Heroes 4-12 “Upon This Rock”
Hiro suddenly appears in Tokyo. He asks a street vendor some questions, which serves to indicate that Hiro’s losing his mind. He’s convinced that he’s from the Starship Enterprise, and that he’s seeking Sancho Panza. The Don Quixote reference is a little on-the-nose, I think. Also, there’s no way Hiro ever read that. For a sidekick, his go-to reference would probably be Robin. The noodle vendor wants no part of this, and then Hiro refers to himself as a Jedi and chases a purse snatcher away with a meat cleaver. He then references King Arthur and Battlestar Galactica before the cops arrest the crazy man with a knife.
Samuel has a flashback, and you can tell because it’s black-and-white and has a classic rock soundtrack. His brother taunts him because teen Samuel is trying to move a boulder with his powers. These brothers have English accents that are not at all from the same part of England, by the way. Joseph actually drifts into an Irish brogue, while young Samuel sounds like a chimney sweep. Anyway, Joseph taunts Samuel about somebody named “Vanessa”, and we jolt back to the present, where Samuel is looking serious about something.
Back at the carnival, Eli is still being all creepy and not even trying to hide it. Lydia and her daughter (She has a daughter? Did we know that?), and of course Clarie butts in. Claire asks Lydia if she knows why Samuel’s bringing so many people in to the Carnival family. Lydia either doesn’t know or thinks it’s none of Claire’s damn business. Claire tries to sneak into Samuel’s trailer, but a horde of creepy Elis dissuade her.
Ando shows up to bail Hiro out of jail, and Hiro keeps calling him “Sancho Panza” and speaking in a sort of pop culture puree. The cops suggest a nice mental health facility.
Back in America, Deaf Emma opens her mail. She gets a letter of rejection from medical school, and though we only zoom in on certain parts of the letter, we can see that the last word in the body of the letter is “fierce”. Tyra Banks is apparently answering their mail. She heads home, and there’s a visitor at the door. It’s Samuel, and he knows sign language. He reveals that he’s the one who sent her the cello, and then we see that the cello has Samuel’s compass engraved on it. Hey, they’re bringing her into the main story!
In Japan, Hiro rants crazily some more. He makes a reference to “Castle Arkham” which gives me an idea for a freaking awesome alternate version of Batman. Hiro’s sister is concerned, as she should be. Hiro also references the “danger room” from X-Men, and I am so irritated that they didn’t capitalize that. Ando figures out that Hiro calls the room where he keeps his comic books “the Danger Room”, and that has to be a clue. (I call that room “My house”.)
Emma asks Samuel why he sent the cello, and how he knows about her powers. Samuel goes into his standard routine about how they’re all connected. He also mentions that the cello was meant for somebody else, somebody special who he lost. Vanessa? Samuel gives her a file on somebody named “Ian Michaels” – he says he can’t find him, but the man is overwhelmed by his gift. It sounds like he controls plants. Emma wonders how she’s supposed to find him. Good question!
Back at the carnival, Eli is still being all creepy. You know, if you keep staring at Claire, you just feed her self-obsession, dude. She runs into the House of Mirrors, which is maybe not the best tactic against a guy who replicates himself. Except that he’s an idiot, so he freaks out when he’s surrounded by images of Claire. He runs full-on into a mirror, and I have never seen that done in live-action before. Unless you’re a Hanna-Barbera character or possibly a parakeet, you can tell the difference between a mirror and real life. Claire hits him with a stool and runs away. Why there’s a stool in a House of Mirrors, I can’t even guess.
And remember, Eli is an idiot. He apparently didn’t think to leave one of his copies behind to guard Samuel’s trailer, so Claire just runs right in. She finds landscape photos, a map, and a picture of Samuel and Joseph as kids. And then she loses control of her movement. Oh, hell yes. Doyle the puppetmaster is tossing her around like old times. I really like that character, and I’m glad to see that the actor will be on Lost this season. Good job, bro! Doyle demands to know what Claire’s up to, and thinks she’s spying for her father. Doyle is a true believer in Samuel’s rhetoric, and he thinks Claire is ruining the dream.
