Start with season 2 and work your way forward, buddy. We’ll wait.

Copyhacker is away on vacation at Disneyworld with his family this week, which leaves me back in the Heroes driver’s seat. YAY!!
Today’s episode is called “Acceptance”, which is the final stage of grieving. The first is Denial. As in season 2. Surely this show didn’t start to suck. It was the best show on TV last year! Maybe I’m just missing something.
Step 2: Anger: End of season 2. So basically this show does suck now. Have they run out of movies to steal from or what? THIS SUCKS ASS! Cut to me waiting in the Whole Foods parking lot for Tim Kring to show up so I can egg his car.
Step 3: Bargaining: Season 3: Please please please God give me my great show back! I’ll lose twenty pounds! I’ll stop riding people’s asses and cursing in traffic! I’ll stop resenting my niece cuz she’s cuter than me!! Well, I didn’t keep my end of the deal on any of those things, so I take personal responsibility for the suckage that was season 3.
Step 4: Depression: This set in during the season premiere of 4. Two hours to get through Sylar being turned into Nathan! THIS IS GONNA BE AMAZING! … No. Depressed. Of course, Sylar can’t be too happy being stuck inside Matt Parkman so this stage was not just just reserved for the audience.
Step 5: Acceptance. Ok you know what? I’m at like half a page and haven’t even started the recap. SO….I just need to get the hell over it and accept the fact that this show will never be as good as it promised it would be and GET OVER IT. I still record it every week. I still have as much fun today cursing Kring as I did during seasons 2 and 3. Grief over. I am publicly letting it go and I’m making a vow to just enjoy this bs for what it is. A chance to study some really, really bad acting. Thank you for your time.
We open with a full tub. And there’s no one in it! Tracy starts dripping out and fully forms herself out of water. Wowee! Man she’s hot. I wonder if they would still have this half naked scene if the chick from Drop Dead Diva was playing Tracy. She could form herself out of, like, ketchup or something. But why would there be ketchup in a tub? That wouldn’t make sense at all! I wonder what Tracy would look like if she was filtered through a Brita before re-forming. We’ve just begun and already my head is spinning.
There’s some cheesy song about a “bad body double” playing as Tracy, reinvigorated and ready to reclaim her life as a government slut cake, brushes her hair and tries to pick just the right dress to impress. Wanna be taken seriously in politics? Shop at Forever 21.

Don’t be surprised if you see Valerie Jarrett show up to a conference with world leaders wearing this little number.

Once Tracy’s done dressing like a Pussycat Doll and applying her apple lip smacker, she’s off to a very important restaurant where all the Washington movers and shakers go. No, not In and Out. They have our money to spend, you think these assholes are gonna get a value meal? All the guys are staring at her. She assumes it’s cuz she looks super sexy, but they’re probably wondering how many times she needs to get killed off before it sticks.

You’re still on this show? Dang, sister, there are thousands of bad actors in Hwood! Give someone else a chance at never being nominated for an Emmy!

She’s there to meet up with Governor Skeeze, who she was working for, on, and in before she became an ice queen. He’s predictably excited to see her. At least that’s what I think the growling and lip licking is about.
Hiro’s office building. Hiro’s bitch sister doesn’t want them to fight anymore. It’s time to get along now, since they’re the only two left in their family. She’s buttering him up cuz since he went back in time and stopped Ando from spilling a milkshake on her, she’s decided to marry Ando and have his dolt babies and she wants Hiro to give her away and sing At Last at the wedding and lie down on the piano and give a drunken speech that will embarrass everyone they know. Sorry, that was my sister’s wedding. And she never actually asked for all that, but I did it anyway. Ah, family.

In all these years, he’s never spilled anything on me! So I’m gonna marry him! YAY cleanliness!

Hiro hugs her and says yes, of course. Ando sees all this and gets annoyed that Hiro said yes, cuz after all, Hiro’s dying and who knows when or of what and if he dies like a week before the wedding, there won’t be enough time to train someone to give away Bitch Sister. Everything has to be just right, cuz one thing Bitch Sister is good at? Holding a grudge.
Ando just keeps looping “dude you’re dying. Did you know you’re dying? You’re so dead” over and over again. Jesus Ando! He gets it! Hiro decides to ignore him and work on his bucket list. LOL. I hope “meet Danny Glover and talk him into joining this cast before the show is cancelled” is on there. Ando’s response? “But you’re so dying and gonna soon be dead as a doornail dead dying dead dead.”
The dial a hero line rings. It’s Liza. She lost her upper register and needs help finding it. Please hold, Liza, there’s another call coming through. It’s some guy called Tadashi and he’s on the roof of this very building and he’s gonna jump!! First off, we’re gonna call him Tad, k? Cuz this? IS AMERICA. You think my Lebanese name is Flipit? No. No it’s not. It’s Flihadintandistan. We all have to adapt. Second, why the hell do people feel the need to let everyone know when they’re gonna kill themselves? I’ve never understood that. Just do it and save me the cell minutes, k?
Hiro gets up to the roof, where Tad is standing at the edge with angry face. Why you gonna kill yourself, buddy? Well, cuz he’s in his thirties and he still can’t grow a real mustache.

I’m sick of people calling me a lesbian!

Also, Tad got fired from his job and brought great shame to his family after xeroxing his ass at a Christmas Party. That’s it? In America we send pics of our asses to get jobs. Wait, you don’t do that? Try it. Totally works. How do you think I’m so WEAAAALTHY!!!?!?!? Anyway, if you’re gonna kill yourself over losing a lame job for copying your stupid ass then just jump. You’re too much of a pussy to live.
Hiro is nicer than me, though, so instead of pushing Tad off the building, he goes back in time to fix his ass copying mistake. Nice way to spend your last days. Aren’t there soup kitchens over there or something?

DESTROYED BY: SAME GUY

In Touch, Star Tribune, and The Sunday Oregonian gave raves? I smell a hit!

Nathan’s office. Mama P enters with a big box of crap to help Nathan remember who he is. No, not Sylar. Nathan! Look! It’s a baseball cap! A tennis racket! An old spooge sock! Nathan’s like uh…thanks. The props don’t help him remember anything, so Mama P hands him a little plastic plane and BOOM! He remembers his uncle giving it to him and oh how he played and played with that plane. Mama says that plane made him want to be a fighter pilot. Well thank goodness Uncle didn’t buy him a Cats Original Cast Recording, cuz his life would have turned out way differently.
He picks up the baseball cap and has a flashback to being at some fancy mansion pool when Syd gets killed on Melrose Place!

You killed Syd! You bastard!

This freaks him out, obvs, but he doesn’t tell his mommy why. Instead, he asks her to set a series recording of Melrose Place on his DVR. Boy is he gonna be disappointed.
Fancy Politician Restaurant Not In and Out. Governor Skeeze asks Tracy where the f she’s been, and she says that she was going through some really traumatic family stuff. He’s like yeah oh wah sad show me a boobie. She’s ready to get back to work and he’s got just the job for her! She can cock tease some regulators that are standing in the way of a very important skeezy and illegal government project. She’s like yay I knew this dress would get him to take me seriously. I’m a whore again! POP THE CHAMPAGNE!! He wants to meet later so he can get her to ride his face like an electric bull caught up on the details.
Pathetic Single Guy Apt. HRG sits in his sad place looking over the divorce papers his Pirate Wife sent over. Poor thing. Her I mean. She got so much Botox that one of her eyes completely shut and she got shitcanned. Is that story fact checked? No, no it’s not. But I’m sticking with it.

ARGH!

There’s a knock at the door and it’s Peter. He wants to show off his new compass tattoo but it’s not showing anymore. HRG’s like oh great now let’s go on a wacky road trip to figure this deep important mystery out whoopee god I’m bored. Peter’s like k bye now! and on his way out runs into Claire and says hi bye ggo love ya. Most pointless scene ever? Oh wait here’s another Hiro scene to compete for that title.
Hiro’s office. Hiro comes back from the past to see if he fixed Tad’s ass copy problem. We’re only fifteen minutes in so I highly doubt it. Ando’s all “who’s Tad? You’re dying dude!” The dial a hero phone rings and it’s Tad. He’s gonna kill himself. Hiro runs up to the roof, happy that this is all conveniently taking place on top of his office building so he doesn’t have to waste cab fare trying to save this douche bag. Hiro stopped Tad from copying his ass at the holiday party, but Tad just did it at another office party and got fired anyway. Then he jumps. Guess what Hiro does? GOES BACK IN TIME! Repeating the same actions over and over and expecting a different result is called insanity. Anyone in the audience who’s watched every episode of this show relating?
Hospital. Nathan comes to see Peter cuz Peter won’t return his calls. He’s got a all these new powers and he doesn’t know where they’re coming from. One of them is being able to touch objects and see where they’ve been. Peter hides the string of balls on his desk defensively. Nathan tells him about seeing his dead ex girlfriend when he touched the baseball cap. But she supposedly ran away to Paris and broke his heart! If she’s dead that means someone might have killed her and Nathan was the last one to see her! You know what would be an awesome idea? To go and tell the dead girl’s mom that Nathan was the last one to see her and probably killed her. Wow. Why would ANYONE ask for Peter’s shitty advice? It’s worse than his acting, and that’s saying something.

Anger? Empathy? Depression? Happiness? WHO KNOWS? Just keep working out.

Sad Bachelor Apt. Claire is worried about her dad cuz he’s sitting around in his boxers eating takeout and needs to focus on getting a job. I agree. FF.
Swoozie Kurtz’ house. The dead girlfriend’s mom is Swoozie! HOLLER! I love this woman. Nathan tells her he’s been thinking about her daughter and she says they should get wasted together. She grabs a bottle of Jack and they get to reminiscing. Swoozie hasn’t heard from her ungrateful little bitch of a daughter who ran away and never so much as sent a postcard. Swooz says that she always suspected Nathan of killing her kid, but she got a PI who proved that the kid bought a plane ticket to London and even picked up her checked baggage at the airport. She’s very blasé with all this. Thought you killed my kid let’s drink. I hope Swooz has a power so she can stay.
She’s off to get a body sculpting class, leaving Nathan alone to put his hands on a statue. Flashback! He gets little Swooz wasted and she dives off the diving board and hits her head on the side of the pool. Dead. Don’t drink and dive. Sorry but I had to.
Bar. Mama P finds Nathan drowning a girl, I mean his sorrows. She is annoyed that he went over to Swoozie’s and drudged up old news. He asks her flat out what she did to make him forget that night, cuz “every time there’s a secret buried someplace I find you with a shovel behind your back.” HA. She snaps back “you should write mother’s day cards.” Teehee. She admits to “taking care of it” cuz he was young and drunk and she didn’t want her death to ruin his life. That’s love right there. She tells him not to be a pussy and then leaves him with the tab. God I want to be a mom so bad.

When your balls finally drop and you’re ready to be president let me know. And don’t forget to pick up my dry cleaning. Love ya mean it call me voicemail kisses.

Nathan, being the brainiac he is, runs right over to Swoozie’s house and interrupts her afternoon Oprah and Stolie binge. He admits to knowing her kid is dead. He doesn’t say how she died and she doesn’t ask. He adds that it was covered up by his moth…family. Nice save! Maybe she’ll think you were gonna say moth balls. She cries and kicks him out of her house. Weird how Nathan’s death was so unexpected last season and now Kring is trying to get us to root actively for it to happen again. Well played.
Sad Bachelor Pad. Claire is still trying to teach her dad how to get through a job interview. He’s sad cuz his life has amounted to nothing. She gives him a pep talk andzzzzzzzzz FF.
Hiro’s office. Hiro comes back from the past yet again. Ando is still looping “dead dead you’re dead dead dead” over and over. Hiro has tried as hard as he can but he just can’t get Tad to keep his pants on around xerox machines. The dial a hero phone rings and we get to watch this shit scene AGAIN. This time, Hiro has realized that the tool will keep making the same mistake, so instead of solving all of this with time travel, he tells the guy to find a better job and shakes his hand. See? Sometimes the most powerful gift is the gift of HUMANITY!! AWWWW! So when’s this mysterious disease killing Hiro? Cuz seriouslly? I can’t sit through many more of his storylines.

Oh good you’re back. I was just about to leave a memo on your desk. It says “YOU’RE GONNA DIIIIIIEEEEE mothatrucka!”

Hiro decides to finally tell Bitch Sister about his mystery too lazy to come up with a real disease disease. He’s gonna….die. She looks like she might cry, but then she starts running around in circles cheering “ariagato!” cuz this means he won’t be able to squander much more of their fortune on retarded business ideas like dial a hero.
Hiro gets some head pain. Bitch Sister suggests masturbation as a healthy cure, but he ignores her and disappears. She’s shocked! She asks Ando for an explanation, but he’s reached his twenty line allowance for the week and since “you’re gonna die” is all tapped out she’ll have to rent the first three seasons on Netflixisan.
Restaurant Under Sad Bachelor Pad. Tracy comes to visit HRG. Why? Who knows? She tells him she got her old job back but she really wants to help people. LOL. Well, I’m sure you can find some good to do with the whole global warming thing going on. Maybe she can go create some ice caps so that polar bear we always see on commercials to make us feel guilty won’t have to float around on that tiny block of ice anymore. She would have to wear way too many clothes over there, though, so that’s out. His advice? “Maybe you have to remember who you were to remember who you wanna be.” Kring has run out of movies to steal from, so now he’s ripping off Deepak books. Can’t blame a man for seeking new frontiers.
Tracy goes to see Governor Skeeze, and this time she’s dressed to be taken seriously, dammit!

Serious women all have necklines to the belly button.

To cement her newfound serious image, she orders a cosmo. OK so you’re dressed like Samantha and you’re ordering her drink. Do a backbend onto the edge of Gov’s penis and you’ll be given an honorary degree from Harvard. Governor Skeeze, obvs, is growling and licking his lips. Tracy says that she wants to come back to work to help people. He’s like great help my penis get hard for more than thirty seconds before my testicles turn to jelly. She’s all no, silly. I don’t want to help penises, I want to help, like, starving kids and shit. He lols and asks to see a boob. This upsets her, cuz she’s totally serious now you guys. She excuses herself and goes to the ladies room.
She stands in front of the mirror and tries to cry. She tries really really hard. Come on! Meisner! No? Ok then just melt. Her hands turn into water and start going down the drain. LOL. A lady comes in and Tracy hides her hands behind her back, which means she’s putting them right in front of the mirror. LLOLLL this show really knows how to top itself in the stupidity dept sometimes. The lady scared her, which made her stop crying, which made her hands come back. And now it’s official. Ali Larter will never have to suffer through another crying scene again. Whew. I was worried for her.
She goes back to the table and tells Skeeze that she’s outta there. He doesn’t get it, so she looks him straight in the eye and says “the shoes on my feet
I’ve bought it
The clothes I’m wearing
I’ve bought it
The rock I’m rockin’
I’ve bought it
‘Cause I depend on me”
Then she leaves, all proud and stuff. Cut to Nathan in a parking garage calling “someone in the homicide department.” He chickens out and hangs up. When he gets out of his car, a dude in black stabs him in the neck. Dead again!! Poor Adrian Pasdar. Well, at least he’ll have more time to spend with Natalie Maines. Ouch. Not helping, am I?
Carnieville. The lady with the tattoo back talks to a fauxhawked thug. He doesn’t like all the new people in the family and Joseph wouldn’t be doing it if he were alive. Head carny slithers around the corner and says he’s the boss now so suck it. Fauxhawk keeps his mouth shut, and then throws a knife at a wall when Head Carny leaves.
Tattoo insists that she wasn’t trying to piss him off by talking to Fauxhawk, and then she shows him a tattoo of HRG. This freaks Carny out cuz he thought they were safe from the threat of HRG….who’s sitting back at his sad bachelor pad looking over old news stories about “the compass that changed the world.” It’s called the Tom Tom.
Swoozie is having dinner with Mama P, telling her all about Nathan’s wild and crazy stories about her dead kid. He must be sooo confused! The two women laugh it off and talk about how silly and confused Nathan is. Meanwhile, he’s getting buried in the desert and shot another few times. Don’t. Fuck. With Swoozie.

