Heroes: Good Artists Borrow, Bad Ones Steal From Lost

Previously on Heroes: Remember me? I used to do long voiceovers about destiny at the beginning of every episode. Now I just do the “Previously on Heroes” bit. Ever since I made the mistake of shaving my stubble off that one time, I’ve been trying to work my way out of Kring’s doghouse. He told me I could at least be in a flashback this week, so yeah, I guess it’s going ok. My name is Mohinder Suresh.

Miss me?

The carnies are picking up cans off the street, ostensibly because Samuel feels like being green, but probably just to make a little scratch on the side. T-Sam explains to Hiro, still rocking his Knight Rider shirt, that he needs Hiro to go back 8 weeks and find Mohinder. Not to save his life, because that would piss off half the audience. Just to grab an old film before Mohinder can destroy it.

So just what has our favorite stubbly Indian scientist been up to all season? To find out, we flash back to nine weeks ago. Mohinder’s in India tutoring on plate tectonics. I thought he was a biologist? Are us dumb Yanks not supposed to know the difference? Mo has got himself a woman, one with a proper Indian accent, not his stuffy British one. She frowns disapprovingly at the cardboard box of Suresh Senior’s stuff that he dug up in the New Mexico desert. She wants him to throw it away, and so far no amount of tail she’s offered up has done the trick. He puts up a pitiful fight (“it’s just hard to let go”) and then drops the box in a convenient trash-can sized to fit just right.

Now where’s that tail you promised?

Back in the present, Tracy has spent the last two hours sitting in a diner (NOT Burnt Toast for a change) staring at a Sullivan Brothers Carnival poster and watching her compass spin. The waitress notes that carnivals are full of fire-breathing freaks. Anyone else think the freak angle is wearing kinda thin? If the average American really thinks superheroes are freaks, remind me why we’re all dropping big bucks at the movies on Wolverine and Batman and that naked blue guy from Watchmen? Superheroes are awesome. Comic book nerds are freaks. I think you can connect the dots from there. Tracy points out that living in a carnival can’t be much worse than working in a crappy diner. Touché. She’s so worked up that she freezes her coffee cup.

Check, please!

Good Sylar, who shall once again be known as Fathan for this recap, has lost his car keys and catches a ride back to the office with Peter. Pretty sure that 1) U.S. Senators have drivers and 2) his office is in DC, not New York City. Right? Fathan doesn’t remember anything other than waking up in the carnival and losing a few days of his life. Senators don’t just go off the grid without people noticing, so someone must know something. I think we covered that a week or two ago. Argentina, remember? Thanks for filling those plot holes, though. Better late than never.

Fathan’s secretary says Ma Petrelli told them to clear his calendar. Cue the Haitian magically appearing in a doorway, We all know that magically appearing right where he’s needed is his real power. “René!” says Peter. So now everyone knows his real name already? No fair. René warns Fathan not to come any closer, because René’s power would cancel out Sylar’s shape-shifting power. I don’t like this yappy new Haitian. He was cooler when he just leaned up against a wall looking all secret-agenty in the blazer and jeans. Now that he can talk, he has to tell Peter the truth.

Across town at Apartment de Bennet, it’s laundry day again.

Please remember not to leave your shorts in the dryer quite so long, k?

Daddy’s not home and the doorknob is frozen. There’s ice all over the place. Tracy steps out from behind a corner and Claire yells “Freeze!” while brandishing a kitchen knife at her. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that was meant to be funny. Tracy’s looking for HRG because her power is out of control and everything she touches turns to ice. Did T-Sam sabotage her somehow? It was more fun when she was always melting instead of freezing.

So, yeah, about the Haitian? He’s working against Mama P again. She sent him to wipe the carnival trip from the boys’ memories, but he refuses. He’s said all the lines he can say without being bumped up a pay grade, so instead he hands Peter a number written on the back of a business card and says to go alone. You know, I kinda wish that we didn’t know this story already, so they could surprise us with it. This arc would be ten times cooler that way. I thank Lost for the unreasonable expectations.

4-8-15-16-23-42 wouldn’t fit on the card, so we had to shorten it.

India, in the past

Mohinder’s gotten some play, so it’s back to Dad’s box that he rescued from the trash. Inside the box is an old film. On the film is a mysterious Asian guy with one arm.

Close enough. All we’re missing is a Dharma logo.

