11.18.2008

"Heroes" Episode 9

Chapter 9 “It’s Coming”

Spoiler Alert

Summary:
Ando tries to help Hiro to relearn his powers and get his memory back. Sylar and Elle confront each for the first time since their encounter a year before. Nathan and Tracy confront Arthur. Claire and Peter run from villains Flint and Knox. Matt tries to take Angela out of her coma.



• After witnessing the past, Hiro is found by Arthur, who shows up out of no where, and begins mind wiping him. While Arthur stops to look at a painting Utsu made of an eclipse, Hiro and Ando escape to a bowling/waffle place in Tokyo. Unfortunately, Hiro thinks he’s 10-years-old, and Ando has to teach him his powers again. (There’s a great moment when Ando tells him his power, and Hiro says “That’s stupid power I've ever heard of.) When Hiro learns his powers, he takes them to a comic book store, where they find the “9th Wonders” comic book (remember that the pre-cog in the first season, Isaac Mendez, wrote and illustrated the comic book before he was killed) that shows them in the same situation they are now — word for word. I thought having Hiro think he was 10 was a clever idea, providing some great comedic lines. That said, however, it seemed a little out of place within the gist of the rest of the episode. Hiro and Ando were always used as comedic relief, but at least they were trying to be serious. Everyone else is doing all this heroic stuff and Hiro’s throwing spitballs and stuffing himself with waffles. It seemed a little ridiculous.

• Turns out Arthur knew that Sylar kept Peter from dying when Sylar threw him out the window. He wants to teach his son how to gain powers without cutting off people’s heads — through empathy. He puts Sylar in a locked room with Elle, the lighting chick, cuffed to the floor. Seeing him (remember, Sylar killed her father), she zaps him with all she’s got. This goes on for a little bit, and Sylar just stands there and takes it the whole time. Finally, Elle lets so much into him that they both collapse. Elle begs for him to killer and “make the pain stop.” Instead, Sylar takes off her cuffs, and says that he can’t kill her — one, because he wants to be a good person and two, because she saved his life in the past. He forgives her for basically helping the Company use him as a guinea pig, and that she needs to forgive herself. She does rather quickly. Elle’s pain stops and it turns out Sylar has the electricity power. It ends with Elle teaching him a few lightning tricks. I think it’s safe to assume from this point on, we can safely call Sylar by his born name, Gabriel. “Sylar” is associated with slicing people’s head open, and “Gabriel” isn’t. Since Gabriel found a new way to control the hunger, I find it hard to see him returning to the “dark side.” I thought the Elle/Gabriel scenes were great. They really have a lot in common (both have screwed-up parents, both are extremely powerful, both are dying for some affection, etc.), and it’ll be interesting so see where they go from here. Elle is the mosther of Future Gabriel’s son, for sure.

• Mohinder is trying out Formula H on a test subject, but it’s not working the way it should — the subject has some kind of barnacles all over his face. Mohinder tells Papa P that they need some kind of catalyst to make it work. But this catalyst is not something — it’s someone. I’m glad that the Formula H is not as easy to make as it seems. But I have to say that the test subject was the ugliest being that I've ever seen

• Matt and Daphne go to the Company headquarters, where they find it virtually empty. In an interesting twist, Matt sees Usutu, and he follows him to the coma-induced Mama P. Daphne goes to Papa P and tells him that Matt is trying to help his wife. She wants him to leave Matt out of it. She runs back, and Matt invades Mama P’s mind. In a rather cool dream sequence, he finds Angela chained to a chair in a locked room. Suddenly, a vision of Daphne shows up, and stabs Matt. Back in the real world, Matt begins to bleed for real. Real Daphne enters the dream too, and tells him to wake up. The Dream Daphne turns into Papa P, and tells Matt that Daphne told him were he was. The real Daphne says that she “couldn’t go back to her old life,” but she didn’t want him killed, either. She admits she loves him. The scene changes to an office, where Angela tells Arthur that they were once like that, and that deep down, he still loves her, and for him to let her go. Arthur does, unexpectedly. I’ve said before that I really Matt and Daphne together, but I admit that Daphne's confession is … a bit sudden. I can somewhat see why on Matt’s part — he’s so enchanted by their life together in the future, so that somewhat quickens his like for her — but I had expected a bit longer wait before Daphne said it. I guess the fact someone cares for deeply for her might quicken the affection. I thought Arthur letting Angela go was not something I thought would happen. Since she’s awake, she can try to stop him, and he’s been dead set against taking down those against him from the beginning. I’m thinking we’ll see more of “Ghost Usutu” in the future.

