It’s job-training week on Heroes, as Claire learns to sell comics and commit fraud, Sylar learns to skin rabbits, and Nathan learns to defuse bombs. This episode was muddled, even for Heroes, with a couple of strong bits thrown in (who doesn’t like a good bunny knifing?). All that, plus the sexy Ma Petrelli eats oysters scene you’ve been waiting for.

Who else thought the Puppet Master was dead? We were all mislead by that scene where Sylar killed him and that other scene where he was incinerated in a massive explosion. I guess you really can bounce back from that sort of thing. Like many of us, he does whatever random anonymous text messages tell him to do, so he’s hoofed it over to Claire’s for microwave popcorn and shelter from the death quads. 

Claire denies she can hide him. She only helps hot nerds that can hold their breath a long time, if you know what I mean. Mrs. HRG threatens to notify the agents outside, only to learn that Rebel has distracted them with a fake alarm. Looks like everybody trusts text messages. It’s as if they’re messages from God, if God lost her ability to spell (No oder godz b4 me! 4rlz!).

Puppet Master’s a little mad that Claire has gotten a free pass from the government, and won’t help her kind. Poor guy even cries a puppetear (rimshot!). Why he thinks Claire can help him? He can probably laminate a fake id and buy a hoodie on his own (not that either of those things work). Maybe he wants to borrow on of Claire’s awful wigs.

Meanwhile, Danko has implemented Operation BlitzMatt by dressing Matt in a highly unflattering explosive vest and dumping him in the middle of Washington. Nathan hustles over there (much like LA last season, no one in DC ever looks up), leaving Danko to marvel once again at his Jack Bauer-like commuting abilities. I think Nathan is adopting increasingly ridiculous hairstyles to try and cover for his flight-mussed curls. He should also consider not leaving via the “roof access” door while Danko is standing right there. Danko’s OK with Nathan exploding (again!) so he orders a lackey to blow them both up.

Oops! Signal blocked! It’s either Rebel interfering or Time Warner is their service provider. Matt recovers enough from the drugs to read the mind of an explosives expert nearby, one with super-amazing eyesight that can mentally defuse a bomb on a twitchy suspect from a hundred feet away without binoculars. There’s a little confusion as to what exactly the guy is thinking about, and there’s a couple minutes wasted in the mind of guy who turned out to be mentally playing Call of Duty, before Nathan just cuts a damn wire. Another crisis averted by your elected representatives. It’s just like last week, when Rep. DeFazio talked a couple of jumpers down from the roof of the Capitol. Turns out they were just janitors having a smoke, but everyone was real proud of him, real proud.

“Everyone back off! I am an elected official! As proof, I will show you this picture of me banging a hot blonde lobbyist.”

 

Danko futilely pushes the button for a few minutes, like he’s trying to make the elevator arrive that much faster, then resumes his perpetual argument with Nathan (already returned from the bomb site). Nathan tries to relieve Danko from duty, but apparently only President Worf can do that (what happened to him anyway?). There’s another problem, Danko is verrrrry suspicious of Nathan, what with all of his relatives having a power, his superhuman travel-times, his tendency to come and go via the “roof access” stairs, and the handy film he has of Tracy screaming “you’re one of us” at him. Give the little guy time, he’ll piece those cryptic little clues together at some point.

To help him do that, he’s ordered Tracy back to HQ. Nathan gets to her first, with a stern warning from HRG beforehand that he should be a cool, calculating bitch like his mom, instead of the whiney bitch he is. He does take a page from Ma P in one respect, you know she’s got a captive sex slave somewhere tied up just like Tracy.

Nathan does his best to convince her that he still cares for her, especially when she’s all sweaty and wearing a tight tank-top. The kidnapping and drugging was for her own good. Unbelievably, she seems to swallow all this crap and doesn’t give Nathan up to Drinko when he comes in to question her.

“I’ve had air-conditioning installed in my leather coat so I can keep it on under the heat lamps.”

Sylar’s finally found his father, unless this turn out to be yet another fake parent. I can’t wait until he finds out he and Lex Luthor are brothers, boy, will he be surprised. Daddy’s not too worried about Sylar’s intended patricide. Turns out he’s already got terminal cancer, to which he tosses in the added thrill of smoking by an open fire while on oxygen.

