Heroes Volume Five, Chapter Six: Tabula Rasa

Hiro wakes and finds himself in a hospital bed with Peter sitting at his side. They discuss Hiro’s brain tumor. Is this the first time it’s been explicitly referred to as a tumor? I think it is, right? Up until now, it’s just been kind of this nonspecific though fatal medical condition. Peter draws upon his hospice-nurse training and says he’s going to ease Hiro through the “transition”, i.e. his looming death. Hiro thinks destiny has brought him to Peter to fix a problem in Peter’s life; Peter asks him to consider the possibility that it’s the other way around. Maybe Hiro teleported to Peter so Peter could find some way to heal him. He absorbs Hiro’s teleportation power and takes off. Peter runs into a distraught Emma in the hallway, who asks him if he sent a cello -- the cello she was playing at the end of last episode -- to her apartment. Peter seems confused by this, but he doesn’t have time to discuss it. He advises Emma to talk to Hiro about her abilities.

Claire shows up at Noah’s apartment, tells him it’s laundry day, and asks him for quarters. Well, that’s a little confusing: Is she going to do his laundry? Did she haul her own laundry there with the intention of using a Laundromat near her father's place instead of the one in her dormitory? Do Claire and Noah have a standing father-daughter laundry appointment? Or did she just stop by to steal some quarters so she could do her own laundry back on campus? The mystery will remain forever unsolved, because they’re interrupted by a noise somewhere in the apartment. Noah draws his gun and goes to investigate, but it’s just stupid old Peter, who has mistakenly teleported into the bathroom.

When Peter tells them he’s looking for a healer, Claire immediately volunteers her Magic Blood™. Well, hallelujah, the continuity fairies finally decided to pay this season a long-overdue visit! (Also: Good for you, Claire, trying to be helpful and proactive for once! Isn’t that better than grousing about how you just want to have a normal life?) Noah ruins things by pointing out that Hiro’s tumor is living tissue and thus Claire’s blood would make it worse, which sort of directly contradicts everything we’ve ever learned about Magic Blood™ thus far, but hell, I’ll give this episode a point for effort anyway. (This is a valuable lesson, Heroes: See how much more generous I get when you actually sort of try to take a stab at maybe, like, incorporating past events into the current plot?) Noah comes up with the name of a young boy with a healing ability whom he had investigated during his days with the Company: Jeremy Greer, who lives in Georgia. Noah and Peter teleport off, leaving Claire by herself.

At Jeremy’s house, they find dead birds in a cage by the door and Jeremy’s parents dead in the living room. Noah brings up an example of a case in China where a healer’s power manifested into something deadly. From upstairs, Jeremy opens fire on Peter and Noah with a shotgun and orders them to get away from him. Noah tries to reason with Jeremy while Peter sneaks out and tries to find a way in through the back. Jeremy insists he killed his parents accidentally, when his healing ability went awry. When Peter bursts in, Jeremy fires the shotgun. Peter stops time, but still manages to get shot. When time resumes, he collapses to the floor, hemorrhaging blood. Noah talks a distraught Jeremy through the process of healing Peter, and seems greatly relieved when Peter returns to life. You know one nice thing about this episode? Hiro and Peter, Peter and Noah, Claire and Peter… the characters are actually sort of believably interacting with each other, like they’re aware of their mutual history, instead of acting weird and distant like they have for most of this season thus far.

Noah confirms that Peter took Jeremy’s ability, then gives him the keys to a truck and sends him back to New York to heal Hiro. Noah calls the police, telling Jeremy he’s made it look like his parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning and that Jeremy can say he came home from school and discovered their bodies. Which, considering his parents were already in an advanced state of decomposition, is going to be sort of a nice trick, but Noah seems confident they can pull this off. He promises to stick around until he’s made sure things will be okay for Jeremy. He tells him, “It used to be my job to watch over people like you.” Er… when was this, Noah? This was obviously sometime before you ever started working for the Company, because we saw all those flashbacks to what you were up to circa “Company Man”, and Noah, you’re kidding yourself if you ever thought you were helping people. See, this is vaguely insulting, the way they’ve been whitewashing Noah’s past actions and his character (Sylar’s, too, to an even greater extent). Viewers have long memories.

At the hospital, Emma knocks on Hiro’s door and introduces herself. She has trouble reading his lips, what with his accent and his tendency to lapse into Japanese, but she eventually gets it across that she wants to know how to make her power stop. Hiro tells her that abilities are a gift. Hiro, lugging his IV behind him, trails Emma around for a while, filling her in on his powers. He sees a flyer for a hospital talent show and soon enough, Emma finds an announcement for a performance by “Hiro the Magnificent.” When she goes to investigate, she sees Hiro entertaining a group of patients with an impromptu magic show. He introduces her as “Emma the Also Magnificent”, then covers her with a sheet and encourages everyone to applaud. He stops time and shows Emma the colorful lights created by the noise from the applause. He informs her, “There are no bad powers,” which… I think poor Maya might have a word or two to say about that.