Spirit Fingers!

Nathan, of course, heals. When he pops his hand out of the ground, we see that it’s…bumbumbummmmm….SYLAR!! Darn. We lost Nathan, and Parkman lost the only thing that made his story watchable. Next week, Claire gets kiss raped by a girl!! I would say that I won’t be watching, but we all know that’s a lie.

If you gotta go, go with freshly applied gloss.

Last week was a pretty good episode (comparatively), so I came into this week hoping that Heroes was starting to take itself seriously again. Then the hour began with Hiro and Parkman rapping.

We’re in for a shitstorm.

HEY! Sylar’s doing the opening monologue today. What gives? I miss Suresh’s smooky silk cfm voice. My bet is that Suresh refused because the producers forced him to put scales on his pretty pretty face. I hope they learned their lesson, because Sylar is good at a lot of things but bringing the cheese value needed to deliver a deep meaningful Heroes monologue isn’t one of them.
“On the sixth day,
God created man and Big Macs.
Now it’s up to us to figure it all out and count our points.
Right, wrong,
Good, evil,
Stretch marks and spanx or tight abdominals and summer nakedness.
In the end, good, evil, right, wrong, hideously fat or hideously thin,
What we choose is never what we really need
You can be bad and be rich, you can be good and get struck down in a crosswalk by a school bus.
You can lose all the weight you want to, but you are still stuck with baldness and giant ears.
For that is the ultimate cosmic joke.
The real gift that God has left behind.”
Damn, Sylar. Try a little positivity next time. I want to throw myself onto the 101. We open in Pinehurst with Papa P dead on the floor. Nathan comes in and finds Peter slumped over their dad doing his best to act. As usual, it’s tough to decipher what emotion he’s going for.

I hope I get home in time to catch the Charlie Brown Christmas. That Lucy’s a card.

Nathan tells him that it doesn’t matter that dad’s dead because he believes in his plan and has a team of people injecting soldiers with powers as they speak. Peter raises the gun to his brother, but Nathan tells him that they both know Peter couldn’t even commit suicide with the gun down his own throat. He’d shoot crooked and lose a toe or something. “It’s time to choose a side, Peter. You’re either with me…” He almost finishes with “or you’re against me” but then he remembers how well that worked out in the long term for our current President, who just got shoes thrown at his head by a smart ass reporter in Iraq. Instead, he just squints and asks for the gun. Since Peter’s a pickled pepper pussy, he cracks and hands the gun over. Then he punches Nathan instead and vows to stop him. So stop him, then. SHOOT! No? Fine. No one on this show ever learns their lesson.
At Primatech, HRG, Mama P, Meredith and Claire take rifles from the Ptech stock and plan to go over to Pinehurst to stop the formula from getting out. On their way towards the front door, they find a dead security guard. Ruh roh. Sylar is watching them from the room with all the security monitors, and he closes all of the emergency gates and locks them in the medical ward. What is this, Clue the Movie? Now we’re gonna find out they’re all being blackmailed and have to kill Wadsworth before he squeals to the coppers.

This show could use a dose of Madeline Khan, God bless her.

Sylar comes over the loudspeaker and tells them that he killed Papa P. Then violins start playing as he blahblahs about how no one likes him and they all think he’s a monster but it’s their fault he’s this way! Oh wah. Every killer is just so f ing damaged. You wanted more love in your childhood? Then you shouldn’t have been such a DISAPPOINTMENT, LOSER! Sylar is really giving his evil all in this scene, even going so far as delivering one of his lines in a country accent, and no I’m not kidding.
For a second, Claire thought they were being held hostage by Reba MacIntyre and shouted that she’s sorry about Reba’s cancellation but it’s time to get the f over it. Sylar agrees that Reba was cancelled before it’s time but gets his regular accent back and changes his course. He tells them that one by one before the episode is over, he will show them that they are all monsters too. Mama P raises her hand and takes a stab in the dark that the security guard was killed by Colonel Mustard in the Library with the rope, but she wins nothing.

For Christmas, let’s make peace and all switch to Linux so these douchebags will leave us alone.

Mama P says that all the guns are pointless because it’s not like they can just kill Sylar. Claire corrects her. If they hit him in the soft spot behind the skull, they can stop his brain from working and kill him. Sylar starts taunting Claire about how her mom abandoned her and her dad just thinks of her as a job. They have so much in common and both know that they can’t be damaged. “Well, except for a broken heart, and that’s what parents give us, don’t they?” WAAAAHHHH. You know what your parents should have given you? A damn spanking, that’s what. They could have stopped this shit years ago.
HRG and Meredith make it to the security room, but all they find is another dead extra. Sylar comes over the loudspeaker and tells HRG that he’s the hunted one, not the other way around. Back in NYC, Hiro is still hanging on to the flag pole on the side of the roof. He tells a pigeon about losing the formula and letting down his father yet again. The bird refrains from pooping on his head, which I find incredibly disappointing. Apparently the bird has missed the past two seasons of this show or he would have unloaded lunch.

Never count on a pigeon to do the right thing.

Ando, Daphne and Parkman are arriving at Suresh’s loft to get the formula so Ando can get superpowers and go back in time to save Hiro. Parkman’s being all flip about it like they have all the time in the world even though Ando is holding the sketch of Hiro hanging off a ledge. Daphne reminds him that if Hiro dies in the past, it could change everything in the future. Waffle stock would go down, Daddy Sulu wouldn’t have made a comeback, the rose blossom scene never would have happened…wait. This is starting to sound like a good thing. They break into the loft and start shouting for Suresh.

Wow. That’s quite a name. Can I call you Gum?

Suresh isn’t there, obvs, so Daphne figures he must be in the lab at Pinehurst. Matt’s like “Lucy, that’s dangerous!” and she’s all “I won’t do it, Ricky, I swear!” Then she jets out of there and Parkman is left alone with his bongos and Ando, who is making the same exact movement he made the first time he experienced Daphne’s after run wind. He’s fixing his hair.

Well done, Ando. Well done.

Suresh the Horny Toad is in the lab at Pinehurst, and since he has some time alone he records positive messages to himself into his tape recorder. “You’re pretty. Your face is smooth as a baby’s bottom. You should be on Oil of Olay ads. You will never get old. You will be the tenth caller and win tickets to the Miley Cyrus concert…” He is about to inject himself with the formula because he thinks that it will cure him. Of course it will. Throw some bad after bad. When I gained seventy pounds this year I fought it with pizza and it totally worked. Wait. That’s a terrible idea. Peter interrupts him right before he injects and holds a gun on him. Hey Peter, why don’t you mind your own damn beeswax? Instead of asking that obvious question, Suresh starts whining about how he coveted people’s abilities so he tried to give them to himself with disastrous results. Kring is obsessed with coveting. He uses that word in every episode. Feeling guilty? Stop stealing, Kring! Stop stealing!
Mohinder keeps on whining when Daphne speeds in a whips the formula right out of his hands. He throws Peter up against a wall when the thugs come in. Marlo from The Wire and Jethro. They tell Peter that they’re on his side now. They want to destroy the formula too, because if everyone else had powers they wouldn’t be as special. Oh, WAH. Every man on this show today is drunk on WHINE. What the hell? Someone please, please man up. Is it all the hormones that have been put into milk over the decades that has pussified America’s men? Feminism? Metrosexualism? Beaches? Kring, whatever issues you’re working out here, please take them to a doctor and keep them off my TV. Nathan throws over a lab table and whines “Nathan’s not in charge any more!”

But look what they’ve done to my BEAUTYYYYY!

The Injected Marine with the giant nostrils brings Nathan to on the floor of Papa P’s office. Nathan tells him to find Peter before he ruins everything and Nostrils eagerly says that he will and everything’s gonna be ok and now that he’s a hero he will save the…CRACK. Marlo comes in and kills him dead with a neck snap. LOL. Those nostrils were just too good to live on. RIP, Nostrils. Marlo will be babysitting Nathan while Peter does his thing to make sure Nathan doesn’t try to completely rewrite his entire character again.
Daphne shows back up at the loft with the dose of the magic jello. Ando is about to just shove it in his arm and Parkman stops him. Something bad could happen. He could grow two heads or turn green or get the ability to make more than one face. Daphne says that she always wanted to run so her power was running fast and Parkman was always worried about what people thought of him so his power is reading minds. What’s a scene tonight without bs pop psychology on what makes a weak man tick? And how does that explanation even make sense?
Elle was an electo outcast because that’s what her innermost desires were? Nikki wanted another personality to ruin her life and get her killed? Sorry. Logic. Let’s just roll with it. Otherwise there would be no way to make sense of how Ando can just inject himself with the power to control time and space so this f ing season can end. Head slap. Ando asks if he’s ever done something he knew was right even though everyone told him not to. Daphne gives him that smile like “you wouldn’t have the opportunity to possibly crush me to death every night if you had any sense and dumped me when I betrayed you”. Parkman finally gets it and gives Ando the go ahead. Ando injects himself, makes the Ando stock face, and passes out.

EW

No one comes to save Hiro, so he decides to climb from the pole onto the balcony himself. Well that was easy. He goes inside to talk to Kid Hiro and ask him why he’s sad. Uh, cuz his mom died like five minutes ago? Sensitive. Why is Big Hiro sad? Cuz he boned it AGAIN. He says that Daddy Sulu has a paper with numbers on it and enlists the kid to help him find it. I would like to take a moment to put my annoyance aside for a sec and thank Kring for not making Hiro ten again. Moment of grateful silence.
Back in an office in the medical ward, Mama P tells Claire to calm down and not go after Sylar because that’s what he wants. She says he’s like a kid having a temper tantrum and Claire says she wants to give him a spanking. Thank you! That’s the way to save the world, if you ask me. Discipline your brats! The phone rings. Claire looks all scared and dimly lit. It keeps ringing. She answers. HE’S IN THE HOUSE! It’s Sylar. He tells her that life is making hard choices and he will allow her to walk out of here with her mom and dad if she kills Mama P. You know. Like in Saw. But without all the clever parts. Sylar wants Mama P dead because she made him feel loved and wanted and then took it all away. Wizaaah. He adds that he’s a monster because of what HRG and Elle did to him. Not because he killed god knows how many people, but because they hewt his feewings. Claire shoots the phone instead. Sylar can’t believe it. That plot worked for Saw and four sequels.

I shoulda said it with my country accent.

Speaking of stealing plots, remember when this movie was called Liar, Liar?

HRG lets the three remaining prisoners out of their cells, and true to Heroes’ completely wrong casting policy, they are two fat homely guys and a homely black dude.

You’re all dying today. You know that right?

HRG tells them that if they can get Sylar’s head then they can go free and don’t try to escape because Sylar has them all locked in. Puppeteer blows Meredith a kiss and leads the other three away. Meredith doesn’t get the plan, but HRG says that it’s simple. To catch a shark you need bait. She’s horrified. HRG doesn’t really bother following them. You don’t just throw bait in the water, you hook it to a line. This is not going to end well.
Back in the lab, Suresh warns Jethro that the magic jello is highly combustible while Peter trashes the lab. Jethro kicks him in the nuts and throws him across the room. Luckily, nothing hits his cheekbones.
In the loft lab, Daphne throws a glass of water on Ando and he wakes up.

Well, glad to see you still have Ando face.

Ando asks if he has abilities, and Daphne says that so far all they know is that he can pass out well, gel his hair so that it never moves, and make the same stupid face no matter what’s going on around him. He tries to squint, but nothing happens. There’s a whole scene of him trying, but we all know he has some kind of red sparks that come out of his hands because we saw it in the first episode of the season so chop chop. Ando can’t act so please stop making him try. It’s almost as painful to watch as Peter wondering how many licks it takes to get to the middle of a Tootsie Roll pop in one of his meaningful scenes. Ando finally gets frustrated enough to slam his hand down on the table and red sparks come out.

And….Ando face.

Meredith is walking the halls alone now for some reason and she comes across the old vet’s metal hand in the middle of the floor. One fat homely guy down. A bottle of adrenaline comes rolling at her and she bends down to pick it up. Run! Too late. Sylar flings her gun against the wall and the Puppeteer comes out and freezes him. He says Meredith is his to love, and to kill. Aw! I have never had a man love me like that. It’s touching. Especially around Christmas. Oh my God I’m whining. This show is ruining my mental state. Puppeteer puts Sylar into the Karate Kid poster position. Someone on the writing staff loves The Karate Kid

Sy overpowers him in like two seconds, knocks him down, and injects Meredith in the chest with adrenaline. Unfortunately, she’s not wearing Uma’s wig from Pulp Fiction. This episode is going for a record number of movie plots stolen.

Two fat homely guys down. HRG passes the black homely guy dead on the floor. Man. Homely trifecta. Every time I see a homely fat or black person on the street I feel like warning them that Kring could swoop down and kill them at any moment. HRG finds Meredith curled up on the floor in a cell. The adrenaline has made her unable to control the fire from coming out of her hands. HRG goes into the cell to help her and Sylar locks them both in. He has switched out HRG’s rifle with a handgun containing one bullet. If he wants to save himself and Claire, he’ll shoot Meredith. If Saw didn’t work the first time, there’s always Sophie’s Choice. Sylar suggests he come up with a good lie to tell Claire when this is all over and then blames HRG for making him who he is. HRG does his best to not roll his eyes. I just wish he’d get right up to the window and start playing a tiny violin and fake crying.
Marlo is babysitting Nathan, who tries to convince him to let him go by explaining that working for Peter is a dumb move because Peter fucks every single thing he ever tries to do up. Nathan may be evil now, but he’s dead on with that assessment. He grabs a crystal ball off a side table and bashes Marlo in the head with it. They fight. Marlo brings back his arm to knock Nathan’s face in when Tracy comes up behind him and not only kills him, but turns him white first in a lame attempt to not get the show sued by the NAACP.

Only one black man has been harmed in the making of this episode.

