Heroes: “How to Stop an Exploding Man” – airdate 05/21/07

As Linderman’s henchmen burst in, Niki and DL phase through the wall to escape. Molly recognizes Matt, and Mr. Bennet lowers his gun. Hiro stands up to Mr. Sulu, refusing to abandon Ando; Mr. Sulu sends him on his way with a glint of what may be pride in his eye. Sylar is in Isaac’s studio, working on his latest vision-painting: it is Peter and Sylar in a standoff at Kirby Plaza. Sylar growls. He’d be pretty darn hot if he’d wax his eyebrows just a teensy bit.

Mrs. Petrelli (Nathan’s mom, not his wife) arrives at Nathan’s office to tell him that Linderman is dead, but his plan should still proceed. Nathan looks momentarily relieved that his puppeteer is out of the picture but does acquiesce to his mother. Power corrupts, Nathan! Niki and DL are hunting for Micah in the office building. He’s getting weak, however, and sends her on alone. Mohinder and Mr. Bennet hide Eric Roberts’s body as Mr. Bennet insists that Mohinder trust him. Mohinder snarks: “Right, because that’s worked very well for me before.” Sassy! Claire, in the rental car with Peter, calls her dad to let him know that Sylar has killed Atomic-Ted. Mr. Bennet asks to speak with her Uncle Peter and tells him that they’ll let him know where Sylar is. Peter takes Claire to see Nathan. Claire is pissed and feels betrayed, saying they can’t trust him. Peter, who is looking quite delicious in this scene in the car, says he’s afraid and his brother will help him. He goes to talk with Nathan, who can’t hide his thoughts: you can’t stop it; they’re all going to die. Peter backs away, stunned that Claire was right. He runs up to the street, shouting for Claire. He’s so upset that his hands start glowing and he passes out. Oops. Meanwhile Claire slips out of the car and runs smack into Mrs. Petrelli. Double-oops!

Molly agrees to look for Sylar. She explains to Matt (who is just starting to realize that the events unfolding around him are way bigger than he thought) that she can find anyone at all … except for one person who is much, much worse than Sylar. “When I think about him, he can see me,” she moans. And right there, my friends, is the first mention of our Big Bad for Season 2. She locates Sylar in Isaac’s studio. Matt wants to go after Sylar himself but Mr. Bennet says they need to find Peter. The young man in question wakes up in Simone’s father’s greenhouse. This is either a dream or a flashback, and our current-Peter watches it unfold as Past-Peter, Simone, Simone’s dad Charles and Mrs. Petrelli come onto the roof. Past-Peter and Simone have a clunky conversation about death. Simone looks so pretty with her curly hair. Mrs. Petrelli and Charles talk about Linderman’s plan to blow up NYC. Current-Peter overhears Charles saying that Peter should be able to save the world, but Mrs. Petrelli thinks her younger son is too weak, and that Nathan will step into power after the bomb. She leaves; Charles sips his coffee and looks straight at Current-Peter. “I know you’re there,” he says. Current-Peter boggles.

Sylar catches Ando as the latter sneaks into the loft with his sword. Just in time, Hiro teleports in and, notwithstanding Sylar’s taunting, manages to teleport Ando to safety, back to Tokyo. Sylar is a bit surprised that his quarry has escaped. Niki, looking for Micah, stumbles upon his body and “Jessica,” who is smoking hot, by the way, smirking nearby. No one in the viewing audience for a minute believes that she is anyone but Candice, but Niki falls for it, and Jessica/Candice begins beating on her. A mirror gets broken, the real Jessica tells Niki to stop being such a puss, and Niki taps into her doppelganger’s super-strength, knocking Candice out. Micah comes out of his hiding place to give his mom a big hug. Matt arrives at Isaac’s studio – luckily for him, Sylar is already gone – and stares in semi-shock at all the paintings, recognizing Claire, Hiro, Niki, Peter, Nathan. He is so in over his head and he now knows it. Claire, at Nathan’s office with Nathan and Mrs. Petrelli, is furious that Nathan won’t help stop the bomb. “The future is not written in stone!” she cries. “This one is,” mutters Nathan. Claire wants to know why, then, if these events are inevitable Mrs. Petrelli has schemed to keep Claire apart from the Petrelli boys. Nathan is startled at this, not having considered it before. Mrs. Petrelli smarms up, saying that they can offer Claire a place to belong, a family. Claire hugs Nathan, then whispers “I already have a family,” before throwing herself out the window. Nathan: No! Friend Mouse: Awesome! Claire plummets many stories to the street below, puts herself back together, and runs off to find the other Heroes. Nathan stares after her while his mother insists that he let her go.

