(S01E14) Before the heroes can eliminate troublesome distractions they must discover what their own true distractions are.
Claude is a kick, and Peter finds out the hard way that he is also quite the hands-on teacher. The invisible Claude might be cynical and a misanthrope, but he does get results. Being thrown off a thirty-story building quickly clarifies things for Peter, though his subsequent revelation is exactly the opposite of Claude's philosophy. And Peter's breakthrough makes him more clearly a kind of anti-Sylar. Each absorbs powers, Sylar does it while killing, Peter does it by allowing himself to feel a life-affirming connection to the other heroes he has caught an ability from. It starts with a memory of Claire, who we now know ...
... happens to be Peter's niece. Judging from guesses made in the comments here last week, the reveal of Nathan as Claire's real father wasn't that much of a surprise to anyone.
Really though, besides the as-yet-unseen Linderman, there weren't a lot of other likely candidates. Nathan is also the only character who wears dress shirts with the cuffs rolled up as seen in all the NBC promos this week. So there you go. "Some family," as both Claire and her birth-mom say. Anyway, I'd rather it be Nathan, and a little too obvious to figure out, than have had some goofy twist just for the sake of having a twist. Claire turning out to be a Petrelli opens up some story possibilities, and give her a good reason to blow Odessa for the Big Apple. Only question is whether she will bring the ever-increasingly-studly Zach along. Just how strong are those Haitian brain-wipes anyway?
As I've said before, I am constantly made happy by the knowledge that so many characters act in their own interest and share information with each other on a regular basis on his show. Claire and her real mom reveal their powers to one another, for one thing.
More impressively, Hiro stands right up to his father when his father demands he return to Japan and fulfill his destiny. As we know, Hiro sees another destiny for himself and in fact says so. Nevertheless, he is presented here with a real dilemma. His family is counting on him and his father's own reputation as a leader is on the line for his perceived inability to control his own son. Ando adds to Hiro's despair by helpfully reminding him that his time/space-bending ability seems to have disappeared anyway. Maybe it's time to give up the good fight?
Hiro's solution is inventive; he appears to agree, but only to demonstrate how very wrong he is for the job of corporate vice president. The true and proper heir to the family fortunes has been right in front of the old man all along. He has been too tradition-bound to realize that his own daughter should be running the company. This was little more serious than many of the Hiro and Ando adventures, but it seems to me Hiro made one of his most significant steps yet toward becoming his own person, and the hero he believes he is destined to be.
All this honest family sharing once again point out how badly H.R.G. is screwing up at home. Mr. Bennet's wife (who almost slips out with H.R.G.'s first name -- what a tease) is so loopy from frequent brain-wipes that it takes her a disturbingly long time to find anything the least bit odd about a creepy-eyebrow man with a very flimsy cover story slinking around her house. 
When Claire comes home to discover evidence that something is amiss, she smiles brightly at her adopted father. He's proven himself so manipulative and deceptive in her eyes that she doesn't feel the slightest guilt at deceiving him any longer. Really too bad for H.R.G. that he took that path with her. After Homecoming, they had a chance to be close. Instead he chooses to try and keep her, and everyone close to him, in the dark forever, believing that there is safety in ignorance. He's wrong about that.
What the heck was Sylar thinking by not killing H.R.G. when escaping the paper mill? That's a little convenient. The best excuse I can come up with is that Sylar wanted to come back later and torture H.R.G. with the news of Claire's death, or something.
The only other plot point that bugged me in another otherwise great episode was when Peter sees Isaac and Simone touching foreheads in an innocent, but easily misinterpreted, moment right out of every romantic comedy made in the last twenty-five years. When you are invisible and spying on your girlfriend, you might as well go ahead and stand close enough to hear the actual conversation. It would help minimize any misunderstandings.
I had hoped to see D.L. react to learning last week that Micah has an ability. I also wonder how they handled the money Micah dumped out of his school bag. However, next week, this family will have more to worry about than money now that Niki Jessica (and only Niki Jessica) is free. I think we got the answer to the question of how she is supposed to be a hero. She isn't. Looks to me like she's been destined to be a villain all along.
