Quick n' Dirty Synopsis (Sans Spoilers)

"Upon This Rock" - Clare is still 'enjoying" her time at the carnival, despite Samuel's shady business trips and Eli's constant supervision making her ill at ease. Lydia intends to use this suspicion to her advantage. Hiro resurfaces in Japan after disappearing from New York, and he's got a mission on his mind. Emma learns another facet to her power from an unusual source, while Noah is working to keep yet another secret under wraps.

"Let It Bleed" - Our heroes say good-bye to an old friend, and say hello to a familiar face. Noah is paid an unexpected visit by an antagonist from his past, and the Carnival goes into lockdown.

Full-Blown Synop-Analysis

"Upon This Rock"

Clare gives us a taste of her domestic side as the chapter opens with her picking up trash, part of the Carnival’s “beautification” regime, while eyeing the Freak Show posters and nursing what seems to be some serious feelings of misgiving. Lydia sense this, and pawns off her load of blueberry pancakes intended for Samuel, knowing full well that Clare will have to enter the inner sanctum and perhaps see what daddy dearest is up to. Clare, upon swinging in the trailer door (after a barely cursory knock, rude girl) sees a box with the familiar coloring and logo of Primatech. Samuel walks her outside (clearly wanting to enjoy his pancakes in the open air) and then continues their trek through the Carnival, all the while enjoying a spirited debate about freedom (one in which Clare quotes Sartre, Samuel responds with Joplin). As Samuel says goodbye and prepares for a business trip into the city, he reminds Clare she is free to leave at any time; he follows this up with a sotto voce command to Eli to make very sure that doesn’t happen.

In Tokyo, Japan, Hiro suddenly appears in a crowded marketplace. He approaches a noodle vendor and begins to yammer in what appears to be gibberish, seeking his sidekick Sancho Panza and trying to locate a working communicator badge (any geek worth their salt can immediately recognize his references to fictional characters such as would populate any SyFy or comic book storyline; fail, Miso Man). When he spies a woman being mugged, he grabs a cleaver and jumps intot he fray, slicing the purse strings and sending the robber running. His valiant act draws no applause from his audience, but does draw the police to him.

After being hauled in, Hiro is “rescued” by Ando (and we learn he’s been missing 6 weeks) when the police discover the Dial-A-Hero business card in his pocket and summon him for his friend. After some pointed comments from the officers regarding options for the mentally ill, Ando takes Hiro to the office. His sister Kimiko (or, as Hiro calls her, Princess) wants to take him to a neuro-surgeon, but Ando wants to solve his mystery. Using Hiro’s comics and literature, he begins to piece together what Hiro is actually saying: Dr. Watson trapped in the Arkham Asylum in the dragon swamp is in fact a man trapped in an asylum on Arkham Road in Florida, land of ‘gators. Way to go, Sancho!

FLASHBACK: Young Samuel is outside the Carnival, an eight-track player atop a rock he is unsuccessfully putting the moves on. Young Joseph comes to find him for the start of his show, and berates him for his foolish endeavors. Even as he scoffs at Samuel’s attempt, we see the dust at his feet shake and roll, before his ridicule cuts his practice short. We also hear Joseph mention a Vanessa, someone he suspects Samuel wants to impress with his supposed “ability.” They end with Samuel shuffling homewards, Joseph retrieving the eight-track, as we see the Present Day Samuel staring down the very rock in his memory. He shakes the thoughts loose and continues his journey into town.

In town, Emma receives a rejection letter from a medical school she has applied to, citing an unusual amount of applicants. Dejected, she returns to her apartment and to her cello for some peace. But no sooner does she arrive than she is paid a visit by Samuel; now we know his destination, but what’s his reason? He also reveals that he is the one who sent the cello to Emma, and proves it by baring the compass tattoo on his forearm, which is a match to the one inlaid in the wood on the back of the cello. She looks the gift horse in the mouth, however, when she points out that the cello allowed her to put a crack in her wall. Samuel says this is a result of her own fear of her power, manifesting itself in a negative way. He also says that he understands her power, how she feels the things she “hears” more deeply than those who can physically hear them. And, her power can help others to feel, to draw them to her. This is what he’s after.

