“The blank slate hungers to be written upon; the body thrives when the heart has a mission.” - Sam
Quick n’ Dirty Synopsis Sans Spoilers
Parallel storylines of healing and the search for self seem to dominate this week. While Emma is rediscovering herself in light of her new ability, and Hiro must come to terms with his failing health, Gabriel/ Sylar is seeking his self on one path while Samuel tries to force him down another, looking to “wake the sleeping lion” that he believes is trapped beneath the broken surface. Noah seeks to reinvent himself with a new job, but finds a renewed sense of purpose when Peter enlists his help with saving Hiro.
Read the full synopsis
Full Out Synopsis
(NOTE: These are captured in a narrative that does not follow exactly the timeline of the episode, but are chronologically accurate nonetheless)
After collapsing in Peter’s apartment, Hiro awakens to find himself in a hospital bed, Peter sitting nearby with the news that he is sick. This is of course not news to Hiro, who says aloud that he has a brain tumor (is this the first time? Did I miss it in a previous episode?) and that despite this, he believes fate has sent him to Peter to help him fix something in his life. Peter, however, sees this as a possible opportunity to fix Hiro instead, and borrows his power to go and enlist Noah’s help. Before he departs, Emma comes to see him and asks if he is the one who sent her the cello (that she cracked her wall with), and when she tells him she doesn’t want her power, Peter guides her to Hiro, saying he knows more about powers than anyone else he knows. She peers in at him reading a comic book and seems unsure, but when she turns again, Peter has already teleported out.
At the carnival, Sam and Edgar are watching Sylar’s trailer. Sam believes there are two sides at war inside him, and we can guess which side Sam wants to win. He goes and wakes him, saying he believes Sylar has come to them to heal. Sylar doesn’t know how he can heal when he doesn’t even know his own name, since the police told him his name was Gabriel but Sam seems to know what he’s talking about. Sam tells him to take a deep breath and say the first name that pops into his head. His answer? “Call me Nathan.” He also asks what is wrong with him, but Sam answers that nothing is wrong, he’s special, like everyone at the carnival. (Sounds an awful lot like what Emma is going through, yes?) As they walk through the carnival, they meet Lydia, and as Sylar shakes her hand he gasps, pulling back in surprise. He says that he remembers shaking a lot of hands, like he was maybe a politician… interesting.
Clare arrives at Noah’s apartment, laundry basket in tow. She asks him how the job search is going, and his answer leads her to tentatively suggest volunteerism. As he scoffs at the idea they hear a noise in the apartment, and while Clare walks towards it, he grabs his gun from a drawer and cocks the weapon. They approach the bathroom door, which opens to reveal Peter, who is clearly out of practice with teleportation.
Back at the carnival, Sam dispatches Edgar with tickets to the show for Captain Lubbock, the detective hunting Sylar. They know that inviting him there and forcing Sylar to protect himself could mean the captain’s death, which Sam is willing to risk in order to wake the sleeping lion that is Sylar.
Noah checks his old company records and comes across Jeremy Greer, a young man who at 13 had the power to heal anything that had even the slightest stir of life left in it. He also relays how he and the Company studied him for 4 days, but being unable to answer his questions, they wiped his memory and left him to fend for himself; you can hear the regret in Noah’s voice. Peter and Noah teleport to Georgia to borrow his power for Peter, but when they arrive, they find a house shrouded in death, from the plants on the walk to the birds outside on the porch, and when they open the door the smell that greets them tells them it’s worse inside. Peter discovers Jeremy’s parents, who are both a little ripe, and as they call out for Jeremy he answers with a shotgun from upstairs.
Back at the carnival, Lydia is showing Sylar around at Sam’s request, and she is a rather shameless flirt. Edgar is none too happy about this turn of events, and when Sylar goes to get a shovel he makes a comment about Lydia liking bad boys, then flings three of his short knives into the handle of his shovel. I heard hundreds of viewers holding their breath with me as he calmly looks down at the knives, then flings them back at Edgar, landing inches from his nose. As Edgar turns to retaliate, Sylar lifts his hand and Edgar is catapulted into a nearby cart of cement. Sam breaks up the fight, and as he leads Sylar from the scene military jets fly overhead. His face ripples and morphs into Nathan’s for a split second before he says that he remembers flying. He thinks maybe he was a jet pilot, in the military? Sam looks like he’s about to lose patience when he suggests that Sylar visit the House of Mirrors with Damian, whose powers will help him to discover the truth but he has to be willing to see himself. Sylar agrees and enters.
