Heroesville: Heroes Season 3, Episode 25 “An Invisible Thread”
In Nathan’s office, we get a mini-recap of the scene where Danko stabs Sylar in the head, only to find that head-stabbing is no longer a viable way to kill him. Sylar credits it to shape-shifting, and explains that he moved his weak point. Hey, just like I said! He pins Danko to the wall and moves Nathan’s unconscious body to the bathroom. Sylar’s putting revenge on hold until after he can take over for the President. He then takes Danko’s appearance and starts shooting at people outside the office. And just like that, Danko is arrested by his own men.
Claire and Angela somehow made it to Washington, and Claire is already complaining about her Dad. He saved you, stupid! Angela splits off from Claire to find Matt – she had a dream that he was the one to save Nathan. (The preceding sentence brought to you by Proper Names.)
Sylar taunts unconscious Nathan for a while, and then Claire arrives. He convinces Claire that Sylar got away and is ready to meet the President. Claire’s not convinced that she’s talking to the real Nathan. He uses his object memory power and touches her necklace to get enough history of the last few days to fool her. Claire convinces him to take her along on his mission, which you just know is going to be a giant mistake.
Hiro and Ando watch as Danko is taken into custody. They still want to get inside Building 26, even though Hiro’s powers are on the fritz. Ando’s worried that Hiro’s powers are making him sick, and it’ll only get worse. Meanwhile, Danko gets tossed int the same cell as Bennet. Somebody’s getting shivved!
Peter finally locates the real Nathan, who’s awake now, but really groggy. Not far away, Danko tells Bennet that Sylar just overcame his one weakness. Danko’s grudgingly impressed at how Bennet did his job for so long. Yeah, Danko made a mess of it in no time flat. They agree to work together, and just before the handshake, they freeze. Yep, Hiro stopped time. Ando notices that Hiro is bleeding out of his ears, which is never a good sign. They find the room where all the prisoners are kept sedated, including Suresh. They prove that they’ve never seen the show before by releasing him. You know, because Mohinder has been useful so many times before… They also swap out the prisoners with the guards, putting the entire staff of Building 26 under. Mohinder examines Hiro and determines that Hiro’s body is rejecting his powers. He tells Hiro not to freeze time again.
Claire and Fake Nathan get into see the President, and Claire notices that Nathan is suddenly left-handed. Meanwhile, Danko and Bennet make the best of Hiro’s diversion and raid the lab. Danko tries to betray Bannet with a tranquilizer, but Hiro freezes time and injects Danko instead. Then, Hiro collapses. While Claire and Fake Nathan wait, she gets a call from Bennet. In a cool reveal, Bennet is panicked over whether Nathan is real, but we see that he’s actually talking to a fake Claire. I’m telling you, every show should have a shape-shifter!
Sylar uses the powers he copied from Puppetmaster Doyle to move Claire around the room, mixing drinks and such. Wait, did Sylar kill Doyle? Honestly, I don’t remember seeing that. I remember Bennet turning him over to Danko, but that’s it. Did I forget something? Man, it’s been a long season. Anyway, Sylar tells Claire about his father, and then forces her to drink wine. He talks about the perils of immortality, and how Claire may one day forgive him, after she watches all of her loved ones grow old and die. He then gets super creepy with Claire, and the less said about that, the better.
Nathan and Peter try to get in to see the President, which confuses the security detail, since they already saw Nathan. Nathan then demonstrates his powers for the Secret Service. So the cat’s out of the bag on that one. Nathan just asks for the time to get close to Sylar. They approach his room just as Claire is hurled through a door. All we see is blue flashes as two flying guys go to fight a guy who can shoot lightning and turn things to dust with his fingers, plus about ten other things.
When Claire gets back into the room, it’s trashed, and an injured Peter is waiting. He can’t fly anymore. Hopefully he picked up one of Sylar’s powers, at least. Sylar hurls Nathan back into the window, and then uses his power to slit Nathan’s throat. That right there is a lot of blood. Plus, we get the cool ticking clock sound cue that usually accompanies Sylar’s murders. You guys, Nathan looks pretty dead right now. I know, he always dies in the season finale, but this does not look good.
Matt gets off a bus in Washington DC, and Angela is waiting for him. She tells Matt that he has to save Nathan. Matt instead wants to go take down Danko and Building 26. Matt’s not really getting the big picture here.
