Heroes, Ep 14: Distractions

In this episode, Claude begins to show Peter how to harness his powers, and Peter realizes that only by remembering how the carrier made him feel can he use their powers when outside of their presence. He also finds out the downside to being invisible is your girlfriend might be hugging her ex when she doesn’t think you’re looking.

Sylar escapes the cage, putting Bennet into it and going to the Bennet household. Mommy Bennet is home, with “Mishtoo Muggoosh” as she calls him, and Sylar moves about creepily, putting on a phony southern accent and pretending to be wholesome. The act doesn’t last for long, and not only does Mom end up going into the china cabinet, but her memories are erased by the Haitian immediately after.

Claire has gone to the aquarium, or so she’s told her mom (who, after the memories are gone, admonishes Claire for taking off like that) but in reality has gone to see her real mother. She cuts her arm with a chef’s knife and it heals, Mom flicks her fingers and creates fire – in other words, a typical family reunion. At the end of the episode, she calls Claire’s daddy… who turns out to be none other than Nathan Petrelli, which we’d already guessed in this blog.

Isaac continues to paint, and his pictures are getting creepier and creepier. There’s a taxi cab (the one that Peter crashes into?) and dozens of streetscapes in NY, but Peter’s not in any of them, which has Isaac confused. He obviously doesn’t know Peter can be invisible, and therein lies the mystery of why he’s not there. When he finally paints a picture of Peter half in half out of the scene, it all becomes clear.

Nikessica is visited by the shrink, who uses a metronome to try to lull Jessica out of hiding, despite Niki’s pleas to just let Jessica be. When the shrink says to her, “Those chains could hold down a bull elephant, and I know how to use a taser,” I thought, “uh huh…” and the result is pretty awful. Did everyone catch how mangled the shrink’s hand was on the floor, turned in the opposite direction that it should have been? Shudder… By the looks of the burn marks on the back of her jacket, it looks like Jessica knows how to use a taser, too. But the most shocking part is when she’s let go. They say that someone on death row has confessed to Nik’s crimes, and she’s free to go. After just brutally assaulting and almost killing a psychiatrist? I don’t think so… clearly a higher power is working this one. The ep ended with Nik trapped in the mirror, and Jessica free as a bird, about to go play Scrabble with her son.

Hiro’s story seemed to be a bit of filler, even though it was pretty entertaining. Daddy (a.k.a. Sulu) is upset that his son is out trying to save the world, and he rips the Linderman picture into quarters, and yells that he needs Hiro to come back, and will give him the position of executive vice president, despite the fact his sister Kimiko is so much more suited to the position. Hiro exposes the sexism in his father by pretending to restructure the company in a devastating way, and his sister jumps in telling him he’s all wrong. Daddy leaves Hiro alone, and heads back to Japan with his daughter, the new vice president. It was a disappointing storyline, but it was fun nonetheless.

MIA: DL, Radioactive Man, Matt, Mohinder

Fave moments: If you were looking closely, as the limo pulled away at the end carrying Hiro’s dad and sister, the license plate was NCC-1701. That’s the number of the Starship Enterprise. (My husband caught that one.)

Ando opening his arms to hug Kimiko, and the look on his face every time she walked up to them.

The look on Peter’s face after he’d fallen 30 stories and walked away from it.

All of the people bumping into the invisible guys and looking really confused. The guy with the coat rack was especially funny, even though the humour distracted us from actually following the important things Claude was saying.

Mrs. Bennet saying, “It’s so funny y’all know him as Mr. Bennet. I just know him as… stop chewing on that man’s shoelace, Mr. Muggles!” It would appear, by HRG’s driver’s license, that his name is actually Bennet, because that was the only name on there, and if you looked at the signature, it was simply, “Bennet.” So either the man goes for the one-named moniker like “Cher,” or the writers seriously copped out on this one.

Sylar moving his fingers and manipulating the environment.

Claire cutting herself and her real mom saying, “Some family.”

Questions: Claire’s mom says to Nathan, “You probably don’t remember me, but our daughter just found me.” If he doesn’t remember her, how would he know who “our daughter” is? How could he not remember the person with whom he’d fathered a child? Were they put together? Was it a test tube thing where they weren’t actually “together” together? Why did she sound so concerned about Claire finding her? Is this a bad thing? Was she not supposed to be found?

Will Jessica quash Niki completely and not let her back out? Can she control Niki in a way that Niki can’t control Jessica?

When Peter realized how to harness the powers of others without being in their presence, Claude had to knock him unconscious to stop Peter from being completely taken over by them. How will he figure out how to separate the powers? Will he eventually become like Sylar? Will seeing Simone and Isaac together begin Peter’s dark side?

When the heck will we see Linderman?? What will his power ultimately be?

Next week’s ep looks like more of the heroes will finally come together and two of them will square off against each other. With guns.