Mohinder and Molly, trying to escape the building, find DL who looks quite bad. Micah and Niki show up and they all get on the elevator after Micah works his computer-fu and fixes it. Micah and Molly share a wicked cute we-may-be-superheroes-but-we’re-still-kids look. Hiro leaves Ando in Japan, saying that he’ll be back for him, and teleports back to NYC. In the dream/flashback, Charles tells Current-Peter that he’s a good guy and his capacity for unconditional love will allow him to save the world. What? How will that help? Mr. Bennet wakes Peter up and promises to stick with him in the fight against Sylar. “Thank you, Mr. Bennet,” says our polite boy. “Call me Noah,” says Mr. Bennet. He does have a first name – wow! They go to the plaza and Sylar appears, telekinesis-ing Mr. Bennet [like I’m going to start calling him “Noah” after all this time] into a building. “What took you so long,” Sylar sneers as he and Peter square off.

As Peter and Sylar start to fight, Matt arrives and fires his gun at Sylar. This is not a problem, however, as Sylar stops the bullets and flings them back into Matt’s chest. He goes down wheezing. Niki steps up and wallops Sylar a few times with a parking meter before Peter calls her off. I think that’s stupid – wouldn’t he want all the help he could get? Peter beats on Sylar, perhaps having absorbed a bit of Niki’s strength, until Hiro appears and runs Sylar through with his sword. Well, that was fairly anticlimactic. Peter is worked up enough that his hands start glowing; when he asks Hiro to kill him, Sylar telekinesis-es Hiro into a building until Hiro teleports himself away. Sylar collapses. Claire runs up and almost shoots Peter as they’d planned, but Nathan swoops in, taking the gun away and saying that she was right, this wasn’t written in stone. Peter doesn’t want both the Petrelli brothers to have to die, but Nathan scoops him up and flies into the stratosphere. As everyone (yes, everyone: Niki, DL, Micah, Molly, Matt, Mohinder, Mr. Bennet and Claire) looks on, BOOM. And that’s it. In the aftermath, Matt is unconscious and being loaded into an ambulance; DL is looking better (??); Claire and Mr. Bennet head off together; and Sylar has apparently dragged himself into the sewer. Nobody noticed the bad guy escaping? END OF VOLUME ONE.

VOLUME TWO: GENERATIONS. Hiro has teleported himself into some field outside of Kyoto. It’s 1671 and there’s a scary-looking army in red battle gear approaching. On the other side of the field, a lone figure in dark armor – either Kensei and/or Hiro’s father – is mounted on a horse, carrying a banner with that S symbol. And then we have the solar eclipse.

Hm. I like the twists of Sylar escaping, the foreshadowing of a villain worse than Sylar, and the predicament Hiro has gotten himself into. I felt a little let down by the battle on the plaza, though: all season we’ve been led to believe that all the Heroes had to be there to fight Sylar, but really they just watched Peter, and it didn’t end up being much of a tussle. I don’t think the Petrelli boys are dead: perhaps Nathan flew way up and then tossed Peter away, knowing Peter could regenerate and flying himself to safety. And I think Mrs. Petrelli looks like Sharon Osborne, only scarier. Also, that Evan Almighty movie looks mighty bad.