Before she tasered the spit out of her doctor, there was a little hope that maybe Niki and Jessica could, through counseling, merge into some emotionally-balanced warrior chick. Now I'm thinking not. Pure evil. If Peter had a detonator sticking out of his head, Jessica would probably ignite it.
(Update: I originally inverted my mirror twins above. Thanks to Christopher and Hugeliver for catching it!)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-06-2007 @ 7:58AM
Christopher Cope said...
I thought Niki was the good girl and Jessica was the bad one?
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2-06-2007 @ 7:59AM
Nuke said...
Great moment in this episode: The license plate on Sulu's,er... sorry, George Takei's car, was "UCC-1701". Those are cooincidentally also the identifying numbers on the side of the Starship Enterprise. Nice touch.
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2-06-2007 @ 8:00AM
Bill said...
A nice touch was Hiro's dad's license plate - NCC 1701.
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com
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2-06-2007 @ 8:00AM
wardude said...
I guess you did notnotice the license plate on Hro's father's limo. He must have felt right at home in that car.
*SPOILER BELOW*
NCC-1701 NY plates
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2-06-2007 @ 8:24AM
Ytoabn said...
Okay people, we get it, Star Trek reference on the License plate. Got it, good, move on.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:02AM
RSL said...
About the "ever-increasingly-studly Zach", I'm still miffed at the network's reinvisioning of Zach. Sure the Haitian might have wiped his nascent queerness from his mind but it's rather irresponsible, I believe, to have this gigantic butching up of him now. The implication comes off [however slightly] that gay == feminine and that not gay == sexier/better. He's a tainted character for me and probably 10% of Heroes viewership. They'd honestly be better off killing the character off and letting him assert his alpha-masculinity [really??] as John Connor.
On a completely unrelated note. I wonder what happened to dinner. Mrs. Bennett was planning fajitas. Made a huge deal about fajitas. When her mind was wiped and she forgot about Claire skipping school with her permission, did she forget about the fajitas too?
And my roommate pointed out, if Nathan knew he had a daughter as Firemom pointed out, why would she have said "you probably don't remember me"? Um, you're the mother of his dead child. I'd wager he hasn't forgotten. As fun as inventive as this show gets with plotting things out, they seem to rely on some clunky dialogue at times. That old sci-fi curse.
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2-06-2007 @ 9:20AM
Benjy said...
Did anybody notice when Sylar was waving HRG's driver license around? The name on the license was just "Bennett"... nothing else! Since when do driver licenses only list a person's last name as their only name??? :-)
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2-06-2007 @ 9:50AM
pinsleric said...
@8: Well Maybe his name is Bennett Bennett... lol
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2-06-2007 @ 9:58AM
Michael Brennan-White said...
And why was HRG so surprised that Claire's father was among the living? Nathan was hardly in hiding and very much in Linderman's view.
I actually thought that Claude would turn out to be Daddy. Good episode and I'm glad Sulu isn't evil (yet). I feel pretty bad for Ando. Denied again.
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2-06-2007 @ 10:32AM
Will said...
Another cool episode.
I'm glad that Peter can still use the powers he's had, even if he's not in proximity with the people he got them from.
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2-06-2007 @ 10:36AM
Brad said...
I'm really becoming impressed with Heroes more and more as the season progresses. When I first saw it, I thought it was a mediocre show with an amazing premise. But I think they're definitely improving the show in a lot of ways.
One minor thing I caught (or think I caught) was when HRG lost his namesake glasses for a minute. Without them he seemed truly exposed, as his only concern was the safety of his daughter. We were first introduced to him as the evil mastermind through his glasses, and without them he's just a father.
It was just a really subtle thing that shows the writers know their stuff.
I also love the new character of Claude. Especially his dialog with Peter, with his constant allusions to Peter being an animal who needs training.
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2-06-2007 @ 10:45AM
rvkey said...
Ok. So did Linderman get Niki/Jessica out of jail? And if so, does anybody know why? Will he hire her to do evil things for him or does he want to get rid of her himself? I'm kinda confused about that.
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2-06-2007 @ 10:47AM
Sam said...
