Heroes Volume Five, Chapter Eleven: The Fifth Stage

I’m fighting off a cold, folks. Shall we see if Heroes improves when I’m floating on Alka-Seltzer cold tablets?

Lydia tells Samuel she knows the truth. She doesn’t elaborate, but it’s probably safe to assume she’s talking about Joseph’s murder. She tells him she has a daughter to look after, so his secret is safe. If she really wants to keep her daughter safe, perhaps it would be smarter not to let Samuel know she knows he killed his brother in the first place. Samuel doesn’t reply, and indeed looks bored to tears with her. He’s more interested in the arrival of Eli, his brand-new replacement henchman, now that Edgar has fled the carnival. Samuel instructs Eli to retrieve files from Noah Bennet’s apartment. Says Samuel, “They’re in a box marked ‘Primatech.’” Sheesh, like that’s going to narrow it down. Eli, FYI, can form multiple copies of himself. Somewhere, Jamie Madrox is not amused.

Lauren drops by Noah’s apartment, ready for a hot date. Does Lauren have a power? Lauren really, really needs to have a power, or else it kinda punches holes in Primatech’s much-vaunted “one of us, one of them” policy. After Noah discovers his no-good daughter stole his compass, Lauren uses her CIA connections to triangulate Claire’s cell phone signal, mentioning that she can then pinpoint Claire’s location using Google Maps. She name-checks Google Maps like it’s this terribly exotic, very high-tech, CIA-specific program that no one in the audience could possibly know about.

Noah and Lauren determine that Claire is somewhere in southern Ohio. While sorting through files on the carnival, Noah tells Lauren about how they almost had an affair before Rene wiped her memories. To her credit, Lauren doesn’t seem thrilled about this. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Eli, who introduces himself as an emissary from Sullivan Brothers Carnival. Immediately, a swarm of multiple Elis invade the apartment. Lauren and Noah try to fight them off (if Lauren has a power, she’s sure not using it), then they go hide in the bathroom. When they emerge, all the Elis are gone… as are Noah’s files. So that worked well.

The compass guides Claire and Gretchen to the entrance to the carnival. After driving from DC to Ohio, Claire decides it wasn’t worth it. She’s ready to go home, but Gretchen drags her to the entrance, where they’re greeted by Samuel. Hmm. The plotline I loathe the most this season has just intersected with a plotline I rather enjoy. Which plotline will reign supreme? Claire and Gretchen launch into a conversation about how the popcorn at the carnival is, like, sooooooo good, and I think I just got my answer.

Claire and Gretchen enter Lydia’s tent. Lydia doffs her top, as she does every episode, and instructs Claire to take her hand and ask her a question. Claire asks, “Am I supposed to be here?”, and a tattoo of herself appears on Lydia’s skin. I gather from the dialogue that the tattoo shows her wearing the outfit of a carnival performer, but my television screen is very small, and I stopped recording these episodes for posterity as soon as it dawned on me that this season has zero rewatch value, so I can’t really tell for sure. Anyway, Gretchen and Claire continue their tour of the carnival. Gretchen is not impressed, but Claire is amazed to see everyone using their abilities out in the open. She starts daydreaming of a new career path as a carnival freak. Living the dream, Claire. I mock, but it’s nice to see Claire -- or anyone on the show this season, really -- forming something resembling a goal. This is the most wishy-washy, noncommittal, tepid group of wafflers I’ve ever seen, and trying to get emotionally invested in their adventures has been an uphill battle this season. Samuel pops up and offers to show them backstage, which sounds skeezy as all hell, but Claire leaps at the chance.

A swindled carnival customer barges backstage and picks a fight with Samuel, who refuses to defend himself. When Claire intervenes, the dude slashes her across the face with a bottle. Heroes really doesn’t believe in middle ground, does it? This guy can’t just be mean and dumb and cranky about being swindled out of his money, he has to be a total psychopath who slashes a teenaged girl across the face. Claire heals up, and the guy runs off in terror.

