Angry Puppy

As usual, there are spoilers beyond the jump, so watch before you click through. This first bit doesn’t have anything you wouldn’t know from previous episodes or the preview clips.

The episode got off to a shaky start. Granted, there are usually Olympus-Mons-sized holes in the plot, but I still generally enjoy watching. After the first 10 minutes or so of Episode 4, however, Marc and I were both wondering if Heroes was about to become The Show We Love to Hate, a bittersweet spot that I’d rather save for the deliciously awful Primeval. By the time we reached the titular plot point, I was back to making allowances and excuses for the series, but let’s address some of the low points first.

The writing was a little too convenient. For instance, in the very first scene, as Mohinder laments that there’s really only one adverse consequence ( a rash) to his having injected himself with adrenal enhancer, he hears a domestic dispute between his neighbors (who we’ve never heard before, even when this was Isaac’s flat). While this gives us a chance to see another side effect (something akin to ‘roid rage), it seems a little forced.

Some of the actors who are now doing double duty as current and future versions of their characters seem to be having a little trouble pulling it off.  Ali Larter has had three seasons to perfect the whole multiple-characters-in-one-episode thing, but it was a pretty hard to watch the Current and Future Peters talk to each other. Future Peter just comes across as such a Star-Trek-Mirror-Universe caricature of himself.

On to the good. I’m fairly intrigued by the distinction being made between those who are born with abilities and those who acquire them. This episode reinforces both that distinction and the fact that made mutants are not as stable as born mutants. Why do I care? Because now we can play a game not unlike Find the Cylon. Here are some of my current guesses:

Peter and the Possible Future

Scar Peter takes No-Scar Peter to the future, a world where people without powers (let’s call them “ordinaries”) can buy and steal abilities. You and I would do nothing but good in such a world, but there are baddies who are using their new-found powers for nefarious purposes.

Scar Peter gives us a lot of exposition before being gunned down by Leather Claire.

• Last season’s cliffhanger was irrelevant, suckers!
• There is a line drawn between those born with powers and those given powers.
• No-Scar Peter’s friends are not necessarily on the side he thinks they are.
• For some unexplained reason, Peter needs Sylar’s power to fix things.

Incidentally, let me take this opportunity to call for a moratorium on characters successfully running away from other characters who are shooting firearms straight at them. Leather Claire would not be such a bad shot, and both Peters ought to be strapped to a table and/or dead by this point in the episode.

When I first saw this scene, I thought, “it would have been a braver choice for the writers to have killed off ‘our’ Peter instead of the new guy.” But luckily, the writers took the safest way out by letting both live, and we next see Scar Peter strapped to a table in a room with Leather Claire, Sensible-Hair Daphne and, um, Future Knox.

Though the sensible hair threw me off a little, Matt’s wife-in-a-painting in the last episode was Daphne after all. They’re now fostering Molly and have a child of their own, but it was probably as hard to tame the Speedster as we would imagine. She’s the only one of Claire’s posse who openly questions all the killing and intimidation, and she promises Matt that she’ll settle down once they get rid of Peter.

At this point, I should note that it’s hard to tell who are the “good” and “bad” guys here, or even if you can make such distinctions. Matt and Daphne both act like Peter is a villain in need of justice, whereas Claire just seems “evil” to me. She talks about justice, but she enjoys inflicting pain a little too much. I’m hoping that the evil-people-wear-black concept is just a gimmick to lull us into a false sense of complacency before everything is turned on its head. It’ll be a great disappointment if everything is actually exactly as it appears to be.

No-Scar Peter makes a pit stop at Mohinder’s to get Sylar’s new address and finds our erstwhile narrator wearing a hood and lurking in the shadows. I suspect that this is to hide a cockroach-like face, but it’ll be much cooler if there’s been a full-on Kafka-esque transformation under that cloak.