Back at the loft, Ando’s powers are sparking out of his hands uncontrollably. Parkman, wise as ever, grabs Ando. Electricity shoots through his body and he hears all these voices. “Sucks” “Stupid” “What happened?” “Plot robbery” “On drugs.” “Getting HBO.” “Gotta pee.” When he snaps out of it, he tells Daphne that he just heard the thoughts of every single person watching Heroes right now. Daphne, who didn’t get the idea that touching Ando when his powers are out of control is a bad thing, grabs Ando’s shoulder and disappears. While Parkman and Ando WTF each other, she appears on the balcony and looks inside, where it’s a minute earlier. Matt’s bent over asking the viewers to please stop commenting on his weight and Daphne’s bad hair. Again, the Daphne inside grabs Ando’s shoulder and appears next to the real Daphne on the balcony. They morph into each other. She goes inside and tells them that she traveled back in time! Ando’s reaction?

Meredith isn’t able to control her powers much longer. She is spouting fire all over the place. Claire is watching from a laptop in the office with Mama P. She says that she doesn’t care if Sylar is baiting her, she’s gonna save her dad. She and Mama P walk down the hall, and of course Sylar grabs Claire and throws her up against the wall. He asks why she would go to save her dad even after he lied to her and neglected her. She says that that’s what family does and runs off to the cell. HRG tells her to punch the code in, but the code box has been ripped off the wall. HRG tells Meredith to press her fire palms up against the glass. She does and HRG shoots his only bullet into it. It just cracks. Claire tells them to stand back and jumps right through it. Sylar stole many powers, but knowledge of physics wasn’t one of them. Meredith insists on staying in the cell while HRG and Claire run off to find Sy.
Tracy tells Nathan that they need to run away and deny deny deny. Nathan says he can’t run and Tracy says that all they have to do is make sure the Governor is arrested for auctioning off senate seats and no one will even pay any attention to the mess they’ve made with their citizen army or their shady land deals. They can worry about finding the formula again later. She’s just trying to keep him safe because it’s her job. So he fires her. Excuse you? Did you not just see the other dude get frozen and break into a million pieces?
Over at the loft, Parkman tries to make sense of Ando’s power before we all turn the channel. You see, he’s a “supercharger” who intensifies others’ abilities. That means Daphne can run faster than the speed of sound, which means she could travel through time. You know, what Einstein said. LOL. Einstein’s slapping his forehead in his grave right now. I’m sure you can guess Ando’s reaction to this news.

Ando and Daphne hold hands and jet. In Daddy Sulu’s apartment, Kid and Adult Hiro have gotten into Daddy’s safe and have the formula and a giant rubber dildo. Daddy Sulu finds them and sends the kid out before grabbing his sword and attacking Hiro, who tries to fight him with the dildo. Hiro explains that he needs to destroy the formula to save the world. He rips it up, and Daphne and Ando speed in and whisk him away. Daddy Sulu is left with the torn up formula. At the loft in the present, Hiro bitches at Ando for saving him too quick. Guess how Ando reacts.

Daphne says that she knows where the formula is since she’s the one who destroyed it and Hiro says that she can make up for being such an asshole in the past if she helps him destroy it. Parkman gives her permission to go. Why does everyone need Parkman’s permission today? They show up in Papa P’s office, where Tracy is about to leave with the formula. Hiro asks for it nicely, and she calls him “Pikachu”. LOL. Hiro spins her around and punches her in the face! DAMN! A man hitting a woman has never been so adorable. He grabs the formula and he and Daph skidat.
In the lab, Peter knocks over the largest bowl of jello left, which spills all over the floor and heals Suresh’s face. Jethro gets his blue fire hands going and Peter’s like uh we’re all gonna die. Jethro says he doesn’t give two shits about Peter or his brother so buhbye! Nathan comes up behind him and knocks him out with a lead pipe. Then he hits Peter. Peter gets up and Nathan slams him in the knees and tells him he broke his heart. Oh wah. Jethro wakes up and starts the room on fire. Smooth move. Now you’re in the middle of a fire, dumbass. Peter finds one last injection of formula (HANDY!) on the floor and injects himself. He grabs Nathan and they fly off.
And now for a very dramatic scene involving Sylar, Mama P and Mama P’s waddles. The lighting people hate this woman.

She tries to smooth talk Sy by telling him that by killing Papa P he saved the world and she always knew he would, but he’s not having it. He knows she’s not his mom and that she’s been lying to him this whole time. He wants to know why. She says she wanted to love him like a son but he senses her lie and starts cutting her head open. She caves and admits that she wanted to use him as a thug because he was born evil and that’s what he’s good for. He gets all whiney and wah-y about it and since she’s in harms way she resists the urge to slap him and tell him not to be such a little girl. He almost kills her, but she says that she knows who his real parents are and he’ll never find out where the caterpillars on his face came from if he kills her. He loses it and starts to strangle her anyway but Claire comes up behind him and shoves a paper clip into his soft spot. And he’s down! Chop of his head and crush it, you morons!

Look, ma! A shark’s about to eat my eyebrow!

I’m glad I got from the jail cell to GlamourShots back here in time.

SYLAR’S DEAD? Somehow, I don’t buy that. He’ll be back. Right? RIGHT? I was just starting to like him again. Well, except for the whining. Dammit I’m so conflicted! Claire runs back to the cell to save her mom, but she’s still freaking out so she has to leave her to burn. Dang. This episode is a bloodbath. As Claire and HRG run off, Meredith erupts and the building goes up in flames. Somewhere in the desert, Peter and Nathan land and start fighting. Nathan wants to know why Peter saved him and Pete says that he may seem like a hypocrite for taking the formula, but he wanted to save his brother. Nathan says that he wouldn’t have done the same thing. Ouch.
Suresh gives his last meaningless good and evil monologue of the season while we watch Pinehurst burn and an epilogue clip of Suresh, pretty again, wandering around on the freeway. Huh? How in the hell did he escape when he was covered in magic flammable jello in an exploding building? Tracy picks him up and gives him a ride to the facialist. THE END.
But before we go, we get the first scene of Volume Four. Nathan is in a stretch limo handing over a file of all the heroes. He tells the man he’s talking to that they are dangerous and need to be rounded up before they can harm anyone. The 4400 plot still has some life in it! The man agrees to give the senator what he needs. Nathan says “Thank you, Mr. President!” Ooooooh! Uhoh. The President’s black and somewhat homely. You know what that means.

You’ve got til episode four and you’re dead. If you get fat on hiatus you’ll only make it to two, so watch your points.

One day I’m gonna be an adult and not screw everything up. NOT!

We start where we left off last week. Claire and Hiro are watching Daddy Sulu hand off baby Claire to HRG. HRG’s like “baby? I ain’t ready for no baby!” and Daddy Sulu’s all “you ready! Me no asky!” He bends a little and promises the help of Steve Guttenberg and Tom Selleck if HRG really gets in a bind. Did you know that Star Trek’s Spock directed Three Men and a Baby? News to me. I just found out when I googled Guttenberg. I also found a video of Steve Guttenberg jogging through Central Park with no shorts on. Seriously. The things I’m learning at this gig.
Point is, Claire and Hiro watch all this go down from the greenhouse, where they try to get past their language barrier. Claire wants to know how the hell she got back to the past and what she’s supposed to do there, but all Hiro knows from one semester in English is “where is the bathroom?” “me want waffle” and “sucky fucky five dolla”.

Uh…waffle then.

Daddy Sulu tells HRG to scram and calls Kid Hiro, who is way more intelligent and mature than Adult Hiro pretending to be ten, inside to see his mommy. AdultKid Hiro yelps MOMMY! and follows them inside to the master bedroom, where Kid Hiro’s mommy is sick. She gives the kid hugs and he’s back to his Game Boy while she talks to Daddy Sulu about how she’s gonna drop dead tonight and they need to make arrangements for the catalyst. He gets tears in his eyes, but she tells him to drop the act. “You are free to have big a gay wedding tomorrow.” At that news, he cheers up and confirms that he won’t be inviting William Shatner to Big Gay Wedding ceremony. Wait til the future! Shatner’s gonna be pissed!
Daddy Sulu says he is going to call HRG and have him bring back the baby to put the catalyst in. Dude, why didn’t you just do it when you had the chance? Like five minutes ago? I always thought of Daddy Sulu as being a bit more organized than that. Mommy Sulu doesn’t want to put it in the baby, she wants to put it in Kid Hiro, but Daddy S won’t hear of it because Kid Hiro is mildly retarded and can’t even get a four line puzzle block on Tetris. She says they can argue about it later. Later? Aren’t you gonna die like any second?
Daddy S goes to order a groom and groom wedding cake topper and think about it, leaving Kid Hiro and Mommy Sulu alone. There is a birdcage next to the bed (that can’t be healthy for a sick woman. Just saying) with a dying dove in it. Kid Hiro is all upset about it, so Mommy Sulu kisses the dove and restores it’s health. Aw! Too bad she can’t use this healing gift on herself. I wonder if she even tried. If I was her I would be making out with the back of my elbow right now. I mean I do that anyway but still. She might be a fantasy makeout session away from saving her own life.

Tim Kring’s respectful nod to bestialists everywhere.

AdultKid Hiro and Claire see all this and figure out why they’re there. Hiro has to have his mom heal his brain and Claire needs to stop Daddy Sulu from injecting her with the catalyst. That way, her life won’t be in danger, Hiro’s will be. How thoughtful. Claire runs off, and when Hiro turns around, Daddy Sulu is there holding a pink garter belt and a sack of rice. He thinks Hiro is the new cook, and tells him to go make dying mommy Tamagoyaki, which I think is like matzo ball soup. Or pizza. Or horseburger who the hell knows? Hiro doesn’t look scared enough, so Daddy Sulu flashes him gay vengeance eyes.

Sasha Fierce

Wow. That was an entire six minutes for one storyline!!! WTF? Does this mean that starting now the new writers are in charge? My fingers are crossed. Cut to the luxury purgatory that Hiro sent Elle and Sylar to. Elle is still dead. Wah. Sylar answers a call to her cell phone. HUH? Where are they? Costa Verde? Come on Hiro, make an effort here. Siberia, Alaska, Jesus you sent them a bus ride away.
Anyway, he answers Elle’s cell and it’s Papa Petrelli asking what happened with Claire. Sylar tells him that he knows he’s not his real dad so he can kiss his pasty white ass if he thinks Sy’s gonna help him ever again. Papa insists that HRG was lying, but Sylar says that now he knows how he can find out the truth. Then he shows off his new address book, which has all these names of people with powers. He highlights Sue Landers. How does he know what ability she has or if she even has one? It’s not like he hacked into Elle’s Facebook profile or anything. Sorry. Logic.

He’s gonna be really disappointed when he finds out this is just a lady Elle gets a ride to Curves from.

Sylar hangs up on Papa P and then douses Elle with lighter fluid. Where the hell did he get lighter fluid? Did Hiro let them stop by a 7-11 on their way to punishment beach? He would, that wuss. Anyway, he sets Elle on fire and I take a moment to try not to cry like a big girl. Love you, V! PS Sylar should never be shot from below. Yikes.

Pig roast.

I’m expecting a gift certificate to Old Navy. Bitch.


Donate to St. Jude’s Hospital so this kid can get some more cute headscarves and a better celebrity for Christmas.

Primatech – Mama P and the Haitian are trying to talk Peter into taking a giant handgun to shoot his father with before he destroys the world. Peter, you know, the guy who couldn’t get one shot in last week with A FUCKING MACHINE GUN. Peter tries to look all confounded and confused by what choice to make, but he’s a really, really bad actor.

Oh shit I hope I remembered to close the garage door when I left the house this morning.

He takes the gun. Over at Pinehurst, Tracy is telling Papa P that they’re all set with the Department of Defense. That girl works fast. I credit the highly inappropriate for the office skin tight bright orange dress. Nathan comes in and is surprised to see her there. She explains that she’s just looking for opportunities for him, but she doesn’t have to do much convincing. Nathan tells Papa P that he’s here to take over the program at Pinehurst. Papa P’s all WTF that’s a complete change of character for no plausible reason and Nathan just shrugs and says “Kring is just making shit up as he goes along. Roll with it k and let’s all just try to get our mortgages paid?” Papa concedes and tells Tracy to show him around and let him in on all their secrets. Who wants to bet that there are chocolate rivers and oompa loompas? Best twist ever: Papa P is Charlie from Willie Wonka all grown up.
Tracy takes Nathan through the hallways explaining shit to him, and it’s hard for me to understand her because all I can hear is the giant crease/fold on the front of her highly inappropriate for the office skin tight bright orange dress. Is it sewn on? Is her skirt scrunching up? It’s making me insane.

That skirt is built to be hiked up. Know your audience. And what Senator wears Huey, Dewey, and Louie bangs?

Tracy says not to be mad about her consorting with his dad. She’s only looking out for Nate’s best interests so he can become President and she can be his wife and eventually Senator from New York and then Secretary of State and then Master of the Universe. He’s like woah why don’t you just not try getting your third character of the series killed this season, k?
As they walk down the hall, she explains the program. “A pharmaceutical random businessless company called Worthington Labs Pinehurst announces that it has developed an inoculation serum to permanently suppress grant the X-gene hero gene that gives mutants heroes their powers, offering the so-called “cure” enhancement to any mutant who wants it person they want to; the cure serum is derived from a mutant boy white girl named Jimmy Claire. While some mutants heroes are interested in the cure serum, including the X-Men’s Rogue Nathan and Suresh, many others are horrified by the announcement. In response to the news, the X-Men’s heroes’ adversary Magneto Papa P raises an army.”
Nathan stops her and asks why she keeps scratching all the X-Men’s off the Wikipedia page she’s spouting and she says that she doesn’t want to get NBC into the uncomfortable position of actually having to pay for the rights to shit she’s stealing because they might decide to kill her off. Again. She explains that once the formula is perfected, they will be able to give people specific powers, so they’ve chosen “good people” for this army. Meet the good people.

Claire shows up at an old gross apartment building and guess who’s there? Her mom and baby Claire! But like 16 years ago! Holy Vaseline on the lens. The poor woman looks like she’s wearing a mask.

Thankfully, they don’t try to pin up her pirate eye. ARGH, wench!

How the hell did Claire know where she was? Who cares? She introduces herself as Bonnie and ingratiates herself by acting all cute and nice. The baby is crying and Pirate Mom doesn’t know what to do because her husband just dumped the kid on her and ran back to his very important busy life as a paper salesman. Big Claire says the baby is crying because “she must be wet and doesn’t know how to tell you.” LOL. She totally remembers being wet that day and having an idiot for a new mom. Pirate Mom admits that she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and Claire says that she’s a great babysitter and will teach her a thing or two. What do you have to teach her? You can drop that baby, drown it, start it on fire and she’ll be fine. She’s idiot proof.

I’ll take care of your baby if you bleach my eyebrows. Quid pro quo, Clarice.