Claire bathes Samuel’s bruises, and they talk about how awesome it would be if Claire joined the carnival. It’s a long-ass scene, and it’s entirely unnecessary, since it’s been a done deal since the opening minutes that Claire would join up by the end of the episode. To seal the deal, Eric Doyle, working a pink and blue tux, shows up and gives Claire a big hug. He explains that he’s happy to have found a place where he belongs with the carnival. Claire tells an unenthused and unsurprised Gretchen she’s going to stay for a couple days.

Lydia tells Samuel she hopes Claire is worth it. Samuel, watching Gretchen drive off, tells her he’s not really after Claire. In the carnival parking lot, there’s a flatbed truck with a body in the back, and once again, my television is too small for me to identify who it is.

Angela arrives at the hospital to see how Peter is coping with the loss of Nathan. Peter insists he has a plan to get rid of Sylar and restore Nathan. The Haitian -- Rene -- shows up, and Peter absorbs his ability (presumably the Haitian can turn on and off his ability at will, or otherwise Peter’s power-absorbing ability would have been neutralized by Rene’s power-neutralizing ability). Peter explains to Angela that this way he’ll be able to make Sylar powerless. Not a terrible plan, but here’s a better one, Peter: Keep the vast array of abilities you absorbed from Sylar, then take Rene along for the ride when you go after Sylar.

Peter gets in the elevator with a nurse, who starts checking him out shamelessly, then grabs him by the neck, hurls him through the (open) doors, and shape-shifts into Sylar. Sylar and Peter find themselves in the hospital’s Danger Wing, complete with dangling electrical cords from the ceiling, stacks of two-by-fours, and random power tools lying about. This, of course, is the same hospital where a little urchin was randomly lying unconscious in a supply closet with a collapsed lung.

Peter neutralizes Sylar’s abilities and starts whaling on him while demanding he give him his brother back. They slug each other for a while, which is always nice to see, then Peter picks up a nail gun and proceeds to staple Sylar to the floor. Naturally, he has to lie on top of Sylar while he does this, and hey, it’s good to see the blatant homoeroticism making an eleventh-hour return to Heroes! He uses Rene’s mind-wiping ability to wipe away all of Sylar, leaving only Nathan. Sylar shape-shifts back into Nathan, who, presumably, is still stapled to the floor.

Later, an unstapled Nathan and Peter go up to the roof of the Deveaux building and talk about the good old days, before the show went all to hell and started sacrificing consistent, believable character development for a bunch of ill-conceived and poorly-explained plot ideas. Nathan breaks it to Peter that he’s still really Sylar. Peter insists Nathan is stronger than Sylar -- after all, that’s why Sylar came to find Peter at the hospital. Nathan replies, “I found you because I wanted to crucify you in Times Square.” Nice! To prevent Sylar from taking over, Nathan jumps off the edge of the roof. Peter grabs his hand, Nathan tells him he loves him, Peter lets go, and Nathan plunges to earth, where he smashes into a car. And then Sylar heals up and saunters off, leaving behind a devastated Peter.

Samuel stands at Joseph’s graveside and lectures to his flock -- including Claire -- over a montage of the other characters. There’s Sylar, and Tracy, and even a fleeting glimpse of Hiro, Ando and Mohinder booking it through trees somewhere (it looks like they’re maybe breaking Mohinder out of the asylum, A-Team-style, which I could get behind).

Huh. Well, that’s it for Nathan and Adrian Pasdar, rumor has it. His death scene was emotionally effective, but, like so many things on the show, it didn’t hold up under scrutiny -- Nathan had no reason to believe jumping off the rooftop would kill Sylar (maybe he thought the effects of Rene’s power would last longer?), and if he was hell-bent on destroying Sylar for good, maybe he could have suggested Peter go crazy with the nail gun in the hopes of destroying that part of Sylar’s brain that controls immortality. I don’t see how getting rid of a good character and a good actor will ultimately help the show.

Let’s focus on the good news: This was the last Heroes episode until January, and I think many of us could use the break. Let’s also focus on the even better news: Sendhil Ramamurthy just got cast in a new NBC pilot with David Tennant. If it gets picked up, there goes my final reason to keep watching this toxic mess.