It’s actually Pa Suresh’s video diary of his research at Coyote Sands back in 1961. He says it’s dangerous to keep all these superpowers together in one place, because they amplify each other. Something like that. He says there’s a pregnant woman causing seismic trouble in the camp. Cue the AC/DC lyrics, because the earth starts quaking, the walls start shaking and Baby T-Sam starts crying in the background. I’m shaking and crying too, because I’m laughing so hard. You have got to be kidding me.

Let’s cut over to a less silly scene, shall we? Well, there isn’t one, so let’s just go back to the present in HRG’s apartment. Tracy is getting in the bathtub, which is just about the last place she should be, amirite? At least a half-naked Ali Larter will distract most viewers from whatever else goofy is going on. Claire is making tea in a kettle, because Hollywood loves its whistling teakettles. Can you imagine a suspenseful scene with a microwave going beep-beep-beep? Hitchcock would roll over in his grave. Right on cue, the tub starts to freeze over.

No high beams? Thanks for nothing, you cheater.

Tracy jumps out of the tub, runs over to Claire and promptly freezes her solid. Finally! It’s been way too long since Claire was mutilated.

While Claire and Tracy are chilling, The Hardy Boys arrive at a warehouse, the number of which is not even close to the number on the card the Haitian gave Peter.

Don’t blame me. You guys didn’t have to show the card in closeup.

Inside the storage room is a single coffin-size box. There’s a noise outside, which is handy for getting Peter out of the way so Fathan can be the one to open the box. And I think we all know what’s in it.

It’s… not John Locke? I’m so confused.

Fathan touches the body, so he can use Sylar’s power of seeing everything that happened to it. Much flashbacking ensues. Fathan doesn’t catch all of it, but he does know that Parkman was involved. So they decide to go find him. Aha, now the pieces are being jammed into place all starting to fit!

Tracy is trying to drag the Clairesicle somewhere, and accidentally breaks off her foot. I was hoping she’d shatter and then dribble back together like in Terminator 2, but a foot is better than nothing, I guess. Tracy starts to cry until Claire sits up, all thawed out and everything. Now wait a cotton pickin minute. Based on some very scientific experiments I do on turkeys every Thanksgiving, it should take about a week to thaw out a whole person. Stupid pesky laws of physics again. They have a good laugh over it.

And yet, still no high beams. I give up.

Fathan’s secretary interrupts some special bromance time with an announcement that she’s found Matt Parkman in a hospital down in Texas. Still alive, thanks to the cas of Mercy, but under guard. Let’s take a little flight, why don’t we?

Carnival

Hiro is trying to teleport back in time to Mohinder, but all the usual constipation faces aren’t cutting it.

Have you tried prunes? Works for me every time.

Since we can’t time travel with Hiro, we’ll just have to do a flashback instead. Nine weeks ago, the Nutty Professor is still watching Dad’s film and trying to figure out WTF the Smoke Monster is. He’s hammering away, building a flux capacitor or something, so either he doesn’t care if he wakes up the ball and chain, or he really did her right and she’s sleeping the postcoital sleep of the dead. Mohinder’s wiped himself, and finally passes out at his desk where his hella-pissed girlfriend finds him in the morning. He barely notices, though, because he’s built… wait for it… a power compass. Based on Dad’s film, he figured out how to locate the biggest concentration of superpowers on the planet. And he built the whole thing in like a couple of hours.

Isn’t there an app for that?

Apparently Mohinder’s real superpower (not the fake Spidey-strength he gave himself) is improbable inventions. Like the virus vaccine in Season 2 and the power juice in Season 3. He can’t invent a way to please his woman though, so he’s going to follow the compass straight to Samuel whether she leaves him or not.

Down in the Texas hospital, which looks just like the New York hospital, The Brothers Petrelli are just kinda sneaking around behind some shelves and stuff and tiptoe right into Matt’s room. No guards in sight.

A Members Only jacket can get you in anywhere.

Peter heals Parkman post haste. Matt’s now back in control of his own body. Now if I was him, the first thing I’d say would be something like “Sylar’s-in-my-head-Nathan-get-out-of-here!” as fast as I could, but no, Matt’s going to be a doofus and argue with the invisible person in the room, while Team Petrelli just stands there scratching their heads. Matt finally spills the condensed version of the story, which comes out something like “oh yeah, Nathan, you’re dead, I mean the real you, I made Sylar think he was you and now the real Sylar is in my head and BTW he says hi, guys!”