Emma hides at the back of the room. When Hiro resumes time, it looks like she’s disappeared. She reappears to more applause, and for the first time we see sullen Emma being rather charming and likeable. He discusses his terminal illness with her, which brings up memories of waitress Charlie and the way she cheerfully faced her own brain tumor. Hiro realizes he left Charlie off of his list of the wrongs he needs to fix before he dies.

Later, Emma finds a piano and starts to play. Okay, no, we’ve already had one interminable piano-playing scene and one interminable cello-playing scene thus far this season. This must stop. It’s filler, and the music itself is sort of atonal and unpleasant, and the special effect of the dancing lights isn’t striking enough to watch it for several minutes every episode. Tighten the scripts, and lose these musical interludes. Hiro wanders out of his room to investigate the music. Emma orders him back to bed, but he teleports off without warning. When Peter returns, Emma fills him in on Hiro’s latest disappearance. Peter sees “Save Charlie” scrawled on a scrap of paper.

Hiro reappears three years in the past, at the Burnt Toast Diner in Texas, and spots Charlie.

Lydia and Samuel, who are very aware of their new guest’s true identity, discuss what to do with him. Samuel tells Sylar he believes he’s been damaged and has come to them to heal. When Samuel addresses him by his chosen name, a bewildered Sylar mentions that the police told him his name was Gabriel. Samuel says he’ll call him by the first name that pops into his head. Sylar replies, “Nathan,” which kind of flummoxes Samuel.

Samuel explains that everyone in the carnival is special -- by way of illustration, a man named Teddy demonstrates how he can make objects disappear and reappear at will. Samuel asks Lydia to show Sylar around. When Sylar and Lydia shake hands, Sylar flashes on a memory of… shaking hands. A lot of hands. “Like a politician,” Sylar suggests helpfully.

Samuel, concerned that the wrong memories seem to be returning, decides to jump-start the real Sylar. This is an excellent idea. In fact, that’s the best idea anyone on this show has had in too many episodes to count. Samuel, you get a cookie. He asks Edgar to deliver free carnival tickets to Officer Ernie Hudson. Yeah, well, having Sylar kill a cop on carnival grounds is actually sort of a crappy idea. I’m taking the cookie back.

During morning chores, Edgar sees Lydia cozying up to Sylar. Edgar introduces himself to Sylar and tells him he’s heard about this whole business with stealing powers. This confuses Sylar to no end. Edgar hurls a whole bunch of knives at Sylar, lickety-split, but Sylar telekinetically hurls them back at Edgar, then dunks him in a wheelbarrow of wet cement for good measure. Wet cement? Really? By the end of the season, someone’s going to drop a piano on Edgar, right?

Samuel introduces Sylar to a man named Damien, whom Samuel claims can restore his true memories. Damien leads Sylar through the House of Mirrors. There’s always a House of Mirrors, isn’t there? This is a Hardy Boys episode waiting to happen. Damien does a Vulcan mind-meld on Sylar, and soon Sylar’s visited by an apparition of his dead mother, Virginia. He sees himself killing her, then sees a montage of all his past murders. Sylar freaks out and begs Damien to make the visions stop. You know who I miss? (Yes, yes, Mohinder, I miss Mohinder. I thought that went without saying.) I miss Season One Sylar. The crazy, arrogant, invincible Sylar. If Season One Sylar had amnesia and then was presented with a montage of all his past evils, I feel pretty sure he would have nodded sagely and replied, “Yep, that looks about right. Cool.”

Later, Samuel finds a distraught Sylar, who can’t believe he committed all those murders. Samuel tells him to use his gifts to command fear. Wait a minute -- I’m starting to suspect this Samuel fellow might be a bad influence. And he seems so nice! Samuel mentions that Officer Ernie Hudson has arrived at the carnival, then sort of delicately implies that maybe it’d be a good idea for Sylar to, like, kill him or something. He tells him Officer Ernie is waiting in the House of Mirrors. Of course he is.

Sylar wanders through the House of Mirrors again. Yes, he was just there. I know from years of quality television viewing that anything of significance that happens at a carnival must, by carnival law, take place in the House of Mirrors, but this seems a bit redundant. Maybe they could have staged their big showdown at, I don’t know, the top of a stalled Ferris wheel or something. Sylar advises Officer Ernie to leave. Officer Ernie shoots him, but Sylar stops the bullet and zaps him with blue electricity. He seems like he’s about to kill him… but then he pauses. Edgar bursts in and slices Officer Ernie to bits.

Samuel hugs Sylar and tells him he’s safe. He baptizes Sylar by dousing him in water and welcomes him to the family. The carnival folk throw a big party, where Sylar and Lydia drink wine together while Edgar throws knives and sulks. At a knowing glance from Samuel, Lydia hauls Sylar to his feet and strolls off with him, hand in hand.