Heroes: Episode 3.02

One of Us, One of Them

Brief Recap and then some thoughts:

Tracy tracks Nikki Sanders down to a New Orleans address and heads down there to find out who she is and why she looks so much like her.  She meets Micah and they have a sweet scene together.  Using his computer, he helps her learn that she and Nikki were born on the same day, in the same hospital in Los Angles.  Tracy tracks down the doctor (Dr. Zimmerman) on their birth certificates.  He tells her that he "created" them.

Claire really wants to go and kill some bad guys - especially Sylar - and asks her biological mother Meredith to teach her how to fight.  Meredith takes her to a shipping container and shuts them both inside.  She then proceeds to turn up the heat and suck all of the oxigen out of the container, suffocating Claire until she admits that she doesn't want to kill Sylar in order to help people - she wants revenge.  Later, Claire pretends to go on an overnight cheerleading retreat when in fact she hits the road in pursuit of Sylar.

Hiro and Ando's pursuit of Daphne brings them to a movie house (in Berlin?) that's having a Buster Keaton festival (a bit heavy-handed).  Daphne tells them that she's already handed over the half of the formula that she stole from them to her boss, and she was at the theater because there was going to be a handover of the other half and she was going to steal it.  Turns out, it's The Haitian who is there to retrieve the half (from some brunette) for Mrs. P.  Hiro and Ando almost get the paper from The Haitian, but then they bungle things and Daphne makes off with it.  The Haitian takes both Hiro and Ando back to Level 5, where they are locked up.

Angela Petrelli is just as creepy-touchy-feely with Sylar as she is with her other sons.  She tells Sylar she regrets giving him up for adoption.  She offers him a job as HRG's partner and he accepts.  The escaped Villains have robbed a bank and taken hostages.  The plan is to lure HRG to them so they can exact revenge on him for capturing them and locking them up on Level 5.  HRG and Sylar arrive on the scene and pretend to be FBI.  HRG trades himself for the hostages, telling Sylar he is to stay away from the bank ( and the "buffet" of powers the Villains present to Sylar) and debrief the hostages.  Inside the bank, things deteriorate quickly: Peter uses Jesse's power of sound wave manipulation to take out a couple of bad guys (does Peter have that power now?); then FuturePeter shows up, stops time, pushes Peter out of Jesse's body and teleports away with him.  When time resumes to normal, Sylar comes into the bank, saves HRG, and kills Jesse and takes his power.  In the end, the German and Jesse are dead (Weevil is gone already!), the blue-fire guy is back in Level 5 and Knox, the black guy whose power is super-strength that feeds off of people's fear, is on the loose.  Back at Level 5, HRG and The Haitian are reunited and HRG tells him that he plans on killing Sylar.

Some thoughts that I'll break down by pairs:

Tracy/Micah - I like this version of Nikki SO much better. Look at how big Micah's gotten! Did anyone else think when Tracy heard that Micah can speak to and control machines that she was thinking about how he could tamper with voting machines?  Just me?  The coffin/wake for Nikki in the house is completely out of the timeline, isn't it? Nikki died in the season finale and they haven't even buried her yet? Are they saying that everything that's happened in the first three episodes of this season has taken place in a couple of days? Maybe, I guess. If so, then Nathan has made an amazing recovery and he has also managed to move to DC and get sworn in as a Senator in just a couple of days. Anyway, I digress...Remind me of how Nikki died. Didn't she die when the building she was in blew up? Her dead body looked awfully good for someone who died in an explosion/fire.

Claire/Meredith - I think making Claire's character darker makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure I'm on board with the mother thing. Why in world would she ask Meredith to teach her to fight? Has she ever seen her fight? I suppose Claire was looking for guidance from a Hero and Meredith was the closest at hand? They need to tone down Claire's makeup and get rid of the borderline mom jeans and heels, please. She can be badass without looking like she just stepped out of an 80s hair band video.

Hiro/Ando - You know I love these guys, but Hiro is starting to annoy me. How old is he? 12? If he keeps up like this, by the time we reach the future I'm going to be routing for Ando to zap him to death. (Alright, I exaggerate). I was delighted, however, to see The Haitian again! He makes things so much more interesting for me. I'm happy to see he's still around and with The Company.

Parkman/African Guy - The paintings were interesting, even if we've seen this all before. The white-haired girl must be Daphne, right? So in the "original" future, Parkman and Daphne were supposed to get together and have a baby, but now that FuturePeter effed everything up, something terrible will happen to her? I had trouble making out some of the other paintings. Could you tell what they were? I'm assuming the goop that Parkman ate that gave him the painting power is chemically similar to the formula that Mohinder injected himself with, and possibly related to The Formula that Hiro and Ando are chasing around.

HRG/Sylar - I'm not so sure about this as a premise.  Why would Sylar agree to partnering up with HRG?  Why is he suddenly so docile?  Why didn't he just use his super powers to toss aside all of the cops, go into the bank, and "feed" on the villains?  What am I not getting?  Please tell me he has some nefarious plan up his sleeve.  And I'm really confused about what powers he actually has now, since had that virus.  He still has his original power (figuring out how things work), he has telekenesis, he has Claire's invincibility, and...can he teleport now, too?  Oh, wait - I forgot that Mrs. P "fed" him that woman whose power was to know the history of objects.  That must come into play later on, especially considering Mrs. P's knowledge of the future.

All in all, I thought this was a good episode, and better than the season premiere.  And I think it's no coincidence that there was very little Peter and absolutely no Mohinder and Maya in it.

What did you think?