Sue Landers, the possible Curves carpooler from Elle’s phone, shows up at her office. Everyone tells her happy birthday and when she gets to her office it’s filled with happy birthday balloons and a stripper that’s dressed like a delivery man. He gets ready to start smacking her face with his giant…wait sorry. It’s just Sylar. Dammit. He says that he has a delivery for her and then the camera shakes like there’s about to be a fake earthquake. She senses that he’s lying. Sy has completely dropped the goody two shoes act. It’s like someone just came right into the writers room and cut the stupid out. Love it. Sylar is very up front with Sue, saying he covets her lie detector ability and is gonna steal it from her. “It’s not gonna hurt a bit. Got me! That’s a lie.” Cheesy and wonderful. He doesn’t even try to front with the whole “empathy” bullshit and gets right down to slicing her skull open. YAY! Empathy’s for suckas!

Way to splurge on the special effects, guys.

Sue’s office friends come in with gifts shouting Happy Birthday. They’re fat and homely, which is completely unacceptable on this show (except for Parkman, who’s the token. Kinda like how the Haitian is the only black character allowed to live.), so Sy slams the door behind them and kills them too. Welcome back, Sy! I’m feeling strange. Am I actually enjoying Heroes again? Wait let me just shut up right now before they cut to the f ing comic book shop or some shit.

Let this be a lesson to us fat homely people. If you see TV cameras, run for your lives!

Nathan isn’t as comfortable doing a complete character turnaround in less than an episode like the other actors, so he sits down with one of the military guys in training for a deep sensitive talk. He says that the drug he is going to be given is going to completely change his life. Is he ready? The Marine answers that he’s always been insecure about his weird nostrils and wants to become a different person. Also, he was in Iraq and was one of the only surviving members of his squad after an attack. It made him feel weak and he never wants to feel like that again. Personally, I think ducking is a highly underrated skill. Well done, kid! Nathan says they will make him a superhero, but they won’t be able to do anything about his nostrils. The kid starts sobbing.

Come on, kid. You’re still very handsome. You just have to check for bats in the cave more often than regular people. What’s the big deal?

Oh, God. Parkman, Daphne and Ando are still on this show? I was hoping this whole new direction thing meant they would be swept under a rug. Or hit by a bus. Or the blackhole handed guy would come back and get mad about something and just suck them into a void. They arrive at a bike messenger headquarters in NYC. How? Daphne has sped run them all there. How does that work, exactly? You know she didn’t carry Parkman’s fat ass. Stupid. ANYHOO, the weasel at the front desk says he doesn’t know anything about any sketches from any artist from last year. And why the hell would he know about some random delivery a year ago when he deals with hundreds if not thousands of deliveries a day? Because this is Heroes. Parkman cruises him deep and finds out that not only does he know about the sketches, but he’s been skimming off the top! Well I’ll be what luck to find the right guy on the first try! Sorry, I just hit myself. We all know it’s stupid. Just get through it. Moving on. Messenger guy runs out with the sketches and jumps on his bike. Daphne speeds after him and makes him crash into a cab. There. See? Was that so hard?

Fat, homely and defeated. Shocker.

AdultKid Hiro is in his dad’s kitchen trying to figure out how to make whatever the hell his dad told him to when he hears his parents talking. He goes to the bedroom door and listens. His mom wants to give the catalyst to Kid Hiro, and Daddy Sulu says no because he’s a moron. I think we already saw this scene. This time, though, they’re speaking Japanese, so Hiro can understand that his dad thinks he sucks balls. Metaphorically. AdultKid Hiro doesn’t notice Kid Hiro behind him until he speaks up and says that his dad thinks he’s a dodo bird. They both listen to their father diss them and push up their glasses at the same time. Cuteness.

Thank you for getting rid of the bowl cut.

Back at Pirate Mom’s apartment, Claire warns Baby Claire not to date the guy who gave her crabs in her sophomore year when HRG walks in. Well, it’s weird calling him that cuz he’s not wearing his horn rimmed glasses in the past. I don’t care, because I’m too lazy to come up with another name for him. He knows Big Claire is full of shit the minute he sees her and gets all pissed at Pirate Mom for letting her in. Claire tries to explain that she’s a neighbor’s niece, but he knows that neighbor doesn’t have a niece. Past, Present, Future: Claire’s incompetence is constant.
Claire says that she is there to protect the baby and the family. Pirate Mom comes in and starts asking questions and HRG’s all get me a PBR woman and shut your face! She leaves and Claire has a monologue about how it’s hard to be a dad at first but he’ll get the hang of it and get really close to the little Claire Bear and eventually go all Mr. Myagi on her ass and teach her the choreography from Flashdance. He’s touched. Bullshit! The old HRG would have shot her between the eyes before asking any questions. The phone rings. Claire says not to answer it because it’s someone from the company who wants to take Claire and do something really bad to her. He assumes that she means child slavery or beauty pageants or something so he doesn’t pick up.

I would like to take this moment to congratulate Keanu for finding yet another role that requires no emotion or facial movement.

AdultKid Hiro couldn’t figure out how to make yamacaca so he threw some eggo waffles in the microwave to serve to Mommy Sulu. She says he looks familiar and tries to guess where she knows him from. Is he Don Ho? No. Is he the Benihana guy? No. Is he that young, sparking new comedian Margaret Cho? NO!

Aw. Even I was betting on Margaret Cho.

She starts sobbing and hugging him. She never thought she’d see him as an adult. Unlike his rude father, she doesn’t mention that he’s just as much of a dork as he was when he was ten. She asks if he ever learned how to score points in Tetris. He bows his head in shame and says no, but he’s a big super hero now that can travel through time and space. After she compliments him on getting rid of the bowl cut, he tells her about having his memories stolen and asks her to heal him. She kisses his forehead so he can regain his memory. He starts crying and says that he remembers now how much he missed her. AWWWW! Am I getting teary? I AM! WTF? This show is turning me bipolar.

After we all cry and remember that Heroes isn’t a total suckfest and we aren’t crazy for liking it in the first place, Hiro tells his mommy about his powers and saving the world twice, and he says he wants her to give him the catalyst. He knows his dad doesn’t believe in him now, but in the future they grow to love and respect each other. I wouldn’t go that far. Daddy Sulu even locked the formula up so you couldn’t lose it (which you did, immediately) after he died, but this is a touching scene so we’ll forget about that part. Hiro swears up and down that he’s a hero now and he’s strong enough to protect the catalyst. She takes his word for it and after making him promise to keep the fauxhawk, she opens up her channels or whatever and yellow light starts coming out of her! LIKE COCOON! Oh man, if Jessica Tandy were alive right now she’d kick ass on this show.

Woohooooo! My wrinkles are gone! GONE! I’m gonna go out and fuck a football team!

Once the light has transferred into Hiro, she tells him how proud she is of him and then drops dead. Hiro cries and cries and tells her how young she looks.

LOL, Tom Cruise. No wonder Germany tried to kick his tiny ass out of the country during the filming of this movie. He looks like a very dangerous munchkin.

Until we go broke.

Peter and the Haitian are stuck in traffic on the way to Pinehurst. The Haitian says that Peter’s a pussy and he’s always been a pussy and there’s no way in hell he’s gonna shoot his own dad so hand over the gun, Nancy. Smartest thing said all season. Peter insists that he’s up for the task. The Haitian must be really damn sick of this family.
In the best scene of the season, Sylar leaves the now dead chick’s office and gets into the elevator covered in blood. A business man is in there too. He starts sweating profusely when he sees Sy, who asks if something’s wrong. The guy says no and the screen wobbles. Sy knows he’s lying because of his new power. The guy isn’t fat or homely, so Sylar lets him live and they have a nice, peaceful, blood soaked elevator ride.
Back at bike messenger central, the schlubby bike guy hands over the sketches and says every fanboy in the city has been trying to grab them. “My life’s been a living hell.” Whatever, Miley Cyrus. Welcome back to obscurity. Buhbye now. Daphne, Ando and Parkman look at the cover.

Hiro gets a nose job. Oh snap, Marine!

Claire is back on the NYC rooftop when Hiro comes back as a depressed adult. He tells her that he has the catalyst now, and Papa P shows up just in time to hear it. Papa swipes Claire out of the way. Hiro says that he’ll save the cheerleader again, but Papa P drags him to him with his fingers and takes both the catalyst and his powers away. OH SHIT! Man, give credit where credit’s due. Daddy Sulu knows what he’s talking about. Hiro boned it in less than five minutes.

Woohooooo! My wrinkles are gone lessened! GONE LESSENED! I’m gonna go out and fuck a football team!

I figured Hiro would mess up, but that was really quick. Papa flings Hiro off the roof and tells Claire that she needs to a deliver this message to Mama P: “It’s over! I won! I have a big one! I’m about to go bang the football team! He’s just not that into you!” Then he teleports Claire outta there. But he doesn’t steal her power. I guess because he already got the whole immortality thing from Peter? In a life or death situation I say it’s always smart to double wrap your p…owers. Daphne and Parkman and Ando see all this in the comic book, and Daphne says that they can save Hiro from the past if they find another time traveler, and they can get another time traveler if they steal Papa P’s formula and make one. Why the? What the? Ando says “Maybe it could be me!” Head slap. OY. In other words, we get to watch all of this again, but it’s gonna be worse. Way worse. Ando is actually gonna be given something to do. Way to squeeze the life out of a decent episode. Hiro hangs onto a flag pole on the side of the apartment building he was just flung off of calling for the cheerleader. Wasn’t his memory just erased? How does he know about the cheerleader? Never mind. My head hurts. DAMMIT. You guys were doing so well!

You’ve already got the power to make the same idiotic face no matter what happens. Don’t be greedy.

Papa P comes into the lab and approaches the huge bowl of Jello Suresh is trying to make. He puts the light from his hands into the Jello and smiles. Suresh doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he was just trying to help out the lunch lady and they’d all be eating that later on this afternoon.

Every employee who eats in the cafeteria today will never have to buy moisturizer again.

Nathan decides that they should just try the magic jello on one soldier first to see if it works. He turns to Suresh. “No offense.” No offense? The guy’s turning into a horny toad. Who can blame you for being a little nervous about his scientific abilities? Papa senses Peter in the building and says he’ll be back. Peter is waiting for him with a gun. Papa tries to use his abilities, but the Haitian has rendered him impotent. Well, more impotent than usual. Peter says he can’t let Papa get away with giving people abilities and adds that he’s seen the future and it’s not pretty. Papa P counters that Peter doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger.
The Haitian is all sweaty and shaky. He tells Peter to cut the small talk because he’s losing his grip on Papa’s powers. Still, Peter keeps yammering away about never having a daddy to take him to the zoo and blahdie blah blah. Papa says he’s a spineless wuss. The Haitian begs Peter to shoot, but Peter wants to talk about the crappy pottery ash tray he made for father’s day that his dad never even used. Papa gets his powers back and tries to wave the gun away, which somehow slices Peter’s face…and Peter shoots! The bullet stops in midair and Sylar shows up. He asks if Papa is his real dad. Papa answers yes. The screen shakes. Sylar knows he’s lying and tells Peter he’s no killer. “But I am!” He re aims Peter’s predictably crappy shot and let’s the bullet fly right into Papa’s head. Slam! And to think last week I was rooting for HRG to shoot Sylar. Things can change in an hour!

Who says you can’t fall in love all over again?

Sylar tells Peter that he doesn’t need to bother trying to shoot him because he has nothing he wants anymore. He leaves. WITHOUT TAKING THE HAITIAN’S POWER? It’s the weakest the man will ever be. Come on now. Did you learn nothing from the old fart dead on the floor who had the chance to double up on immortality? OK. Questions. Papa stole Peter’s powers. Peter was invincible. Is Papa dead? I get that he was shot in the head, but Claire had a stake or something in her brain and they just pulled it out and all was hunky dory. Is the cut on Peter’s face the scar? Cuz I remember the scar being deeper and bigger and more towards the center of his face. OK I am thinking too much. More shit will be made up to explain this all later. Back to the show. Peter takes a moment alone with his father and tries to act again. It’s highlarious.

I hope the crafts services table has pretzels. And mustard. And Slim Jims!

Up in the lab, Suresh, Nathan and Tracy have brought in the giant nostriled Marine and strapped him into a chair. Poor guy starts freaking out when he sees Suresh and is all “oh shit you’re not injecting me with whatever ugly juice you put into yourself, mofo!” Too late. Suresh injects him and encloses him in the glass room. He starts shaking and freaking out. Like he’s gonna turn into the Hulk. But not, because that would be stealing. The guy stops shaking, breaks out of the chair, then rips the heavy metal chair out of the ground and crashes it through the case. Tracy gets a boner.

Raaar. You wanna be president?

Nathan asks the kid how he feels and he kinda snarls “I feel great.” Wow. Superhuman strength. Haven’t seen that one before. OK. So there were plot holes everywhere, a lot of shit happened that didn’t make any sense, and Hiro’s gonna be fucking ten again. The main thing that sets this episode apart from the past few is that it was kinda awesome to watch. So please, Kring, NBC, whoever is even listening at this point, please keep not sucking like you mostly didn’t suck tonight! Love, Flipit.

ARGH!

Before we begin with tonight’s episode, I have to say that no matter how low this show goes, no matter how shitty it gets, no matter how frustrated and betrayed we as loyal viewers might feel now and in the future, we will always have this pic to get us through the rough times, and for that I have to thank the geniuses behind Heroes.

So I take it you’ve discovered Ron Jeremy’s powers.

Or, Longest Most Painful Eclipse Ever

No opening monologue today? RIP OFF! I have really come to look forward to those. Every time I hear the poetry goo out of Suresh’s mouth, I imagine Maya Angelou sitting at home feeling like she’s been kicked in the nuts.
We open in the jungle, with the Haitian trying as best he can to run from Peter’s really, super, way bad acting. He can’t. He’s like dammit why are you in the jungle anyways man? This is my evil brother not yours. And Peter’s all, well yeah but I have to know that I can still be a hero without my powers. Somehow, this touches the Haitian. He pats Peter on the head and gently says “oh, Peter. You’re so pretty.” Then they keep running.
Claire’s mom has taken her to the emergency room. Oh wah. I am so sure Claire’s gonna die. Know how I know she won’t? BECAUSE I SAW ALL OF THIS IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON ONE. The ER doc asks how long ago she was shot and mom says it just happened. The doc doesn’t buy it, because a normal body would have built up some kind of resistance to infection, and Claire’s a mess for having a shoulder wound. Mom asks if they can work on her Bell’s Palsey since they’re there anyways, and the doc’s like half your face doesn’t move and you’re just gonna have to learn to be ok with that.

Which side of you should I be talking to? I’m feeling uncomfortable.

In the abandoned house where Claire got shot in the shoulder, Sylar and Elle have just done it on the floor. If anyone’s wondering, Elle’s a top. Same as Veronica Mars. Come on, Kristen! Stretch a bit! They’re making out and grossing me out and Elle says that she hopes this whole loss of power thing is permanent so Sy’ll just be a regular guy with creepy eyebrows instead of a creepy serial killer with caterpillar face. She’s about to fish the Orbit out of his mouth with her tongue when a red dot appears on his forehead.
Too little too late, HRG. She screams and they run while Sylar tries to get his underoos on. HRG shoots Elle in the butt, which is kinda awesome, but why has no one on this show learned to make a head shot? He chases them into the alley, where they hide in a junk yard. Poor guy with the black hole hands lived in a seriously fucked up neighborhood. A junk yard behind your house. That’s just sad. HRG screams that he hopes they’re scared, just like Claire was. Then he growls “this ends today.” With the way this shit’s playing out, it just might. NBC’s just gonna put Deal or No Deal on 24 hours a day. And who would blame them?
Yay! Time for the Beverly D’Angelo webisode plug.