Clare is back in the mess tent, where she overhears Lydia and her daughter having an argument about boys (sounds like the apple doesn’t fall far from the charming and illusive tree). Clare chuckles to herself as Amanda storms off, and Lydia wheels on her. Clare backpedals and explains that all she finds funny is the normalcy, and how much she appreciates that in the weird world of the Carnival (do I detect a hint of wistfulness for Mother Bennett in all this?). After their conversation, Clare tries to re-enter Samuel’s trailer to find Eli, in all his creepy-staring-eyed glory, who re-directs her to her chores.

Samuel and Emma are in Central Park, her cello in hand. He instructs her to not just play, but to concentrate on the man he seeks (a man gleaned from Noah’s files who can create plant-life with a touch), and to turn her prayers into a siren song that will summon him. As her bow touches the strings, people stop in their tracks to listen. Samuel reminds her to focus, and it isn’t long before a tousled homeless man appears from the trees. He stops to listen too, and as he leans against a tree, Emma ‘s gaze is drawn from the colored waves of her song and she is amazed to see the tree he touches putting out new green leaves!

Samuel takes his new charge, Ian, to the hospital and Emma’s clerking gets him seen almost immediately. After he is given a clean bill of health, Samuel thanks Emma for her help and gives her a compass in the event she might wish to see them again and learn even more about her gift. As he and Ian turn to go, Samuel catches a news report that Senator Nathan Petrelli’s plane crash site has been found and his remains identified. He looks confused, but not necessarily surprised.

Clare is still being tailed by Eli, who clearly doesn’t believe she’s been thrown off the scent. He finally chases her into the Hall of Mirrors, where his duplicated self is able to cover all the exits. However, he enters the maze to find her, and she manages to sneak up and bash him with a stool. Apparently she’s taken out the original article, because the duplicates dissipate as she exits unhindered. She heads for Samuel’s trailer and continues her search, uncovering the files she suspected were in there. She picks up a picture of young Samuel and his brother and is puzzling over it when she suddenly stands bolt upright before being flung from the trailer, and finds Doyle is outside pulling her strings. He becomes enraged at her spying, accusing her of doing so for daddy and of trying to ruin the only good place he’s found. Clare convinces him that she’s the last person to deny someone a family, and he releases his pull, telling her to go and speak to Lydia, since “she knows.”

When Clare goes to Lydia, she puts together what Lydia is not saying and guesses what really happened to Joseph. After promising Lydia that she will find someone who can stop Samuel, she exits the beaded curtain and runs smack into Eli, who takes her to Samuel. He puts on a good show of being angry with Eli and his strong-arm tactics, and reiterates that Clare is free to leave when she wants. But first, she demands to know what happened to Joseph. Samuel does a rare turn and tells her the truth, but blames Joseph for betraying the family and bringing the government men into their home. He begins to remind Clare about the lengths a father will go to, and then says he wants to show her what he has been fighting for. He takes her outside the Carnival where Ian is hard at work, bringing the desert to life with Samuel’s assistance. It’s a feel good moment for all, until Clare picks up her voicemail and finds two from Noah, needing to know she’s safe, and one from Peter, saying they need to talk.

Next we see her, Clare is climbing out of a taxi garbed in black for Nathan’s funeral, where she gives Noah the cold shoulder and joins Angela at the graveside. Peter gives a moving eulogy, and Nathan is buried a hero, with six young men in uniform folding his flag and surrendering it to Angela’s tearful embrace. The soldier present arms, fire three rounds, and then four fighter jets streak the sky, one breaking formation to turn a soaring back-flip, as Peter smiles into the sun.

"Let It Bleed"

86 hours prior to the funeral, Noah’s headlights pick up Peter in a deserted clearing where he pulls up and, on Peter’s directive, opens the car’s trunk to reveal Nathan’s body, fresh out of cold storage. He reiterates that Peter need have no part in this, before Peter resolutely slams the trunk shut. We are treated to a view of the funeral reception in the Petrelli home, where Peter stands like a mute toy soldier. Elsewhere, Clare is fixing her running mascara when there’s a knock on her door. Noah has dropped by the dorm to offer her a ride to the reception, but she refuses, and asks him not to even attend. She wants “time to grieve without being reminded why,” and as far as she is concerned, Angela and Noah have told an unforgivable lie.