Emma finally approaches Hiro to ask his advice, and he is genuinely excited for her. After all, he tells her that “manifesting a power is a wondrous time!” She insists that she wants to turn off her power, clearly having scared herself by inadvertently cracking her apartment wall. What’s touching in this scene is that Hiro, once he understands Emma’s hearing impairment, begins to speak loudly and over-enunciate to compensate for his Japanese accent, typical “ugly foreigner” behavior but in this instance, he does it without malice. She seems unconvinced, and at the very least unhappy with his answers.
In the House of Mirrors, Damian touches his hands to Sylar’s temple, and then leaves him in a round room. We hear a voice ask, “Gabriel?” And he turns and knows instinctively it’s his mother. He sees her for only a moment before he is surrounded by the repeated scene of the fight with his mother, the scissors, his attack. After she falls, he is treated to a replay of every one of his victims, from the first time he willfully stole a power, to Elle on that lonely beach. He is literally reeling from the shock and begs for the scenes to stop, saying it can’t be him. He finally sees a break in the nightmares, and runs for the exit. He stumbles into the sunlight and runs for the nearest open receptacle, and vomits.
This time, Hiro seeks out Emma in her file room, where she is inspecting a brain scan that she admits is hers. She is concerned that she is seeing colors and is still looking for a medical reason, presumably so she can find a fix for it. While there, Hiro sees a flier for a talent show and we see an idea coming to him, there in his hospital gown, with his I.V. pole in tow. When Emma returns to her desk, she finds another flier, this time advertising the Magnificent Hiro, and she decides to see his act in the common room. She enters to see him finishing a magic trick. When he spots her he introduces her as his assistant, and then says he will make her disappear, but it will require a lot of applause from the audience! He stands her at the front of the room and holds a blanket in front of her, and while we hear the kids’ applause stop, it takes a moment for Emma to notice the change. When she does, she steps out from behind the blanket and stares in awe at the frozen applause hovering in the room. She steps into a forest of light, and when she reaches out her hand, finds she can even manipulate the sounds she sees. It’s beautiful, and for the first time, it looks as though Emma may understand that she has a gift. Hiro tells Emma that there are no bad powers, you just have to understand them. He also tells her to hide so they can sell the trick.
As Peter goes to a back flight of stairs, Noah ascends the stairs, telling Jeremy his every move until he stands at the top of the landing, unarmed. Jeremy is angry at having inadvertently killed his parents, since everything he touches ends up dead. Noah is explaining to him that he in fact failed Jeremy, and that he still has the power to heal, he just has to learn how to use his ability. As Jeremy lifts the gun, Peter teleports into the landing, and seeing the situation he pushes Noah out of the way and grabs the butt of the gun. As the gun goes off he stops time, but in the freeze frame he realizes that he has in fact been shot. We see him look behind himself, seeing the bullet exiting his chest, the blood spatter frozen in space.
As time begins again, and Noah falls away from the bullet, Peter crumples to the floor. Could this have been better choreographed by Noah himself? As Peter lays bleeding out, Noah tells Jeremy only he can save him, even though he is convinced all he will do is speed his death along. Noah tells Jeremy that his power is “understanding people like you,” and he begins to coach Jeremy, telling him to visualize peter healing, the wound disappearing, and as Jeremy lays hands on Peter it all becomes true. Peter sits up, still in shock, gasping and laughing in disbelief.
Sam finds Sylar sitting, spent, outside the House. He begins to talk of how he and the carnival family accept and love him, despite having just met him and despite Sylar’s conviction that he is, in fact, a monster. Having spun this gossamer deceit, Sam then tells Sylar that the detective hunting him has entered the fairgrounds, has put “their” family at risk. Sylar asks what he must do, and while Sam says it is his decision, he also mentions that the captain was seen entering the House of Mirrors himself. Sylar strides past Damian, a renewed sense of purpose in his eyes, and confronts the captain. When Lubbock draws his weapon, Sylar puts up his hands in surrender, but can’t stop the electricity that crackles from them. Lubbock fires, and Sylar stops the bullet, without thinking or acting. He then “fires” at Lubbock, but only burns him, and as he cowers against a mirror and we all sit certain that the lion has in fact awoken, Sylar suddenly finds he hasn’t the stomach for it, and turns to leave. Edgar flies out of nowhere, blades flashing, to finish the task at hand. In answer to Sylar’s confused stare, he tells him to get a mop.
