Heroes 4-14 “Close to You”
At the Carnival, Samuel appears to be writing a letter. He tells Lydia he’s out of ink, and needs her to go into town to pick some up. Is he writing the letter with that crazy future ink? That seems like a waste of resources. Lydia is icy at best, but Samuel assures her that his plans are almost complete. At this point, it seems like the focus of his plan is bringing Vanessa to the Carnival. I’m really enjoying the Samuel stuff, but it’s increasingly clear that they didn’t have his endgame in mind when the season began. It’s been a weird trip.
Lydia talks to a girl who seems to control fire, and says that Samuel is going too far. She says that Samuel mentioned a man of compassion who could be the next Joseph, but he’s just so far away. Inspired, Lydia raches out with her mind, in a power that we did not know about until this very moment, and wakes up Peter Petrelli. The tattoo on his arm is going crazy! You know what? I would really like it if Peter led a gang of super-powered carnies. That’s the sort of crazy turn this show could use.
Hey, it’s our buddy Matt Parkman! He’s making breakfast in his pajamas and excitedly talking of his plans to make ratatouille for dinner, but Janice is really on him to get a job. She thinks he’s staying at home because he’s afraid not to, not because he wants to. As soon as Janice heads out to work, Matt notices Bennet waiting inside for him. Man, that guy’s good. He asks Matt if he’s familiar with Samuel – he isn’t, and he isn’t interested in helping anyway. Bennet says that Samuel is “a very bad man” – just like D. Gibbons! (FlashForward represent!) Bennet says Samuel is trying to recruit Claire, and that seems to get Matt’s attention. This is where Matt and I differ. Then Bennet says, hey, maybe next time it’s your son, and now Matt is on board.
Hiro and Ando arrive at the Riverdale Psychiatric Hospital, where there genius plan is to check Hiro in as a patient. He sees a door labeled “Ahmadi” and excitedly calls out to Ando that it’s Dr. Watson. When nobody’s watching, Ando uses his red lightning to zap the electronic lock so he can get into the restricted area. Ando looks through the window and seed that Watson is actually Suresh.
Matt and Bennet are now in LA. Turns out, Vanessa plays cello in the LA Chamber Orchestra. Cello, eh? Lot of that going around these days. Once they spot Vanessa, Bennet approaches her and immediately brings up Samuel. He starts strongarming her while Matt abuses his powers to make her trust them. Works like a charm! She tells them she’s worried about Samuel.
Back in New York, Peter calls somebody to talk about the return of his tattoo, and then stands in the street looking confused. We then see Emma in her apartment, playing the cello. Peter heads up for a visit, and Emma is very excited to see him. She even says “It worked”. She explains that she brought him there with music – like she did with the hobo last week. Peter notices the compass on the cello and shows her his identical tattoo. I have to admit, the effect where the needle on the tattoo compass keeps moving is pretty cool and disconcerting.
In LA, Vanessa tells our heroes about how Samuel used to write her love poems while they were growing up. She says that one day his family was gone. At one point, Samuel had returned and asked her to run off to the Carnival, and she turned him down. She says he’s been showing up more and more often and talking crazy. She seems pretty freaked out by him. Bennet asks Vanessa to give Samuel a call. The plan? Is coming together.
Peter tells Emma about meeting Samuel, only when Peter met him, he used the name “William Hooper”. Emma then shows Peter the compass that Samuel gave her. Peter tells her that the last time he saw the compass, Bennet got stabbed. He tells her to avoid this Samuel fella. Mrs. Petrelli enters, which confused me. Apparently they went from Emma’s apartment to Peter’s in between scenes, though. It’s an easy mistake, since everybody lives in poorly-lit apartments with minimal furnishings on this show. (Can’t NBC at least spring for some Homefill?) Ma freaks out when she sees Emma, and Emma makes herself scarce.
Back at the Psychiatric Hospital, Ando is visiting Hiro. They try to plan a daring rescue, and Hiro realizes that Suresh is doped up on pills. When the orderly is distracted, Ando switches out Suresh’s pills on the pill cart for regular aspirin. The orderly almost catches him, but Ando lies about admiring his cart. Ha! It’s a long story, but Ando ends up hiding the pills in his mouth and then accidentally swallowing them. Hee!
Bennet and Matt are on stakeout – Bennet indoors and Matt in the car. They spot Samuel, and spring into action. Only Multiple Eli is waiting, and knocks Bennet down. Bennet tazes him and turns what was apparently a duplicate Eli to dust. I love that he was only mildly inconvenienced by a guy who can replicate himself. Matt gets hassled by another Eli, who’s pretending to be drunk. Bennet tazes that one out of existence, too. Meanwhile, Samuel leads Vanessa out of the building. Bennet catches up to Samuel in the parking lot, but Vanessa is nowhere to be seen. Samuel rips open the ground to create a diversion and escapes. You know, his powers are really cool. They’ve had a lot of good ideas for neat stuff that he can do, without straying too far from the basic idea. Good job, writers! Bennet and Matt peel out in Matt’s car, following the tracer that Vanessa is carrying.
