Heroes: Not As Compelling as Flesh-Eating Zombies

I’ve been surviving on about 4.5 hours of sleep a night for the past week, which is causing me to get rather loopy. Blame it on the sleep deprivation, but I kinda wish this week’s episode of Heroes was a tribute to Flashdance instead of a flashback. I mean, they both start with the word “flash.” How awesome would it be to see Bob and Mama Petrelli try to breakdance in 80′s getups and sweatbands?

What a feeling…okay, maybe not so much for Mama Petrelli.

Previously on Too Many Heroes, Too Little Time: If you were a little too successful in mind-sweeping yourself of season 2 and forgot how compelling this show can be, there was a nuclear showdown at Kirby Plaza which interfered with the Heroes reunion potluck. Adam vowed to get revenge on Hiro but was locked up by the Company, DL was shot by Linderman, Peter saw Wal-Mart’s entire stock of body bags after the Shanti virus outbreak and realized Mama Petrelli expelled him from her uterus, then traveled back to the past as Caitlin got deported, Sylar was stabbed by Hiro but managed to slink away into the sewer, Bennet and his family fled to California — I hope he remembered to buy a shit ton of fire insurance.

Oh Canada, present day

Peter meets Adam in the shadows of the antiques roadshow warehouse. Adam declares for the millionth time that together, they will change history. Seriously, though? Hiro is the one who can actually change history with his powers, unless Adam/Kensei is counting on four hundred years’ worth of history repeating itself.

Turns out The Haitian mindwiped Peter clean, but Adam has had plenty of time to think about matters such as these and believes that the mind can repair itself especially if Peter absorbs Adam’s regenerative abilities. Adam tells Peter to focus his thoughts on what matters most to him, and Peter pulls out the creased photograph of Nathan and himself. Adam tells him that it’s Nathan in the photo, and we zoom in on Peter’s eye, where’s it’s flashback time.

Signs point to glaucoma.

FOUR MONTHS AGO

It’s the Kirnobyl Plaza meltdown, and Nathan insists on flying away with Peter so that New York will not explode. “You saved the cheerleader so we could save the world,” says Nathan, scooping up Peter and zooming off into the stratosphere. Peter struggles and insists that Nathan let go, as Nathan’s face starts melting off from the heat of Peter-nuke. He squirms away from Nathan, and goes KABOOM, lighting up the sky.

Nathan is knocked back by the force and probably can’t see (I doubt eyeballs would hold up in that heat), he’s falling, falling, falling until Peter scoops him up and flies his brother to safety in a patch of aloe vera plants. Hey, it’s the best natural treatment for burns. When that doesn’t work, he heads to the hospital…

where Niki and Micah are coincidentally sitting in the waiting room. They learn from the doctor that the bullet lodged in DL was less than an inch away from his aorta, but he’s going to live. But probably not for long, because we have too many characters right now.

Peter brings in Nathan, who looks like a burnt marshmallow from Girls Scouts camp. A cop is about to file a report, but Peter goes invisible and heads through the hospital hallway. Unfortnately, he’s stunned by a full blast of blue electricity from Veronica Mars (Elle), who is chastised by Bob for using such force.

Back at The Company headquarters, Elle is stroking and lightly electrocuting Peter, treating him like the boy toy many female and some male Heroes viewers lust after. “He’s not a toy, Elle,” Bob reminds her. Yep. He’s definitely her father, or father figure at least. You can tell she was an only child. Peter freaks out and asks about his brother, Bob says that Nathan’s situation is dire. Bob reveals he’s an old friend of Mama and Papa Petrelli — and tells Peter he’s safe here, but Nathan is another story. The guilting begins. “You almost killed him, Peter,” says Veronica Mars. They are concerned his powers are going to be hazardous to him,so they have a natural power and appetite suppressant — The Haitain!

Our favorite former Neptune resident gets coquettish, stroking Peter’s hand and making eyes at him. Isn’t that PDA even slightly awkward with her father in the room?

I’d purse my lips disapprovingly, but I’m all chin.

Bob ignores the strange Heroes foreplay going on, and proceeds to tell Peter that 30 years ago, research on the Shanti virus vaccine was shut down but has now been reinstated. They’re close to finding the cure Bob says, and once that happens, Peter will never have to worry about hurting anyone he loves. These psychological jabs are sadly the closest thing that anyone on the show gets to therapy, but this is like anti-therapy, since you’ll have even more issues after your little chat. Seems like this vaccine is the power equivalent of getting neutered or spayed.

