Heroes – “Our Father” S3E12 (airdate 12/08/08)

Sixteen years ago, on the Manhattan rooftop, Kaito gives infant Claire to Bennet while Modern Day Claire and Hiro watch. Claire puts it all together and introducing herself to Hiro. Kind of wild that these two have never met. There’s a bit of language difficulty, however, as adult Hiro doesn’t remember his English yet. He starts to wander through his past house and sees his mother: she is dying and soon. She tells her husband (Kaito) that they must make arrangements to protect the catalyst. Kaito wants to put it in infant Claire; Mrs. Kaito wants to put it into her son. Also important: Hiro’s mom is a healer. Suddenly, in a little bit of funny, Adult Claire and Adult Hiro decide what they need to do: talking over each other, her in English and him in subtitled Japanese, Claire says she’s going to follow her dad and keep them from injecting the baby with the catalyst while Hiro thinks his mother can heal his brain. Claire rushes off, telling Hiro to stay out of trouble and she’ll meet him back here tonight. The moment she’s down the stairs, Kaito catches Hiro standing in the hall. Luckily, he thinks Hiro is the new chef.

2008 Costa Verde: a bloodstained Sylar, still on the beach, gets a call from Arthur. He tells Arthur that he’s not taking orders from him or anyone else anymore. He’s got Elle’s cell phone, with its list of known Heroes, and he’s about to start rampaging. Before he does, however, he douses Elle’s body with lighter fluid and sets her to burn.

Primatech: Angela tells Peter and the Haitian that one shot to the back of the head will kill Arthur – if the Haitian uses his power-dampening ability. Peter is incredulous that his mother is asking him to kill his father, but she goes on, at some length, to point out that Arthur is evil and not to be trusted and would not hesitate to put a bullet in either of his sons’ heads.

Meanwhile, at Pinehearst, Tracy has gotten the Department of Defense on board with Arthur’s plan to create an army of super powered people. Nathan arrives and is cranky that he doesn’t know what she’s doing. Then he tells his dad that he’s taking over Pinehearst; Tracy points out that Nathan will give Arthur’s program a legitimate face. Arthur pretends that he hasn’t manipulated Nathan into this exact spot and says okay, you can be the boss. Later, Nathan and Tracy stalk through the Pinehearst corridors. Something incredibly foolish is going on with Nathan’s hair in some of the shots. Tracy brings him up to speed on how they’re going to preselect specific abilities to give to specific soldiers.

Grown Claire has found the Bennet apartment in this sixteen years ago timeline. She introduces herself as a neighbor’s niece and helps Sandra settle the new baby in. They’ve done something to make Sandra look a lot younger. Hayden Pannettiere needs to get her eyebrows bleached, however.

Present day, Sue Landers’s office: It’s Sue’s birthday. Sylar is there, posing as a deliveryman, but Sue – a “human lie detector” Hero – sees the truth right away. Then the clocks start ticking and Sylar TKs Sue against the wall, slicing her head open. He’s down on the floor, poking around in her brain when her co-workers burst in bearing presents. Sylar turns, hands dripping with blood, and smirks, “Cake?” The door slams shut behind the hapless co-workers. He’s escalating, it seems.

Nathan interviews one of Tracy’s marines (the marine is played by a kid who used to be on The 4400 back in the day), wanting him to know exactly what he’s gotten himself in for. The marine doesn’t much care – he’ll do whatever it takes to make himself better.

Manhattan now: Daphne superzips herself, Parkman and Ando to a messenger service. The manager tries to tell them that he doesn’t know anything about Isaac Mendes’s drawings but Parkman reads his mind, confirming otherwise. The guy says he’ll go get the sketchbook out of the safe, but sneaks out the back instead. Parkman and Ando get their undies all twisted over this but Daphne simply superzips after the guy and snatches up the sketchbook.

Manhattan in the past: as expected, Hiro is making a huge mess in the kitchen, trying to play chef. He overhears his mother tell his father that she wants to give the “light” to Hiro but Kaito insists that their son is too irresponsible. Over at the Bennets' apartment, Mr. Bennet comes home and catches his future daughter with the current infant daughter. He looks really young too. He is wicked suspicious of grown Claire and doesn’t buy her cover story, wanting to know what the hell she’s up to. Any chance she’ll tell him the truth, do you suppose? He could probably handle it.

Grown Claire insists that she’s here to help protect the baby and the family. She tells him that the baby will be in his life for at least sixteen more years, and he should let himself love her even though he just thinks of her as an assignment right now. Bennet wants to know how she knows all this. The phone rings; Claire tells Bennet not to answer it as it’s the Company and they are going to do something to the baby: “Your little Claire-bear is just fine the way she is.” Bennet smiles, just a little, “Claire-bear, huh?” and grown Claire almost bursts into relieved tears.

