Heroes 4-17 “The Wall”
Anyway, Sylar runs off and disappears into his apartment, where he threatens Peter with a hammer. Peter assures Sylar that this isn’t a dream, and he’s come to save him from his own head. He says that he needs Sylar to save Emma, and he can make amends for all the evil he’s done. I know Peter’s a bit of a bleeding heart, but he’s got a weird idea of balancing the scales. Peter lays his hand on Sylar and tries to pull them out, but it doesn’t work. They’re both trapped in Sylar’s head. And wouldn’t spending eternity with Peter Petrelli be slightly worse than spending eternity alone?
At the Carnival, Claire’s being held prisoner in Samuel’s trailer. He checks in with her, and for a change, Claire doesn’t believe the worst about her father. She demands to see him, but Samuel offers to show her something about Bennet. He leads her to the Hall of Mirrors, where Bennet is tied to a chair. Samuel brings in Damien, who has the power to reveal the memories of others. Oh, this can’t be good.
We go to black-and-white. It’s 1985, and Bennet is a car salesman. He’s rocking the shades, and he offers to cut a nice young couple a deal. A woman named Kate shows up to surprise him, and it’s clear that they have a relationship. He talks about how he’s really bad at selling cars, and Kate says he should be home, writing plays. Hold the phone. I love Bennet. I do. But I am getting the vibe that his episode will just be a direct steal from the X-Files episode “Memoirs of a Cigarette Smoking Man”. Anyway, he asks her if something’s wrong, and she announces that she’s pregnant. He’s overjoyed.
Back in the present, Claire is irritated that she didn’t know about his first wife. Samuel offers to up the ante by showing what happened to her. You guys, this is not going to be good for anybody. I can feel it.
In the next flashback, Bennet and Kate are in his apartment, being adorable together. His Chinese food comes, only it’s not the usual delivery guy. This guy has powers and uses them to pin Bennet to the wall, demanding the rest of the money. Kate hands over her purse, and the man is not happy at its paltry contents. He uses telekinesis to throw Kate through a glass table, impaling her. Oh, man.
In Sylar’s head, Peter is sulking. Sylar says it’s been a month since they spoke to each other, which probably means twenty minutes of real time. Sylar tosses Peter a comic book, but Peter lets it drop. Hilariously, Sylar apologizes for not being able to find any “Doc Savage or Flash Gordon”. Because those two are famous for their comic books, of course. Sylar’s given up on ever getting back to the real world. They discuss how books can exist in Sylar’s head, and they don’t really come up with a good answer. Sylar feels like he earned this punishment, which he has. Still, he agress to try and help, and then they see a brick wall in front of them. Like the brick wall Sylar’s body is trapped behind!
Lauren sneaks around the Carnival, looking for first aid. In a gift tent, she runs into Emma, who notices that she’s hurt. As Emma tries to help, Lauren explains that Samuel set up the shootings. She then hides when she hears Samuel approaching. Samuel bullies Emma, in sign language, into telling him what’s going on. Emma rats Lauren out in no time flat.
In the Hall of Mirrors, Bennet is breaking up a little, having to think about his first wife. Claire puzzles out that this is why Bennet joined the Company, and then we’re back to black-and-white. He’s setting up a map and making notations, and it’s clear that Bennet is on a mission, pinning pictures of people to the map. Later, he confronts one of the pictured people in a stairwell. Bennet pulls a gun and demands information from the guy – he knows the guy has powers, and wants his help to find the killer. This dude doesn’t seem to know that anybody else has powers, but Bennet doesn’t believe him. The guy attacks, and Bennet shoots him dead. In the present, Claire is horrified. You know, that her grief-stricken father sought out answers, made an error in judgment, and then acted in self-defense. He’s history’s greatest monster!