• Nathan and Tracy go to Pinehearst to confront Arthur. Arthur tells him he wants to give half the world powers and have Nathan as president. Nathan isn’t sure, since the last time he listened to one of the Company elder’s, he almost helped blow up New York. He flies away to the Company Headquarters to see his mom, and that Tracy should go to Washington. Instead, in the weekly “w.t.h. moment,” she heads upstairs to Papa P, and says that right now Nathan’s on a fence, and that she can push him to the “right side.” I’m really starting to appreciate Nathan a lot more than I have in the past. He really does want to the right thing, but unlike Peter, he tends to learn from his past and think things through before taking action. I totally didn’t expected Tracy’s turnaround though — I wonder what she has cooked up.

• Peter and Claire are still in an apartment, and Peter tells his niece to go home. Claire, of course, doesn’t want to. Flint and Knox show up, and they escape to a sewer. Claire tells Peter to leave and that she’ll hold them off. Turns out they’re not after Peter, but her instead. As they make their way out of the sewers, Peter stops them, and Flint tries to light up, but they realize too late Peter’s let a gas pipe. While the fire flames at the villains, Claire ducks and they’re off to the Company headquarters. There, they run into Matt, Daphne, and Angela. Angela tells them about the catalyst, and that Kaito (Hiro’s father) is the only person who knew it was. Claire thinks it’s her. I’m really starting to recognize a pattern when it comes to Claire: she tries to fight — she gets captured — she gets saved. Talk about same old, same old. I almost want to see the badass Claire of the future — at least she could handle a gun. I’m not sure whether I’m quite ready to believe she’s the catalyst, because it almost seems too obvious.

• In Pineheart, Arthur, with his new pre-cog abilities (taken assumedly from Peter), to draw a picture of an eclipse. In the first season, most the powers seemed to manifest during the last eclipse, and from the promo for next episode, the phenomenon will have the opposite effect. I'm actually really interested in how this goes, because they've had their powers for two years, enough to get use to them — now they have to go back to being "normal." Oh the angst!

• There's a really cool ending where the villains march in a room, one by one, between shots of the heroes in Angela Petrelli’s room. Right now, the two sides appears to stand as follows: Team Company has Nathan, Peter Matt, Daphne, and Claire, with Angela Petrelli as team captain. Meanwhile, Team Pinehearst has Knox, Flint, Sylar, Elle, and Tracy, with team captain Arthur Petrelli. Time will only tell if these will be the same team that face off during the inevitable “Big Battle." Because you can't have teams like this and not have a battle.

Praise: I really enjoyed this episode. It was nice seeing all these characters intertwining in some really interesting ways, and then most of them come together into a larger group. The small “Villain-hero” montage at the end was probably one of the coolest "curtain-closes" to a “Heroes” episode that I’ve seen since the show’s beginning. I’ve been saying it — “Heroes” is back on track.

Complaints: Like I said, Hiro’s subplot seemed a little “out there” within the context of the rest of the episode.

Favorite Part: Loved the Gabriel/Elle scenes. In real life, the actors who play them are really great friends, and that might add to the excellent chemistry they seem to have. And it showed that whatever side he’s on, Gabriel has really turned over a new leaf.

Grade: A

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