Let’s go on a European Vacation!

I will thwart your Vacation! I have Chevy Chase trapped in this ball!


Dang Illeana Douglas! You’ll take any job you can get.


Mom do my eyebrows look ok? I totally have to go save Chevy Chase or Beverly D’Angelo’s gonna be pissed.

Congrats, Kring. I don’t think you’ve stolen from The Matrix yet. Good one!


Chevy Chase? I should never have saved you from the ball! Ay Corumba!
THE END

Back in the jungle, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has thrown Nathan into a jail cell that looks like the Tiki Room at Disneyland, where two dirty girls are also held captive. Nathan pulls out his best French. “Bonjour. Je suis Nathan. J’aime frites et de la fierté arcs-en-ciel. Nous allons déjeuner.” Uh, Nathan? You just told them that you like French Fries and pride rainbows. Dumbass. The girls are scared. As they should be. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy comes in and acts all evil.
He tells Nathan that a name says a lot about a person. Nathan’s all “so is that why you make people call you Big Bad Voodoo Daddy? Because you want them to think you’re a god and you can play jazz?” and BBVD counters with “is that why you call yourself senator?” Then he chuckles, like that was the best comeback ever. One of his thugs drags one of the girls out of the cell and says he’s selling her into slavery because she’s just a stupid woman and doesn’t get to choose her own fate. What is this? Mad Men? Nathan screams and yells and tries to be all manly, but Big Bad Voodoo Daddy says that Nathan’s only a man, but he’s a god. Then he pulls out a trumpet and starts playing “Oh When the Saints Come Marching In”. But evily.

Let my peephole go!

In the lab, Suresh is reading Encycopedia Brittanica about eclipses, then he watches an online video about them. He still just can’t figure it out! Suresh is probably the worst scientist ever. Has he ever done anything right? He’s sitting there staring at a big post it note that has Maya’s address written in big block letters. Subtle. Way to stay one step ahead of the game.

Now you’re Googling shit? Get back to the cab driving, LOSER!

Jethro’s keeping an eye on him, and since he no longer has nuclear stuff coming out of his hands, he’s flicking a zippo at him. Oooooh. Pardon me for asking, but can’t you just blow it out? Who would be scared of a zippo? Suresh, that’s who. Papa P comes in and says that he better find out wtf is going on with the eclipse or else. Then Jethro jumps on Suri and puts the zippo close to his hand. Suresh screams and cries. Not kidding. What a pussy.

You think that’s scary? Wait til he pulls out the safety pin.

Sylar and Elle are still hiding in the junk yard when HRG gets a call from his wife. She’s freaking out because she had to take Claire to the hospital. He tries to tell her to stay calm and she asks what she’s supposed to tell the police. “Tell them what I would tell them.” She gets a pissy look and says “You mean lie.” No. Tell them that your daughter usually can heal herself and can’t die. If it makes you feel better.
In Kansas, Daphne is on crutches and Matt’s like oh shit she’s a gimp. She explains that she until she got her powers, she wore a black leather body suit and mask and was kept chained up in a basement until Bruce Willis came to save her during an eclipse, which is when she got her powers and her hideous bleach job. She starts her hysterical “I’m bad and don’t deserve love” dreck. Matt reminds her that he’s desperate and refuses to go on a diet just to get another girl. Her dad comes home and she kicks Matt out to wander the cornfields singing John Mayer songs, because you know he’s cheesy like that.

Dude, the girl’s on freakin’ crutches. Would you please stop staring at her boobs?

In the lab, Suresh is getting a shot ready for Jethro that’s supposedly gonna “track what’s going on” inside his body. Jethro asks if he looks that stupid, and Suresh says yes and hits him with a microscope. Jethro jumps him and hits him multiple times in the face while Suresh screams “NOT MY FACE! IT’S IN MY CONTRACT YOU BITCH!” He starts hitting back until Jethro’s knocked out. Funny, cuz Jethro’s bleeding, but Suresh still looks gorgeous. He whips out a compact to check his makeup and then takes the giant post it note with Maya’s address before using Jethro’s Marriot Hilton Hotel key to escape.

Don’t forget your free continental breakfast on your way out.

In the comic book shop in Kansas, Hiro and Ando are trying to get the 9th Wonder comic books off of Dr. Evil’s tiny son and the stoner from Clueless. He gets them. That’s the only ink I’m sparing on that scene.
Sylar and Elle are at a Piggly Wiggly, and Elle’s ass is bleeding all over the floor. As Sylar bandages her up, she makes him promise that they’ll stick together because HRG is more powerful than them now and he’ll beat Sylar on his own. He needs a bloody assed girl who can’t walk to save him? I think ya need to bake that cake a little longer, hon. He promises, and a poor extra comes out with a mop, wondering why he didn’t go to college like his Papaw hounded him to.

I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

Back to the jungle. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is about to rape the prisoner chick when Mariska Hargitay shows up crying “It’s my fauuuult! WAAAAH!” Kidding. Peter knocks him in the head and the girl runs. The Haitian comes in and BBVD, who’s shocked that he’s bleeding, tells the H that he will have to kill him to stop him. No, that would be smart, and that just doesn’t happen on this show. The Haitan gun butts him in the head instead. Wuss!
Hiro is reading all of the comic books about himself in the shop, and he’s saddened when he sees what a promising character he was in season one. “WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ME?” Matt comes in. How did he know they was there? WHO CARES? The stoner dude from Clueless tells them all that according to the comic books, there was an eclipse when everyone got their powers, and there’s an eclipse now which means that everyone will get their powers back when the eclipse is over. Head slap. COME ON!! We all knew that like an hour and twenty minutes ago. I was really hoping Kring would make some kind of effort to not take the easiest, most obvious route out of this one. Maybe he’ll be less of a hack when the eclipse is over. Not crossing my fingers.
Parkman sees in the book that Daphne runs away from the Kansas shack, so he briskly walks back to get her before the eclipse is over. Hiro whines about not wanting to get his powers back cuz he’ll have to grow up and it’s too fucking depressing. Tell me about it. I paid a Pier One bill today that rendered me broke until 2009. Ah well, at least I have this extremely uncomfortable pleather/wicker chair to write in. Hiro saw some pic of a dead guy, but since the artist sucks I can’t tell who it is. Wait I think he has squinty eyes. Ando?

Daniel Dae Kim? George Takei? Carrie Anne Inaba? You tell me.

I would like to point out that Ando did a respectable job of being Ando in this scene.

DaDoink!

In Tiki Room prison, Nathan decides that he’ll take this time to confess his sins to the little girl prisoner since she can’t understand a damn thing he’s saying. I do that with my cleaning lady! Well, not so much confess as complain about men not willing to commit just because I’m chubby and don’t have a real job or much ambition. Nathan says that he had power and influence and could have used it to help people and be a real hero but instead he just cheated on his wife and whined about his daddy issues and lived off Natalie Maines throughout the early two thousands. The little girl looks about as fascinated with Nathan as Esmeralda is with me.

Could you just shut the fuck up so I can pick up your dirty underwear off the floor in peace?

The Haitan and Peter come in and save them, but Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is hot on their trail. Because they didn’t kill him. Because they are f ing retards. Peter decides to stay behind and fight Voodoo on his own. Nathan’s like what? Hell no you’ll die and Peter assures him that he can handle it on his own. And Nathan leaves him! Right after his monologue about being a shitty hero he leaves his dimwit incompetent brother to fight a genocidal slave raping maniac by himself. Nice.
Claire wakes up in the hospital looking like hell. She cries about just wanting to be more than a stupid teenager who ruins everyone’s life. Well, there’s not really much arguing to be done on that one, so her mom just tells her she loves her. The police come in to question her, but Claire’s eyes roll back in her head and the machine starts beeping really fast, which means she’s about to die. Again.

Argh! Get me a nurse or I won’t give your ship back! Argh!

Sylar and Elle are running around in the storeroom of the Piggly Wiggly and see on a monitor that HRG has found them. You know, those monitors that they have in the storerooms of Piggly Wiggly’s. Sylar shoves Elle in an elevator and closes the door on her. She freaks out as it goes down, and Sy is left to fight HRG, who punches him a few times. “What if Claire could see you now?” I’m sure she’d really be disappointed that her dad was punching the dude who cut her head open, stole her powers, and left her empty inside, you douche. It’s amazing how the absence of powers really showcases the lack of acting abilities. Sylar was so scary and creepy when he was stealing people’s brains. Now he’s just a really weird looking, really shit actor.

Argh! Let me go or lose your ship! Argh!

HRG’s like “stop imitating my wife!” and beats him up more. Meanwhile, Claire’s opened up on the operating table. They just pulled the same fake open Claire body from season 1 and gelled it up. It’s a tough economy, people.

Yawn.

Elle has brought the elevator back up and watches as HRG grabs a box cutter and holds it to Sylar’s neck. He tells him that he always wanted to be special and look at him now. Throat slit! NICE! Not that it’s gonna do any good now, but still, at least someone finally had the balls to kill someone on this damn show.

That’s for killing Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors! All she wanted was to be somewhere that’s green you sumbitch!

Claire’s dead too. Oh wah. Her mom pulls the blanket off her face and what do ya know? The eclipse is over and Claire comes back to life. I was on the edge of my seat there for a minute.

Her hair? Still dead.

Matt finally gets to Daphne’s house, but she’s gone. Shoulda taken the bus if you can’t run, you fat bastard. Her dad’s thoughts are guilty dad thoughts, and Matt tells him not to feel bad that his daughter’s a brat. Sometimes teenagers just turn shitty and never recover. Then he leaves and wanders through the cornfields listening to Daphne’s guilty thoughts about being a villain and getting Matt’s dad’s killed and using Aqua Net to make her hair look like she’s a crazy person and will Matt crush her if she let’s him be on top and when are they gonna stop showing Friday Night Lights on DirecTV and just accept that it’s over already? Hearing people’s thoughts would be the worst power ever.
Matt finds her talking to the scarecrow that she made when she was a kid to save the crop from dying and he says that it’s proof she’s a good person and she should go hug her dad. She does. I want this show to die right now. In Haiti, Big Voodoo Daddy and his thugs walk around the village looking for their prisoners and we see this poster. Oh slam! Tim Kring’s a Republican!

Remind you of anything?


The crappy Heroes artist is working for Obama! Now there’s a scandal!

Peter starts shooting at the bad guys and is out of bullets without getting a single shot. With a machine gun. The Haitian and Nathan show up and the Haitian puts his hands on the bad guys heads and knocks them out. Way to prove yourself, Peter! Nathan flies at Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and slams him into a car, and the Haitian puts his hand on his brother’s head and wipes him clean.

I only tried to bring you chaaaaange!

We’re rootin’ for ya, Parkman!

Suresh, still staring at his giant post it note, shows up at Maya’s house. When he knocks, he sees that he has the scales on his hands back so he runs away. Maya answers the door with a can of Raid in her hands, but he’s gone.
At the comic book store, Dr. Evil’s tiny son is knocking on the closet door and trying to get Hiro to come out. He tells him that everyone has to grow up sometimes. Hiro says that he didn’t grow up. He still looks like he’s five years old with red facial hair glued to his face and all he does is eat junk food and read comics.

Alright dude, that was uncalled for. I have feelings!

Tiny Evil gives Hiro a speech. He taught the world that even a lowly office drone could make a difference if he just believed! And had the power to stop time and teleport, but why focus on the details. Hiro buys it and comes out just in time for the stoner dude to see a pic in the comic book showing Hiro and Claire as children hiding in the greenhouse on the roof in NYC while their dads hash shit out. And Hiro’s wearing the same outfit as he was in the pic! Only much much bigger. This must mean that Hiro has to take Claire back to this roof top to get his memory back! HUH? Well, why the f not? Does it matter that Hiro was wearing the same outfit when he was just normal Hiro who remembered everything when Papa P found him in the African desert? NO! LET’S JUST MAKE SOME SHIT UP! Hiro gets all excited and teleports out of there. I press pause to take a moment. A long moment. An hour. To get severely wasted. Am I using Heroes to justify addiction? Yes. Is it a damn good excuse? I think so.
HRG gets home and Claire is in bed all wrapped up in bitterness about him not being there when she needed him. I am so sorry I was killing the end of the world when you needed a lollipop, brat. He reminds her that he was assigned to protect her and she shouts that she died. That freaks him out because it means that Sylar came back to life too. Sure enough, when he gets down to the living room, Sy and Elle are there holding Pirate Mom hostage. Sylar throws HRG up against the wall with his fingers and holds him there. Wow, his acting just totally improved.

I’m buyin it!

HRG says that Papa and Mama P are lying about being Sylar’s parents to play on his mommy issues and manipulate him and he can never just be a happy normal family man. His girlfriend helped create him, and he killed his girlfriend’s father. This is like Days of Our Lives. Sylar is Marlena and Elle is John. They can only be happy for a couple of weeks at a time or the show just wouldn’t work. Sylar starts to believe him, because deep down Sylar’s an ignoramus and will believe anything he’s told, but Elle screams about HRG being a liar so Sylar starts cutting his throat open.
Just then, Hiro shows up! He puts his hand on Sy’s shoulder and says “bad man.” He teleports him out of there and comes back to get Elle. Then he comes back to get Claire, leaving HRG and Pirate Mom dumfounded. Finally. A really good scene. That only took two hours. And back to the comic store.

What, were you expecting a full recovery so fast?

Matt and Daphne come in looking for Hiro but he’s gone. And the comic books are done. But wait! Tiny evil heard a legend once. Of fucking course he did. According to the story, Isaac gave his final sketch book to a bike messenger. Uh huh. Ah well, one good scene was better than none.
In the jungle, the Haitian takes the slave chicks back home while Nathan and Peter have a chance to talk deep. Nathan says that he loves that Peter thinks with his heart and now he’s going to too. Their dad might be a bastard, but he’s trying to give people powers to save the world and that’s a good thing. LOL. Because Papa is so committed to helping good people succeed. What a dick face. He leaves Peter in the middle of the jungle IN HAITI to go to Pinehurst and work with daddy. I think I’ve typed this four times already, but HUH? Do people at NBC actually watch these episodes or just sit at home counting Sprint money?
At the clinic, Papa P is staring at Jethro, who is in some kind of coma after the Suresh microscope attack. Suresh sulks back in with his tail between his legs ready to get back to work because he can’t really get Maya ass as a horny toad. Papa says that they all learned a lot about themselves during the eclipse. They’re weak, they’re scared, and they’re on a sinking ship. In a rare moment of positivity, he tells Suresh not to worry, they’ll find a cure. “But that monster inside of you, it’s something you’re gonna have to take care of all by yourself.” Thanks, Dr. Phil. As much as I am in hate with Heroes right now, I have to give Suresh props for stepping it up in the acting department. He’s allowed scales ON HIS FACE! How bold!