Claire’s debating whether she should have helped the psychopath that tortured her, her mother, and her other mother. Relax, Claire, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been much help. For some odd reason, Mrs. HRG doesn’t want anymore creepy murderers coming around the house, although if Claire finds any more hot nerds, there’s room in Mrs. HRG’s closet, if you know what I mean. Claire decides the best solution is to get a job. Wait, what? Hmm, the reasoning seems to be that the fugitives will go to her place of work and leave the house alone. Brilliant! Except for the part where there are other people at her place of work, and the government agents will still be watching her there.

Whatever, it’s another excuse for heroes to pay tribute to comic books, by which I mean portray comic readers as dweeby boys who can barely hide their erections at the sight of a girl. Claire applies for Aqua-boy’s old job at Sam’s comics. The comic store guy stumps her with what he calls “THE question”: flight or invisibility? And here I thought THE question was, “who would win, pirates or ninjas?”  She’s stumped, but hot, so she gets the job.

Maybe I’m just really tired when I watch it, but the whole Sylar/Dad scene confused me. So, instead of being the fearsome monster Sylar imagined, Dad turns out to be sick old man with some massive personal grooming issues. Check. Then Dad babbles to Sylar for a while about how Sylar is picking on easy victims, and he ought to man up and take on bigger challenges, or he’ll be unsatisfied. Bigger challenges like skinning small animals or seeing how long he can go without bathing.

Is it Easter already?

There’s more confusion when Claire leaves work and a gaggle of pubescent stiffies for the day. She calls HRG for advice on leading a double life, and suddenly Heroes turns into an episode of The Hills.

“So like, I don’t know what to do, you know? It’s hard and stuff.”

“Do you want me to make you feel better or, like, tell the truth, or something?”

“I’m dunno. Whatever.”

“Yeah … totally. Say, do I hear nerds masturbating? Are you at a comics store?”

The soul searching ends when the feds watching Claire zoom off. Yet another text from Rebel alerts Claire that they have found the Puppetmaster. It might have been more helpful for Rebel to text the Puppetmaster, but not as exciting, I guess. The swat team present at every other hero takedown must be caught in traffic, because only pretty lady agent and her partner are there. The Puppetmaster refrains form killing them, for no other reason than the writers are desperately trying to make Claire’s motivation in helping him plausible, which it totally isn’t. Yet she does. Idiot.

HRG takes the opportunity to steer Danko towards the most dangerous hero of all, Ma Petrelli. Awesome. She will eat that little man for breakfast and make some new shoes from the skin. Then she will get to work on whoever ordered this shot.

“I’m going to adopt you, argyle socks. You’ll be the sons that will never disappoint me.”

Danko meet up with Ma Petrelli as she slurps down oysters in Manhattan. She tells the best kind of lie, the kind that’s mostly the truth. Mainly, that Nathan is a big ol disappointment in the talent department. Then she casually tosses in that she knows a lot about Danko’s unpleasant past, something to do with Angola. Unless she said angora, which could be embarrassing in a completely different way. At any rate, it seems to rattle Danko, or maybe it’s Ma Petrelli’s slurping noises.

“The cameraman is shooting up my goddamn nose again, isn’t he?”

Back at the trailer of grimy body hair, Sylar and dad finish making their stuffed bunny. Dad explains that the taxidermy is just a way of passing the time and satisfying the bloodlust, much like scrapbooking. Dad’s pretty unimpressed by everything Sylar, until he gets a glimpse at his healing ability. He tries to act casual and happy to be dying of cancer, then when Sylar turns his back, nails him to the wall with some arrows that just happened to be lying around. Sylar’s pretty sure he can beat dear old dad in a fight, until dad starts to whistle.

The whistling makes Sylar black out from annoyance, or something. He comes to and finds dad sharpening the knives and busting out the big glass eyes. Sylar will looks awesome stuffed and mounted over the fireplace. Dad might even brush his teeth to celebrate. Dad’s decided that he wants to live after all, and this time he’ll really live, take chances, bathe yearly, and live his best life® just like Oprah says.

But wait! Sylar was just playing possum. I am actually relieved that the writers did not have Sylar & dad stuffing a possum, as per their usual heavy handedness, although I also suspect this might be because live possums are nasty and live bunnies are easier to work with. Anyhoo, Sylar wakes up and quickly turns the tables on the old gnome.

