Heroes recap: "Kindred" - airdate 10/08/07 (S2E3)

The dropping: Peter likes being a tourist. Sylar is bad, but not as bad as he wants to be. Micah and Niki are back (for about two minutes only, so it isn't as horrible as it could be). Claire's social life really takes off. And Friend Mouse finds that the best thing about this boring episode is that immediately before watching it, she decided to delete Moonlight from her DVR queue. Yay!

We begin with Peter still in Ireland, with the bad Irish accent hoodlums extorting his help with an armed robbery in exchange for his box of identification. He’s conflicted but goes along with it, in spite of the fact that he mind reads one of them planning to doublecross the gang and steal the money. He and Caitlin seem to be connecting. Hopefully her power will turn out to be losing that damn accent. Maya and Alejandro, “somewhere in Mexico,” try to steal a car but in the hubbub, Alejandro gets arrested. Even the chase scene is boring. Micah whines about leaving Las Vegas without his dad, but Niki is insistent. She says they have to say goodbye and they put flowers on a gravestone. Finally – someone is dead after the finale’s carnage! Too bad it was DL, who was so easy on the eyes. Sylar wakes up on a beach next to a butterface redhead. She introduces herself as Michelle, formerly known as Candice (but Candice is on Reaper!) – she’s the one who dragged him off Kirby Plaza after Hiro stabbed him. Sylar is still pretty weak, recovering from the sword wound and all, but manages to use his scary voice and coerce her into clearing the illusion she’s creating, showing them actually in a decrepit concrete bunker. The beach was nicer.

Claire, reading Mohinder’s dad’s book (left for her last episode by peeping West), makes up with her dad, each of them apologizing for their previous argument. She asks him how bad it would be if someone found out about her; he says they’d have to leave California, go deeper into hiding and maybe not be able to have school or jobs anymore. “Worst case scenario,” he assures her. So, at school, she confronts creepy West and insists that she spilled nail polish, not amputated her toe. He’s so not buying it. In NYC, Parkman wakes up in the middle of the night to find Mohinder back at the apartment. Some odd couple bantering later, Parkman says Moh is over his head with this undercover stuff. Molly wakes up and is overjoyed to see Mohinder, who glares at Parkman over her shoulder.

Ando finds secret messages from Hiro hidden in the hilt of the broken sword, which he’s keeping in his cube at work. These messages segue into all the ancient Japan scenes: Kensei learns he can heal, like Claire, and while wigged at first, gets over it and begins to perform the feats that would make him a legend. Hiro helps him, his heart breaking as Aiko and Kensei start to grow closer and, once Kensei seems to be starting down his path, Hiro decides he should leave. Kensei wants him to stay to help, however, and, after some waffling, Hiro puts off his return to 2007. David Anders is so snarky and funny with his ironic eyebrow raises. West continues to bait Claire and be a total schmuck until she runs out of biology class, upset. He finds her and she yells at him, in tears, about being a freak and having to hide from everyone. He tells her to shut up, scoops her into his arms, and flies off with her, looking an awful lot like that Smallville Clark Kent. Claire seems to get over her rage once they’re airborne.

Back in Ireland, the faux Irish thugs accomplish their robbery with the help of Peter, who telekinetically swings a truck into the path of their prey. Milo Ventimiglia looks hot in his black watch cap (but I rewind to see him in his shirtless scene again). Mohinder arrives at his new lab, compliments of Ned Ryerson and the evil Company. The lab is set up in Isaac Mendes’s studio and Ned Ryerson is busy packing up all of Isaac’s remaining paintings. Mohinder realizes that he’s going to be practically under surveillance the entire time and it’s going to be really difficult for him to do any undercover work. Dang, Parkman was right! Niki, telling her whiny son that she’s leaving him with relatives because it’s safe (in New Orleans. Safe in New Orleans. Niki is SO dumb) while she goes off to do something secret and probably bad. But I don’t even know these people, Micah points out. They straighten up as the door opens and lo and behold, it’s Lt. Uhura, looking gorgeous. Maya busts Alejandro out of Mexican jail by killing the two cops and her brother’s cellmate with her black eye goo. Alejandro works his anti-whammy and revives them all. The cellmate, an American, says he has a car they can use if they’ll bust him out too. The three fugitives flee in a car with a Conquistadors bumper sticker. Is that Claire’s high school?

After the Irish robbery, one of the thugs proves Peter’s telepathy right by trying to abscond with the money, but Peter telekinesises him against the wall and almost crushes his throat until Caitlin gets him to stop. He looks like he’s enjoying the throat crushing too much. Candice makes Sylar some breakfast but eggs will not console him as he realizes that he has no powers any longer. To cheer him up, she flaunts her illusioning. Candice obviously has no imagination, suggesting Paris, London, a geisha or blonde twins. It piques Sylar’s interest, however, and he smashes a coffee cup on the side of her head, invoking the scary voice and then moving in with murder in his eyes.

When we come back from the break, Candice is dead (and in her non-illusioned form, fat and lumpy and possibly old). Unfortunately, Sylar is unable to use her power, either not being able to consume it or not being able to access it if he did. He runs outside, clutching his chest scar, and we pull back to see he’s in the middle of nowhere. Peter gets the Irish gang tattoo from Caitlin as her brother gives him his box of personal information back. But Peter decides that he isn’t ready to open it yet and they smooch (bleck). As they mack, his new Celtic knot tattoo morphs into the sinister half-helix. On a beach somewhere, West and Claire flirt over who has the cooler power until Claire notices the hash marks on his neck (like Parkman and Atomic Ted got after Mr. Bennett and Company kidnapped them). West reluctantly tells her that he was abducted for a day, waking up at home with those marks. He remembers who took him: the guy with the horned rim glasses. Oh dear.

At the loft/lab, Ned Ryerson gets a phone call: it’s Niki, who asks him if they really can cure her. He reassures her, but points out that they’ll want something from her. She sighs, and obviously Jessica is going to show up. Good – she’s more interesting than Niki. While Ned is on the phone, Mohinder finds the last Isaac painting and calls Mr. Bennett. Mohinder’s all whoa, this is bad, emailing Mr. Bennett a cell phone photo of the painting, which is Mr. Bennett, dead with a bullet hole through his eye while a blonde girl embraces a dark-haired figure in the background. This disturbs Mr. Bennett, even more so when Claire comes to the doorway to stare at him meaningfully.