Still in past-Manhattan, grown Hiro takes a tray to his invalid mother. He says he’s made her waffles (but it looks like pancakes). She’s too sick to eat, but not so sick that she doesn’t recognize something in Hiro’s face. He introduces himself. Amazingly, she believes him and her face lights up in a beautiful smile. She wants to hear about his life and how he grew up, but he has to tell her that his memories have been stolen, asking if she can heal him. She takes his head in her hands and puts a soft kiss on his forehead. It works – he remembers it all … including how much he misses her.

Hiro tells his mom how he’s already saved the world twice, plus he and Kaito managed to make amends with each other. Then, he says he is ready to save the world again and asks her to give him the catalyst – he is strong enough to protect it, more so than the baby Claire. She takes his hands in hers and a bright, soft light envelopes them both. Hiro stands up as the light seeps into him, marveling and realizing that it was his mom who taught him how to be a hero. But when the light fades away, his mother has died. That’s too bad – I liked her even in that short time.

Present day Manhattan: Peter is all tormented and trying to talk himself into the patricide Angela has set him to. The Haitian says that it’s too much for her to ask: give him the gun and he’ll kill Arthur instead. Nope, says Peter, I’m going to do it myself.

The messenger guy hands Isaac’s sketchbook to Parkman, Ando and Daphne. There’s a pencil drawing of Hiro with the caption, “Lost in Time.” The three musketeers are confused.

Sixteen years ago: Hiro rejoins Claire on the Manhattan rooftop, telling her that they can go back to their time now – he has the catalyst in him. Unfortunately, neither of them has seen Arthur sneaking up behind them. He TKs Claire off to the side and pulls Hiro to him: I’ll take the catalyst and your little dog powers too. Arthur sucks the glow out of Hiro, tells him he’s a dead man, and cavalierly tosses him off the building. Next, Arthur tells Claire to deliver a message to Angela - it’s over and I won - and then he teleports her back to the future. Meanwhile, an alive but powerless Hiro is clinging to a flagpole, calling for help.

Present day: Parkman, Ando and Daphne close Isaac’s sketchbook in disbelief after seeing sketches of the previous scene. But maybe it isn’t all bad, Daphne suggests. Arthur has the catalyst and can now perfect the make-a-Hero formula … another time traveler could be created and sent back to rescue Hiro! Great, says Ando, but how do we get to the formula?

Arthur walks into Mohinder’s lab and, as Mohinder, Nathan and Tracy watch, transfers the catalyst from himself to a jar of red liquid, which must be “the formula.” (So, that must have been 2008 Arthur who traveled back in time sixteen years to take the catalyst from Hiro; I thought it might have been the then Arthur but I guess not.) Arthur looks smug: “Ready to change the world?”

Peter and the Haitian stride manfully into Pinehearst. Arthur senses a disturbance in the force and goes out to find his younger son. Seeing the gun and the Haitian, he realizes that Peter is here to kill him. Actually he pretty much dares him to do it, saying Peter doesn’t have the guts for it. The Haitian tells Peter to hurry the fuck up, as Arthur is too strong for him to hold. Of course, Peter has to waffle some more and Arthur drops the Haitian to his knees and TKs a gash in Peter’s face just as Peter fires the gun.

But wait – there’s more! Sylar has shown up, pausing the bullet in midair in front of Arthur’s face. Arthur is not sure how this puzzle piece fits in exactly. Sylar asks if Arthur is really his father; Arthur says yes, but Sylar’s new ability – Sue’s lie detecting – shows that to be false. Sylar looks at Peter (“You’re not a killer … but I am”) and then releases the bullet so that it completes its trajectory into Arthur. (Angela said a bullet into the back of his head – hope the forehead works just as well.) Sylar tells Peter that he’s not going to kill him, as he has nothing that he needs any longer. Peter looks stunned but sends the Haitian after Sylar. He steps closer to his father’s body as light emanates from it (are those Peter’s powers being released back to him?), and intones: “It’s over.”

Except that it’s not because upstairs in the lab, Nathan’s pet marine is strapped into a chair, a little wary as scaly Mohinder injects him with the Hero juice. There is some seizing and shaking about and the marine busts himself out of the restraints. “How do you feel?” asks Mohinder. The marine feels good – like Hulk-strength good without those pesky green side effects. Tracy gasps, excited. Nathan looks like he may be a little tingly in his nether regions too.

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