Summary
Before the recap begins, a quick refresher on the characters:
Nikki - the woman who takes off her clothes and sees
herself in the mirror
Peter - the nurse who thinks he can fly, Nathan's brother
Isaac - the druggie who can paint the future
Hiro - the businessman who can stop time
Claire - the indestructible cheerleader
Tawny - the dying man's daughter
Micah - Nikki's genius son
Nathan - a politician and Peter's brother
Mohinder - the professor whose father was killed for
his research
And new in this episode:
Matt – the police officer who hears voices
Peter steps off the building and falls. Nathan flies
up to catch him. And then Peter wakes up at a hospital,
Nathan by his side. Peter doesn't remember a thing. Nathan
tells him he jumped off the roof of a fifteen story building,
trying to kill himself. Peter says he didn't try to kill
himself and remembers Nathan flying. But of course, Nathan
denies everything, insisting Peter fell onto a fire escape
and Nathan climbed up and brought him down. There was
no flying, according to Nathan.
Claire cannot stop thinking about the inferno she rushed
into. It is even on the front page of the newspaper.
She tries to talk about it with her father, but he thinks
she only wants to know about her birth parents. She is
just curious about them (but really wants to know where
she got her power). Her father is worried about the potential
emotional issues and wants his daughter to keep things "light
and fun" as long as she can. But the worried look
on his face after Claire walks off tells a different
story.
Mohinder returns to his father's apartment and finds
a man underneath a table. He grabs a sculpture and investigates.
The man says he was let in by the super to fumigate but
Mohinder does not exactly believe him. He takes a swing
at the man with his sculpture and is quickly knocked
to the ground. The man pulls a gun on Mohinder but won't
answer any of his questions. And then he just walks out
the door.
Mohinder scrambles to his feet and rushes into the hallway
just in time to see the man collide with a young woman.
She pulls a gun and points it at the man, who tries to
pass himself off as a simple exterminator. But his shoulder
holster tips off the girl. The man shoves Mohinder at
the girl and gets away. Afterwards, Mohinder introduces
himself to his savior, who instantly realizes that Mohinder
was the professor's son.
And overjoyed Hiro walks down the street, greeting everyone
and everything in English. He passes a newsstand and
spies a comic book with a picture of himself on the cover.
He picks it up and leafs through it. When told the newsstand
is not a reading library he pulls out some Japanese currency
and hands it to the man behind the counter. He then rushes
off, brandishing the comic in his hand and yelling in
Japanese.
Hiro runs down street after street before finding a
place to pause. The comic is in English, but it recounts
word for word everything that Hiro and his friend discussed
before he made his journey to New York City. And it was
written by Isaac.
Tawny tends to Isaac in his studio, wiping his brow
and trying to calm him down. But Isaac is too worried
about what he saw during his overdose. Tawny does not
quite believe him and gives him an ultimatum: he either
chooses her or his drugs.
In the hallway at her high school, Claire flirts with
a football player, ignoring another girl's (Jackie) attempts
to flirt with him at the very same time. Zach, her camera
operator friend, tries to tell her something but she
brushes him off. Jackie laughs at Zach and asks if he
really got an erection during gym. Ah, high school. The
principle walks up and tells Claire that some firefighters
want to talk to her and Jackie.
Nikki wakes up to the sound of her son's voice and finds
the disturbing aftermath of her encounter with the mobsters.
She grabs the camera, gets in the car and calls her son.
At a stoplight, she turns on the camera and watches herself
begin her striptease. She watches herself get slapped
again and again and then the camera blacks out. But the
audio speaks for itself: screams of terror and sounds
of brutality. The ringing of her phone interrupts her
focus and she finds herself parked in an empty lot.
On the phone, her son informs her that four hours of
passed. She quickly apologies and rushes of She shows
up at her friends house where she is lambasted for being
so late. Nikki tells her friend that the men are dead
and she does not know how they died. All she knows is
that she woke up and they were dead. She shares the fact
that she sometimes sees someone mysterious in the mirror.
Her friend tries to get her to call the police but Nikki's
plan is to cover her tracks and run.
Back at his apartment, the woman asks Mohinder why anyone
would want to bug "Papa" Saresh's telephone.
Mohinder has no idea but tells her that someone had earlier
stolen some of his research. The woman had no idea Papa
Saresh had been killed and is shocked when Mohinder tells
her. She thought they had just been missing each other
whenever she knocked on his door. She tells Mohinder
that his father thought he had been being watched. Mohinder
knows that he could have been killed if "they" wanted
him dead. He asks that the woman tell him everything
his father shared with her about his research.
At the high school, the cheerleading squad has lined
up outside. A police officer insists that nobody is in
trouble and that they only want to find whoever saved
the man's life. The officer picks out Claire, but before
she can say anything, Jackie (the girl who laughed at
Zach earlier) steps forward and says it was her. Claire,
thrilled that the focus is no longer on her, asks about
the man she -- or Jackie -- saved. He is bruised and
battered and suffering from smoke inhalation but happy
to be alive.
At football practice, Claire is frustrated at the attention
Jackie is getting. Zach grabs her arm and tells her that
the videotape from the other day is gone. It was in his
backpack and now it isn't. Suddenly, a football player
slams in her and she is thrown to the ground. Only Zach
can see that her neck has been twisted around one-hundred
and eighty degrees. She quickly pops her neck back into
position as the football player rushes to her side.
