder, or getting himself sick and in a coma, necessitating time consuming ICU visits that take away from the joys of making stump speeches and interviewing all of those really eager campaign volunteers.

OK, perhaps I am being a little harsh on Nathan. He does seem sincerely worried about his brother, and the worst part is that the doctors don’t know what is going on. If his brother had bird flu, that might be good for a couple of points in the polls. Persistent idiopathic fever? I think that is what celebrities complain of right before being hospitalized for exhaustion, getting busted for a DUI, or making a sex tape. There was nothing indicating what was wrong with Peter, and the last words that he told his brother, about absorbing too many powers is not really going to help the doctors at all.

For the last of our updates, I give you Mohinder. In the last couple of episodes, I thought he was turning the corner. I wasn’t going to be able to call him a dumbass anymore. He found his father’s list and decided to do something about it! He wants to find everybody on that list and warn them about what is happening, almost like his father began to do. Mohinder needs help, which is fine, but this son of a genius decides that he is going to call in the FBI. The FBI? Obviously he has been watching too many episodes of the X-Files.

Mohinder hands over the list, but surprise, surprise! The FBI is a little skeptical about some of his claims and don’t really want to help him find anybody on that list. In fact, it seemed like they were more interested in the death of Sarah Ellis. Mohinder is sort of confused because he doesn’t know anybody named Sarah Ellis, so why would he want to kill her? Then he sees that Sarah Ellis looks a lot like that girl Eden McCain that he became friends with. You would think that after hearing from Eden in the last episode that “she’s not who he thinks she is”, he wouldn’t look so stunned when the FBI guy showed him her picture and said it was Sarah Ellis. Then again, maybe Mohinder will take all of these clues, save up some money, and buy that plane ticket to reality. Once there, maybe he’ll finally figure out that you are not, any under circumstances, to trust the government or girls who speak softly and make you macaroni and cheese.

In Texas, Claire’s story is beginning to break my heart a little bit. It was bad enough that her father lied to her, but the worst part of all of this was that Claire now felt like she was all alone. Both of her best friends are dead. One of them, Jackie, was not really her best friend anymore, but it doesn’t matter since her brains were used to paint the locker room floor. Zach, her real best friend, was actually alive, but since he didn’t remember anything that happened, he couldn’t imagine a world where he was best friends with Claire. She asked him point blank if there was a way they could be friends and he said that they wouldn’t play well together, which may be true. If they were playing doctor, Zach wouldn’t have any fun. Or at least Zach 1.0 wouldn’t have any fun. For some reason, the producers decided he was straight, so watch out for some possible sexual tension later in the season.

Anyway, Claire is left with only one person who knows that she is hiding the secret and that is The Eraser. Still, it’s not like they can just start hanging out because A) He’s a little too ld for her, B) he doesn’t really talk that much and C) he works for her dad and if he found out The Eraser was getting close to Claire Bear, he just might use Sylar on him. Actually, what the hell am I saying? She is still hot and she is also friendly (not like that you pervs). Sure she nearly turned the starting quarterback into a vegetable and rumors are flying around about Jackie’s death, but Claire would not have a problem making friends. this is 2007, doesn’t she have myspace? Oh wait, she does have myspace, and she likes Veronica Mars. Yay!

Earlier in the recap, I mentioned that Niki wanted to give herself up because she wanted to keep her son away from the violence that followed her life. Micah may not have to worry about mommy and daddy fighting, but that is OK, because he is getting into his own fights. Somebody called his mom a psycho killer at school, and so he started a fight. I don’t like to condone violence, but if there is any reason to get in a fight on the playground it is defending your mom’s honor. The other reason would be because they married Sarah Michelle Gellar before you got a chance to. That’s right Freddie Prinze Jr., I have not forgotten. Revenge will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

DL and Micah are just trying to have a normal life. DL gave the $2 million back to Linderman, which he thought would get him off the hook. Linderman is happy to have his money back, but because of the inconvenience, he still expects something in return from DL. At some point in time, he will ask a favor, and I have a feeling that he’ll be calling that favor in at a very inopportune time for anybody not named Linderman.

Niki finally got to speak with her lawyer, and we learn that the DA prosecuting her case might ask for the death penalty. This really starts to upset Niki, but it pisses off Jessica even more. This starts a whole sequence where Niki and Jessica start doing a Smeagol and Gollum impression and start talking to the same person as if there other personality was never in the room. I actually think Ali Larter did a good job, but those sequences bored me to death in Lord of the Rings, so I was glad they didn’t try and do too much with it. It did give her lawyer an idea for a psych defense, and hey, as long as Jessica pops back in now and then, I think they have a good shot at winning.

So Hiro and Ando started looking for the sword that would give Hiro his power back, and it didn’t take long to find the sword they needed. How could they be so sure? Well, it had that symbol on it that we have all been talking about, which is how we knew it was the right one. Ando even identified the symbol as a combination of two other symbols that meant “great talent” and “godsend”. Hiro also remembers that the sword, which once belonged to Takezo Kensei (who in the story is a famous Japanese warrior), gave its owner the power to be a great leader. It was the combination of those two words and the story that convinced Hiro that was the correct sword and he decides that they are going to steal it.

The Abbot and Costello routine may be wearing thin on some, but I still enjoy watching Hiro and Ando make jokes, like when Hiro said “we” are going to steal the sword. Ando was like “What do you mean ‘we’?”, but of course goes through with it anyway. Hiro’s powers may be diminished, but they are still strong enough to slow down time to the point where he can steal the sword without a problem. He grabs the sword, and makes a run for it. It is here where we saw what Isaac was drawing with that dinosaur. It wasn’t that Hiro went back in time, he just found himself face to face with a dinosaur exhibit in the museum.

