I forgot about the Mouse Droppings (i.e. the recap of the following recap for those of you with really short attention spans)! Here goes: Elle goes all Inigo Montoya on Sylar but he is totally growing as a person and they end up crying and almost kissing. Hiro has good reason for all his childish behavior after Arthur regresses him to his ten-year-old self; not surprisingly, he's even more annoying than usual. Nathan is tempted to be the Man Who Would Be President (yet again - because this show LOVES recycling S1). And Parkman is actual useful for a change.
Arthur Petrelli holds Hiro’s head in his hands and Hiro screams. Ando tries to come to his friend’s rescue but Arthur casually TKs him off to the side. Arthur lectures Hiro, saying that he had just one job to do and yet here is Arthur, cleaning up the mess. Just then one of Usutu’s paintings catches Arthur’s attention: it’s an eclipse. Taking advantage of the moment, Ando rushes to Hiro who is acting more dazed than usual. “Blink!” insists Ando, squinching Hiro’s eyelids together. They teleport out of Africa into a bowling alley in Tokyo. Oh fabulous - Hiro is not just dazed; Arthur has screwed with his memory: Hiro thinks he’s ten.
Sylar watches the workmen repair the Pinehearst window as Arthur teleports back into the office. He is still wondering how Peter survived that fall. Yeah, me too, says Sylar. But there’s no time for that now: Arthur is about to teach Sylar how to remove abilities without killing the Hero. All it takes is empathy. “How do you know I’m capable of that?” asks Sylar. “Because I know you saved Peter from that fall.” Arthur takes Sylar to a dark room and closes him in. The room is cavernous and empty except for Elle, who is manacled at the far end. She looks really rough. She lifts her head and stares balefully at Sylar. “You,” she growls, rising, hands sparking. Sylar takes a step forward and she hits him with both barrels. He flails and shudders with the voltage, and looks to be disintegrating a bit.
Peter tells Claire that she needs to go home, and he needs to go hide. She wants to protect him but he insists that she needs to stay innocent. The door to the apartment bursts open just as Peter scoots out the fire escape. It’s Flint and Knox. Knox tries to be intimidating but indestructible Claire hilariously tells him that she’s the defensive player of the year. Then she does her trademark run and dive out the window, crashing to the alley several stories below. Peter joins her, pausing to notice a graffito of an eclipse. They race down the alley and pull open a manhole cover, jumping inside.
Arthur checks in with Mohinder who is not having any luck giving regular people new abilities without some adverse reaction. (His latest test subject is rather mutated.) Arthur notices some solar eclipses on the lab computers; Mohinder absently remarks that many abilities emerged during the last eclipse. There’s some catalyst missing, however, something that lives in a human host. Arthur decides that Kaito Nakamura must have known who the host was and subsequently hidden them.
Sylar falls to his knees, smoking. Elle screams and screams: “I’ll kill you, you sonofabitch! You murdered my father! How could you do that to me?” Sylar says that he won’t apologize because she deserves so much more than that: she deserves vengeance and he’ll take all she’s got to give. Elle screams again and lights him up.
Parkman and Daphne wander the deserted halls of Primatech. He sees Usutu in the corridor and runs after him, ending up in Angela Petrelli’s room. Seeing that she’s unresponsive, Parkman aims his mind at hers; something loud and disjointed grabs him, dropping him to his knees. “I gotta help her,” he mutters. Daphne stares at him then says she’ll go look for a doctor. Instead, she zips to Pinehearst and informs Arthur (who is poring over Kaito’s and Claire’s files) that Parkman is attempting to help Angela. Arthur is not worried about it – he’ll keep an eye on things - and tells her to get back to Parkman.
In the sewers, Claire says that she left home to fight the bad guys and she’s not about to give this up. Peter tells her that in the future he’s seen she kills him up there in that alley – he’s afraid that she’s turning into a killer. “Stop saying that!” she pleads. (This scene is very distracting because of the whole Milo and Hayden real life looooove relationship – I’m just not buying the uncle/niece thing here.) They hear Knox and Flint coming and she sends him off. Claire bravely tells the bad guys that they’ll have to get through her to get to Peter. “We didn’t come for Peter,” they tell her, “we came for you.” She wasn’t expecting that. Knox tackles her and Peter hears her shrieks – “get off of me!” – and pauses in his escape, conflicted.
Ando wants Hiro to snap out of it: you’re 28 years old and have superhero powers. Hiro is only half-listening to him, more interested in shooting spitballs at the little girls at the next table. Ando insists that he concentrate and Hiro does, managing to slow time a little. You have GOT to be kidding - now we have to watch Hiro learn to use his powers AGAIN like we did in S1? This is so frakking stupid. Bad Tim Kring, bad!
Daphne zips back to Primatech and asks Parkman what she can do to help him. He’s about to delve inside Angela’s mind and asks Daphne just to stay with him. Having her as an anchor should help him get back.
Elle is like a wild animal, screaming “murderer!” and hitting Sylar with all the juice she’s got. But he heals each time, as he does, and gets back on his feet. He reaches out to her, saying he never wanted to kill her father, or any of his victims – he couldn’t help the urges then, but he’s not going to let them control him any more. “I’m going to kill you!” rages Elle. This is getting pretty intense and both Kristen Bell and Zachary Quinto are giving it their all. Sylar tells her that he understands the anger and betrayal she feels and she can take it out on him all she needs to. She electrifies him again and again, both of them screaming, until they finally collapse, panting and crying. Elle whispers, “Go ahead, kill me … please.” She is so sad and tired and angry. Sylar slowly stretches out one hand to her.
