Heroesville: Heroes, Season 3, Episode 14: “A Clear and Present Danger” (Feb 3)
Anyway, based on Tracy’s call, the Governor isn’t happy with Nathan. (Have we seen the Governor yet? I don’t think we have.) Tracy reassures him, which seems to be her job. And then the creepy men in black show up with their tasers. And apparently, Tracy is “the first one”. Dang, Nathan started with his former assistant? The guy holds a grudge, I guess. And the leader of the men in black is played by Zeljko Ivanek, who is one of my absolute favorite actors.
It’s Hiro and Ando! Yay! They’re setting up shop in an abandoned firehouse, like the Ghostbusters. Now, Ando has a good point that his abilities are actually useless for fighting crime. After spending all that time has Hiro’s sidekick, he now has powers that pretty much force him to be a sidekick. Hiro’s having fun though, and Ando’s costume is hilarious. Of course, Hiro’s password is the “name of somebody very important” to him. So, “Ando” then? (I was joking when I wrote that, but I turn out to be right. Yay me!)
Peter’s a paramedic now, and he clearly misses his powers. Not because he likes the power, but because they would allow him to help more people. Hey, Peter’s going back to his early characterization, before he got sucked into all this craziness. He was much more likeable then, so this is a good thing.
Claire’s living with Angela Petrelli again, and managed to get her GED. Yeah, she hasn’t attended a class in a while now. She’s still a little obsessed with Sylar, which is interesting because we’re going to see that she’s totally on the wrong track. (Sort of a running theme on this show – back in Season One, the whole “Save the cheerleader, save the world” turned out to be a mistake since Claire was actually alive in the future, and her life or death had nothing to do with Sylar’s survival.) She drops a little detail about a man who disappeared and then they discovered that the top floor of his house was filled with salt water. So, they killed Aquaman?
In Baltimore, Sylar visits a watchmaker by the name of Martin Gray. Could it be Sylar’s dad? He’s got a fresh load of abandonment issues after finding out Arthur wasn’t his real father, after all. (If you ever need to escape from Sylar just yell “I’m your father!”, and you should be OK. Until he finds out you’re lying. Which I guess will happen right away. Forget I said anything.)
Matt and Daphne are living together, and it looks like boredom is setting in. After all, Daphne really likes her powers. She’s not all obsessed with the negative. Daphne likes running! And there’s Matt, who’s working as a bodyguard once again. Poor guy. And then he gets a quick flash of Usutu, who’s technically dead.
Back at Ma Petrelli’s Claire starts spying, and we find out for sure that Nathan is up to no good and is looking to round up the Heroes. He clearly doesn’t want Claire involved, which means he hasn’t gone totally evil yet.
In Baltimore, Sylar finally confronts Daddy. Apparently, the Grays had a loveless marriage. Yeah, you don’t have that many snowglobes if everything’s going well at home. But Martin’s not the real father – Baby Sylar was given to him. And just when I think we’re at another baby-passing drama, we get a straight answer. Martin’s brother gave them the baby! Sylar’s got an Uncle Dad! And watch – Sylar doesn’t kill him. Sylar’s started killing for fun now, but he holds back this once.
Clarie calls Peter, and she’s still way off. She knows Nathan’s up to something, but she keeps trying to involve Sylar in it. After the call, Peter gets in a cab, and Mohinder’s driving. Just like in the first episode! I like that they both realize this and comment on it. That’s kind of cute. It sounds like they’ve all been avoiding each other. That makes sense – it all went kind of ugly on them.
After Peter leaves, a shadowy figure gets in the cab. Again, just like in the first episode. Only this time, the guy pulls a gun on Mohinder. It’s Zeljko! Since his name makes my spellcheck cry, and he isn’t named in the episode, we’ll call him “Hunter”. That’s what IMDB calls him, and I don’t have a good nickname for him. Hunter tries to bring Mohinder in, but Mohinder still has his crazy spider-strength. Bennet shows up to help him out, except that he’s sort of doing the opposite. Wait, Bennet’s tied up in this? I mean, the guy’s no saint, but this whole thing with Hero internment camps seems sort of, well, evil. His involvement leads me to believe that there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Peter confronts Nate, but at this point, he thinks it’s all just rhetoric. And yeah, Nate sort of is a “self-loathing hypocrite”. Good call, Pete! Nathan shows an interest in Peter’s current range of abilities, and one of our big questions get answered. Peter lost all of his earned powers, and now he’s down to only his original power and Nathan’s flight.