Nikki and Micah drive up to their house. Micah does
not want to go on vacation but Nikki will not tell him
anything. She has him go pack while she heads to the
garage. Micah cannot help but notice that the door has
been kicked in. Nikki tells him to trust her. When she
unlocks the garage door, instead of the bloodstained
bed and two dead mobsters, she finds the usual contents
of a garage. Junk. Lots and lots of junk. Hanging from
the ceiling is a key.
The key goes with a bright red convertible parked on
the side of the road. Inside the glove compartment is
a note: follow the map in the trunk. Nikki finds the
map but also finds the two mutilated bodies.
In the hospital, Peter sketches a pair of stick figures
representing Nathan and himself. His mother taps on the
door and she walks in. She wants to know what her son
was doing on the roof. Peter's response? He cannot explain
it but he will, eventually. His mother then drops a bombshell:
Peter's father did not die of a heart attack. He killed
himself. Two earlier heart attacks had also been suicide
attempts. He had depression and it was only a matter
of time.
Peter had no idea, because his parents had worried that
the depression, potentially genetic, would manifest itself
in him. His mother explains that Peter has to take a
long, hard look at his life and that she will stand beside
any changes he needs to make. She then leans forward
and whispers that he was always her favorite and that
she cannot lose him.
Hiro stands at the doorway to Isaac's studio, ringing
the doorbell and knocking. The door swings open and a
surprised Hiro steps inside, haltingly asking for Isaac.
He finds some unfinished artwork of himself and then
spots a trail of blood and a pistol on the floor. Picking
up the gun, he walks forward and finds a body, the top
of its skull sawed off. Suddenly, police burst in with
guns drawn. They yell for Hiro to drop his weapon and
he does. Seconds later, he faints.
Matt Parkman, a police officer, directs traffic in front
of a crime scene. A serial killer has struck again and
a little girl has been abducted. The man suddenly hears
a little girl's voice in his head, begging someone not
to hurt her. He walks into the house, trying to follow
the voice. He sees the body of the mother, stabbed dozens
of times and impaled against a wall. The father fared
little better: he was frozen solid and his skull was
sawed off.
Two women, either FBI or CIA or DOA or Starfleet Security,
discuss the case. One mentions the name Sylar, the other
one says Sylar does not exist. When one of the women
tells Matt he is not supposed to be inside the house,
he waves her off. He tosses aside a lamp and pushes against
the wall. Behind the wall is a small room. The girl is
inside. Matt coaxes her out.
Mohinder explains his father's theory to the woman,
saying that his lack of belief in his father's theory
is what drove them apart. They check the messages and
listen to a conversation between Saresh and someone named
Sylar. Mohinder recounts finding a cassette tape with
the name Sylar written on it. The woman finds a portable
hard dive and Mohinder pops it into a computer. On it
is the proof that Mohinder's father had found a way to
track down those with the genetic anomaly that gives
them special powers.
Confronted by the two women in suits, Matt says he heard
the girl whispering but cannot stop looking at his watch.
He has to meet his wife at a counseling session. Matt
hears one of the women say he is worthless and then vocally
dismisses him. But the other woman continues questioning
Matt, asking how he felt to fail the exam to advance
to detective three times. Matt replies that he was embarrassed
and angry. The woman comes right out and asks Matt if
he was angry enough to see himself up to be a hero.
More surprised at her question than angry, he insists
that he did not kill the people in the house. Sylar did.
That sets the woman off. Only six people know that name
and Matt is not one of them. He says he heard it from
her and actually replies to her thoughts. But the woman
either does not notice or does not care and quickly arrests
Matt.
On a lonely stretch of highway, Nikki stops at a dead-end
and spots a shovel sticking out of the ground. With Micah
asleep in the backseat, she begins to dig. After only
one or two shovelfuls, she hits a skull.
Claire's father stares at a small laptop when Claire
walks in. School was very school-like, work was very
work-like, and they share their experiences. Her father
says that he made a call and that the adoption agency
is going to try to get in touch with Claire's birth parents.
It could take weeks or even years (which would mean Claire
will be her father's little girl a little while longer).
She promises to be his little girl for as long as she
can. They share a touching father-daughter moment before
Claire walks off to get ready for dinner. Her father
pulls open the laptop and watches the footage that Zach
shot of Claire trying to kill herself.
Peter sits atop yet another very tall building. Nathan
walks out onto the roof and says he has been looking
for Peter forever. Nathan knew about their father's depression.
Peter thinks he is going crazy. He wants Nathan to tell
him what happened, to tell him he flew. Either Nathan
admits he flew or Peter jumps again. So, Nathan tells
him the truth: they both flew. He caught Peter and then
lost control. Just before they hit the ground, Peter
flew.
But Peter does not belief Nathan. He yells at his brother
and walks forward. Nathan simply points at Peter's feet,
which are two or three feet off the ground. Peter really
did fly.
Hiro sits in Isaac's studio, talking to a police officer.
He has no passport, no ID, nothing. A translator asks
Hiro how he got to New York City. Hiro replies that he
teleported, like Star Trek. He insists that his friend
will clear everything up. In Japan, Hiro's friend tells
the translator that he has not seen Hiro in five weeks.
A missing person’s sign with Hiro's photograph
is on the wall next to him.
Back in the city, the officer asks Hiro what day it
is. Hiro looks at his watch. It says October 2nd. The
officer shakes his head and holds up a newspaper. It
says November 8th and shows a picture of Nathan Petrelli
winning the election. Suddenly, there is the massive
sound of an explosion. Hiro and the officers whirl around
and look out the window. As the blast makes its way towards
them, Hiro clamps his eyes shut. And just like that,
he is safely back on the subway. For the moment…
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