Mohinder continues his research into his new abilities. The peeling scaly crap on his back worsens, so he stops wandering around shirtless. Pity. He investigates a violent argument in a neighboring apartment, where he suspects his neighbor is beating his wife. When Mohinder intervenes, his neighbor hurls racially-charged insults and tells him to mind his own business. Mohinder, using his new super-powers, beats the tar out of him. Later, Maya drops by his lab and wants to get frisky. Mohinder, whose super-powered libido abandoned him around the time he started growing scales, gets bitchy and snappish, so she leaves in a huff. Mohinder makes an entry in his journal about his transformation, which includes this phrase: “The rash is spreading.”
I could have lived a long and happy life without ever hearing Mohinder say, “The rash is spreading.”
Mohinder can’t reverse the process that gave him abilities, and he’s developing sticky webs on his fingers. Plus, he’s turning mean and scary: when his jerky neighbor stops by to get revenge for the earlier beating, Mohinder drags him inside and slams the door.
Doctor Zimmerman tells Tracy she’s one of three identical triplets, the others being Niki and the still-unseen Barbara. Her freeze-anything ability is the result of deliberate DNA manipulation, done in the service of a mysterious company. Afraid she’ll cause more damage with her ability, Tracy visits newly-inaugurated Senator Nathan, gives him her resignation, and scampers off to commit suicide. She leaps off a bridge, but Nathan flies in and saves her.
Four years in the future, Evil Alternate Future Peter shows Peter around New York. Per EAF Peter, someone from Peter’s time (i.e. Mohinder) has discovered a formula that can give anyone abilities; as a result, almost everybody has dangerous super-powers, and an apocalypse is imminent. In order to prevent this future, Peter needs to find Sylar and absorb his intuitive aptitude ability, then use it to stop Mohinder. Before Evil Alternate Future Peter can finish his explanation, Evil Alternate Future Claire arrives and riddles him with bullets.
Peter escapes from Claire and goes to Evil Alternate Future Mohinder’s lab to pump him for information as to Sylar’s whereabouts. He finds Mohinder scuttling around in the shadows, having transformed into some ghastly (and as of yet unseen) creature. Mohinder won’t tell Peter where Sylar is, so Peter reads his mind: Sylar now lives in the Bennet house in Costa Verde.
Evil Alternate Future Daphne, Evil Alternate Future Knox, and Evil Alternate Future Claire examine Evil Alternate Future Peter’s corpse. Claire tells Daphne and Knox that a version of Peter is still running amuck in this timeline. They make plans to hunt him down and kill him.
EAF Daphne now lives with Matt and Molly in Mohinder’s old apartment. Matt and Daphne also have a new baby girl. Daphne wants Molly to use her ability to locate Sylar; Matt argues against this, but ultimately Daphne prevails. Matt’s swell, but every season he supplies Heroes with a fresh batch of tedious domestic squabbles: he squabbled nonstop with his wife Janice in Season One, he squabbled nonstop with his roommate Mohinder in Season Two, and now he’s squabbling with Daphne. Given any choice, I prefer my cheeseball superhero action shows to be 100% free of domestic bickering.
Peter teleports to the Bennet home to confront Evil Alternate Future Sylar. He’s greeted by a small boy who addresses him as “Uncle Peter” and leads him into the kitchen, where Sylar is fixing waffles. The boy, who is named Noah, is Sylar’s son. Evil Alternate Future Sylar is sweet and friendly; he hugs Peter and invites him to stay for breakfast, then spills the beans that he and Peter are brothers.
This knowledge does not thrill Peter.
Sylar refuses to give Peter his aptitude ability. He claims it’s what turned him into a psychotic murderer in the first place; even now he struggles daily to suppress the urge to kill. Peter argues he needs the ability to prevent an imminent apocalypse. To see if Peter’s right, Sylar uses Isaac’s ability to paint the future. He produces an image of the world exploding. Convinced, Sylar gives Peter his broken watch and tells him to fix it: if Peter can figure out how it works, he’ll be able to access Sylar’s ability.
Knox, Daphne and Claire storm Sylar’s house to capture Peter. Sylar’s son dies in the ensuing battle. Sylar goes supernova with grief and generates a nuclear blast that obliterates Costa Verde.
Evil Alternate Future President Nathan, with First Lady Tracy by his side, gives a press conference on the devastation in Costa Verde. Molly and Matt watch news footage of the disaster. Daphne arrives, badly charred from the explosion, and collapses into Matt’s arms.