Noah, ever the enterprising agent, stages the house to look like Jeremy’s parents accidentally died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He hands Peter a rental car key and directs him to the airport, so he can be lifted to Hiro, post haste. Noah himself opts to stay behind with Jeremy, possibly to make up for his having let the boy down all those years ago. (Still looking for redemption, Noah? That is so this season!)
After the show, and their rousing success as a magic act, Hiro is forced back into bed by a Wagnerian nurse, and Emma returns to the common room. She approaches the piano and begins to play, and what may have begun as a memory of Peter now becomes her own as the colors swirl around her. She is so lost in her music that she seems surprised to stop and find a small audience of hospital staff who have paused in their work to listen. They applaud, and she turns to see Hiro standing there, having been drawn from his bed (against orders) in an almost dreamlike state, following her music. No bad powers, indeed. As she orders Hiro back to bed, he disappears before her very eyes.
Sylar is now officially the new and last seat filled at the carnival table. Sam baptizes him, literally, and welcomes him into the fold. But no one gives him as warm a welcome as Lydia, who is last seen leading Sylar from their dinner party, to what is presumably a private celebration of their own.
When Peter arrives at the hospital, Emma must reveal to him that Hiro has disappeared; despite his promise to remain until Peter returned, it seems Fate once again has conflicting plans for Hiro. Peter finds the scrap of paper on the bed table that Hiro was beginning a new list on and sees his next order of business: “Save Charlie.” Fate agrees, because when next we see Hiro, he is standing outside the diner in Texas (still in his hospital gown) and, peering into the plate glass window, finds himself three years’ prior to his hospital stay, and staring at Charlie, alive and well.
What We Learned:
(NOTE: These are captured in a narrative that does not follow exactly the timeline of the episode, but are chronologically accurate nonetheless)
After collapsing in Peter’s apartment, Hiro awakens to find himself in a hospital bed, Peter sitting nearby with the news that he is sick. This is of course not news to Hiro, who says aloud that he has a brain tumor (is this the first time? Did I miss it in a previous episode?) and that despite this, he believes fate has sent him to Peter to help him fix something in his life. Peter, however, sees this as a possible opportunity to fix Hiro instead, and borrows his power to go and enlist Noah’s help. Before he departs, Emma comes to see him and asks if he is the one who sent her the cello (that she cracked her wall with), and when she tells him she doesn’t want her power, Peter guides her to Hiro, saying he knows more about powers than anyone else he knows. She peers in at him reading a comic book and seems unsure, but when she turns again, Peter has already teleported out.
At the carnival, Sam and Edgar are watching Sylar’s trailer. Sam believes there are two sides at war inside him, and we can guess which side Sam wants to win. He goes and wakes him, saying he believes Sylar has come to them to heal. Sylar doesn’t know how he can heal when he doesn’t even know his own name, since the police told him his name was Gabriel but Sam seems to know what he’s talking about. Sam tells him to take a deep breath and say the first name that pops into his head. His answer? “Call me Nathan.” He also asks what is wrong with him, but Sam answers that nothing is wrong, he’s special, like everyone at the carnival. (Sounds an awful lot like what Emma is going through, yes?) As they walk through the carnival, they meet Lydia, and as Sylar shakes her hand he gasps, pulling back in surprise. He says that he remembers shaking a lot of hands, like he was maybe a politician… interesting.
Clare arrives at Noah’s apartment, laundry basket in tow. She asks him how the job search is going, and his answer leads her to tentatively suggest volunteerism. As he scoffs at the idea they hear a noise in the apartment, and while Clare walks towards it, he grabs his gun from a drawer and cocks the weapon. They approach the bathroom door, which opens to reveal Peter, who is clearly out of practice with teleportation.
Back at the carnival, Sam dispatches Edgar with tickets to the show for Captain Lubbock, the detective hunting Sylar. They know that inviting him there and forcing Sylar to protect himself could mean the captain’s death, which Sam is willing to risk in order to wake the sleeping lion that is Sylar.
