"Heroes" Episode 8

Chapter 8 “Villains”

Spoiler Alert

Synopsis: Hiro experiences his spirit walk by witnessing the past. Eighteen months ago, Mama and Papa Petrelli try to kill each other. A year ago, Claire’s mom is separated from her brother, one of the level 5 escapees. A year ago, we find out Sylar and Elle have a history.



• In a cool twist, the into credits with the “Heroes” title and eclipse was replaced with a “Villains” title and the genome symbol. So ultimately, not only was this the name of the episode, but the name of the “show.” I can see why, since the heroes were pretty much in the back seat throughout the whole episode.

• We first go back 18 months, to the relationship between Mama and Papa Petrelli. Turns out that Papa P. was trying to kill Nathan for digging into the illegal business he was dabbling in with Linderman. But the attempt failed, and while the two men were discussing it, Angela overhears. Somehow Papa P. already had a Parkman-like ability, and uses these mind powers to control his wife into forgetting/agreeing with what he has to do – including that Nathan has to die.

• Linderman, in a weird stroke of pity (I think he did it because he wanted Arthur out of the way), uses his healing power to fix Mama P's brain so she remembers everything. She poisons Arthur to keep him from killing Nathan. This was kind of interesting, because it seems like even though sometimes she has nothing but contempt for her sons. But she does really care about them. Unfortunately, instead of killing Arthur, he goes into the bedridden paralysis we first met him in.

• Go back a year, and we find out Flint, the fire-handed escapee from Level 5, and Meredith, Claire’s biological mom, are brother and sister. When the two of them are robbing a store, Meredith is captured by a man from the Company, Thompson, and is convinced to become an agent, even though she hates the Company. Things are going fine until she sees that they captured her brother too, where he’s told he’ll be an agent too. Thing is, she knows he’s out of control, so she breaks him out (one of the best lines from the episode is from Meredith during this scene: “What did Daddy tell you? ‘God gave you a big sister, instead of a brain'”), and the two of them escape on a train. They’re followed by Thompson, and while Flint escapes, Meredith is captured again. She says the reason she hates the company is that they killed her little girl, Claire. Thompson, knowing Claire is not dead, let’s Meredith go.

• At the same time the Flint/Meredith business is happening a year ago, Gabriel, who we know as Sylar, is about to hang himself after his first kill. Elle, the lighting chick, saves him just in time. Oddly though, she seems to show empathy for the first time ever when Gabriel’s moaning about killing a guy with a power he wanted. The two of them actually seemed to like each other. Of course, Elle is working with Noah Bennet, a.k.a HRG, who’s watching their exchanges through a camera in the wall. HRG says they need to see his power in action, and to do that, Gabriel needs to kill again. Elle doesn't want too, but brings in a guy named Trevor who looks like he can shoot invisible bullets with his fingers. While Elle gushes all over Trevor, Gabriel gets jealous and begins his head slicing thing. Elle escapes, but not before Gabriel figures out she has a power too (up until now, Elle pretended not to). And thus we find out that the killing spree Sylar is so famous for was caused by Elle and HRG.

• Quick theory: Remember the episode that took place in the future, where it shows Sylar had a son? The fact that Elle and Sylar had a history might prove that Elle is that boy’s mom. And now in the present, Elle and Sylar are both in Pinehearst — I’m looking forward to an interesting confrontation between the two of them.

• After Hiro wakes up from witnessing all this, there’s a scream, and we see a headless Usutu. Then Papa P. pops out from no where, and takes a hold of Hiro’s head, and we leave him screaming in pain.


Praise: I really liked seeing more of the villains pasts, and really explained some of the motives surrounding these characters. Funnily enough, when I first heard there was Papa P. with powers in the first season, I always imagined him as the “Good One,” while his wife — considering she tried to help blow up New York in the first season — was the “Bad One.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Mama P. is Slim Shady compared to “Mambo Bad” Papa Petrelli. Watching the relationship between the two added a whole new dimension to Angela especially. I also liked the references they made to some of the episodes in the first season — such as the train wreck where Claire rescued a passanger — it brought back a lot of memories.

Complaints:: It seemed to be another one of the slow down episodes we’ve been experiencing the last couple of weeks.

Favorite Parts: the scenes with Mama and Papa P. together were really cool.

Grade: A-