Heroes Volume Five, Episode Five: Hysterical Blindness

Hey, you guys, I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this, but this show is terrible!

Angela drops by Peter’s apartment and asks if he’s seen Nathan. Peter gets huffy when she zones out on his usual babble about how he just wants to help people. When she tries to turn the conversation back to Nathan’s disappearance, Peter huffs, “Could we just focus on me for a second, mom?” Peter? Hon? You’re not exactly attention-deprived. Remember the second episode of this series when Angela confidentially told you that you were always her favorite child? Maybe you could spare some concern for your missing brother, okay? Anyway, Peter leaves for work, but Angela decides to hang out in his apartment for a while longer. This season is… weird. The energy is all wrong, and none of the characters seem to like each other anymore. Which makes sense, because no one is very likeable anymore, but it’s still distressing and sad.

(This review got kind of long, so I'm cutting a paragraph here, which is where I originally discussed the scene where Emma talks with her doctor/mother, Louise Fletcher, and how they ham-fistedly worked in the episode title, and how there were vague allusions to Emma's tragic past. Nobody minds that it's gone, right?)

Emma wanders around the city, seeing all the noises as light. She stumbles into the path of a bus and is rescued by Peter. The music clues us in that Something Momentous has just happened, but... it’s just Peter and Emma. Peter, bless him, still hasn’t figured out that Emma is deaf. He talks to her and seems mildly affronted when she ignores him. After she leaves, Peter realizes he no longer has Edgar’s super-speed. He’s been using Edgar’s powers, right? He took them, didn’t he? Am I remembering that right? The details have kind of slipped out of my brain, but I’m pretty sure he’s no longer using that other guy’s powers. You know who I’m talking about. That Indian fellow who used to be on this show. The one with all the hair and the beautiful eyes and the cheekbones and the legs that went on forever…

Sigh.

Anyway, sure enough, Peter has Emma’s powers now. At the hospital, he comes across a bunch of kids singing the theme song to The Greatest American Hero. He sees the music as colorful lights, and then he’s off in his very own Skittles commercial with Emma, tasting the rainbow of fruit flavors. Peter tries to talk to Emma about how groovy it all is, and it finally -- finally, finally -- dawns on him that she can’t, like, hear him. He tells her about the existence of super-powers, and they sit down and play the random hospital waiting room piano together for eighty million years, and it dawns on me that I hate this show. I do, I really do. This is the episode where malingering frustration turned to unfocused, free-form contempt. Peter asks Emma out to lunch, but she flees in distress.

Later, when Peter returns to his apartment, he’s surprised by the arrival of Hiro, who teleports in and collapses.

(During a commercial break, we see a short film Milo Ventimiglia directed for something called the Liberty Mutual Responsibility Project. Milo introduces it by talking about how he once got a ticket for putting a quarter into someone else’s parking meter, and I know it’s just the awful sourness of Heroes sucking me into the Bog of Eternal Despair, because under normal circumstances I think Milo V. is a swell little guy, but I call bullshit. Anyway, Milo’s short film stars Masi Oka as a guy who just tries to do nice things -- he puts a quarter in someone else’s parking meter! And gets ticketed for it! -- and eventually gets the phone number of a hot chick for his pains. The End.)

At the Sullivan Brothers carnival, the assembled carnival folk sit around a table and share a big folksy, homey breakfast while Samuel yammers on about his brother Joseph’s death and how they’re now a broken circle, but that there are a bunch of lost lambs who will be joining their fold who need love and family, yadda yadda. In reference to Joseph’s empty chair, he says that by the end of the day, they’ll have a full table again. The others look tolerant of this idea, but not quite as hyper-thrilled about it.

Later, Samuel plays around in the dirt (this seems to be his power, dirt-manipulating, which handily explains the sinkhole he caused, but is less handy at explaining how he could threaten to strangle Edgar with tattoo ink a few episodes back. Ink, to state the obvious, is not dirt) and chats with Lydia. Lydia wants to know who the new arrival will be, but Samuel is cagey.

Meanwhile, at the fictional Arlington University in Arlington -- hey, did we know Claire was going to “Arlington University”, or did they decide on a name just for this episode? -- a cute girl named Becky approaches Claire and Gretchen. Becky, who is played by Tessa Thompson, formerly of Veronica Mars, wants Claire to rush her sorority, Psi Alpha Chi. Becky invites Claire to drop by the sorority house for an introductory meeting. Claire thinks it’s a great idea. Gretchen isn’t so keen on it, but Claire browbeats her into going along.

Anyway, there’s a montage of Claire chatting with the sorority girls during the house meeting. Wasn't this show originally about people saving the world or something? Gretchen and Claire fit in just fine at the sorority house. Bizarrely, the members describe Gretchen as “edgy.” They’re being ironic, right? The writers don’t really think Gretchen is edgy, right?

Later, Gretchen and Claire get dressed for a sorority mixer. A book falls off a shelf, which turns Gretchen’s computer on. Claire snoops and sees that Gretchen has been looking at articles about the murder in Odessa and Annie’s suicide. Claire decides Gretchen is kind of creepy. At the sorority mixer, Claire has a chat with another former cheerleader about how cheerleading is pointless and boring. As opposed to rushing a sorority. Or watching Heroes. Anyway, their conversation is interrupted when Claire almost gets impaled by a falling banner. She looks up and sees Gretchen.

Back at the dorm room, post-mixer, Claire accuses Gretchen of plotting against her. Claire goes off on her “All I wanted was a normal life!” shtick again, and I swear they’re just cutting-and-pasting together scenes from earlier scripts. Gretchen kisses Claire and tells her she has a crush on her.

Back at the carnival, Becky drops by to talk to Samuel. Becky, it turns out, can become invisible. We see flashbacks of Becky dropping the banner on Claire, dropping the book so Gretchen’s computer would turn on, and pushing Annie out the window, all as part of a crafty scheme to make Claire run off and join the carnival. Or something.

Somewhere outside Baltimore, Sylar crawls out of the grave. Still wearing Nathan’s bloody, bullet-riddled clothes, he staggers down the road. A police car pulls over, and Officer Ernie Hudson places him under arrest. At the police station, Officer Ernie talks with Dr. Gibson, police psychiatric consultant, who tells him that Sylar has severe amnesia. There’s a lot of pretty objectionable stuff here, with amnesiac Sylar seeing the beauty and wonder in the world because he’s got such a kind soul, but honestly, I’ve used up my supply of righteous indignation on this show, so I’m going to let it slide. Officer Ernie figures out Sylar is Gabriel Gray and accuses him of murdering his mother. Sylar uses his telekinesis to throw Ernie through a window, then steals Dr. Gibson’s car and takes off. Officer Ernie arrives and riddles Sylar with bullets, which fails to slow him down. Sylar runs until he sees the entrance to the carnival, lights blazing, with Samuel beckoning him to join the fun. When the police catch up, Sylar has vanished, taking the carnival with him.

Samuel tells Sylar he’ll be safe here. And if you guess that Sylar then asks, “Where exactly is here?” and that Samuel replies, “Home,” you win a cookie.