Hiro makes it outside and Ando catches up with him. Hiro pulls out the sword and…..NOTHING. The sword on display was a replica. The real sword? Linderman owns it. This guy pops up all over the place, doesn’t he? Hmmm, if only there was a way for them to meet somebody who could introduce them to Linderman. Oh, that’s right! There is!

Remember Simone? She went to visit Peter in the hospital and got in a little bit of a fight with Nathan about showing Peter that picture which convinced him to go to Texas. If he never went to Texas, he never would have gotten sick, right? Well, we can’t be sure. Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, and all that stuff. Anyway, Nathan decides he wants to see what this Isaac Mendez is all about. Simone says Isaac has not been around, but they can go to his place.

When they get there, they bump into Isaac, who, WOAH!, is clean! He says he went to a clinic and got cleaned up, and I know you aren’t supposed to dump somebody when they are in a coma, but if I were a woman or gay, I would take clean Isaac before Peter Petrelli. But before Simone has much time to think about her coma rebound, in walks Hiro and Ando! Of course! They met Isaac, and came back with him to New York. They fill everybody in on what happened, and it is decided that Simone will introduce them to Linderman.

At this point, Nathan is still along for the ride. He looks at Isaac’s painting, the one of a man who is either on fire, or has one bad case of herpes, and starts to think if one human can really cause and explosion like that. Cut to our buddy Sprague, who is somewhere in the Nevada desert practicing some little mini explosions in his hands. So Sprague is in Nevada. How convenient that Simone is going to be taking Hiro and Ando there!

Claire is not giving up on being friends with Zach. She just has to remember what made them close. Well, what made them close was that he started videotaping her jumping off of things, so that’s what she decides to do. She runs up the same piece of farming equipment or whatever it was that we saw her jump off of the first time, and she does it again. And once again, Zach can’t believe what happened. Once again, Claire gets up and pops herself back into place. And everybody lived happily ever after, until daddy took the HandyCam away and erased all of their memories again.

Meanwhile, Niki is just relaying the bad news to DL. Because of his power, he is able to reach through the glass and hold her hand, but with Micah around, I guess they didn’t want to try a conjugal visit. And hey, who knows how much control DL has of his powers. If there is anything you don’t want to suddenly find is separated by a pane of glass, it’s THAT. Niki wants to hug Micah, but the guard won’t let her, Jessica tries to put up a fight, but the guards subdue her and she is transferred to the mental ward of the prison, pumped full of drugs so she won’t try any funny business.

I forget if I mentioned this before, but I was having a sneaky feeling that they are going to flip the switch and make HRG bad, for real this time. Somebody needs to be the villain on this show, and I guess I just wouldn’t be surprised if they picked him. Sylar is out of the picture, we have no idea what is going on with Sprague, and I start to get the feeling that the only time we’ll hear Linderman is when we go visit Bosley and Linderman is on speakerphone. However, for the most part, I still consider HRG “good”.

HRG even paid a visit to Mohinder in New York. At first, Mohinder thought that Mr. Bennet had killed his father, and was there to kill him, but instead, HRG says that he wants to the two of them to work together. Saying that “not everybody with abilities deserves on”, Mr. Bennet says that they need to help each other, because who’s on that list is “of grave importance”. Mohinder’s whose instincts are so bad he should really just do the opposite of whatever is in his head if he wants life to go smoothly, decides that he is not going to help, but Mr. Bennet gave him a business card with his number on it. Strangely enough, it didn’t have his actual name on it, so he will still be only Mr. Bennet or HRG.

Proving that you can’t keep a good side-talker down, Peter finally wakes up. He has been having nightmares about the explosion, and decides that they only way to keep New York safe is to get out of New York. He books himself a trip to Nevada because that is where they did all of that nuclear testing. Unfortunately, they can’t just drop him off at Mercury, Nevada, meaning he will have to fly into Vegas, meaning he still might kill a whole bunch of people. Then again, if he can hold off his explosion until July or August, people might not know the difference with the heat.

As Peter is making the arrangements, he happens to see a person stealing from somebody. After taking on Sylar, a mere street thief is no problem, so Peter tell shim to stop. The thief is surprised, not that he got caught, but that somebody can see him. This guy is invisible, and now that Peter touched him, Peter is invisibly too! The only time we’ve seen this “hero” was in one of Peter’s dreams, so we don’t know if he is one of the good guys or the bad guys, but it should be fun to hear what his story is. And I bet we’re all glad Sylar didn’t have THAT ability, or it may already be too late.

I thought this was a good episode, but the ending was even better.

In the beginning, there was discovery. A confusion of elements. The first snowfall of impossible change. Old lives undone, left behind. Strange faces made familiar. New nightmares to challenge sleep. New friends to feel safe with. Only then comes control. The need to impose order onto chaos. Through determination, through study, through struggle. All in defiance of a thundering truth. They are here. And the earth shudders under foot.

OK, that was only so-so. Who cares about Mohinder’s philosophical mumbo jumbo? I am starting to think he is the crazy one. The first snowfall of impossible change? Since when did Robert Frost start writing science fiction? No, the best part was at the end. I know I hate the back and forth routine between Niki and Jessica, but as the lights went off in her padded cell, Niki said “Please god help me”

Jessica stared back into the camera and said with that oh so sexy, husky voice of hers, “Who needs God when you’ve got me?”. Yeah, Jessica can beat me up any day she wants.

Overall, I think a great return for Heroes. I am really excited that we might see Linderman because I know he is the key to unraveling so much of the grater conspiracy. It seems that Claire is a little lost right now, so I think it will be interesting to see how she goes about finding herself.

What did you think of the episode?