Later, it’s time for “Haitian” cocktails, pills that suppress Peter’s abilities, washed down with water. They’d probably taste better with a vodka tonic. Elle, a beauty school dropout, gives Peter a haircut, with actual scissors. If she were more deft at her electricity powers, she could put spas that offer electrolysis and laser hair removal out of business. Zap the unwanted hair away, forever. Peter downs his power-nullifying pills, and Elle sparks him a bit on the scalp for her own pleasure. Peter yelps a bit in pain, and the flirty sex kitten channeled by K. Bell coos, “You’ll get used to it…and then you’ll start to like it.”

Maybe these pills will stop the growth of pants pubes.

After Elle’s had her fun and leaves, Peter hears a a voice singing in the next cell, “Won’t you be, won’t you be, please won’t you be my neighbor?” I knew Mr. Rogers wasn’t dead! And by “Mr. Rogers” I mean Adam/Kensei.

Santo Domingo

Alejandro is getting hitched to a gal who looks several months pregnant (maybe it’s just my ghetto TV) and Maya is not a happy camper. She’s even wearing a black dress in protest, to match her black, black heart of darkness. The reception is festive and a town-wide celebration. The Dunder Twins dance with each other, and Maya looks like she wants to kill someone. Be careful what you wish for, that’s what I learned from that Nickelodeon show Are You Afraid Of The Dark? Alejandro’s new wife is dancing happily with a guy who just happens to be her ex-boyfriend. At this point, Maya starts looking smarter than her twin, who was stupid enough to not edit the guest list. She insists that Alejandro will get his heart broken. Alejandro’s wife not-so-subtly walks off the dance floor with her ex-bf, and the rest of the wedding guests are so tanked by now that it doesn’t raise any suspicions.

The black mascara tears start running as Maya cries in a corner. I’m guessing this is actually mascara and not yet the Death by Maybelline trademarked power. She opens a nearby door to the sound of gasping and panting, confirming her suspicions that yes, the lady is a tramp and the ex-boyfriend is a douche. Confronation time. Her sister-in-law’s ex prevents Maya from leaving, causing her to start panicking. He insists that she keep quiet about the matter and clamps a hand around her neck. “I’d rather see you dead than married to my brother!” snaps Maya to the slut-in-law. Your wish is my command, says the Mascara of Death, as it starts dripping down her cheeks. The two cheaters collapse to the ground and Maya exits the clost only to discover that the wedding party sucks. Everyone is dead, except for Alejandro, rushes to her with “WTF?!” written all over his face.

“This whole mess could’ve all been avoided.”

Maya freaks, blubbering that she thinks it was her fault but she can’t explain it. Since it’s their first time exhibiting powers, the Dunder Twins don’t figure out that they can revive people. Maya does what she does second best after accidentally killing all the people around her (a recurring theme, if you haven’t noticed): she flees. I would not be able to run as fast as she does in heels.

Months later, Alejandro discovers his sister hiding in Venezuela as a nun. How very telenovela of her. Interrupting her prayers, he asks her to come home, telling her that everyone wants answers because they can’t figure out how she poisoned everyone. You know, ’cause Maya is considered the village idiot and everything and could never have pulled it off. Um, shouldn’t Alejandro be equally at blame since he survived the Maybelline Massacre as well? Maya protests, insisting that she’s dangerous and harboring something evil inside of her. Alejandro wheedles a little more, and then produces a cop who’s come to take her away.The cop tries to restrain Maya, but she starts hyperventilating, cries out to Jebus, and then kills everyone except Alejandro. Inside a freakin’ church. It’s safe to say that God hates you, Maya. He clasps her hands and calms her down, but it’s too late. Time to run.

New York, Heroes General Hospital

Mama Petrelli watches over Nathan who whispers “Peter” hoarsely. I wonder if Mama Petrelli suspects Peter’s alive but kidnapped by Bob. Nathan is looking as charred than Anakin Skywalker, but at least he has all his limbs intact. His face resembles the disfigured mess he often sees in the mirror four months later, as a bearded, skeevy-looking alcoholic.

“Where is Padme?”