In Hiro’s house, he’s reading an old issue of 9th Wonders, one with flying Nathan on the cover. That’s right, Pasdar is getting into this episode in whatever form he can. Hiro’s mishmash intensifies, with a reference to Curt Connors, and I knew a heck of a lot sooner than Ando did that he’s The Lizard. (Also, the character of Curt Connors appears in the second and third Spider-Man movies, played by Dylan Baker.) Ando then incorrectly states that Connors lived in Florida. No, he lives in Manhattan, just like the entire Spider-Man supporting cast. Why would Spider-Man go out to Florida just to fight a dude? Anyway, Ando then extrapolates that the “swamp dragons” Hiro keeps mentioning are alligators. Considering he could have come up with that by thinking about it for two seconds rather than incorrectly citing Spider-Man trivia and then making a logical leap, I’m not impressed.
Then Ando says that Arkham is a Batman reference, and he does get points for holding up a copy of Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum. So Ando busts out the Google, and finds a Riverdale Psychiatric Hospital on Arkham Road, somewhere in Florida. (Nobody stops to point out that Riverdale is where Archie lives.) Weirdly, Hiro is excited that Ando figured it out. But if he knew what he meant, why didn’t he just say it? I’m really confused by this plot.
In the park, Samuel explains to Emma that she’s more powerful than she knows. “Your emotions become one with the music”. That doesn’t make sense, but he says she can find people with music. So her power isn’t at all the way it’s been portrayed up until now? Kring, you are getting on my last nerve. Still, when she plays the cello, it lures a scary looking hobo, who is apparently the guy that Samuel is looking for. Sure enough, when scary hobo touches a tree, the leaves grow. He’s Poison Ivy!
Back at the hospital, scary hobo is being treated. Emma says his infection should be gone in a couple of days. Man, that hospital is nice to hobos. He must have really good insurance. Samuel gives her the compass, and as Emma walks away, the slightly less scary hobo comments that “She’s different, like me”. Except for how she bathes and stuff. As Samuel and the hobo leave, he catches a news bulletin about Nathan Petrelli’s body being found in a small plane crash. So, did Ma Petrelli fake a crash and toss Nathan’s long-dead body in there? Considering that his remains would be inconsistent with both time and manner of death, that might not be a great plan. She’s no Charles Widmore, am I right?
At the carnival, Claire tells Doyle that he’s getting weaker. Doyle, however, is proud that he’s no longer evil. Doyle seems to know Joseph, even though we didn’t see any indication that he was living at the carnival prior to Joseph’s death. Claire asks again why Samuel is recruiting so many people, rather than asking about continuity. Doyle releases her to get answers from Lydia. Lydia says that Joseph was the real father of the community, but Samuel killed him. Lydia asks Claire to find somebody to help them, which is the first sign of desperation. And then Eli shows up.
When Samuel returns to the carnival, he yells at Eli for the way he treated Claire, since she’s not a prisoner. Claire says she’s leaving, but wants to know what happened to Joseph. Hey Claire, way to show your hand there. Samuel dismisses Eli and admits that he did kill Joseph. Samuel says that what he did was wrong, but Joseph put them all in danger. He brings her out to the valley outside the Carnival, where Ian the scary hobo is playing in the dirt. He says he needs water, so Samuel splits the ground to bring up a spring. Ian touches the ground and grass begins to grow – he’s terraforming the desolate valley. Wouldn’t there have to actually be like seeds or signs of plant life, though? This looks like a desert – there’s probably never been grass cover at any time in history. Yep, apparently this is where I can no longer suspend my disbelief. Claire acknowledges that it’s beautiful, and Samuel calls it their new home. You know what? He actually doesn’t seem evil at all right now. I’m very confused. Claire still wants to leave, and Samuel agrees, telling her she can come back whenever.
Claire notices she has 15 messages, most from her father, but one from Peter saying that they have something to talk about. Cut to Nathan’s funeral, where the Petrellis and Bennet and a whole bunch of extras look sad. Claire shows up via taxi. Man, Nathan’s wife and kids aren’t even there? That’s cold. Or else the writers forgot they existed. That’s actually more likely. How do you forget that Rena Sofer used to be on your show?
Peter delivers a eulogy, and I can’t help but feel it would have more impact if we hadn’t seen Nathan die five times now. He’s practically Kenny at this point. Like, I’m sure this is actually the last we’ll see of him, but it’s just hard to get emotionally involved. They present Ma Petrelli with a flag, because it’s not like he had a wife they could give it to or anything. There is, no kidding, a 21-gun salute and an Air Force fly-over. Did they establish that Nathan was some kid of war hero? I don’t remember that, and he’d only been a Senator for a few months. (I think. The timeline is always weird on this show.)
It’s hard not to feel like Nathan’s going to punch his way up from that coffin, though. Pasdar’s not giving up without a fight!
I’ll get to the second half of our two-hour extravaganza tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.
