At the carnival, Samuel watches the footage of Chandra Suresh at Coyote Sands while Hiro pounds on the door of his trailer, demanding Samuel live up to his end of the bargain and release Charlie. Samuel rambles on about how there are greater priorities than Charlie, now that he’s discovered his destiny.Lydia discovers that Hiro fixed something in Samuel’s past. Curious as to why Samuel didn’t ask Hiro to save Joseph’s life, Lydia asks Hiro to take her back in time eight weeks and show her what he did.
Eight weeks ago: We see a fleeting glimpse of Mohinder (hi, Mohinder!) leaving Joseph’s trailer. Samuel, lurking in the shadows, confronts Joseph about Mohinder’s intentions. While Hiro and Lydia spy on them, Joseph fills Samuel in on the true nature of his ability –- Samuel could potentially kill millions –- and adds that he advised Mohinder to burn the film to prevent Samuel from becoming dangerous. Nice going, Joseph, you just doomed poor Mo. Joseph claims he called a “man from the government” -- Danko, presumably -- to apprehend Samuel before he becomes a hazard. Furious, Samuel flings a rock at Joseph and kills him.
Hiro and Lydia return to the present, where Lydia briefs Edgar on Samuel’s treachery. Edgar faces off against Samuel, but Hiro freezes time and gives Edgar a chance to zip off before Samuel kills him. At Samuel’s behest, Damien, the carnival man who restored Sylar’s memories to him, tries to sift through Hiro’s memories, but Hiro’s brain short-circuits. He spouts gibberish for a while, then teleports off.Noah invites Claire to spend Thanksgiving with him. Claire, who is going through another of her monstrously self-absorbed spells, initially refuses. She’s sulking because Gretchen moved across campus. Just across campus? Didn’t Gretchen say she was leaving college? Didn’t she buy her plane ticket? Didn’t the Haitian (okay, Rene) follow her to the airport to make sure she left safely? Oh, Heroes, you frustrate me. While picking up groceries, Noah accidentally-on-purpose runs into his former partner Lauren, who has relocated to DC and is now working for the CIA. Lauren just wants to buy her turkey pot pie in peace without former coworkers stalking her, but she accepts Noah’s invitation to join him for Thanksgiving dinner.
Claire shows up at Noah’s apartment, as do a casserole-armed Sandra Bennet and Sandra’s new boyfriend Doug. Wow, Sandra flew all the way from California to Washington, DC to spend Thanksgiving with her estranged ex-husband? With her new boyfriend? Really? Lyle, it is explained, is absent because he couldn’t get time off from school. That's really rough, the way California high schools make students attend classes on Thanksgiving Day. Hey, Sandra: If you have to choose between spending Thanksgiving with your ex and your adult daughter or with your teenaged son, your son should probably come first. Make Noah and Claire fly to California, if spending the holiday together is that important. Sandra and Claire and Noah and Lauren all bicker with each other and make veiled comments about Primatech and mind-wiping in front of poor hapless Doug, who seems kind of dorky but far too good-spirited and decent to be stuck with this nest of vipers.Over dinner, Doug makes a game attempt at conversation, but Claire is sullen and wretched, and Lauren and Sandra snipe at each other, and it’s all pretty unpleasant to watch. Claire sulks about how she wants to drop out of school. Doug offers her some sympathy, but she’s foul and rude to him. To get attention, she slices her arm open with a carving knife. Right at the dinner table. Nice one, Claire.
When Gretchen, whom Noah had invited on the sly, shows up for dinner, Claire snaps out of her funk. She steals Noah’s compass, then she and Gretchen head off in search of a decent subplot.
Angela stops by Peter’s apartment, caterers in tow, and sets up Thanksgiving dinner for herself and her boys. Angela blithely insists it wasn’t Nathan’s corpse in the storage locker, it was a shapeshifter. Wisely, Angela doesn’t try to explain why she had stashed a dead shapeshifter in a storage locker.
Nathan lends some excitement to this glum family gathering when he starts shooting blue electricity from all parts of his body, then shapeshifts into Sylar. Sylar grins at a horrorstruck Peter and Angela, ties a napkin around his neck, and sits down for Thanksgiving dinner. We cut to commercial at this point, and I swear, if we’d come back from the break to find Angela with the top of her head lopped off and Sylar carving up her brain like a turkey, I would have forgiven this season for a multitude of sins.Sadly, we don’t. Sylar chows down on pie while freezing Angela and Peter telekinetically to their seats, which is still pretty entertaining. When he tries to kill Angela, the Nathan side of his personality returns, and he flees.
Comments
This moment left me scratching my head too. They could have thrown in a couple of lines about how Gretchen decided to cancel the flight and stay at the college. Maybe the scene was cut, just like one with a girl in the hospital closet. Either way, it felt sloppy.
If Hiro got his memories erased, this means that Mohinder is stuck at the asylum, Charlie is also stuck someplace/sometime (although I think there's a possibility that Samuel killed her). Lydia and Edgar know about Charlie, but not about Mohinder, so even if they meet/find Hiro, Mohinder is still screwed. As the saying goes, people in trouble are left to themselves.