Noah obeys her wishes, and goes back to his bachelor pad where we see a shadowy figure outside the window. Noah cracks it for some air, and who sneaks in but Edgar the exiled carnie, knives flashing. But before he can pounce, Noah turns and tazes him. Turn-about is fair play, Edgar. Noah heads downstairs to his favorite restaurant where he pays off the owner to give him the run of the restaurant, as we see his old partner Lauren making her way in with sodium pentothal in her handbag (a necessity for every well-dressed lady). The cocktail is for Edgar, whom Noah has tied up and stored in the walk-in refrigerator. Things are about to get interesting…

…as they are back at the Carnival. Samuel is drawing a portrait of a woman who we have to assume is Vanessa, when he sees reflected in his ink bottle a blue leisure-suited figure flying towards him. He jumps out of the way just as Doyle crashes into his work bench, and tries to regain his footing, stammering that he “tried to stop him.” Samuel turns to see Sylar moving towards him, ready to put his singular thought into action. Sylar pins him to the wall of his trailer, ready to carve into his skull. But something gives him pause. Samuel senses a chink in his armor, and even as Sylar says he is stronger than the last time he visited, Samuel grates out that he is, too. With that, he summons a dust storm that swirls from the ground up, surrounding Sylar like an angry swarm. When it clears, he is torn and bloodied, bone visible in some places, one of his eyes scoured white. He looks at Samuel in disbelief before falling forward.

Peter continues to look pensive at the funeral, even as Angela approaches him with words of comfort and caution. She warns him against revenge, saying that Nathan was correct in saying he cant win against Sylar, and that she won’t be able to bear losing them both. He is saved from further advice by Clare’s arrival, and they retire to the kitchen for some privacy. While they talk, they cut lemon wedges, and Clare’s impassioned speech escalates until she gets unwieldy with the knife and cuts herself. When she doesn’t immediately heal peter realizes he is “Haitianing” and offers to turn it off. But Clare seems to enjoy the pain, needing it perhaps to match the pain she’s feeling inside. He goes to get her a bandage, all the while casting furtive glances about him. Why so shady, Peter?

Samuel stores Sylar in Lydia’s trailer so he can recuperate in peace (in pieces?), much to her chagrin. She is ordered into the fray by Samuel, citing her ability to pull out a person’s demons. Tug-o-war, Lydia? She enters and finds him whole, healed, and seemingly asleep, but a soft touch puts him on high alert. What ensues is a carefully woven web on Lydia’s part, and a sly give-and-take on Sylar’s. Lydia doesn’t only “see” the future, she is able to see people’s secret desires, to pull the longing through their skin. She reveals Sylar’s deepest secret, and presumably she’ll have to die for her knowledge. Sylar takes her power in the second-best way he knows how, leaving her intact, to her surprise. But, as he reasons, he doesn’t have to kill when he steals, he just likes it.

Clare is seeking out Peter when Angela stops her, and asks for her to make herself available to Peter in his time of need, to be his shoulder to cry on, since he clearly won’t be coming to Mommy Dearest. She asks Clare to go and speak to him right then, since he’s on the roof of the house listening to his police scanner, still seeking redemption. When she goes, she finds the scanner, but the roof is otherwise empty. The channel is still on, though, and she hears radio chatter about a gunman in an office building, and she knows that’s where Peter has gone. She’s right, of course, and Peter has already embroiled himself in the action when Clare arrives.

He instructs her to apply pressure to a victim’s leg as he goes after the gunman, despite his not being the unbreakable in this duo. Clare is trying to assess her situation when she finds herself face to face with the gunman, but barely reacts before Peter appears behind him and draws the attention from his niece. Peter starts to tell the gunman he knows he’s having a shit day, he can relate to that, having buried his brother hours earlier. He then continues by talking about how he was forced to stage his brother’s death like he’s some sort of Mafioso, and it’s killing him. The gunman seems to be coming round and loosens his grip on the gun. But he suddenly rights it, aims, and fires. Even hit at close range, he survives, and Clare seems slightly sadistic when she says he ought to be feeling the pain for his stupid actions. She finally gives in to his request for her power, even though she knows it will only encourage more foolhardy actions.