Using his powers without needing a verbal reminder for once, Peter learns that Sylar is at the Bennets’ in Costa Verde, CA. He does eventually get the ability he’s seeking, but not before he finds out that:

• Sylar is now going by Gabriel again and has become something of a homemaker.
• Gabriel has a kid named Noah.
• Surprise! Gabriel is Peter’s brother (if Ma Petrelli is to be believed).
• Both Noah and Gabriel are happy to see “Uncle Peter”.

Questions: As someone asked last week, why can’t Scar Peter heal the scar so that he won’t be so easily identified? Who’s Noah’s mother? Is Gabriel his biological father? Either way, I need to update our DILF list.

Unfortunately for Gabe and Pete, Leather Claire and her posse show up and threaten to kill Noah unless Peter comes with them. All hell breaks loose when Knox kicks Gabriel into a table and crushes Noah to death.

What kind of hell, you ask? Does anyone remember Ted Sprague? After beating Knox with Knox’s own power (fed by Knox’s own fear), Gabriel goes nuclear, kills 200,000 people and gives the episode its name.

• I assume Future Knox is dead.
• Sensible-Hair Daphne runs to Matt, but not fast enough to survive radiation poisoning.
• Leather Claire and No-Scar Peter survive, though how she gets him strapped to a table next to Scar Peter so quickly is beyond me.

So, Leather Claire, perhaps thinking she’s in Milo’s other venture Pathology, starts cutting Peter up to make him feel the pain of the 200,000 dead. Nathan, now President (and married to Tracy), bursts in, orders Claire out, reminds Peter that he can read minds (Oh, Peter…) and gets his head carved open when Peter gives in to the hunger associated with Sylar’s abilities. Since almost no one ever dies on Heroes, Peter realizes what he’s doing and stops just short of opening his brother’s skull. The episode ends with Peter confronting Sylar on Level Five back in our time.

Tracy/Niki/Barbara and Nathan

Aha! So there were three triplets: Niki (deceased), Tracy (current Ali Larter character) and the as-yet-unseen Barbara. This doesn’t fully explain Jessica or Gina, but it’s a step in the right direction.

These three were not born with their powers, but rather created by Dr. Zimmerman (and others) through DNA manipulation. Although Sylar does go nuclear, the Oppenheimer/Bhagavad Gita reference in the title could equally be applied to Zimmerman, who admits that they were tinkering around out of arrogance. But not only does he not know what her abilities are, he can’t remember much of anything about the program at all. I’d say he’s had a few visits from The Haitian.

Like Niki (and possibly all made mutants), Tracy’s power is unstable. If her emotions run high (like when she murdered the Greatest American Hero), her powers fire up, errr, ice down. She demonstrates her abilities to Nathan after he saves her from suicide, but I was really hoping to see the whole river ice over and thwart her attempts. Instead, she’s rescued by a flying dude who was under the influence of a dead guy that you can’t even trust to pick out furniture.

Thus begins the romance that leads to her becoming First Lady. But, eww, because he, like, totally slept with her sister that one time in Vegas.

Matt Parkman and Usutu

To recap: Matt is listening to Deep Forest in Africa after eating some psychedelic gruel. He can now see into the future, where most of his scenes take place. Highlights from the present:

• Usutu is spouting Jung mumbo jumbo, not “African, mystical mojo”.
• They’re getting a lot of comedy mileage out of that turtle! Matt’s expression as he followed the slow-moving spirit guide around was priceless.

Ando and Hiro

Ando and Hiro are locked up and play only a small part in this episode. A little goes a long way, though, as their relationship did a 180 since last time. Hiro’s attitude about seeing Ando kill him in the Possible Future was pushing them further apart and helping to facilitate that very future. Ando’s defense of Hiro after Ma Petrelli’s insult, however, showed that it’s going to take a lot more to break up this dynamic duo.

They are told that they hold the key to fixing everything, and that key is Adam Monroe. Remember our discussion last week about whether or not Claire could suffocate? If Adam can survive in the grave that long (and assuming Claire’s abilities are similar to his), then that whole scene with her birth mother last week really was just an example of mental trial, not physical.

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