I love how Sylar came out right after Angela brought the pie. Bet he was all like "...have to patiently wait to gain full control, destroy Nathan completely... PIE!!! :D" Kudos to the writers for this one. Lightnings, pie, kiss, attempted murder - all this echoes Sylar/Elle. Way to treat pie-bringers, Sylar.
Peter is his mother's son. Thinking of bringing "Nathan" back after all that's happened? Batshit insane. And the guy seems far more mad about the fact there's no pie left than about EvilIncarnateTurkey!Angela's lies.
Interesting that "Nathan" still does not remember time spent at the Carnival (he said he had lost a week of his life in "Brother's Keeper"). Does this imply that Blank!Sylar is the third personality? Maybe we'll see him again. If he somehow became the only personality, it could count as "killing" Sylar. Well, technically (c).
There's a distinct pattern with Samuel: raging - murdering a guy with stones - feeling sorry for, like, five seconds - moving on. Huge anger management issues. OK, now we know how epic Samuel's potential is. But his motivation, besides "I need more power!", is still unclear. What does he need it for? I'll be extremely disappointed if he has no bigger plans (like, say, move tectonic plates to create a specials-only continent) and just wants power for the sake of power.
BTW, Matt Parkman is evil. Would be nice of him to call and warn Angela and Noah, but he must be too busy reuniting with his family. Cops are tough; clearly, Sylar should have killed a lot more people to make Matt understand he means business. You better be looking for Mohinder, Matt, or there's no excuse for you.
No comment on the Bennets' part of Thanksgiving. Except that I find it tiresome and boring.
No comment on the preview, either. Except a long row of *headdesk* smileys.
All in all the episode makes me very apprehensive about future plot developments.
In other news, apparently Hiro can travel through time with other people. So there goes last week's possible explanation for why he didn't just zip Mohinder into the present.
But, Hiro, could you please explain one more time why you can't do anything to Samuel? I don't think I got it on the first nine explanations.
Doug is my new favourite character on the show. I demand a Doug-Skulky-Mr Muggles-Miss Lovegood spinoff immediately. With guest non-appearances from Lyle, The Boy Whose Parents Don't Love Him At All.
Much to like about this episode -- Sylar and pie! And yeah, Samuel should stop apologizing after murdering people. If you're so sorry, Samuel, stop killing people to begin with.
I think at the very least Noah and Angela deserved a quick phone call from Matt: "Hey, FYI, Sylar is coming to totally kill your asses. Just so you know."
Maybe Hiro did consider zipping Mohinder into the present and decided against it? Getting Charlie first, then letting Mohinder out is a safer option.
But, Hiro, could you please explain one more time why you can't do anything to Samuel? I don't think I got it on the first nine explanations.
He's too noble for taking Samuel to Matt and getting all the information he wants. And one of the unspoken rules of this show says: In a moment of need, you should immediately forget about your friends and acquaintances to save all the drama and pain for yourself.
She steals Noah’s compass, the one Edgar attacked him to try to get, and she and Gretchen head off in search of a decent subplot.
Claire behaves like a true Petrelli, and this is not a compliment.
A small correction: That compass belongs to Becky. Edgar successfully retrieved the first compass Noah had (the one that Joseph had given Danko) during the attack. I wonder if Becky told Samuel her compass was missing... Is she and/or Samuel planning to lure Bennet to the Carnival?
That's what I thought in the episode, but then in "Ink", Samuel tells Lydia that they need to get the compass back from Noah, so... I'm confused. But yeah, it was probably Becky's compass that Claire took from Noah.
(Maybe Edgar is hiding the compass he took from Noah from Samuel? I don't know. I give up. Making sense of all this compass business is a losing battle. I'm still wondering why Danko had a key to a safety deposit box (containing a compass) hidden inside his flesh.)
In the beginning of "Ink", Samuel does mention he needs his compass back, but he's talking in a metaphorical sense: "He [Joseph] was my compass. I'm afraid of where we're going without it. I need it back." :)
And some more on the Hiro question:
Not bringing Mohidner to the present is safer for the time and space continuum. It's probably too dangerous to violate timelines by creating long periods when people do not exist. And look at what Peter did to Caitlin; travels forward in time may end really badly when a time traveller is not in full control of the ability.
After so many consecutive episodes of "I just want to be normal," Claire slashing open her arm in front of Doug just to get attention was ridiculous. She was brattish and vile this episode (I can't stand people being openly rude toward people who are just trying to be helpful). Still, as much as the Bennet plotline was a waste of precious time, at least it ended with Claire and Gretchen doing something proactive -- looking for the carnival -- which is more than can be said for Claire's plotline in the season to date.
The Bennet Thanksgiving was everything I imagined it would be -- a pain in the ass. A better explanation for Lyle not being there is that he was invited to a friends house for the holiday. The school thing just sounded like the writers weren’t even trying.
Over dinner, Doug makes a game attempt at conversation, but Claire is sullen and wretched, and Lauren and Sandra snipe at each other, and it’s all pretty unpleasant to watch. Claire sulks about how she wants to drop out of school. Doug offers her some sympathy, but she’s foul and rude to him.