Noah checks his old company records and comes across Jeremy Greer, a young man who at 13 had the power to heal anything that had even the slightest stir of life left in it. He also relays how he and the Company studied him for 4 days, but being unable to answer his questions, they wiped his memory and left him to fend for himself; you can hear the regret in Noah’s voice. Peter and Noah teleport to Georgia to borrow his power for Peter, but when they arrive, they find a house shrouded in death, from the plants on the walk to the birds outside on the porch, and when they open the door the smell that greets them tells them it’s worse inside. Peter discovers Jeremy’s parents, who are both a little ripe, and as they call out for Jeremy he answers with a shotgun from upstairs.
Back at the carnival, Lydia is showing Sylar around at Sam’s request, and she is a rather shameless flirt. Edgar is none too happy about this turn of events, and when Sylar goes to get a shovel he makes a comment about Lydia liking bad boys, then flings three of his short knives into the handle of his shovel. I heard hundreds of viewers holding their breath with me as he calmly looks down at the knives, then flings them back at Edgar, landing inches from his nose. As Edgar turns to retaliate, Sylar lifts his hand and Edgar is catapulted into a nearby cart of cement. Sam breaks up the fight, and as he leads Sylar from the scene military jets fly overhead. His face ripples and morphs into Nathan’s for a split second before he says that he remembers flying. He thinks maybe he was a jet pilot, in the military? Sam looks like he’s about to lose patience when he suggests that Sylar visit the House of Mirrors with Damian, whose powers will help him to discover the truth but he has to be willing to see himself. Sylar agrees and enters.
Emma finally approaches Hiro to ask his advice, and he is genuinely excited for her. After all, he tells her that “manifesting a power is a wondrous time!” She insists that she wants to turn off her power, clearly having scared herself by inadvertently cracking her apartment wall. What’s touching in this scene is that Hiro, once he understands Emma’s hearing impairment, begins to speak loudly and over-enunciate to compensate for his Japanese accent, typical “ugly foreigner” behavior but in this instance, he does it without malice. She seems unconvinced, and at the very least unhappy with his answers.
In the House of Mirrors, Damian touches his hands to Sylar’s temple, and then leaves him in a round room. We hear a voice ask, “Gabriel?” And he turns and knows instinctively it’s his mother. He sees her for only a moment before he is surrounded by the repeated scene of the fight with his mother, the scissors, his attack. After she falls, he is treated to a replay of every one of his victims, from the first time he willfully stole a power, to Elle on that lonely beach. He is literally reeling from the shock and begs for the scenes to stop, saying it can’t be him. He finally sees a break in the nightmares, and runs for the exit. He stumbles into the sunlight and runs for the nearest open receptacle, and vomits.
This time, Hiro seeks out Emma in her file room, where she is inspecting a brain scan that she admits is hers. She is concerned that she is seeing colors and is still looking for a medical reason, presumably so she can find a fix for it. While there, Hiro sees a flier for a talent show and we see an idea coming to him, there in his hospital gown, with his I.V. pole in tow. When Emma returns to her desk, she finds another flier, this time advertising the Magnificent Hiro, and she decides to see his act in the common room. She enters to see him finishing a magic trick. When he spots her he introduces her as his assistant, and then says he will make her disappear, but it will require a lot of applause from the audience! He stands her at the front of the room and holds a blanket in front of her, and while we hear the kids’ applause stop, it takes a moment for Emma to notice the change. When she does, she steps out from behind the blanket and stares in awe at the frozen applause hovering in the room. She steps into a forest of light, and when she reaches out her hand, finds she can even manipulate the sounds she sees. It’s beautiful, and for the first time, it looks as though Emma may understand that she has a gift. Hiro tells Emma that there are no bad powers, you just have to understand them. He also tells her to hide so they can sell the trick.
As Peter goes to a back flight of stairs, Noah ascends the stairs, telling Jeremy his every move until he stands at the top of the landing, unarmed. Jeremy is angry at having inadvertently killed his parents, since everything he touches ends up dead. Noah is explaining to him that he in fact failed Jeremy, and that he still has the power to heal, he just has to learn how to use his ability. As Jeremy lifts the gun, Peter teleports into the landing, and seeing the situation he pushes Noah out of the way and grabs the butt of the gun. As the gun goes off he stops time, but in the freeze frame he realizes that he has in fact been shot. We see him look behind himself, seeing the bullet exiting his chest, the blood spatter frozen in space.