Nathan and Tracy are standing outside the Pinehearst building. Nathan has some serious daddy issues and says he’s got to know if his father is still alive. So they go inside and there’s Arthur. He wants a hug from his son. Luckily, Nathan is a little less trusting than Peter and opts out of the embrace. Arthur dismisses Tracy, saying he and his son need to talk alone. Arthur tells Nathan that he has been molding and manipulating him, leading him towards his destiny. Nathan’s like, uh, last time you all tried that New York almost exploded, so I’m not that interested. Arthur says, but you’re my favorite son and this is our legacy. Nathan appears torn.
Sylar pops open Elle’s manacles. She begs him: “Kill me, take my power … kill me and make the pain stop.” Sylar: “I want to make the pain stop, but I’m not going to kill you … I want to be a good person.” Elle says that he is a monster just like she is, but Sylar reminds her that they both are products of their parents’ meddling. He forgives her for following the Company’s orders in loosing him on the world … and now she needs to forgive herself. He touches her gently. Elle gasps: the pain – it’s gone! Sylar looks down at his own hand which is blue and sparking. He’s done it. He’s saved her. Plus, he’s shirtless and that’s a good thing. Good Tim Kring, good!
Peter finds Claire, Flint and Knox, still in the sewers. He begins to taunt Flint, saying that he can kick his ass even without his powers. Because he’s dumb, Flint allows himself to be goaded and flips a fireball at Peter. But Peter has cleverly opened a gas line, which Knox notices too late. The gas ignites; Knox and Flint get blown backwards; and Claire dashes through the flames to her uncle and they book it out of there. Unfortunately, neither of the bad guys is much injured, so as far as actual ass-kicking I’m not sure Peter scored any points on them.
Elle and Sylar sit together in the dim light. These two actors have nice chemistry together. She tells him that no one has ever done anything for her like that before. He tells her that being at war with yourself is what makes you human. The trick is figuring out which is the winning side. Ooh – and she still has her power! She’s just shared it with him. Elle gets up to teach him a few tricks, such as how to control the electrical stream. And I think she’s now noticed that he’s shirtless as well because there’s starting to be a connection between them, and I don’t mean just electrical: she manages to touch him, a lot. Meanwhile Arthur watches voyeuristically on CCTV.
Ugh. Ando and Hiro keep practicing Hiro’s powers. This whole Hiro-as-a-ten-year-old is going to suck. Also sucking: Nathan’s having an identity crisis (my dad wants to give half the world powers and install me as president and I’m tempted, but it seems wrong) and Tracy is life-coaching him (you’re a senator, you can do it!). Nathan decides to get a second opinion and flies off to Primatech to see what his mom thinks. So Tracy goes back into Pinehearst to offer her services to Arthur: she thinks she thinks she can sway Nathan to his father’s side of things, but she wants Arthur to look out for her in the aftermath.
Parkman is deep in Angela’s mind. She can speak there and tells him that Arthur is too dangerous. She’s handcuffed to a chair and Parkman tries to free her, tries to open the doors in the corridor. Then Daphne walks into this mind-walk. “I’m here to help,” says Trance Daphne, and puts her arms around Trance Parkman. He hugs her gratefully then jerks back, gasping: Trance Daphne has stabbed Trance Parkman in the gut. Out in the actual world, Parkman cries out Daphne’s name. She shakes his shoulder, telling him to wake up. The she notices that he’s bleeding badly from a stab wound in the stomach. Isn’t that an urban legend – if you get killed in a dream, you die in real life? Or am I just thinking of Freddy Krueger movies?
Real Daphne shakes Parkman: “You have to bring me in there!” Suddenly, she’s sucked into the trance. Parkman scrambles away from her. Arthur is there too, telling Parkman that women can’t be trusted and that Daphne has betrayed him. Daphne begs, apologizing to Parkman for her mistake. She tells him that she loves him. ZOOP: Arthur and Angela, Parkman and Daphne are in a library somewhere. Angela tells her husband to remember when they too were young and in love. “Let me go, Arthur,” she says. Arthur stares at his wife and then the handcuffs fall from her wrists. Parkman rushes to her, grabbing hold of her and Daphne and dragging all three of them out of the trance.
Claire and Peter are in the Primatech corridor when Parkman and Daphne come out to find a doctor for the now-awake Angela. Peter, remembering his future visions, shouts that Daphne can’t be trusted. For his part, Parkman is still pissed at Future Peter sending him into the desert and slams him up against the wall long enough to read his mind and realize that he can actually be trusted. After everyone has calmed down and Nathan has flown in, Angela tells them all that Arthur has the formula to create Heroes and the future he’s heading towards is not one anyone wants to see. Angela tasks her team with finding the third part of the formula – the human host catalyst – and keeping it from Arthur. Conveniently Claire remembers what Sylar told her when he took off the top of her head: she is different from everyone else, special. She says she must be the catalyst.
I’m bored now: Mohinder apologizes to his test subject for all the, you know, mutation and pain. “Please kill me,” whispers the poor guy. Mohinder nods and gives him an injection. Still bored: Hiro and Ando are in a comic shop and have found the Ninth Wonders comic book that will tell them what to do JUST LIKE IN S1 WHEN THIS SHOW WAS GOOD. The last page of the comic shows a fracturing eclipse and the caption “It’s coming.”
As the episode ends, the battle lines are drawn: Angela, Nathan, Peter, Claire, Parkman and Daphne in one corner; Arthur, Tracy, Elle, Sylar, Flint and Knox in the other. Arthur has on Usutu’s white eyes of prophecy and he’s sketching out an eclipse. He looks up and intones: “It’s coming.”
Previously on Heroes / next time on Heroes
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