Noah, meanwhile, is also getting his sadism on, bloodying his knuckles on Edgar’s face while he tries to get the location of the Carnival or, more importantly, what Samuel’s master plan is. Edgar doesn’t know, but Noah, rather than believe him, picks up one of his knives. Lauren interjects, assuring that he will “catch more flies with honey,” and points to a key fact Noah may have missed: Edgar no longer has a compass. Noah agrees, and opts to offer Edgar some tea and have a nice chat (??!?), prompting a comment from Edgar that Lauren is clearly the good cop. Noah denies this, saying that he simply realizes that the enemy of his enemy, while not necessarily his friend, is certainly less of an antagonist for him. Do we smell a partnership?

Now in possession of the power of foresight, Sylar tosses Samuel’s trailer while he watches, seeking the ink that will allow him to see his future on the map of his body. Samuel decides he, too, should have a chat with his attacker, and picking up the torn portrait from the detritus around his trailer, begins to tell Sylar the story of Vanessa. He reveals that he, too, knows Sylar’s secret, and believes they are in many ways the same person: “I’m not a good guy, but I’m not all bad, either.” Sylar demands the ink, and Samuel decides to stir up a fresh batch so that Sylar can see that he belongs at the Carnival. As the ink runs across Sylar’s shoulders, and echo of the swarm that swallowed his body earlier that evening, Samuel commands him to stop thinking and attempting to control it. It finally settles inside his right wrist, and both men strain to make out the picture. And while Samuel finds it interesting, Sylar sees it as a sign he doesn’t belong there. He stalks away, pulling his shirt on as he goes.

Noah has moved Edgar from the freezer to his apartment, and released one hand so that he can feed himself the miso soup they’re prepared. He’s provided Noah with maps of the carnival’s layout, the better to plan an attack on Samuel. Noah’s plan calls for isolating him and pulling out the big guns, but he can’t guarantee the safety of the others at the Carnival who may come to Samuel’s aid. He also reveals that he plans to reassign the carnie folk, to re-assimilate them into society rather than leave them under Edgar or another’s careful watch, citing that they would be too vulnerable a target. Edgar, unhappy with this plan, finally picks his handcuffs and flees the scene, after telling Noah that he is the real threat, and taking his maps with him.

Once again, Peter and Clare find themselves on the roof, where he asks her to get in touch with her former faux-friend Wes on his behalf (thank goodness for Facebook, or we may never hear from this minor character again!). Clare leaves and goes to her dorm, where she finds a note from Gretchen on her door, saying she’s in the library studying late. She does get in touch with Wes, as evidenced by Peter’s floating from the rooftop in the next-to-last scene of this chapter. Clare goes in and crashes on her bed, missing the shadow that is surely cast by the figure floating outside her dorm window: Sylar, sporting his new ink, a tiny portrait of Clare. “Hello, cheerleader.”

What We Learned:

1. Nathan’s actual remains are now resting in peace in a proper grave, and not in a standing freezer.
2. Sylar’s deep secret: he has taken Hiro’s prophetic words to heart, and fears dying alone.
3. Samuel can speak American Sign Language!
4. Sylar’s tattoo is of Clare’s face. Is that his deepest desire, is that his fate? Could this be why the commercials cite him as the one who’s going to save the world, by saving the cheerleader?
5. So, Vanessa is a woman Samuel has known since he was a boy, and he described her to Sylar as the love of his life who he just simply lost one day. Clearly, she is going to come back into play in a future arc. Why else would Samuel have a drawer papered with her portrait? Perhaps SHE is the one who can stop Samuel, and not one of our Heroes…
6. Hiro’s code speak breaks down thus: Dr Watson = Mohinder, Arkham = Psychiatric ward on Arkham Road, Swamp Dragons = Florida, the sunshine state. And Ando is Sancho Panza. Road trip, Sancho!