I couldn’t understand if we were supposed to sympathize with Claire (making it okay for her to be a bitch to him). Doug’s a dork, but he was trying to be polite and supportive in his own way and did not deserve the treatment he received. Throw in the Lauren and Sandra sniping and I found myself (yet again) longing for season 1 when I could dislike Bennet but still believe he loved his wife (and was justifying wiping her mind). I don’t like the idea of Lauren and Bennet, I don’t like the reality of Lauren and Bennet, I don’t like the way it retcons something I did like in season 1.
Claire just comes across as a grade A whiner.
At least Mr. Muggles seemed happy.
Hopefully Clair and Gretchen (who I guess I have to accept is going to be around) will finally be part of a story I don’t want to fastforward through. With that said, I’m also confused about Gretchen being across campus versus leaving the university…am I misremembering?
Peter is his mother's son. Thinking of bringing "Nathan" back after all that's happened? Batshit insane. And the guy seems far more mad about the fact there's no pie left than about EvilIncarnateTurkey!Angela's lies.
It’s moments like this that make me want rip into the writers for making Peter such an idiot. For the most part I liked this storyline…up until Peter wasn’t reacting the way he should and then Angela was going on about how a part of Nathan was fighting to take down Sylar…in Sylar’s body. WTF? No. No way. There is no Nathan inside of their trying to get out. There’s no lingering trace of his soul. Nathan is dead. Sylar’s mind was manipulated. I don’t for one minute buy that there’s a struggle between Nathan and Sylar within Sylar’s body. And even if Nathan “won”, it would still be Sylar but now dressed up as someone else.
Why would Peter even say that he could bring “Nathan” back. I found myself paraphrasing Jackie as I yelled at my tv: ““Nathan is not with us anymore. I said Nathan has passed away. He’s passed away. Nathan’s dead! He’s dead! No, DEAD! DEAD! He’s fine, he sends his love.”
I like batshit Samuel. He’s so selfishly driven, willing to take out anyone who steps in his way. Makes me think of Sylar in the first season. I’m interested to see how the truth being known (by Lydia and a MIA Edgar) plays out at the carnival. Great, so Mohinder is trapped in an asylum with no one knowing or caring that he’s disappeared off the face of the earth?
I don't like it when Heroes does this -- like the way they made Claire's first roommate kind of a twerp, so viewers would feel okay that she got murdered. They telegraph from miles away the characters we're not supposed to like. In the case of Doug, he was a dork, but a clearly well-intentioned dork, and I hated the way Claire was vile to him -- and I hated the way everyone was discussing memory-wiping and Primatech in front of him, as though he wasn't there. They're all adults, including Claire, and they should know better.
And Peter and Angela... yeah. I liked that plotline, and I liked the verve and gusto Sylar showed at the dinner table, but Peter and Angela deserved to have their heads knocked together for being such dimwits. It's the way characters on the show don't behave in any manner resembling normal human behavior. Frustrating.
It was like watching a group of socially deficient people interact. In what world would people with these kinds of secrets act this way in front of someone not familiar with it.
It's the way characters on the show don't behave in any manner resembling normal human behavior. Frustrating.
This sums up one of my greatest issues with the show, which has gotten worse with each season. On occasion the characters actually act like they should--as any person should--but it's such a rarity. I don't understand why the writers dumb down the writing for the audience. I feel like they expected more from us in the first season and have now regressed.
With that said, Sylar being a dick to Angela? One of the few things I really liked and I was impressed that he tried to ahead and kill her. A part of me thinks that the kiss, which was (intentionally) creepy, was also some weird way of having Sylar mack on yet another female on this show. 'Cuz he's heterosexual. In case you didn't know that.
Much like Claire stabbing herself, this irked me. Claire: You can want to have a normal life, which would mean hiding your power, or you can want everyone to know about your ability. You can't do both, and this endless flip-flopping back and forth was tiresome a couple of seasons ago.
A part of me thinks that the kiss, which was (intentionally) creepy, was also some weird way of having Sylar mack on yet another female on this show
While Ingrid and I were watching the episode yesterday, we made an abundance of crude comments about Sylar kissing Angela. Because Sylar is straight, straight, straight! He's a chick magnet!
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought that. Of course that was followed up by me going, "Heroes, I'm not buying what you're selling." Are they trying to get Sylar to make out with every female on this show at least once? I tend to view Sylar on the show as asexual (with Mohinder tendencies).
Seeing as we've already had a Sylar-Claire scene with definite sexual overtones, I'd say that's a big yes. Like many other things that go on with Heroes these days, this makes me tired and sad.
Look out, Miss Lovegood!
I don't think even Sylar stands a chance against your proposed Miss Lovegood/Mr. Muggles/Skulky/Doug wonder team, Dan.
Not enough superteams use long-winded monickers to their advantage, in my opinion.
This will naturally provide plenty of fodder for the inevitable popular slash pairing of Skulky/Doug.
Their cute portmanteau couple name: "Skuldouggery."
I'm back in Los Angeles. Vacation is over. Regularly-scheduled recaps will resume.