Bad Sylar in Matt’s head takes over Matt’s body and tries to brainwash Fathan into touching his hand so he can jump back over. How is a touch going to fix this? Matt’s power doesn’t work by touch. But on the plus side, yay for dramatic tension as Sylar/Matt stretches out his hand to Sylar/Nathan and Peter tries to stop them. The brainwashing seems to be working on Fathan, who mumbles “I don’t exist” and starts to walk over to the bed.

Come to Butthead.

Peter tries to get in the way, but Fathan TKs him into the wall like swatting a fly, conveniently knocking Peter out cold. Also convenient, remember those guards that were supposed to be, um, guarding the room? Yeah, they finally show up at the door. As they’re pulling Fathan back, there’s a brief touch of hands and a pretty spark. Matt’s back in control of himself. Fathan, probably with Sylar back on board, grabs Peter and takes off out the window. “You sonuvabitch!” yells Parkman. “Is he in you?”

I’m going to start a new Twitter hashtag: #greatheroesquotesduringsex

Whew. So much drama! Let’s check up on Mohinder’s Boy Scout adventure. Meanwhile in the past, Mohinder’s followed his compass all the way from India to the carnival. I assume he just hopped a plane to America, rented a car and stuck that thing on the windshield like it was a TomTom. However it worked, he’s there now and it’s still nine weeks ago, so it must not have taken very long. Sitting at the carnival gate is an older, vaguely Irish-looking gent. Heeeyyyy, I bet that’s Joseph!

I don’t know about you, but I was expecting someone younger and a little more… Sam-like.

Joseph seems like a decent chap, if maybe a bit of an old fart. Mohinder never misses an opportunity to wheel out the crazy superpower speech, so he immediately starts chewing Joseph’s ear off. Not the most discreet guy, is our Mo. Joseph denies everything, natch. In the middle of the speech, Samuel steps out of the nearest trailer, carrying a bottle of booze. He looks ten years younger. And about three sheets drunker.

So he was born in 1961, right? Isn’t 58 a bit old for guyliner and muscle shirts? I’m talking to you too, Steven Tyler.

Joseph orders Samuel to go make himself useful. Samuel wanders off looking resentful. Hey, I like what they did there. T-Sam is starting to make more sense now. I don’t want to get all technowriterbabbly on y’all, but we call that character development. Little brother thus dispatched, Joseph takes Mo inside the trailer for a little chat.

Nine weeks later in the hospital, there’s a bit of a loose end to tie up. Matt brainwashes the Keystone Kop into thinking he came into the room to find Matt dead. Like it’s an afterthought. “Oh hey, yeah, you with the badge. I’m not here. I’m, uh, dead. Yeah. Gimme some clothes.” Janice is going to love seeing this on the news-but maybe she’s used to it after the whole suicide-bomber episode. (Something else that happens once a season on Heroes: Parkman Goes Postal.)

Now Fathan and Peter are holed up at the Grand Canyon, because Fathan thinks he shouldn’t be around people right now. That’s why he made a beeline for the biggest tourist attraction in the country. It all makes perfect sense. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Sylar is in there pretending to be Nathan. I mean Sylar’s pretending to be Sylar who thinks he’s Nathan. You know what I mean. Fathan thinks he shouldn’t be around Peter either, and flies off again. Peter has flying power again now, though, so he takes off after. Peter, you idiot! You lost the healing power! Now you can’t heal Hiro or Dead Real Nathan. Well, that’s just great.

But on the plus side: more sweet Petrelli bromance.

Joseph decides the only way to get rid of Mohinder is to take him into his trailer and tell him the truth. T-Sam is a ticking earthquake-time-bomb and the more people with powers are around him, the stronger he gets. Joseph’s known this since Sam was a baby. How they figured it out… who knows. Joseph always made sure to not invite too many freaks to the carnival so Samuel’s power would stay under control. He kicks Mohinder out, telling him he’s always handled it and he’s going to keep on handling it. Or at least until he gets offed by Danko in a future flashback. T-Sam’s lurking outside eavesdropping. (How much you wanna bet that Samuel himself got Joseph killed?)

The caption tells us that it’s now 8 weeks ago, so the longest week of Mohinder’s life is finally over. Mohinder calls his honey from his hotel room to eat crow and tell her he’s on the way back home. He drops Dad’s film in the trash and gets ready to set it on fire. Hello? Smoke detectors? You wanna take that outside? But then…

Hiro stops time just in time!

Finally got to use my hotkey! YES!

He takes the film out of the trash and puts a different one in its place. Those have to be hard to come by these days. Wonder where he got it? You can’t just swing by Wal-Mart and get a roll of projector film anymore. He whispers to Mohinder to be careful, like that’ll do any good. Time’s frozen, Mohinder can’t hear anything. Surely you have a better plan than that, Master Of Time And Space.