The Emmy nominating committee’s on the phone! Woops sorry. Wrong number. They were trying to get Angela Bassett. Damn NBC operators!

Sylar and Elle find themselves on a beach somewhere. Well that was kind of Hiro. Sylar asks her if what HRG said about his parents was true and she says no HRG is just toying with him. They make out. She’s on the bottom. Something’s not right. Just when I’m about to hit FF, Sy gets a strange look on his face and says that he realizes now that her talk of people changing is bullshit. He is what he is and he accepts that they’re both damaged goods. “You’re hurting me!” He gets all evil and replies “I know.” Then he slices of her dome!! WTF?!?!?!?!?!? VERONICAAAAAA! I shouldn’t have told you to try bottoming! I would be very upset about this development, but I love Kristen Bell and am glad she’s free to audition again. After all this I have to thank Kring. You set my girl free and you dropped the Sylar “feeling” crap. THANK YOU! Now please, keep not sucking!

The bitch is back.

Hiro and Claire arrive at the rooftop, where Hiro’s dad is handing over baby Claire to HRG. Will Hiro get his powers back? Is Elle really dead? Will Kring be able to maintain more than three minutes of decent story telling next week? Sound off.

Hi there I’m calling to trade my one facial expression in for something, I dunno, hawter.

“There’s a moment in every war when everything changes,
A moment when the road bends,
Alliances and battle lines shift,
Shows you love go insane and start blabbering nonsense,
and you can set your watch to the bombs going off every Monday night,…”
Wait. Where was I? Suresh’s monologues are starting to hit too close to home for me. FF. When we open, Papa P is sitting in his office with white eyes drawing pictures of the future. He’s evil, so the pictures aren’t in vibrant colors like all the other heroes’. His are just in pencil. All the people look the same in these drawings and I can never tell what’s going on, but it looks like a terrorist guy is making out with a blonde chick, another blonde chick is bleeding and being carried around by the terrorist guy, who is now wearing glasses, and there’s a full page of boobies. That’s enough, Papa P!

White eyes can be better than internet porn.

Pinehurst – Elle is showing Sylar how to use his new power. He’s having trouble getting it. He had no problem learning how to toss trucks with his fingers or to blow himself up like a nuclear bomb, but ok. He’s frustrated because he has to prove himself to…he doesn’t want to tell Elle to who. Enter Papa P, who Sylar calls sir. Ding ding ding! Papa wants him to find Claire and bring her back. Elle offers to go along, because let’s face it. That Veronica Mars spinoff just isn’t gonna happen. Sylar reminds her that she’s done being evil and she’s all if you’re evil I’m evil. Let’s make out. Papa tells them that they’re a good match. Thanks, Yenta. Then Sylar calls him Daddy and Elle gets a disturbed look on her face. So do I.
Villain Jail – Claire asks Mama P the same question we’ve been asking for two seasons. “Why is it always me?” Mama P explains that Tim Kring is fresh out of movie plot lines to steal from and believes in recycling. She adds that Nathan and Matt will be bringing back the Haitian and Hiro, respectively. In the mean time, Claire needs to just keep herself hidden so no one tries to kidnap her and use her catalyst juice. Claire’s all “but I’m not a girl, not yet a woman!” and Mama’s all “You drive me crazy I just can’t sleep” and tells her that she needs to stop whining and shut her trap before the world ends. There’s an eclipse comin’, y’all!
Claire sees the slimy fat dude that controls thoughts and the vet with the golden hand. Wait! I thought he was the one Suresh was experimenting on last week! My bad. I apologize to the vet for assuming the deformed dude was him. Anyhoozle, Mama says that she’s not planning on locking Claire up, she’s making her spend time with her dad instead. Claire’s all “Parents just don’t understand” and HRG’s all “that should be a rap song.”

Why does it always look like Claire’s wearing a bad wig?

Primatech – Peter’s begging Nathan to take him on his flight to Haiti to find the Haitian. I wonder if the Haitian is called the Haitian when he’s in Haiti. I’d imagine that would get mighty confusing. Peter doesn’t want to come just for piggy back’s sake. There’s a war lord slave trader drug dealer bad guy that he wants to take down. Without powers. Or a gun. Or even a popped collar. Nathan says he’s just on a simple pick up mission and isn’t in the mood to save Haiti. Maybe they could lobby Oprah to open a school there or something. But Peter says that when he found out he had powers he felt that he had also found a purpose for living and just because he’s lost them doesn’t mean that….then he starts sobbing til boogars fly out of his nose so Nathan agrees to the piggy back and they fly off.
Suresh is digging through the guts of the dead dude he was experimenting on last week, but it’s hard for him to concentrate cuz his scaly ass hands hurt.

Dove. Look it up.

Of course, his face is still pristine.

I’m glad you haven’t let turning into a lizard get in the way of your facials.

Suresh freaks out about his scaliness and rushes into Papa P’s office to yell at him about not being cured yet. Papa P’s like keep your awkward line readings to yourself because I drew a dead cheerleader, which means taint no one getting cured. Suresh is all but Claire can’t die! And she can’t get fat! And she can’t get pimples! Yet there she is, all fat and pimply and dead, being wheeled out on a dolly in the pic Papa drew.
Suresh freaks out because if Claire dies then he won’t be cured. Way to be selfish, ass. He figures it might have something to do with the coming eclipse, since that’s what seemed to bring on everyone’s powers in the first place. Papa shows him another drawing. Kirstie Alley as a size two winning an Emmy. Weird. I guess he can do the past, too. Then he flips to a page of a guy’s head peeking out of a pod of goo. Suresh assumes that means he’s gonna die. Huh? That guy doesn’t even look like Suresh at all. Does this show have a budget for an artist or is Kring just getting the homeless people on Venice Beach to sketch shit out for a can of beans and some cigarettes?

Or this could be Kirstie Alley getting out of bed in the morning in the present. These drawings are too hard to decipher.

Brooklyn – Parkman is trying to come up with a plan to find Hiro. And by making a plan, I mean he’s breathing funny and shaking his jowels. Daphne is nervous and pacing because she’s afraid of Papa P. Matt tells her to calm down, but she gets hysterical and says that no one should trust her because she’s a Delilah and blah blah blah. She asks if Matt trusts her and he says that he’s so hard up for a girlfriend he’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear. There’s a pounding at the door and it’s Hiro and Ando. They’re there because the comic book told them to go there to have Parkman fiddle with Hiro’s brain. Hiro is jumping up and down and pinching his wee wee and as Daphne watches him run off, she gets a look on her face that says it all.

If this shit keeps up, I’m gonna be out of a job.

HRG and Claire show up at the empty house of the guy who made black holes. Claire’s acting like a spoiled smart ass brat because she thinks her dad just cares about her because she’s the catalyst and he tells her that he loves her. AW! I would have preferred a good old fashioned beating, but everyone has different ideas of what good parenting is.
Back in Brooklyn, Peter is shaking his jowls and trying to read Hiro’s mind, but all he can hear is the Dora the Explorer theme in Japanese.

Dong dong ding dong chaka khan a ling long.

Daphne thought Ando was dead, but here he is looking all hot. He hates her and calls her nemesis but she says that she switched over to the good side and gives him scouts honor. At least I think that’s what it is. I know it will shock you to learn that I wasn’t a boy scout, but there you go. I was more of a Brownie type. Parkman tells them that Hiro’s brain is really scrambled, but the important thing is that he can still use his powers. Cut to Hiro and the turtle in the aquarium nodding at each other. That turtle is my favorite cast member at the moment. It’s the only one who doesn’t have really bad lines to say.
Out of nowhere, Daphne gets hysterical again and says that no one understands her and she’s leaving. Huh? She adds that Matt paused when she asked him if he trusted her. Uh yeah cuz like earlier in the day you gave him up to Papa P. Give the man some time, Delilah. He gets into her head and hears her thoughts. “God I don’t wanna have to wake up every morning again to go to stupid auditions my agent told me this was the best show on TV fuck Tim Kring I’m gonna kill that bastard Kansas”. Parkman jumps on the Kansas part, which freaks her out. She speeds off, which makes Hiro jump up and down squealing like a little girl pig. Matt shakes his jowls.

I love any show that gives Betty White a guest spot.

Elle and Sylar are renting a car. I don’t know why that’s so funny to me, but it is. Sylar knows that Claire’s with HRG, and because they worked together for like a day, he knows HRG well enough to know just where he’s taken Claire. He also knows that HRG is ticklish and that he wears pink socks with care bears on them. Elle says that she’s sick of him acting like a boy scout and following orders, so she told the car rental guy that he’s a serial killer and he kidnapped her. Sure enough, the Car Rental Guy comes out with a shotgun. Elle starts loudly taunting Sylar about being a wuss, and the Car Rental Guy conveniently doesn’t hear any of that, even though he’s standing right in front of her. Oy. This show is giving me a headache. He hits Sylar in the head with the butt of the gun and says he’s gonna kill him and tell the popo that it was self defense. Sylar’s wound heals and clocks start ticking. “I hate Heroes.” I don’t hate Heroes, but the past few weeks are swaying me to his side.
Suresh is back in the lab, repeating “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me” into his recorder over and over again. He has a cough. Like most people do when they’re bored, he starts toying around with the dead guy’s guts. Damn. Clean that guy up already. They’re called maggots and they’ll make you barf. EW! The goo stuff is seeping from his hands now. And he has something on his face! Oh shit! I’ll bet he caused a ruckus when he read that shit in the script.

And…strike.

In the empty house, HRG throws Claire some chopsticks and tells her to catch a fly. She says that’s stupid. Then he catches one and she’s kind of amazed. She tries, but can’t get it. He calls her immature and unfocused and takes her outside and makes her paint a fence. She’s all f this I don’t do manual labor and he tells her she’s a spoiled brat. While she paints and splatters everything around her, she argues that she’s trying to use her powers to do good, and he reminds her that she’s constantly screwing up and almost got her both of her mothers killed. He pulls out some Turtle Wax and forces her to wax a car, and she starts crying and whining like a shrew. He tells her that if she’s gonna be a real hero she needs to stop being such a pussy. He takes her through their lessons of catching the fly and wax on wax off, etc, but she’s still graceless. He shows her a picture of Elizabeth Shue and she doesn’t even get a little bit red in the face. His training isn’t working! As a last resort, he whips out a boom box and tells her it’s either train or die. Miraculously, she gets it! She really gets it!

What a maniac!

Tracy calls Papa P to tattle tale on Nathan for going to find the Haitian. Papa says he’s gonna cut him into a million pieces and Tracy’s like “you’re not gonna hurt him, are you?” No, you dumbshit. He’s gonna buy him a Playstation and apologize for never being there. Why is every character Ali Larter plays a fucking moron? And why do they all have huge teeth? Papa tells her to use her connections over at Paris Island. At first she thinks he’s referring to a celeb STD center in WeHo, but it turns out it’s a military training facility he wants to use to train his own army. Mama P walks in and hears her conversation and Tracy tries to brush it off with a giggle and a buck toothed smile. “Washington. I guess there’s no rest for the wicked.” Mama tells her apparently not. Oh snap!

What’s Lipstick Jungle? And why are we getting on the same bus to nowhere as Brooke Shields?

Back at the Brooklyn apartment, Parkman tries to get Ando to explain to Hiro that they need to follow Daphne to Kansas because big dorks like him don’t get the chance to bag cute thin hotties but once in a lifetime. Ando, helpful as ever, just makes his goofy ass face, but thankfully Hiro understands the word Kansas somehow and points out that the cornfields are in his comic book. Wow. Who ever wrote that comic book is just as out of ideas as Kring. And off they go!

???OMG????????????????????????
(OMG it’s Brooke Shields! Why is she crying?)

Parkman teaches Hiro to say “holy crap” and they rush towards a farmhouse. As they do, the eclipse begins! Papa knows where they are because he just drew a super vague picture of two guys with squinty eyes hanging out with a fat dude in a cornfield. He’s furious and throws his drawings on the ground. Meanwhile, Suresh, mortified by his earlier scene involving face makeup, lays down and gets a facial.

Whale sperm is expensive, but it takes five years off.

Jesus. Can we blame this mess on the eclipse, too?

Suresh wakes up in his pod thing and breaks out of it. Heroes porn! My review, nice bum, but he’s built like a Ken doll in the front. Sad horns.

Not gonna be having any Suresh babies any time soon.

The first thing he does, predictably, is run to the mirror to check his face. No more scales! Hurahh! Strike off! The eclipse changed him back to normal, boring personality free Suresh. We missed ya, buddy! In Haiti, Nathan has lost his powers too and he and Peter fall from the sky. Thank goodness for that swamp, eh? Peter, who’s not usually the sharpest tool in the shed, thinks it must be because of the eclipse, since they all got their powers during an eclipse. Nathan blames the Haitian, who must be nearby; or, as he puts it, “maybe it’s this whole damn country.” You just got to Haiti and already you’re slamming it. That’s just rude.
They walk through the jungle and come across some cabbage patch dolls hanging from a tree. Peter explains that they are messengers and cries for redemption. Dang. I never took mine so seriously. And yes, I had multiple Cabbage Patch dolls. Discuss.
In Kansas, Parkman knocks on the farmhouse door and asks an old dude to speak with Daphne. He says she’s not home, but Parkman shouts out for her anyway. She tells him to go away. The old man won’t let him pass, so Parkman starts making jowly faces and squinting his eyes, trying to brainwash the guy, but nothing happens. The old man tells him that he has no problem with gay people, but he doesn’t appreciate being cruised on his own porch.

Take a hike, Mary!

Inside the house, the old guy asks Daphne who the fatso is but she refuses to tell him. He doesn’t want to pelt her with questions, but she’s been gone for a long time. She breaks down and tells him that “it’s happening again.” He gets sad and says that he still has “them”. Then Daphne tries to cry. It’s almost touching.
In the jungle, Nathan and Peter get to the edge of a cliff. Damn Nathan got them lost. His Blackberry was ruined in the swamp. Peter gets pissed and demands that he not be treated like the idiot little brother and Nathan counters that Peter’s a dumbshit and needs his life saved all the time and if he wants his respect he has to earn it. Peter says he doesn’t need respect from a spineless puppet and that in the future, Nathan chooses Papa P. Nathan tries to pretend that that doesn’t mean anything and says that he’s here now lost in the jungle and that’s what matters. So he becomes the leader of the free world, betrays his people, and brings on Armageddon. Get over it.
In the deserted house, Claire is finishing up her Maniac routine and she’s exhausted. HRG hands her a broken floor board and tells her to hit him. She won’t so he says that she needs to get all of her childhood issues out. She gets worked up and starts swinging while ranting about him never being home when she was a kid and wahwahwah. I liked it better when she was dancing, but she’s now suddenly an amazing fighter. One scene and she’s freakin Bruce Lee. She almost kills him, then stops and tries to get ahold of herself. He wants to talk it out, but thankfully Elle and Sylar show up to put an end to this nonsense.

I heard Flashdance. You will all dieeeee!