Peter and Claire make a run for it, and Bennet gets the drop on them. He wants to be sure that neither is Sylar. They convince him, and Peter indicates that he has Sylar’s power. Whether it’s all of them or one in particular, we don’t know. The Secret Service bursts in with guns drawn, and Claire walks right up to them. “I can either explain to you now, or after you shoot me.” Hee. Good line from Claire.
Matt uses his mind-whammy to get into the building, and he and Angela find Nathan’s body. Angela has an awesome freak-out at this point, screaming and clutching her son to her chest. Her dream was wrong, since Matt can’t save Nathan.
Cut to Fake Nathan in the basement waiting for the President. He (apparently) kills the Chief of Staff and takes his appearance. By the way, I think this is the first time we’ve seen the President, and he’s played by Michael Dorn. He’s best known as Worf on Star Trek but I will always know him by his voiceover work. (Dude was Kalibak, for Cry Pete!) Fake Chief of Staff gets into the President’s limo and takes his hand. And then, Sylar starts to run though all of his different faces, and he ends up with a syringe in the neck. The President was actually Peter, copying Sylar’s shapeshifting. OK, that was pretty cool.
Ten minutes left, and they’ve already stopped Sylar. That’s pretty good, right? Or maybe not, since Nathan’s lying there dead. They’re debating the morality of something, and as it becomes clear what’s going on, it’s pretty horrifying. They want to force Sylar into Nathan’s form again and use Matt’s abilities to convince him that he is, in fact, Nathan. His power to know the history of objects will fill in the gaps of his memory. Yikes. Bennet says they can’t let the world know that a person with abilities killed a US Senator, but this is really ethically dicey. Angela’s pretty convinced that this is a way to bring Nathan back. You know what? This is a really cool idea. I think it’s wrong, but it’s ingenious. As Matt mindwipes him, we see a montage of Sylar’s greatest hits. Sylar has a violent reaction and shapeshifts to Nathan.
Wow. This is going to come back and bite them. It’s like the Monkey’s Paw, you know? He’s not Nathan. He’s a guy who looks like Nathan and thinks that he’s Nathan, but inside, he’s still that monster. That was creepy and deeply unethical, and I’m impressed that they took such a bold move with the characters.
They burn Sylar’s body, only it’s actually the other shapeshifter who died while copying him. This is apparently to convince everybody else that Nathan is actually Nathan. Wow. Peter and Claire don’t know? And you know what’s going to be weird? Sylar has never had the ability to fly. Nathan’s one power, and Sylar can’t use it. Unless he took it when he killed Nathan. (Or perhaps he could just use his telekinesis to move himself around.)
At the funeral, Bennet is given the job of heading up the newest version of the Company. Hiro’s OK, but not looking so hot. Bennet reassures Claire that Sylar is really dead. Oh, this is going to go so wrong.
Wow. That was not only a really strong episode, but they made some massive changes that can’t be immediately undone like they usually do with the beginning of a new season. The fact that Nathan is a mind-controlled Sylar now really disturbs me, in case you hadn’t guessed. I can’t wait to see where this is going to lead.
Hey, a tease for Volume Five – Redemption! It’s “Six Weeks Later”, and we see “Kent Harper”, a former Building 26 agent. The water’s running when he comes home, and the water on the floor solidifies into the form of Ali Larter – better known as Niki / Tracy. I guess this would be the third sister, Barbara. She says “You’re number four”, and we gut to a newspaper article reading “Fourth Mysterious Drowning Baffles Authorities”. Hey, remember back in the first episode of this arc, when they mentioned that somebody was found dead in a flooded house, and I spent weeks blaming it on Aquaman? They were setting this up! Between that and the big payoff for Sylar’s “object memory”, it’s looking like the Heroes writers are really planning ahead now.
Anyway, Fake Nathan sits in his office, pondering. Angela comes in, saying she hasn’t heard from him in weeks. Nathan says “I just haven’t felt like myself lately”, and then the gets all creepy and distant. He stares at a clock, which he notices is running a minute and a half fast. Oh, this is not going to work out at all.
Well, they’ve got me pumped for next season. Bryan Fuller is back on staff full time, they’ve actually made some changes that can’t be quickly reversed, and it’s clear now that they’re writing for the big picture again. Good teaser, great finale – way to go Heroes Season Three!