Claire and Tracy are still bonding over tea at HRG’s place. Two questions: 1) where is HRG and 2) he keeps stocked up on tea? He didn’t even have beer in the fridge last we saw. Bachelor pad FAIL. Tracy is back in control of herself after her little panic attack. You think maybe Samuel caused it? Like how Peter blew up in Season 1 after taking on too many powers? Tracy tells Claire about meeting T-Sam like he was a hot guy next to her in line for New Moon tickets. She’s tempted to let him take her away to the carnival and live with all the geeks. (Fun fact: the word “geek” originally meant “a carnival performer who does wild or disgusting acts”. Tell me this show doesn’t pander.) Maybe you should, says Claire. “Maybe your body’s telling you what it wants.” She bats her eyes a few times for effect. Claire is obviously desperate to get some girlie action after letting Gretchen get away.

I want a woman with a cold hand, I want a lover with a freezy touch.

Just when things are about to get steamy, or I guess frosty, HRG barges in. Thanks a lot, Dad. His gaze falls on Claire’s frozen dismembered foot still sitting on the coffee table. “Ladies! How was your day?” Wow, Bennet’s getting better one-liners than Sylar lately.

Eight weeks ago, Hiro disappears and Mohinder unfreezes, just in time for Samuel to bust in even drunker than before. He’s talking to himself, complaining that Joseph is holding him back. He’s got a rock in his hand, crushes it into gravel, then shoots the gravel at Mohinder like bullets. He must have seen the X-Men movie where Magneto did the same thing. Pretty good aim for somebody that schnockered. He apologizes and runs out… and after a second, Mohinder sits up. It’s the old bulletproof-vest trick! Where did he get that? And if you’re counting, that’s… what? Six or seven major characters who came back from the dead this season. Nathan, Sylar, Peter, Matt, Charlie, Mohinder… should we even bother to count Claire? Throw in HRG from a couple seasons ago and everyone’s been dead at least once now.

Right on cue, Hiro emerges from behind the bed. See, the first time he tried to grab the film, he showed up 10 minutes in the future and saw Mohinder dead. So he went back to the gettin’ place and grabbed the vest off a shelf or whatever and put it on Mohinder while he was frozen. Now Hiro just needs Mohinder to hide out for about eight weeks while he gives Samuel the film, and everything will be copacetic. But Mohinder thinks he’s created a monster by helping T-Sam find out about his true potential. He Must Be Stopped. All Hiro cares about is getting Charlie back, though, and the guy who can stop time wins all arguments. He squinches up his face and hauls Mohinder off somewhere. Where’s a Greyhound when you really need one?

Back in the present, Hiro gives T-Sam the film. I hope he got a projector too. Those things must be getting rarer than hens’ teeth. Or intelligent, thought-provoking Heroes episodes. T-Sam, of course, is not quite ready to produce Charlie now that he has a time traveler. Mohinder wakes up in a straitjacket in a padded room in some institution in Florida. At least that’s what the caption says.

Bet it’s just the same cargo container they locked Peter up in 2 seasons ago, ya think?

Matt calls home, says Sylar’s left him and not to turn on the TV or read any news articles out of Texas. He’s on the way back. Wait, what? He’s just going to give up on catching Sylar now that they’re not sharing a head anymore? He was all ready to die and stuff just one episode ago. Matt’s always flipflopping between superhero action cop and boring stay-at-home dad.

Tracy’s back in the diner, all made up for a date. She’s meeting Samuel there. How did she get in touch with him? Did he leave digits on the back of the compass, or what? She’s into him, all right. Sorry, HRG, you lose this round. Back in the present, the brothers Petrelli are having a heart-to-heart in Peter’s apartment. Fathan says that Nathan is gone. If your stupid brother hadn’t given up the healing power, maybe not. “You’ll always see Sylar when you look at me,” he says. And we’re out.

Here’s lookin’ at you, whoever you are.

So I guess now we know what the Bomb Crisis of Season 4 is. Samuel’s probably going to blow up the world if he gets any stronger, and our Heroes must Band Together To Stop Him. And who knows what Sylar/Fathan’s going to do next. Is he in control now, or just hanging out inside his own head like he used to do with Parkman? Pretty sure we’ll find out next week. Looks like a Very Special Thanksgiving episode coming up, including a surprise visit from… yep, Gretchen. I think I just lost my appetite.

Ciao for now!