Elle tries to use her powers, but they’re gone. Sylar tries to take HRG’s gun with the swipe of his fingers, but he can’t. It’s kinda hilarious watching him move his fingers around like he’s playing on an iPhone and failing miserably. “WHY DOES SAFARI KEEP CRASHING GODDAMMMMIIT!?!?!” HRG doesn’t shoot him, which is stoooopid. Sylar jumps him and they roll around on the ground. We hear Sylar’s bones crack. Elle grabs the gun and aims for HRG, but Claire uses her new professional dance moves and shuffles off to buffalo in front of the bullet.
HRG grabs the floorboard and knocks Elle in the neck with it. Why didn’t he crush her skull? Hello people work with me here. HRG picks up Claire and carries her out, leaving both Sylar and Elle alive. ARGH. COME OOON! When are you ever gonna get another chance to kill him? WHEN? This show is putting me over the edge. Do you remember when it was awesome? I do. I had more hair then and I was ten pounds thinner. I digress. I digress because I am pissed. Sylar grabs the gun HRG left behind but by the time he aims, they’re gone.
HRG gets Claire to the hospital. No, cuz that would make some f ing sense. He takes her home to bleed all over the couch. Her mom freaks out and asks if she can’t heal why she’s not at the hospital, and he says that he doesn’t want it to seem fishy if she gets her powers back and heals. I think he forgot the second episode of the first season when she did just that and no one seemed to notice. She tells her dad she’s sorry for being a brat and he thanks her for saving his life. She says it’s actually good to feel some pain. AW! See, America, when your children act up you should get them shot. That’s the only way they learn. Claire just has a shoulder wound, and we all know what that means because we’ve seen it a million times on Miami Vice. She’ll be back in sockless loafers and blazers with t-shirts underneath in no time.

Next time you’ll clean your room the first time I ask you to, young lady!

The three stooges are in the corn field trying to figure out where their powers went. Parkman is kinda freaking out, so Hiro starts throwing corn at him and telling him that a hero must stick to his quest. I actually didn’t make that up. It’s really happening right now. Throwing. Corn. Parkman catches a stalk, which is supposed to prove something. Hiro congratulates him and says “please don’t hurt me” in Japanese. Parkman answers “I won’t hurt you.” So he knows Japanese now? Are there actual people paid to write this crap anymore or do they just tell the actors to make some shit up and use their Sprint phones in as many scenes as possible?

Funny, because I think Sprint is failing miserably, too.

Parkman runs off to save Daphne and Hiro tells Ando that he has an idea to get their powers back. They leave Parkman at the house and walk down the dirt road. Parkman’s so gonna have hurt feelings. Hiro says that he learned the corn lesson from the “Saturday Samurai Matinee Showdown”. It seems like they’re getting everything from the Muppet Babies, the Saturday morning cartoon about MAKING SHIT UP. They have finished the comic book, but Hiro knows where to find more. Every town has a place where wise men gather. There’s the Greek oracle at Delphi, the Library at Alexandria, the Ivy on Robertson…wow. Hiro knew a lot when he was ten. If you want a comic book, you should probably get to the comic book store. What’d I miss?
Suresh is recording himself singing “No Man Left for Me” into his tape recorder because he’s so happy that his sickness is gone. He looks up Maya on Google and figures now that his skin is pristine again he’ll go get a little tang. Papa shows up with Jethro and they force him to stay to get their powers working again. He’s shocked. I’m sure Brad Pitt felt the same way the first time Angelina threw him up against the wall and told him he’d be spending quality time with their six brats instead of going out and doing lines with his friends. Who do you think you’re working for, bitches?

OW my face! I just whale spermed you bastard!

Hiro and Ando arrive at a comic book store, and Ando thinks it’s ridiculous. Looking for a comic book in a comic book store? THAT’S CRAZY! Stupid Ando. Hiro asks the clerk for the next issue, and looky there! It’s Dr. Evil’s tiny son standing on a milk crate alongside the stoner dude from Clueless.

Sinking ship? We’re in!

Peter and Nathan find the Haitian wandering around in the jungle. Glad that all just happened to work out in the middle of nowhere. They tell him they need him to come back and help him fight Papa, and he’s surprised the old guy’s still alive. “Does he still smell like Listerine and butt?” Yup. Nathan tells the Haitian to take the spell off him, but the Haitian says he no longer has powers cuz of the eclipse. Besides, he’s not going anywhere until he takes care of the big bad Voodoo terrorist guy, who’s his brother. Dundunduuuuun. The brother has impenetrable skin and has committed great crimes against humanity, so now that they don’t have powers they should f with him. Good plan! Peter’s in, Nathan’s not, but it doesn’t matter because machine guns start shooting away. Peter and the Haitian run, but Nathan surrenders and comes face to face with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, who knows exactly who he is and says that Papa P warned him he’d be coming and that he’d cry a lot for no reason. Then he knocks him out and drags him away.
HRG sits by Claire’s bedside and after the I love yous, he tells her that she needs rest and he’ll be hanging out downstairs. Mom’s waiting for him outside the room and tells him not to leave when his daughter needs him. Come on lady, he’s trying to save the world. It’s not like he’s going to a strip club. As soon as he leaves, Claire’s mom brings her food and finds her bleeding everywhere. Ruhroh!

Longest. Eclipse. Ever.

Parkman waits in the cornfield til Daphne’s dad leaves, and then he knocks on the door and tells Daph that he’s in love with her and isn’t willing to give up on her. She lets him in, and he finds her on crutches. The island had mystical powers that gave her her walking ability back, but back in the real world she’s just another cripple and Jack’s a drunk who won’t shave. I’m sorry, different show. Or is it? I’m proud of Kring for finding someone new to rip off. Now if he can just make Kansas disappear he might get back on my good side.
….Elle puts a screaming Sylar’s shoulder back into place. He says that he loves being powerless and in love. Then he and Elle make out. Outside, HRG aims at them with a sniper rifle. YES!! Go, HRG!

Don’t worry. I will turn a big wheel and everything will be ok.

Dontchoo make me whoop yo ass, boy!

“A child is born to innocence.
A child is drawn towards good.
Why then do so many among us go so horribly wrong?”
Internet porn. Duh, Suresh. Check your parental settings and get over yourself.
I gotta give this show credit for writing a fresh “Battle Between Good and Evil” monologue every stinkin’ week, but it would be nice if Suresh didn’t have to sound so depressed about it all the time. Maybe they could get that woman who does the voiceovers on Desperate Housewives. She committed suicide and got stuck gossiping to no one about all of her lame friends for the rest of eternity, and she still sounds downright chipper. Up your game, Suresh. I’d prefer a little sugar with my looming apocalypse, thank you very much.
We begin a bit before we left off last week. Hiro’s about to take the mashed up donkey poo Enlightened Black Dude made for him so he can trip balls and go on his “spiritual journey”. I’ve been on that journey. It involved leather chaps and waking up with mustard on my face. Don’t do it, Hiro!
I hope his journey doesn’t involve a love interest, because I don’t think that would be good for the sagging ratings. Homely people kiss and America turns off our TVs. Fair? No. But neither is being subjected to homely makeouts during dinner hour. Hiro swallows the magical poo mush and a look of surprise kind of comes over his face when he gets one last look at Enlightened Black Dude’s Universal Stuidios t-shirt. “You are being ironic!” Then he gets white eyes and passes out. Ando, dependably, gets that confused Scooby Doo look on his face.

Raggy?!?

Suresh tells us that to fight evil, you must take hallucinogenic donkey doo, travel back in time, and subject yourself to second rate paintings of Mama Petrelli to truly know evil.

Shudder. Some things are best left for yesterday.

We’re at Mama and Papa Petrelli’s fortieth anniversary party. Papa’s giving a beautiful speech about loving the same woman for so long his wrist hurts. From carpal tunnel syndrome. Cuz Mama P doesn’t put out these days. Cuz she’s old. Papa gives a shout out to his two sons, the brilliant politician and the cough pansy cough. Peter tries to brush off the fact that his father refused to add nurse after pansy, but the booze is free so he clinks Nathan’s glass for the toast anyways.
Papa P and Mama P start making out. It’s gross. The kids get embarrassed, but Mama reminds them that she only gets a man for a few episodes so she’s gonna ride him like an electric bull until they clean out his dressing room. Well look who’s at the party! Mr. Linderman! This scene takes place way before he became the Battlestar Galactica knock off hologram in Nathan’s head, so don’t worry, you don’t have to feel creeped out. Seriously, Heroes, if you’re gonna rip off a plot device do it right. How do you go from this…

….to this?

I’m invisible. Wanna bone?

Linderman addresses the senior Petrelli’s as his king and queen, kisses their rings, and lets them leave to finish their awkward face to face rubbing offscreen. Don’t say he never did nothin’ for ya. He turns to ask Nathan if he should be worried about the rumor he’s heard about the District Attorney’s Office building a case against “all things Linderman”. No, the case is “all things Entenmans.” You know that shit’s not fat free.
Nathan suggests the old fox shave his wrists. Handcuffs pull at arm hairs, plus Linderman could hand model if he just paid a bit more attention to skin care. Hot old lady hands are totally in demand right now. Linderman laughs Nathan off and is left wondering if he’s about to go to prison, and if his hands are really pretty. Sometimes it only takes one spark of self confidence to turn someone’s day around. He finds Papa Petrelli and asks him to read Peter’s mind from across the room.

Linderman’s going to hell and I’m gonna put him there. Pretty hands though. Pita bread. Speedwalking. Five points in a cup of yogurt. Entenmans is bs. Dancing monkeys. Natalie Maine’s throwing her shoes at me again. Why did I marry that psycho? Green beans. Penguins.

Man, that whole mind reading power can be a real puzzle sometimes. Papa P tells Linderman not to worry. He knows that if Nathan keeps digging, he’ll find out his dad is the Dick Cheney of the relationship and put him in jail, too. Goal: to find an Asian who knows how to bend time so he can go back thirty something years and put on a condom. If that’s too hard, he’ll just have Peter killed. Daaaamn. Even Linderman’s shocked at that one.
One year ago in Memphis, Claire’s boring bio mom was robbing a convenience store with her brother, who turns out to be Flint the psycho hick with blue fire shooting out of his wrists. It’s like Natural Born Killers, but instead of splattering blood everywhere and suggesting incestuous sex with Rodney Dangerfield, Meredith is scrambling to pick up Milky Ways off the floor and Flint is popping popcorn.

Oooh, scary. Next he’s gonna burn the shape of a My Little Pony into a HoHo.

Flint notices that there’s one customer who’s not only not on the floor with everyone else, he’s not paying attention to the Jiffy Pop trick at all. How rude! Flint goes to ask him the man if he could be a little more considerate towards Flint’s feelings, but then the man turns around and it’s Julia Robert’s brother, Mr. Thompson, and he isn’t considerate towards anyone’s feelings and that’s why Julia never calls him or lets him into her house. Flint tries to do the Jiffy Pop thing on Mr. Thompson’s face, but he is stopped with a fire extinguisher. Well what a practical, witty way to fight psychopaths with nuclear capabilities!
Meredith tries to help her bro with a ball of fire, but she is a split second late because she was so preoccupied by the Milky Way in her mouth. Mr. Thompson has a stun gun. A fire extinguisher and a stun gun? Not only is this totally sensitive, but it must have taken some incredible placement skills to sneak both into the convenience store. He probably looked like a total perv. Flint runs, but Meredith surrenders, asking for enough time to finish the candy bar. Mr. Thompson shrugs and watches her chew, because in case you haven’t noticed, he was very sensitive a year ago.
A year ago again. Sylar is about to hang himself in his watch repair store in Brooklyn because he feels so guilty about his addiction to smelling women’s shoes and killing people for their super powers. Just as he kicks the chair out from under himself and starts to choke, Elle comes into the store and zaps the rope, dropping Sylar to the floor and saving his life. She asks him to say something, but all he can muster is “Forgive me.” Then he starts sobbing in her arms. Poor Veronica Mars must be wondering if she’ll ever book a show that doesn’t require her to coddle weak, sobbing men.

Another one? Jesus. They need to stop putting so many hormones in milk.

Ladies, even if you decide to wear a skunk on your head, you should keep it shiny. Thanks, Stacy London!

Elle tries to tell Sylar that everything’s ok, but he can’t shake his depression. He’s done lots of bad things. Elle’s like, eh who cares everyone’s a sinner. Say a few hail Mary’s and he’s like NO! I’m not normal! I’m a freak! I have black caterpillars for eyebrows and I want to kill people and steal their brains! And she’s like eh everyone does that just donate some time to the brothers and sisters organization or something and he’s like NO! I won’t stop until I’ve killed the entire human race and Elle’s like bore snore and seven years ago this conversation began. I have a Runaway Bride DVD in my purse, wanna order some pizza or something?
He refuses to be cheered up, so she pulls out her good girlfriend routine and tells him that he’s a good person deep down and everything will be ok. If not, why would the rope have broken? It was a sign! A sign that he deserves a second chance, and Lasik apparently since he no longer needs glasses a year later. He cheers her up and calls her his angel. “An angel with daddy issues and a broken watch!”

Who knew the dawn of humanity’s end could be so sweet?

She leaves Sylar to draw hearts and xos in his diary and makes her way to a Primo Paper van and who’s inside? You guessed it! Linda Dano! Kidding, but that would be awesome. It’s HRG. Elle asks him the question we’ve all been asking for ten minutes. Why not just arrest the asshole and throw him in the slammer? HRG talks about how no one understood how whales communicated until a scientist heard one sing to another in the wild. Elle takes this story personally and says that she’s not gaining weight, things just look different in high definition. HRG explains that he means he wants to get Sylar to steal someone’s power so he can understand how he does it. The whale story was less violent and depressing, but this one doesn’t insinuate any fatness on Elle’s part, so she rolls with it. But wait. How does she get Sylar to do it? HRG answers “Pie.”

Did he just suggest that I’m fat again? Cuz I’ll electrocute his ass.

Mr. Thompson has Meredith handcuffed in a cell. He reads her file to her. Nine group homes in seven years. Four burnt to the ground. Milky Ways reported stolen in six counties, blahblahblah. She rolls her eyes and he cuts to the chase. He wants to offer her freedom in exchange for taking a job as an agent for the company. She laughs at that one, but he can’t understand what possible reason she could have for hating the company so much. She gives him that faraway lost in a memory soap opera look so he drops it. He doesn’t want to hear her blather on about it, and neither do I. She says she’ll take the job if he promises to let her psycho hillbilly brother continue robbing liquor stores and starting things on fire, but he won’t promise her anything. She says yes anyway. What can you do? Bosses are assholes.
It’s the day of Peter’s graduation party, and Papa P is outside his mansion sucking the life out of roses. Mama P comes out and asks him to please change his mind about attending the party, but there’s no way Papa’s gonna pretend to be ok with his son becoming a nurse. Mama tells him to be patient. Either Peter’s powers will manifest and he will become a great man, or Papa P will get so old waiting that he’ll be thankful to have a nurse around to bathe him and wipe his butt. Nathan comes into the yard as she’s leaving and Papa asks him to hand the Linderman case off to another ADA. Nathan says not to worry, he only has good things in mind. Linderman is toxic and his going down can only help the family. They’ll all look like they have more normal skin tone, for one. It’s hard looking healthy when you’re standing next to a dashing rich dude wearing five coats of spray tan.
That night, Nathan is driving on the freeway with his wife (remember her?) when a giant SUV speeds up behind them and starts ramming into their car. The wife freaks out and when she turns to Nathan, he’s gone. He flew out of the car and left her there alone with no one at the wheel. What a DICK! Oh wait. This is when he just figured out for the first time that he could fly. This time jumping stuff is messing with my brain. Still, the car actually drives a full city block before veering into a concrete median and he was looking down at her and yelling for her the whole time. Poor Rena Sofer just can’t catch a break. Will you come back to do a guest spot on Heroes so we can break your back, put you in a wheelchair and get rid of you again? Thanks!