In Peter’s apartment, Ma tells him to give up on Emma and worry about himself. Peter demands the truth from her, for once. She gives it up – she had a dream. The details are foggy, but Emma will kill thousands of people with a cello. Wouldn’t it be great if it was one at a time, by bludgeoning? Peter grabs Angela to copy her power (he’s getting kind of cavalier with that, isn’t he?) so he can see for himself.
Hiro and Ando pound on Suresh’s door. He snaps out of his haze and tears open the straitjacket. Suresh knocks the door off his hinges. Hiro tries to explain what’s going on, but he’s still addled himself. Oh, also Suresh didn’t even know he was in an asylum. Those are some good drugs… Hiro leads Suresh to Ando, who’s loopy from taking the pills. They load Ando into a wheelchair and power down the hallway. Security people swarm them, and Ando fires his lightning at the control panel for the exit door. In full view of at least three orderlies. Not good. Suresh tries to cover it up by hitting people, and they run for freedom.
Bennet and Matt stop in a patch of nothing – Vanessa’s tracer has stopped moving, but there’s no sign of her. Bennet finds only a flyer for the Carnival. The whole Carnival up and moved. They’ve alluded to this, but does the Carnival actually teleport? Because that’s awesome. It reminds me of Danny the Street from Doom Patrol. Or like the Island on Lost, really. Once again, Matt suggests calling Claire, and Bennet wants none of that. He insists that they’ll find the teleporting Carnival somehow.
Back at Matt’s house, Matt wants to make dinner, but Bennet wants to beat on some carnies. He’s really feeling bad that he basically delivered Vanessa to the bad guys. Matt insists that he’s not going to help, and Bennet needs to get his own house in order. You know, that would have been a valid stance an hour ago, but now that they’re responsible for the kidnapping of an innocent woman, he can’t fall back on non-involvement.
Peter’s having a bad trip as he sleeps, which basically shows Emma playing cello in the Hall of Mirrors while people scream. Then Sylar shows up and says he’s there to save her. When he wakes up, he goes to Emma’s apartment and promptly smashes the hell out of that cello. Since she’s not planning on murdering people, his explanation sounds crazy, and she throws him out.
Our escapees run through the swamp. Suresh yells at Hiro, and Ando tries to explain that Hiro is dying. As they run, Suresh gets the idea that electroshock therapy could cure Hiro. Specifically, red lightning. And in the best joke of the episode, Ando says “Hiro saw a future where I killed him with my lightning.” Suresh: “Was it in Florida?” Ando: “Japan.” Suresh: “Then we’re good to go.” Ha! Ando gives him a little zap, and sure enough, Hiro is back to normal. He promptly teleports them out of there.
Bennet sucks up his pride and goes to visit Claire in the dorm. Immediately, she’s suspicious of him. He tells her it’s fine if she wants to be mad at him, and Jack Coleman is doing like three different things at once in this scene with his emotions and it’s really fun to watch. He starts talking about how he wants to repair the bridge that connects him to Claire, because I haven’t mentioned it yet but everybody talks about burning bridges on this episode. Claire has someplace else to be, but promises they’ll talk later. Yeah, she totally blows him off.
Back at the Parkman house, Janice is talking about her work, including a guy who’s totally gay and totally in denial. Matt’s not paying any attention at all, and finally asks her if she thinks he’s a coward. He feels guilty that he “had the worst guy in the world living inside (his) head”, and once he got out, Matt didn’t do anything to stop him. He’s upset about all the people he let down. Janice makes it very clear that she’s his whole world, and he belongs with her. Is her character really unlikeable, or is this just residual disgust from how she was cheating on Matt when the show started?
At the carnival, Vanessa’s in a tent with a couple of Elis standing guard. Samuel brings her some tea, and she tells him she wants to go home. Samuel blames Bennet for the fact that she wasn’t happy to be kidnapped, and then Samuel hugs her in the creepiest way you’ve ever seen. He follows up by licking his finger and rubbing it on her face. I am not making this up. I feel dirty watching this right now. He tells her he wants to show her something beautiful and magical, and given the vibe of this scene, she should be macing him right now.
Bennet’s in his unlit apartment, drinking along. Lauren knocks on the door, worried about him. He tells her how much he cares for her, and they have a nice tender moment, which involves making out. Way to go, Bennet! At that moment, Hiro, Ando, and Suresh teleport into his apartment, and because Bennet is awesome, he doesn’t even seem surprised. Hee.
Next week: A bunch of dead characters show up to put Hiro on trial. George Takei! Sark! Also, Sylar makes out with Claire. You guys, I think this is going to be a really good episode.