Peter finds himself in the clutches of Evil Alternate Future Claire. Two hundred thousand people died in Costa Verde, and Claire holds Peter responsible. She sets to work torturing him, until President Nathan arrives and orders her to stop. When Peter tries to read Nathan’s mind, Sylar’s aptitude ability kicks in and drives him bonkers. Peter slices open Nathan’s head and kills him.
Peter teleports back to the present-day Level Five detention facility and confronts Sylar.
In the African desert, Matt wakes up from a trance, having experienced a vision of his future with Daphne and Molly. He sets out to find Daphne.
Hiro and Ando, still squabbling, are locked in a cell on Level Two, the lower-security version of Level Five. Their daring escape attempt through the vents is foiled by the Haitian, who takes them to see Angela Petrelli. Angela, who is in search of Kaito Nakamura’s stolen half of the formula, sends Hiro and Ando on an important mission: to return to the Tokyo cemetery and exhume immortal, evil Adam Monroe.
This probably won't turn out well for everyone concerned.
Comments
Normally I'm quite happy to see the evil alternate universe versions of our characters mingle with our normal universe characters.
It's a proud tradition I first became aware of while watching Bizaro Spock frolic with Kirk. (Quinto could do a fantastic Bizaro Spock!) And the "Bizaro" part comes from Bizaro Superman (as far as I know).
And yet, with my love of the Bizaro and normal worlds colliding I was a little disappointed last night. I wanted to see what Bizaro Mohinder actually looks like, for example.
That and... well the turtle didn't actually talk. It just led Matt on the worlds slowest scavenger hunt for super-cute superheroines.
Sort of a messy episode. I was happy enough with it, but... messy.
I'm telling you, the talking turtle is key to everything - I bet he's the one who hired Daphne to get the two pieces of the formula together.
Because, y'know, it would have taken him forever to get them.
Also, I liked that Alternate Future Matt was making Annoying Alternate Future Molly call Evil Alternate Future Daphne 'Mom' ("be a good girl and locate the evil all-powerful empath for your mother"), but Defiant Alternate Future Molly was having none of it ("Daphne!! Why didn't you run faster to escape the exploding city? Tsk.")
Maybe if she had a pet talking turtle, she'd be easier to keep in line.
The premiere episode, in which Mohinder explains away the lack of Molly with a single line of exposition, made me so, so optimistic we wouldn't be seeing her at all this volume. I was sadly mistaken. Also, Evil Alternate Future Matt gravely disappointed me with his sad lack of Evil. Remember the last go-round into the Evil Alternate Future, in which Matt beat up Hiro and shot Bennet in the head and was an all-around bastard? And this time, he's just squabbling with Daphne about raising Molly. How disappointing.
I'm deliberately trying to make fewer references to Mohinder's staggering beauty in my recaps. However, I feel I should point out that he looked especially pretty this episode, as if to heighten the sweeping sense of oncoming tragedy about turning into some ghastly critter.
And ditto on the sadness at Molly's return. Hopefully she will now rejoin Mikah in limbo.
And, finally - I think they're just going to make Mohinder more and more ugly each season. Perhaps as a bone to the male portion of the population. Band-aid on the nose last year, turning into a bug this year. Next year? Just a walking pile of snot would be my guess.
(Partial credit: Evil Alternate Universe Mohinder had an unflattering beard.)
You know on the Season One DVDs how they have all those behind-the-scenes featurettes where everyone keeps yammering on about how the role of Mohinder was originally written for someone middle-aged, but then they saw Sendhil Ramamurthy and immediately cast him because he was freakishly beautiful and had a thermonuclear smile and smelled of jasmine blossoms and lemon trees? (I may be extrapolating, but that was the gist of their comments.) So, seeing as Mohinder's looks are known to be a key asset to the show, why oh why do they keep giving him plotlines that damage his beauty? I suspect deep, bitter jealousy on the behalf of the writing staff.
But speaking of facial hair, I'm now thinking Evil Alternate Future Mohinder's beard is the exact same beard Crazy Homeless Nathan sported at the beginning of Season Two.
Forget the talking turtle, the future of the show clearly now revolves around time-travelling facial hair.
Boy-Morgan: The mata-mata (Chelys fimbriata), a freshwater turtle found in South America, is commonly known as a "bearded tortoise" (per Wikipedia: "There are two barbels on the chin and two additional filamentous barbels at the upper jaw, which is neither hooked nor notched." So, y'know, it's sort of bearded). Though I doubt this is the kind of turtle Matt is sloooooooooowly following across the African desert, it means we can't rule out the possibility of it being a recipient of time-traveling facial hair.
Still, I'm not bound by the 'rules' of the zoological elite. To me, he'll always be a talking turtle.
Put that in your beard and smoke it, Evil Alternate Future Scary Bearded Claire-Bear.