Heroes Volume Three, Chapter Two: The Butterfly Effect

Angela Petrelli has a creepy precognitive dream in which a band of villains, including Adam Monroe, Maury Parkman, Niki/Jessica/Tracy, and Sylar, slaughter Hiro, Matt, Peter and Claire. She visits Evil Alternate Future Peter, who has set himself up in a lair covered with infinite paths of string representing different timelines, much like Evil Alternate Future Hiro’s lair in the first-season episode “Five Years Gone”. Angela warns him her dream means he’s already messed up the future.

Maya goes to Mohinder’s lab. Hey, you know what would be awesome? If Mohinder’s plotline could be expanded to encompass more characters than just Maya, that’s what. She finds him shirtless and dangling from the rafters, the serum having given him the ability to crawl up walls. It’s also made him super-strong, super-speedy, super-agile, and super-horny. He smooches Maya, whips her shirt off, and rolls around on the lab table with her. Later, he wakes up, post-coital, and discovers he’s experiencing some bad side effects of the serum -- namely, sticky disks of crud forming on his back. I’m torn: on the one hand, I’m delighted Heroes has decided at long last to exploit Sendhil Ramamurthy’s phenomenal physique by having Mohinder shed his clothes. On the other hand, I’d just as soon not see him covered in sticky crap.

Matt wanders through the desert and passes out. Congratulations, Matt! You’re this season’s lucky recipient of the Ando Award for the Loneliest Subplot Ever. Matt revives and meets a man who, like the late Isaac Mendez, can paint the future. The man gives him water and tells him he’s in Africa. There then ensues a terrible, ghastly, soul-killing plug for Sprint that makes the outlandish Nissan product placement of seasons past look positively subtle and tasteful by comparison.

Hiro identifies the feisty blonde thief as one Daphne Millbrook. Hiro and Ando teleport to Daphne’s Paris apartment, where Hiro gives Ando the details of the death of Evil Alternate Future Hiro at the hands of Evil Alternate Future Ando. Aghast, Ando theorizes EAF Hiro was murdered by a robot instead. Aw, Ando, I’ve missed you. Hiro steals Daphne’s prized track medal and offers to swap it in exchange for the stolen half of the formula. Daphne gets away with both the medal and the formula, but Hiro places a tracking device in the medal, with the intention of trailing her to the other half of the formula.

Following Sylar’s attack, Claire loses the ability to feel pain, which makes her worry she’s losing her humanity. In an attempt to prove she’s still alive, Claire makes a tape of herself getting hit by a train. Yeah, I’m not sure how that works, either. Just prior to impact, Evil Alternate Future Peter, still in the guise of Present-Day Peter, flies in and saves her. He apologizes for not protecting her from Sylar, but refuses her request to help her become stronger so she can protect herself.

It’s revealed that Tracy is Governor Malden’s advisor. This naturally explains why she was wearing skimpy lingerie in her introductory scene last episode. Impressed by Nathan’s religious zeal, Malden wants to appoint him to a recently-vacated seat as the junior US senator from New York. He sends Tracy to recruit him. After some difficulty, Tracy convinces Nathan she’s not Niki, about whom she appears to know nothing, and fills him in on Governor Malden’s plans for him. Nathan accepts the offer on the condition Tracy join his staff.

A newspaper reporter harasses Tracy, threatening to run a story that she’s secretly a Las Vegas stripper. He has both the photos from Niki’s website and a copy of the Nathan/Niki sex tape from season one to back him up. Tracy tries to wrestle the tape from him and freezes him to death with her touch.

In the hospital, Linderman and Nathan play a game of chess. When the nurse comes in to tell Nathan to go to bed, it turns out no one apart from Nathan can see Linderman.

At the Primatech facility, Elle finds Bob dead, his head cut open. She heads down to Level Five, opens Noah Bennet’s cell, tosses him his gun, and tells him Sylar is in the building. Sylar arrives and telekinetically hurls her aside. When he starts to cut her head open, she generates an enormous explosion of blue lightning that knocks out Sylar, along with all the power in the facility. The prison cells open, and all the prisoners--including Present-Day Peter, stuck in Jesse’s body--make a break for it. Angela, who, with Bob’s death, is now in charge of the Company, captures Sylar and restrains him. She fires Elle for causing the escape of the inmates.

Noah Bennet visits Claire to warn her about the escaped villains. He’s off to chase them down, but he’s arranged to have Claire’s fire-starting birth mother Meredith stay with her to protect her.

EAF Peter goes to Level Five and finds Present-Day Peter, in the body of Jesse, has escaped and is on the run with the other escapees

In Primatech, Sylar is strapped down to a bed. Angela comes in, removes his restraints, and drops the bombshell that she’s his mother.

This can't possibly be a good thing.