As time begins again, and Noah falls away from the bullet, Peter crumples to the floor. Could this have been better choreographed by Noah himself? As Peter lays bleeding out, Noah tells Jeremy only he can save him, even though he is convinced all he will do is speed his death along. Noah tells Jeremy that his power is “understanding people like you,” and he begins to coach Jeremy, telling him to visualize peter healing, the wound disappearing, and as Jeremy lays hands on Peter it all becomes true. Peter sits up, still in shock, gasping and laughing in disbelief.
Sam finds Sylar sitting, spent, outside the House. He begins to talk of how he and the carnival family accept and love him, despite having just met him and despite Sylar’s conviction that he is, in fact, a monster. Having spun this gossamer deceit, Sam then tells Sylar that the detective hunting him has entered the fairgrounds, has put “their” family at risk. Sylar asks what he must do, and while Sam says it is his decision, he also mentions that the captain was seen entering the House of Mirrors himself. Sylar strides past Damian, a renewed sense of purpose in his eyes, and confronts the captain. When Lubbock draws his weapon, Sylar puts up his hands in surrender, but can’t stop the electricity that crackles from them. Lubbock fires, and Sylar stops the bullet, without thinking or acting. He then “fires” at Lubbock, but only burns him, and as he cowers against a mirror and we all sit certain that the lion has in fact awoken, Sylar suddenly finds he hasn’t the stomach for it, and turns to leave. Edgar flies out of nowhere, blades flashing, to finish the task at hand. In answer to Sylar’s confused stare, he tells him to get a mop.
Noah, ever the enterprising agent, stages the house to look like Jeremy’s parents accidentally died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He hands Peter a rental car key and directs him to the airport, so he can be lifted to Hiro, post haste. Noah himself opts to stay behind with Jeremy, possibly to make up for his having let the boy down all those years ago. (Still looking for redemption, Noah? That is so this season!)
After the show, and their rousing success as a magic act, Hiro is forced back into bed by a Wagnerian nurse, and Emma returns to the common room. She approaches the piano and begins to play, and what may have begun as a memory of Peter now becomes her own as the colors swirl around her. She is so lost in her music that she seems surprised to stop and find a small audience of hospital staff who have paused in their work to listen. They applaud, and she turns to see Hiro standing there, having been drawn from his bed (against orders) in an almost dreamlike state, following her music. No bad powers, indeed. As she orders Hiro back to bed, he disappears before her very eyes.
Sylar is now officially the new and last seat filled at the carnival table. Sam baptizes him, literally, and welcomes him into the fold. But no one gives him as warm a welcome as Lydia, who is last seen leading Sylar from their dinner party, to what is presumably a private celebration of their own.
When Peter arrives at the hospital, Emma must reveal to him that Hiro has disappeared; despite his promise to remain until Peter returned, it seems Fate once again has conflicting plans for Hiro. Peter finds the scrap of paper on the bed table that Hiro was beginning a new list on and sees his next order of business: “Save Charlie.” Fate agrees, because when next we see Hiro, he is standing outside the diner in Texas (still in his hospital gown) and, peering into the plate glass window, finds himself three years’ prior to his hospital stay, and staring at Charlie, alive and well.
What We Learned:
- Matt clearly does good work. Sylar is convinced Nathan’s memories are his own lost ones, and really, wouldn’t you rather be a fighter pilot politician than a matricidal monster?
- Previews for next week show the hinted at “rough sex” portion of the Matt/ Sylar saga. If we are to assume how Sylar’s evening with Lydia turns out, could it be that there now exists a link between the mind and body? Or is it just Sylar trying to come out on top (no pun intended)?
- New character, Jeremy Greer, healer. Is Noah’s going to take Clare’s advice and start volunteering, by developing a new Company Big Brothers/Big Sisters program? At the very least, he seems to intend to mentor this kid into some understanding of his abilities.
- Hiro is truly being mastered by Fate. It heard his plea to save Charlie, and delivered. What will he do next? Stay tuned.
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