Micah happily embraces DL, who looks quite chipper. Niki completes the family tableau, and I can almost sympathize with her stressful situation. For a millisecond. She’s called out to the hallway, and she confides to the doctor that they don’t have health insurance because she spent the money on hideous shiny silver cowboy boots. It’s too bad that online call-girls can’t unionize. Time to move to Canada, Niki! She’s surprised as the doctor says DL’s treatment is being taken care of.

The delight of a child is contagious. So is SARS.

Who could actually care enough about them to do that? “Oh, that’d be me,” says Bob, walking up without missing a beat. The guy’s everywhere! Are we sure he can’t clone himself to be in several places at once? I suppose that has nothing to do with converting objects into solid gold. Bob says that Linderman messed things up and that he’s hear to steer the ship. He offers to help Niki deal with Jessica and any other personalities that may arise, mentioning that one’s memory can’t always deal with a new reality, resulting in a fracture. Niki is adamant about Jessica being gone, but Bob points out that she can’t prevent new personality fragments from taking over without professional assistance. She’ll have to leave her family to enter the program, Bob reveals, but he offers her an alternative medication that she can take at home. Oh, but there are a few neglible side effects: “Usage of medication may cause further fragmentations of personality, schizophrenia, terrible parenting skills, the death of loved ones and mediocre acting.”

“Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Figaro, Figaroooooo!”

THREE MONTHS AGO

Micah’s birthday is a lonely affair, but he does has an awesome 9th Wonders-themed cake. There aren’t any other kids present,Micah wasn’t too popular with his age group. It’s inevitable when you’re programming computers and manipulating systems while your peers are going crazy over Nintendo Wii. But you can’t have a birthday without a pinata full of delicious sugar, everybody knows that. Despite Niki’s inability to pay rent and the collapse of the housing market, they still have their original home. Niki’s gone with the option of self-medication (a mixture of downers, it looks like), which requires Ali Larter to play someone who has lost interest in everything. That shouldn’t be too hard. She can’t even fake being happy at her own son’s birthday party and looks distracted. Micah, in an attempt to make his birthday wish come true, says he could pick up a police band on their car radio and they rush to the scene to be heroes: “I feel like the Fantastic Four. Minus one, but still.” Hee.

DL tells his son that he just got a job that will make him a hero for his son, and gets ready to take Micah bowling,but Niki doesn’t accompany them. Boo hoo. He reassures her that the meds will kick in (her low energy and lack of enjoyment are definitely must make her the center of a party) and kisses her goodbye. Literally, ’cause Niki sits glumly at the birthday table and then, in a super-dramatic, slo-mo segment, she washes her bottle of pills down the garbage disposal to the tune of “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.” Bye-bye, sanity.

Back at The Company

Cisco’s surveillance systems are busted or nonexistent, because Peter and Adam’s cell walls are so thin they can talk to each other without alerting any guards or Company Men. Seriously, even a baby monitor would be effective. Adam starts implanting thoughts in to Peter’s head. Naive Peter is still convinced that The Company wants to help prevent him from harming others, resigning himself to being locked up (although he doesn’t yet consider it a prison.) Adam says he’s sorry that Peter’s suffered trauma,and drops the fact he’s been locked up for 30 years. Time to implant the seed of doubt.

When masturbation has lost its charm, I like to see how long I can hold my breath.

TWO MONTHS AGO

“I’m not in the mood today, Elle,” says Peter, as she enters his room for her daily sensual shock. She shocks him anyway, an he’s not yet desensitized to her powers. K. Bell’s character is appealing in that she allows herself to enjoy her powers every once in awhile. In this case, Peter’s the equivalent of a vibrator for her. Her seemingly playful exterior with a twist of sass/sadism finally gets Peter to ask her what she’s all about, if there’s more than “the sadistic lightning thing.”
Peter is less responsive than usual, provoking her to give her a little more personal information. “I accidentally set my grandma’s house on fire when i was six,” Elle confides. “I think she just had too much booze in her pantry. I spent my ninth birthday in a glass room.” She’s spent 16 years inside The Company facility, after being diagnosed by shrinks as a sociopath with paranoid delusions, and is now a 24 year old who has never been on a date. .I enjoyed this little segment in that it revealed a tidbit about Elle’s character, allowing her to be more complex in an engaging way that makes us care just a little. No sob story could make me care for Emotard, though.

We can pretend we’re in college with our twin bed!

Adam warns Peter that Elle might be carrying herpes, and taints Peter by telling him that the cure isn’t real, that he too was told they were on the brink of a cure 30 years ago. Peter’s still clinging to his belief that The company is good, but Adam tells Peter to try to get out of the prison that’s been created for them. Perhaps this was a scrapped plotline from Prison Break + magical powers.

