Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

1. The Second Coming
   
2. The Butterfly Effect
   
3. One of Us, One of Them
   
4. I Am Become Death
   
5. Angels and Monsters
   
6. Dying of the Light

Two Peter Petrellis. Nathan was shot by his own brother! The one from the future, that is. Future Peter did it to prevent the world from finding out about the heroes from Nathan. He's from a future where super abilities have been synthesized, and for sale to anyone. To move about in the present, he somehow has his present self sealed inside the body of detainee Jesse at the Company's Level 5 (called "Super Guantanamo" by one of the inmates).

He eventually frees Present Peter (more on that later) and takes him to that future. Future Peter is a wanted terrorist, and in a confrontation is shot dead by Claire (he cannot regenerate in the Haitian's presence). Present Peter escapes and tracks down Mohinder Suresh, and telepathically gets some vital information from the unwilling scientist: he needs Sylar's natural ability to be able to properly reassemble history. He finds Future Sylar, living at the Bennetts' old house in Costa Verde, raising a small boy (named Noah), and in control of his homicidal urges. Sylar reluctantly allows Peter to absorb the power. Claire shows up with new characters Knox and Daphne; in the ensuing fight the boy is killed, and Sylar sets off a nuclear explosion.

Peter eventually escapes to the present, and is held at Level 5. Eventually Sylar shows up with a mission involving Angela Petrelli. She is bedridden and being held in a trance by unknown forces after seeing a vision. Peter uses his telepathy to get clues from her, and gets only an image of a double helix logo, which matches the logo of a business card in Sylar's possession - an outfit called Pinehurst. (More on how he got the card later.) Peter leaves to investigate...

Sylar's struggle for redemption. Sylar finally steals Claire's power - she isn't killed because the extraction process doesn't remove whatever it is that allows Claire to regenerate.

At Company headquarters, he kills Bob Bishop (which places Angela Petrelli in command), and at Level 5 is knocked out by an electrical burst from Elle Bishop. Unfortunately, that also releases five inmates, including one with sonic abilities in whom Present Peter is imprisoned.

Angela reveals that Sylar is her son who she had placed with an adoptive family. She also allows him to absorb a young woman's clairsentience - the ability to read someone's entire history by touch. She makes Sylar Noah's partner, above Noah's objections. They track down the escapees, who are attempting a bank robbery that ringleader Knox has engineered to lure Noah Bennett into the open. (Knox can transform others' fear into personal super-strength.) The plot is foiled, although Knox gets away, and Future Peter comes to extract Present Peter from Jesse.

Noah unsuccessfully tries to get another escapee to kill Sylar - more on that later.

Sylar is fighting to control the "hunger." He doesn't want to be a monster anymore, and gains hope when he learns about the docile future version of himself from Peter.

Hiro chases a fast blonde. His father warns him not to open a certain safe in a DVD left to Hiro in his will. Hiro disobeys, finds another DVD, Dad angrily warns that the safe's other contents - half of a formula that can destroy the world in the wrong hands - must be protected at all costs. (It is the formula to artificially create superpowers.) Daphne, a woman with super-speed, steals the formula. Hiro freezes time so he can catch up with her, and learns she is delivering it to an party unknown even to herself. She punches him out and gets away.

Hiro travels to the future - evidently the same timeline as the scarred Future Peter, but set in Tokyo - and sees Future Ando kill Future Hiro with a lightning-like superpower, in order to take the formula (the same one that used to be in the safe?) he was demanding.

In another encounter, Hiro plants a tracking device on Daphne, tracks her to Berlin. It turns out The Haitian is also after her. Daphne gets away, The Haitian captures Ando and Hiro and brings them to The Company.

Angela sends them on a mission to get Adam Monroe (aka Takezo Kensei). He is somehow key to getting the formula back. Hiro unearths the interred mutant, who outwits them in a bar and gets away - only to be apprehended by Knox. Knox makes Hiro an offer he can't refuse...

Claire Bennett, crimefighter. After Sylar steals her power, Claire has decided to go after supervillains. Noah hires her birth mom Meredith to watch over the family. Meredith gets Claire to fess up about her motivations: she wants revenge on Sylar. Apparently she is taking out her rage against other supervillains.

She tracks down Canfield and discovered how he wound up at Level 5: he had accidentally killed a neighbor with his power, and The Company thinks he's too dangerous to have free. He wants to contact his family, and Claire agrees to help, to use Company files to track them down. Bennett and Sylar show up, Canfield sets up a vortex and escapes. Sylar saves Claire from the vortex; through that physical contact and his recently-acquired clairsentience ability, Sylar reads Claire's history and gains a lot of sympathy.

She tells her dad about Canfield's plant to meet with his family, at a carousel. The family doesn't show up, evidently because they're afraid of Canfield. While partner Sylar is off in the distance (presumably the writers didn't forget that Sylar can hear with a super-ability he stole in Season One), Bennett offers freedom to Canfield if he'll suck Sylar into a vortex. Canfield doesn't want to be a villain; with nothing left to hope for, he commits suicide by vortex.

Meredith is missing - earlier she had gone to Doyle's Marionette Theatre when she and Sandra discovered Claire left with Level 5 escapee files. Claire and Sandra go to rescue her, but get captured. Doyle can control other people's movements. He gathers the three captives for a macabre game of Russian roulette. In the game Sandra shoots Claire, who regenerates and knocks out Doyle from behind when he turns his back on the supposedly dead girl. Noah arrives to round him up, and wants Meredith as a partner.

Claire is bitter toward Sylar and the Company. She identifies with Chandler, who just wanted a normal life and didn't want to hurt anybody.