He’s defending himself to Claire, even though he really doesn’t have to, and that takes us to our next flashback. He’s back at the dealership, only now he’s driving a hard bargain. He basically forces a couple to buy a car. Eric Roberts, whose Thompson we haven’t seen in two years, watches approvingly. He offers Bennet a job, since he’s good at killing people with powers. We jump forward two years, and Thompson asks Bennet how he likes working with Invisible Claude. Bennet refers to him as “abnormal”. Thompson mentions that Bennet has an awfully high fatality count on his missions, and then says that the Company wants him to get married and start a family. That should calm him down, is their thinking. OK, that’s pretty rough.
The next flashback involves Gretchen and is only two weeks ago (“Right after Thanksgiving”). Gretchen gets to the dorm, to find Bennet waiting. He says he’s there to see Claire, and he questions Gretchen about where she is. This was back when Claire was at the Carnival. They argue about Claire’s welfare, and then the Haitian shows up. Bennet says he won’t erase her memory if she does what he asks. So of course, present-day Claire freaks out.
In Sylar’s head, Peter pounds at the brick wall with a sledgehammer, but it’s not doing any good. Sylar starts reminiscing about their past together, but he gets Nathan’s memories confused with his own. Sylar finally yells out that he can’t take it anymore. I would have yelled at Peter much sooner, myself. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve yelled at him like three times tonight already.
Samuel confronts Lauren. She tries to convince him that he can give up now and nobody will get hurt. Samuel’s all like “Everybody who can cause massive earthquakes, raise your hand”, so he’s not taking her offer. She begs him not to go forward with his plan, to no avail. Eli shows up and says that Claire left the Hall of Mirrors. Samuel says they’re going to get ready to move on after one last big show. He leaves Eli to take care of Lauren.
Meanwhile, Sylar starts pounding on the imaginary wall. There is literally nothing else I can say about that scene.
Samuel tracks down Claire and apologizes for putting her through that. She gets all sarcastic with him, and then wonders why they didn’t force her to watch his memory of shooting Lydia. Which is a good point, actually. Claire is insulted that Samuel thought she’d turn on her father, even though she does that about six times per season. She says that she and her father are leaving, but Samuel tells her she’s too important. He likes that people are afraid of him, and now it’s time to show himself and make everybody afraid. He’s going to bring the Carnival right to Central Park. Claire storms off to find Bennet, then Eli shows up to tell Samuel that Lauren got away. Wait, he can make copies of himself, and still he can’t keep track of somebody? Eli is not very good at his job.
Claire finds Bennet in the souvenir tent. As she unties him, the whole place starts to shake – Jacob drops the whole trailer into a sink hole. He then tells Eli that he’ll have to stay behind and clean up some loose ends.
In Sylar’s head, Peter gives him a hardcover copy of Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Oh, I guess Sylar has to writer a 10th grade report about the most boring book ever. Hey, Follett! Why don’t you spend another two hundred pages of your novel explaining church construction? If you read my Lost recaps, you know that I will research the crap out of any book that appears onscreen. Guess what? I’m not doing that here. 10th Grade EJ suffered through that boring-ass book, and I owe it to him not to go back. Anyway, it’s back to wall-punching. (Since I’ve overloaded you with comic book references this week already, I’m not going to explain Superboy-Prime. Or Flex Mentallo, who did that bit first and is far more awesome.) Anyway, Peter finally makes a dent in the wall, and before long, it’s crumbling. Soon, they both wake up in their bodies. Sylar knocks down the actual brick wall, and it’s time for these two to go and save some lives. Except that Eli is waiting on the staircase. And behind them. Am I wrong, or should it take no effort at all for Sylar to kill this guy, and then get the ability to make copies of himself?
Finally, we go underground at the site of where the Carnival used to be. Claire and Bennet are buried in the trailer, possibly 40 or 50 feet down. Yeah, that’s not going to be an easy fix.
Next week: It’s the season finale! Possibly the series finale! Who will live? Who will die? Will it really be a season finale if Nathan doesn’t get killed? Will they wrap things up in the event of cancellation, or are they going to leave us with dangling plot threads? Oh, I think we know the answer to that one.