Later, wanting to test the validity of what Adam’s told him,Peter asks Bob if he can go to Ikea to decorate his barren room with unpronounceable furnishings. Peter also requests to speak or see his relatives, and offers to be dosed with sedatives and more drugs so he’s not a danger to them. He even suggests that Elle chaperone him. Denied, denied, denied. Adam, of course, is listening in on this one wall over, and now knows how to bring Peter to his side.

Adam says he tried to take his regenerative abilities public to help people, the greater good if you will, but The Company prevented all that. Apparently there’s no way to kill Adam, although I’m sure he has a weakness. He brings up Nathan, probing Peter’s emotional weakness, telling him that small amounts of his blood could cure and heal Nathan. Hints of Linderman come to mind, especially with the shared regenerative powers and Linderman being Adam’s disciple. It doesn’t take much more to get Peter in on the prison break plan, but he’s going to have to fake taking the meds. That won’t be hard, in this facility.

Elle walks in with the daily meds, dressed to kill in a provocative halter top. She’s about to leave when Peter asks her to give him a little jolt. As Elle leans in, Peter pulls her towards him for a kiss. There are literal sparks, the equivalent of a climax, and Elle’s no longer a kissing virgin at the age of 24. Pleased with herself, she leaves after shocking him one last time (it’s an addiction) and watching Peter take his meds, which he promptly spits out into the toilet after she exits.

OMG, this wintergreen Life Savers trick is amazing!

Peter tells Adam through the wall it’s his fifth day without medication, and I’m still flabbergasted that The Company doesn’t monitor their prisoners AT ALL. Nor does it seem that The Company keep tabs on its own employees like Mohinder, who gabbed on his cell phone to BFF Bennet all the time inside the facility. There’s no fucking security. Seriously people, the citizen’s redneck border patrol is more effective, at least before Maya started crying and killed them all.

After concentrating and making the constipated face for a few seconds, Peter is able to phase through the wall into Adam’s cell. Together, they exit The Company. Freedom!

“The safe word is ‘Sylar.’”

Back at Heroes General Hospital, Mama Petrelli enters Nathan room to see Heidi, Nathan’s wife, hovering over her husband. Heidi walks, it’s a Christmas Miracle left over from Linderman. Mama Petrelli pulls her daughter-in-law aside, and tells her that the car crash (which is clearly a lie to us, the viewers) is a lie. Instead, the skeleton in Petrelli closet is that the men suffer from delusions of grandeur, paranoia, beliefs that they can fly, that lead to “suicide” as in the case of Papa Petrelli. Mama Petrelli inches closer and closer to Heidi, who looks uber-skeptical at first, but as Mama Petrelli keeps talking and stroking Heidi’s arm and touching her hair, Heidi comes around. Call me crazy, but I think Mama P. has the power of persuasion. The touchy-feely approach is creepier to watch than her typical “LISTEN TO ME! YOU WILL DO WHAT I SAY!” commands issued to Nathan in the past.

“You know, there’s a shampoo to treat this.”

Elsewhere, Niki practices her sales pitch for her job. Um,”What can i do to get you inside a brand new car?” sounds like an opening line for a phone sex operator whose company is funded by Cadillac Escalades. So that’s where the pantsuits started. A little voice emerges as Niki gets ready to leave: “Remember me? That summer you ran away to LA and asked everyone to call you Gina?” At least it’s pronounced “Gee-na” and not “Gy-na” a la 40-Year-Old Virgin. Niki tries to get control but Gina the wild child floozy is here to play. I suppose it’s slightly better than a murderous personality. Gina calls Niki on not taking her meds, and Niki is again trapped in the closet…mirror. I’m over it.

Later that day, DL, now an upstanding firefighter, runs into a burning building to retrieve a dog. Or what I thought was a giant St. Bernard, until I realized it was actually someone’s daughter. Hee. His fellow firefighters have no idea it’s due to his powers, though, and DL’s heroic act is captured on the nightly news, to Micah’s delight. Niki hasn’t returned from work, and DL quickly realizes his wife has been overtaken by another personality.