Sadly, most of Peter’s most useful abilities came from people who are either dead, now powerless, or missing. (Electricity, Invisibility, Intangibility, Radiation, Teleportation, Time-freezing)
In Matt’s apartment, we see he’s still got the Soul Turtle. And then Usutu appears, and tells Matt he has to be a prophet. That’s all well and good, but Matt doesn’t have precognitive powers – he’s a telepath! Usutu is not dissuaded, and sure enough, Matt’s eyes go all white and he starts drawing. Now is this still a result of when he did peyote in Africa, or are all the various mental powers connected? Matt’s actually developing new powers as he goes, which means he could be an Alpha like Peter and Sylar. Matt’s like the Professor X of this show!
OK, who was surprised that Ando went to a strip club as soon as he got a motorcycle? Hee. Anyway, it sounds like Hiro is attacked, which sends Ando racing back. Yeah, sneak up on a guy when he doesn’t even have powers anymore. Not cool, Petrelli.
Matt snaps out of his trance and we see that he drew a picture of himself and Claire looking at a picture. Hee. When you absolutely, positively have to know what’s going to happen thirty seconds in the future, Parkman’s your man! Sure enough, Claire shows up and in no time flat, Matt takes a taser to the neck.
When Peter gets home, Nathan’s already waiting for him. He gives Peter one last chance to fall into line. Once again, Peter stands firm, and that means Bennet sneaks up and zaps him.
So, now we’ve got Samson Gray, taxidermist. Sylar’s dad stuffs dead animals? Yeah, that seems about right. The men in black make a move, but Sylar doesn’t go down easily. In fact, he shrugs off about a dozen darts and then starts asking questions and killing people. Did Sylar’s Uncle sell him out? Have they just been following him and waiting for him to drop his guard?
It gets really creepy now. Hunter delivers the prisoners to Nathan, and they’re in orange jumpsuits with hoods and straps and tubes. That’s actually a little disturbing. (By the way, the prisoners are Tracy, Peter, Matt, Hiro, Mohinder, and an extra guy. Aquaman?) And then Hunter delivers Claire, and until they took off her hood, I totally thought she was Micah. Hayden Panettiere is tiny. Nathan uncuffs her and puts her in a truck. Again, maybe he’s not totally evil. At least he’s protecting his daughter. As the prisoners are loaded onto the plane, Claire gets awesome and bounce’s the driver’s head off the window and sneaks onto the plane. Nice move!
Since the guards on the plane suck, Claire tries to free Peter. Interestingly, he gets Mohinder’s strength by touching him. He never had to touch people to copy their powers before. That might be a change brought about by losing his powers and then getting them back through artificial 
means. It’s a welcome change, since it clearly defines what he has to do. I also like that he’s still doped up, so even though he has super-strength, the guards manage to kick him around pretty good. In the pandemonium, we see that Bennet is the co-pilot of the plane, and Peter accidentally gets Tracy’s powers and mistakenly freezes the wall right off the plane. The prisoner who still has his mask on gets sucked out the hole to his death. No! Aquaman!
means. It’s a welcome change, since it clearly defines what he has to do. I also like that he’s still doped up, so even though he has super-strength, the guards manage to kick him around pretty good. In the pandemonium, we see that Bennet is the co-pilot of the plane, and Peter accidentally gets Tracy’s powers and mistakenly freezes the wall right off the plane. The prisoner who still has his mask on gets sucked out the hole to his death. No! Aquaman!On the one hand, since Peter can fly, we probably don’t need to worry about him being sucked out of the plane. On the other hand, this is all pretty well-staged with lots of chaos. This plane is going down! And that’s a “To Be Continued” for you right there.
OK, I want to believe Bennet has good motives, and I don’t know what to make of Nathan right now. And for a change, it doesn’t look like Sylar’s key to the main action. Instead, he’s off on his own little side quest. I honestly didn’t see them ending the first episode by dropping most of the cast out of the sky – this is a nice, solid start to the arc. And not a single mention of “The Catalyst”! All in all, “Fugitives” is off to a pretty awesome start!