Time to get a new agent.

The Petrelli family gathers outside Rena’s hospital room. Nathan freaks out when he sees his dad and says that it was Linderman’s people who drove him off the road. Not only did Rena break her back, but she’s not gonna book anything in 2008 besides guest spots on Ghost Whisperer and Two and a Half Men thanks to Papa! Nathan says he will do everything in his power to bring Linderman down and if Papa’s standing anywhere near him, he’s going down too. Time to choose! Mama P starts getting suspicious as Papa P cries. Or laughs. Or grimaces in pain. I can’t tell because his face never changes.

A little late to jump on the Botox bandwagon, yo.

Later that night, Papa P is into his Second Life session on his laptop. Mama P comes in and asks him if he told Linderman to kill Nathan. Papa is disgusted she would ask! Well did you? How offensive! Well did you? I like ice cream. GODDAMMIT YES OR NO?!?! She promises him she will leave him alone to live his alternate Justine Bateman personality in Second Life if he will just give her a definitive answer, so he gives her a no. With tears in her eyes, she kisses his forehead. Subtle. I half expected the Romans to barge in and drag Papa away to get crucified. I’m sure he didn’t get that you’re totally over his ass at all.
Just a little sidenote, every single scene starts with One Year Ago…WE GET IT. Mr. Thompson takes Meredith on a job training mission in a homeless enclave. He approaches a greasy old vet and says that they’re just agents checking up on the men who served their country. The vet isn’t swayed, and when Meredith steps in with a really lame attempt at a lie, the vet turns his hand into metal and knocks out Mr. Thompson. Meredith throws a fireball to disable his hand and then uses the stun gun on him and smiles big as he falls. Poor guy never had a chance in life or as a regular on the show. You can turn your hand into metal? LAME. Could you help me hang this picture, you big bad superhero? Lost my hammer. Mr. Thompson, on his feet miraculously fast after getting clocked in the head by a metal fist, welcomes Meredith to the company.

Way to treat our vets, Company.

HRG sits in the Paper Company’s surveillance van outside Sylar’s apartment in Queens. Now if you had a watch store in Brooklyn, why would you have an apartment in Queens? Do you know what a bitch of a commute that is? No wonder the guy’s depressed. HRG watches Sylar take all the pictures of superheroes to kill off his wall. He also takes down the iCarly poster and the vertical ruler that keeps track of what a big boy he’s becoming. As he looks over a list of future victims, Elle knocks on his door. She’s got a pie! LOL HRG. That’s an awesome plan to woo someone. In 1962.
Elle makes her way into his place and looks around at all the shelves of books and the bulletin board with yarn tacked to maps leading to people’s homes with brains to steal. Elle’s like “wow! You’re like so charming and sexy! Do you like to harm animals? Me too! Let’s make out!” She asks about a list he left on the desk and he goes to his dark place. He says that the list is of special people like him. After some goading, he finally admits that he has a special power. Then he belly dances. Elle’s not impressed, so he uses his mind to fling a fork around the sink and move some dishes. He throws the list away and moves on to the pie. Veronica takes the list out of the trash can and calls Sheriff Lamb even though she knows he’s just gonna ignore her and basically make her solve the whole case on her own.

I miss you, Hero.

Over at the company prison block, Mr. Thompson walks off a pissed vet and a giddy Meredith through the halls. Meredith is ready for her badge and her stun gun, but Thompson tells her she’s not a real agent until she proves that she’s loyal enough to carry out a mission even if she doesn’t agree with it. He lets her perform her first responsibility, which is walking the vet to his cell and not boring the life out of him with her lack of personality on the way. Flint calls out to her from one of the cells. He’s actually excited to be there, as Thompson has promised to train him as an agent. Meredith is like “oh hell no.” Her brother is a certified tardbilly, which means this whole dangling a stun gun if front of her face has been a big joke. Thompson comes around to check on her and she acts like nothing’s wrong, determined to come up with a semi entertaining storyline that will keep her on the show that doesn’t require working with her brother in any way.
Back at Sylar’s, Elle is listening to her new friend yammer on about his feelings. He covets other people’s powers, hates the evening news but loves LOLcats. He says that since he met her, he doesn’t feel the need to be a serial killer any more. She starts playing with her hair and giggling and licking a lollipop. Oh for chrissakes. She’s crushin. She leaves and HRG makes fun of her for falling for a watch repairman. He reminds her that it’s just a job and they need to get someone off the stolen list for Sylar to get jealous of. Elle thinks that she’s changed Sylar for the better and he won’t kill again. Yeah, girl. You changed him. I’d love to hear Dr. Laura rant about this shit. Her head would explode. Elle refuses to betray her man and HRG threatens to leave her all alone in the world. She caves, because apparently she has never seen a commercial for ITT Technical Institute. Take charge of your life! You have options!
Linderman is over at the Petrelli’s apologizing to Papa about not killing Nathan. He can do it if he just has another chance! The two men start talking as loudly as possible about this, like they’re doing Shakespeare in the park.
I WANT NATHAN DEAD!
I WILL KILL YOUR SON FOR YOU!
CUT HIM WHILE YOU’RE AT IT!
I WILL PEE ON HIM WHEN HE’S DEAD!
BWAHAHAHA!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Why do you always have to have a longer evil laugh than me?
Sorry, yo. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
(hugs)
Surprise! Mama Petrelli heard all of this and freaks out. She runs, but Papa P is right behind her. She grabs a giant knife, but it’s no match for his brainwashing power. He stares deeply into her eyes.

You know nothing about me killing anyone. I am a hero. My peepee is over a foot long. You hate cuddling. You hate when I say I’m sorry. You will make me a pot roast and set Murder She Wrote as a season pass on the DVR and not complain that you’ve already seen all of the episodes. You’re a strong black woman.

It totally worked.

Nathan who? Kill his ass! Let me make you a pot roast, baby! Matlock’s all new tonight! Can I get a what what?

America, you voted for your favorite online hero to get his own webisodes, and you chose some douchey soccer player named Santiago who’s being chased by Beverly D’Angelo after six months on Jenny Craig. Congrats!

How bout inventing a superhero bus driver from Mexico that isn’t always running people over? Safety first, Mexico. K, thanks.

Hiro jerks upright in the African desert babbling about scrub bubbles chasing him through Candyland. Ando makes big wide eyed faces and tries to wake is man crush up but Enlightened Black Dude stops him, explaining that Hiro will get trapped in his head if he doesn’t finish the journey. Also, we’re only half way through the episode and Kring would have to come up with an entirely new plot device to finish all the flashbacks. Enlightened Black Dude sets some more magic donkey poo on fire and makes Hiro inhale it until he passes out. Thanks for checking in, boys.

Easiest paycheck ever.

Over at the Company, Meredith is trying to break Flint out, but he’s totally fallen in love with his captors. Get over yourself, Patti Hearst. She tells him that he’s being tricked and no one’s really going to give him a job as an agent or free health care or a free college education. Keep the change, sucka! He’s not convinced, but runs away with her anyway. They hop on a train and Meredith promises that they will go to Mexico and get a job at a Chile’s because they’re everywhere. Uhoh Mr. Thompson is there too. He stuns Meredith and tries to catch Flint, who is not using his powers because the scene would be too short. Meredith wakes up and tries to save him, but Thompson jumps on her and strangles her with his back to Flint, who still doesn’t use his powers. Wuss! Instead, he jumps off the train. Way to stick up for the girl, pig! Thompson smacks Meredith around and tells her that he was trying to give her brother a purpose but she turned him into an enemy and a fugitive. She throws a tiny bit of fire at him and the freight train explodes right after they jump. This storyline is f ing stupid. Where’s Claire? Where’s Nikki? You know it’s bad if I’m begging for Nikki.
At first it looks like we’re looking at Meredith and Mr. Thompson’s guts splattered all over the place from an unsuccessful jump, but it turns out to be lentil soup that the brainwashed Mama P is making. Apparently, she was programmed to believe in three quarter sleeves and a Laura Ashley print. Guess Papa P was getting sick of the Palin Power suits, too.

This could have been a great ending.

Linderman comes in to see if she remembers anything, but she doesn’t. He tells her that her husband is evil and he can no longer stand by and watch her act like a strong black woman when she’s really a scared white lady. It’s embarrassing. He keeps on whispering and cooing into her ear about healing the scars caused by forced memories and brain wipes. He doesn’t promise to do anything about the scars behind her ears, but says they’re hardly noticeable. He stares deeply into her eys and asks for a Tic Tac. Finally, she comes out of it and realizes that she didn’t buy that sweater and she hates lentils. She does ask, though, if she can keep saying badonkadonk. He shrugs and nods.
As he walks Meredith away from the burning crime scene in handcuffs, Thompson asks her why she’s constantly on the rag about the company. She says that the company stormed her house fourteen years ago and she used her fire to defend herself. The place went up in flames and her baby girl Claire died in the fire. He says, out loud (doi) “That’s what they told you? That she was dead?” Glad you’re the one training people how to be loyal and keep their mouths shut, dude. He lets her go and tells her she’s got a get out of jail free card. Aw! So sweet. Julia Roberts, if you’re reading this, call your brother. Meredith walks disbelievingly (and reaaaaally slowly for someone escaping) over the bridge, while below, Claire is about to enter the fire and become a hero. Hey! I remember that! Then she leaves and goes home to bang Emo Tard.

I’m hot, you’re hot. What’s the problem?

Elle is over at Sylar’s playing intelectual girlfriend. She suggests that they go check out one of the cheesy movies that has been made into an even cheesier broadway musical cuz there are like a thousand of them and what’s better than Legally Blonde? Legally Blonde with SINGING. He’s a little too into the idea, which is uncomfortable. Thankfully, there’s a knock at the door. It’s a skeevy dude with greasy hair, mime base, and eyeliner. Elle says that she found someone else who’s slightly gay and has powers so Sylar won’t feel so alone. Greasy Slightly Gay guy shows off his power, which is shooting bullets out of his fingers. Sylar gets a brain boner, and Elle starts cheering him on. “Isn’t that special! Don’t you wanna be special like him? You would be so sexy if you were just a little specialer! Don’t be a pussy! Eat his brain! EAT IT!”
Finally, Sylar breaks and throws GSG up against the wall with his mind. Elle gets worried. Too late sucka! Sylar tells her to leave, but she decides to try a last ditch effort at seeming like a good person and attempts to stop him with her power. Jig is up! He decides to let her go instead of opening her head, because he’s a dumb boy, and shooting real bullets out of his fingers is almost the most exciting power in the world. Peeing perfect shapes into snow is first.

This would have been more pleasant for the both of us had you bothered to wash your nasty hair first.

Elle runs back to the van and begs for HRG to help her stop Sylar, but by the time she gets there, he’s watching Sylar mess with the kid’s brain. Elle asks if they can switch over to a Frasier rerun, but he refuses. That’s cold.

Later that night, over lentil soup, Mama P asks Papa P if he still really knows her after all these years. He’s like “I thought I trained you not to talk. And where’s the pot roast? And since when are you an old white lady? Where’s Daniqua?” She covers with a quick badnkadonk, but he’s still a little suspicious. Especially because she keeps talking all creepily. The Haitian is lurking in the background. Remind me to never have dinner at this house. Uncomfortable. This is why most families eat in front of the TV. Mama stops talking in puzzles and finally comes out and confronts Papa about trying to kill Nathan. He’s like “that’s what this is about? BFD! He’s married to a Dixie Chick. He doesn’t need to work!” Then he falls to the ground. Mama P poisoned him. She snaps her fingers, rolls her head, and creepily utters “ba donk. A. Donk.” Someone really needs to teach her what that means.
As she instructs the Haitian on how to clean up her mess, Nathan comes in and finds his dad. He calls the hospital. For whatever reason, Mama P doesn’t take his phone and have the Hatian just erase Nathan’s head and let Papa die. I guess that would have changed the future, and this show is confusing enough as it is.
Elle and HRG get a Pinkberry together. He’s psyched that he knows how Sylar steals powers now, but she’s still mad that she missed Frasier. It was the one where Niles confronts a bully from high school! She says that Sylar had a soul and could have been saved and he reminds her that missionaries are creepy and that’s not what they do. She knows that it’s a long shot that she’ll ever find another date, so she’s bummed to have turned the first decent guy she’d met who was willing to check out Legally Blonde the Musical back into a serial killer. Sad horns and unicorns. HRG walks off to get into a cab that Peter just exited. Suresh is driving! Best cabbie hair ever, by the way. Take note, NYC cabbies. Moisturize.
At the hospital, a doctor tells Mama and Nathan that Papa is dead. Mama says she wants him cremated right this second and offers to get it started. The doctor goes back to the hospital room, where Papa is alive, but not moving. He talks with his brain and tells the doctor to find another body to cremate. Doc says that he will and says he’s sorry but Papa is permanently paralyzed. You can’t tell, really, cuz Papa is making the same face he always makes.

Happy. Sad. Mad.

At his funeral, Nathan and Peter start getting sentimental and Mama P tells them to shut their yaps and stop acting like their father was the greatest thing since Rosemary Clooney. They’re like when did mom turn back into a bitter white lady? We miss Daniqua!”
Hiro wakes up in the African desert. He knows everything and wants to get back to NY and warn everyone that Papa’s still alive. He and Ando hear a scream. When they run out of the hut to follow the scream, they find that Enlightened Black Dude has been beheaded. Then Papa is right behind Hiro. “I hear you’ve been having nasty dreams about me, you perv.” He grabs Hiro’s head and starts his brainwashing trick. WTF? Why aren’t black people ever allowed to live on this show? I hate to play the bigot card, but jesus. Tonight we’ve seen the deaths of Slightly Gay Eyeliner Guy and Enlightened Black Dude. I expect a gay black man with eyeliner to arrive soon to make up for this, Kring! Otherwise, one of the best episodes of the season. What did you guys think?

We need another Hero!

***You might have noticed during this recap that I am not T.Vo. I am Flipit. Sorry for the switcheroo, but T.Vo has decided to enjoy her life as a wealthy hot supermodel for awhile and leave recapping to the less genetically gifted of us. BITCH! Kidding. Love you, T! I will be taking over Heroes for the next couple of weeks until we find a replacement. This one is posted so late only because this all happened last minute, so please forgive me for that. If you’d like to submit, write up a recap of tonight’s epi and send it to me at Flipit75@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!