It seems implausible that someone as seemingly careless as Gina would scraw a note on the mirror in lipstick letting DL and Micah know she booked it to LA. It just doesn’t seem in her character, ’cause that requires you to be considerate of others. something that neither Niki nor Gina seem to be. Niki-Gina, fresh from doing a line of coke, is found by DL in a club not frequented by celebs, because there’s no guest list at the door. And the bouncer seems to have memorized the face of everyone who enters, because DL flashes a quick picture of Niki and the guy knows exactly where she is on the dance floor. Amazing, maybe he has powers too. Not. Anyway, DL confronts Niki-Gina and the greasy cockroach she’s dancing with isn’t too pleased to meet him. He gets Niki to come back by showing her a picture of the family. The skeeve-o, feeling cockblocked, swings at DL’s head, but it just phases right through. DL and Niki walk away, down the stairs of the club, and BANG! The same guy comes right up to them and shoots DL in the chest, splattering his blood all over Niki’s face. Wouldn’t DL be able to react to that faster than he did the punch thrown earlire? Oh DL, if you’d read Neil Strauss’s book The Game, you would’ve been able to out-game the other alpha male without provoking him. And not get your character killed off in such a pathetic way.

Next on NBC —Heroes: SVU

Nana Dawson tries to reassure Niki at DL’s funeral, and Niki sees her chance to dump Micah. As Nana exits with Monica and Damon, Bob gives Monica a quick gaze (perhaps assessing the future specimen?) and she shoots him a brief smile. Random. They haven’t even really met yet, according ot the timline. The guy must have serious frequent flier miles, ’cause he’s seriously everywhere. Why doesn’t he send minions in his place? Delegate, Bob, delegate. He meets Niki’s eyes and they nod at each other in agreement. Time to go to rehab.

Visitor’s hours are over when Adam and Peter make it to Nathan’s hospital bedside. Adam extracts some of his blood and releases it into Nathan’s IV bag. It looks like Kool-Aid. The regenerative powers of Adam’s blood work almost instantaneously, freakishly fast, as Nathan’s burns are replaced by baby-smooth skin. I guess the blood infusion/transfusion also gave Nathan the ability to grow facial hair at a ridiculous speed. Peter wants to stick around to see his brother wake up, but Adam knows they’ve gotta run. Peter picks up a framed photograph of Nathan and him, taking the photo and dumping the frame outside in the snow. At first I was like, “What a coinkydink! Peter somehow has a duplicate of the same photo in his pocket” and “Why the hell did he just throw a perfectly good framed photo onto the ground? That’s littering.” But it makes sense now.

“I can’t believe you slept with her, too.”

Leaving the hospital, Adam hands Peter his passport and airplane tickets (how did he get them? you tell me, ’cause I assume The Company is even worse than China when it comes to censorship and limited Internet access) and mentions a meeting spot in Canada. A second later, Elle and The Haitian show up. Indicating hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Elle sends a scorching jolt of electricity that burns Peter’s shirt off as he runs away, chiseled body and all. The Haitian is ordered to follow Peter while Elle pursues Adam. The Haitian corners Peter in a shipping yard, beating up Peter prety badly. He whips out handcuffs and cuffs him to the inside of a crate that contains no iPods. Peter’s ready to get another ass-whupping when The Haitian confides that Peter’s mom helped him when he was in need. The Haitian mindwipes Peter for his own good and gives him his Heroes symbol necklace as a memento of the encounter. Aw. They need someone whose power involves scrapbooking, for all these precious moments. The Haitian urges Peter to start a new life, and locks the crate. And that is how Peter came to be topless in Ireland rather than sleepless in Seattle.

PRESENT DAY

Sylar and Maya turn on the heat and sexual tension in the world’s most romantic car, the Nissan Rogue, while Alejandro snoozes. Niki thanks Bob for his help and leaves, so this must be pre-deadly virus injection. Bob’s face is as cryptic as ever. In the pouring rain, Nathan shows up at Wandering Rocks Pub in Ireland.

Back at the Canadian warehouse, Peter’s memory comes back with a jolt and he says, “I remember everything.” Adam is delighted. But you know where the writers stole that line from?

“Shall we dance?” asks Adam, offering Peter his hand. “Certainly,” replies Peter. And they waltz off to save the world.

Three episodes left. The stupidest mid-season threat ever, the biohazard, will be resolved. Claire ends up at The Company. Hiro will try to save his dad, hooray. There’s foreshadowing of an epic showdown between Bennet, Bob, Mohinder, and possibly Elle. Who and how many of our heroes will be killed off? Start your bets!