Sylar refrains from killing him on the assumption that cancer death will be more painful. Jokes on you Sylar! That tank is really filed with Nitrous. He also refuses to just give Dad the healing ability because that would make him too powerful. Jeez, Sylar, did you not pay attention to Dad’s big “get more powerful opponents” speech? He wasn’t referring to the bunnies. Sylar takes his stuffed bunny and goes, saying all his questions have been answered. They have? To be honest, I’m not really clear on what those questions were to begin with, unless that question was “should I floss regularly?”

Claire comes through for the Puppetmaster, supplying not only a fake id, but a completely new background identity. How did Claire become an expert in this after a week? There must be Wiki How page on “assume a new identity.” She explains that she’s doing it for her, and because she loved his work in Sideways. 

“It’s, like, soooo not about you. I just want to grow and stuff, you know?”

“I know! Everything’s changing so much. I went to Ketchup last night and OMG, Spencer and Heidi were there. It was like super awkward, you know?”

“I know! Then Brody was like ‘rude!’ and I was like ‘totally!’ and then … wait, someone gave us The Hills script by accident again. What I meant to say was, I googled ‘running from super secret government black-ops’ and found the WikiHow page on ‘assume a new identity.’ Now you can start your new life as Heywood Jablome. Pinkie swear no more killing.”

“Thanks! I’m going to cry again while I stare at your chest.”

Back in Washington, the fight between Nathan and Danko continues. Nathan’s all set to go to the president, but make the fatal error of telling Danko about it and then standing in front of a conveniently placed glass elevator with conveniently breakable glass.

“Let me pause in front of this large glass window while I goad my sworn enemy who suspects I can fly. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.”

“Thank you. Now I will shoot you as the hugely obvious security camera with the bright flashing light records everything.”

In a move no one saw coming, Danko shoots the glass, then shoves Nathan out the window. Nathan flies away. Nathan’s outing means more than the end of his career and ability to tie up ex-girlfriends. Claire’s protection is gone too, although shouldn’t HRG be able to protect her? At any rate, the black-ops team must be back from whatever coffee break they were on earlier in the episode; they storm the house. Mrs. HRG and Mr. Muggles are very upset to have their American Idol viewing interrupted (after all the mindwiping, Mrs. HRG heavily identifies with Paula Abdul), but Claire is nowhere to be found. The camera pans to Nathan, floating outside, holding Claire, because no one on the super-secret team would suspect that a girl with a flying father and a flying uncle might get a flying rescue.

In addition to not teaching his goon squads to look up in case there are any flying people around, Danko has still not improved his home security. He returns from a paper towel buying trip (he won’t buy the super-absorbent kind because he hates special abilities) to find a stuffed bunny. Sylar lurks around the corner.

Remember Hiro and Ando? Turns out they are not dead! They return to Los Angeles after one of the  nice Lesbindians gives them a message that Matt Parkman is in trouble at a certain address in Los Angeles. The kind of trouble that can wait a couple weeks for highly wanted fugitives to return from India.

They arrive at the address to find a frantic girl desperate to leave. In a completely hilarious mix-up, she thinks they are the new baby sitters!!! But no, Hiro says they are there for Matt Parkman. But then, and I can hardly type this from laughing so hard, it turns out the baby is Matt Parkman!!!! And now Hiro and Ando have to take care of a baby, which will be funny because they are dudes AND funny foreigners!!!!! That’s like comedy squared!!!!!! I don’t have enough exclamation points on my keyboard to express how funny this will be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope they have waffles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know it will probably be hard to believe after that recap, but there were things I liked about this episode. John Glover was creepily believable as Sylar’s dad. Hopefully, we can drop the whole “searching for your parents” meme for good.The confrontation set up between Sylar and Danko is promising. On the other hand, I’m not sure what the whole point of Claire’s job was, since she only had it for about five seconds.  The Hiro-Ando-baby set up makes me weary, unless there’s a tie-in down the road to Sylar’s taxidermy skills. Mokers will have the honor of recapping the inevitable poopy-diaper scene. Be prepared to laugh!

brilliantmistake | 03.16.09 | Filed in Heroes,Recaps