I missed all the promo's with the cufflinks and figured Sylar was the daddy. I gotta tell ya, I like Claire as petrelli so much better. Plus, I'm still totally psyched about having the Doctor on Heroes. Even after 3 episodes, my nerdy heart skips a beat seeing Christopher Eccleston in ther cast list.
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2-06-2007 @ 12:24PM
Christopher Cope said...
@9/Michael Brennan-White: HRG doesn't know Claire's father is alive, he was surprised Claude is still alive.
@16/M. Stephen Lukac: Issac called HRG in this episode I thought, not the teaser?
Overall an amazing episode and great review imho. Can't believe were only 3/4 through the season.
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2-06-2007 @ 12:25PM
Alana said...
Michael Brennan-White,
HRG didn't think Nathan was dead. He thought Mr. Invisible was dead.
---------
RSL,
I imagine Claire's mom hasn't seen Nathan for at least 13 or 14 years. I can't remember exactly how old Claire was when the Bennett's adopted her, but for some reason I want to say she was between one and two years old. So let's say for the sake of argument that since Claire is 16, Nathan has been out of the picture for 14 or 15 years. That's a long time to not talk to someone. Odds are you'd have a hard time remembering what their voice sounds like.
I'm curious how much Nathan is going to freak out over this new development. Surely he'll piece together the fact that this cheerleader and the one Peter needed to save are the same person. I'm hoping, to protect his current family and political career, he doesn't do something dastardly evil.
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2-06-2007 @ 12:30PM
Brian said...
Surprised that it hasn't been mentioned here yet that HRG doesn't seem to have any powers of his own. Not only did the reveal of Claire's real father sort of rule out HRG as a real dad with biological "power DNA" to Claire, but also that he got tossed around like a rag doll by Sylar. HRG does not have the power-blocking powers that have been alluded to (ambiguous that the Haitian or HRG had this power since they are always seen in tandem).
HRG needed the Haitian when he stormed his own house to save his wife's life and scare off Sylar.
This seems to indicate that the Haitian is soley responsible for blocking powers and HRG is just a normal human.
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2-06-2007 @ 1:06PM
Kira said...
Ando: "Your sister's hot!"
I'm still laughing over that one. Great episode as usual. They do sure pack a lot into one episode.
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2-06-2007 @ 1:21PM
Rob said...
Ok, what I don't get is how does Sylar not get hurt when he's shot at. This is the second time (that I can remember) that he's been shot, but each time it barely fazes him. So I'm thinking that he must have already acquired someone else's power of "bulletproof-ness" that we haven't seen.
The other question that begs to be asked is, if Sylar is virtually indestructible, then why does he want Claire so bad?
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2-06-2007 @ 1:45PM
Rob said...
Also, I was just watching some of the video clips on the NBC Heroes website, and they describe D.L. as a "shape-shifter". That's not what I would call him, but I'm wondering if that is foretelling what he might be able to do in the future. Any thoughts?
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2-06-2007 @ 1:51PM
La-di-dah said...
Can we get a 15 years ago episode? Pretty please?Claude and HRG would have been working together, training people like Jessica, Claire's mom (Meredith?), Nathan (and those 2 got cozy), until something happened, and then they were mind-swipped by Haitian dude and dispersed into the real world, left to re-discover their powers on their own? It would make some sense that it is how they are all connected, and connected to Linderman, and why they all seem to have different markings, etc. I might be wrong again, but let me fantasize. I did not expect Nathan to be Claire's dad (I mistakingly thought he was too young), but now that he is, he has this totally interesting back story, coupled with the fact that since he is so much older than Peter and was once an idealist, he might have been involved with HRG's organization without his family's knowledge. Previously honed flying skills would also explain why he is SO good at flying, but mindswipping will explain why he is SO good at denying it. And remember - when HRG caught him that once, he specifically did not use the gun on him. I cannot wait for Nathan's story line to get more intriguing.
I am one of those that hopes Peter's powers have a built in limitation, because as much as I would like him to be all-superpowerful, there needs be balance, and he is going to be one frustrated hero who has to curb his powers all-the-time. Sweet.
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