Another accidental mutant killing. Tracy Strauss, adviser to New York Governor Robert Malden, is approached by a reporter who has evidence that she worked as an Internet stripper and has a sexual liaison with Nathan Petrelli (the man her boss just tapped to fill a Senate vacancy). In the altercation she accdentally kills the reporter with a freezing ability. Distraught, she attempts suicide, but under weird circumstances she is rescued by Nathan.

She learns about her lookalike Nikki Sanders. She goes to New Orleans where she finds the Dawsons' home and the coffin containing Nikki's body (uncharred despite having been killed in an explosion). She meets Micah; he uses his ability to track down birth records; she and Nikki were born at the same hospital on the same day.

She tracks down a Doctor Zimmerman, who tells her that she is from a set of triplets, each artificially given superabilities and placed in a separate home.

The Ghost Of Linderman. Nathan has visions of Linderman, who claims to have healed Nathan from the bullet wounds, and who urges him to take the offer for the Senate seat. On one occasion the apparition directs Nathan to Tracy's position, a bridge where she plans to jump.

We learn later that these visions are really the work of Maury Parkman's illusion abilities.

"Linderman" also appears to Daphne. He wants her to recruit certain supers, including Knox, Adam Monroe, Hiro Nakamura, and Matt Parkman. At the time of the bar scene Knox is already on board, and recruits Hiro - under the condition he kill his friend Ando. Hiro freezes time, gets fake blood and a fake sword from a gag shop, and stages Ando's death. Daphne is horrified; she didn't want to see people hurt, she just wanted money.

Daphne tried unsuccessfully to recruit Sylar, leaving him a Pinehurst business card, and springing flame-wielding detainee Flint (who was also one of the bank robbers). She'd been ordered to recruit Matt Parkman, who she finds at the airport. (Maury, close behind, makes sure his son doesn't spot him.) Out of conscience Daphne warns Matt away from Pinehurst.

Africa. At the building where Nathan was shot, Matt Parkman had encountered our gunman from the future. Future Peter couldn't allow Matt to tell anyone about this, so Peter teleported him to a Botswana desert. There he meets Usutu, who has precog ability. Matt finds a painting of an exploding Earth, and others that depict scenes from Matt's life.

Usutu has means to temporarily give precog ability to others via a pudding-like food substance and a set of what appears to be Walkman headphones. (Usutu wears the headphones himself when he paints the future.) Matt sees a vision of a future when he's married to Daphne. That future has changed, however. Usutu paints a portrait of Matt holding dying Daphne in his arms - in the future where Sylar explodes and destroys Costa Verde, Daphne is fast enough to return home where Matt is waiting but not enough to avoid lethal radiation burns.

After Hiro accepts enlistment with Daphne's unknown employer, she sends him on a mission to apprehend Usutu. Hiro takes Ando (who Daphne still thinks to be dead). Hiro tries twice to sneak up on Usutu using his power, and both times finds a painting of himself being knocked out by a shovel-wielding Usutu, a future that is immediately fulfilled. Hiro switches plans; he and Ando wait for nightfall and sneak into the hut, grabbing the shovel on the way in. Usutu has his back to them but expects them; he congratulates Hiro for using his head insitead of his power. Usutu shows the two a painting of four villains they must face. The villains are Sylay, Knox, Flint, and...

...Arthur Petrelli. He is the mysterious boss operating out of Pinehurst. He is first seen paralyzed and on a respirator, and giving commands telepathically to Maury. Adam Monroe is brought to him; Knox forces a terrified Adam's hand to touch Arthur's, and Adam crumbles into dust. This event reinforces Daphne's changing allegiance.

When Peter arrives at Pinehurst, he finds his thought-to-be-dead father, with Knox, Maury, Daphne, and Flint. Arthur cons a hug from his son, whereby his ability is confirmed to viewers - Arthur can permanently transfer another's mutant abilities to himself by touch. He had stolen the regenerative power that was keeping centuries-old Adam alive. Now he has not only Peter's natural ability to copy others' powers, but the copied powers as well. That means he now has Sylar's ability, and the homicidal hunger that comes with it.

Dr. Mohinder and Mr. Hyde. While all this is going on, Suresh has independently figured out a formula that will allow anyone to gain abilities. He tries a prototype on himself and his strength, reflexes, and aggressive tendencies are all heightened. Huge blisters appear on his skin, and evidently he is able to secrete a web-like substance. Eventually he starts bringing people into his lab alive to wrap into cocoons - a neighbor who had been battering his wife, a drug dealer, and Maya, when she discovers the first two. He captures Nathan and Tracy for that purpose when they come by after their talk with Zimmerman. Daphne discovers the scene and escapes. Tracy uses her ability to free herself, incapacitate Suresh, and escape with Nathan.

Episode 7 has already aired, and I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet.

I'm glad they didn't kill off Nathan Petrelli; he's one of the more intriguing characters. Adam Monroe's usefulness to the story had pretty much been used up, so his demise is no big loss. Elle's been dismissed by the Company for the accidental discharge that allowed the breakout, so it'll be interesting to see when and where she eventually turns up. Claire is turning into her bitter, vengeful and monomaniacal stepdad. Sandra is getting some well-deserved character development; I'd like to see the stepbrother return. And Mr. Muggles, too.

It seems that Future Peter's scar has been partially explained: Arthur stole his regenerative ability - a fate Present Peter was unable to stop - and he will be wounded at some point afterward. If so, Peter will somehow get his powers back. My prediction is that he will get the Zimmerman vaccine. The vaccine reacts uniquely in each individual; it should give Peter his original power, which will allow him to reaquire others.

Labels: Heroes, Television