Heroes 3.4: “I Am Become Death”

Funny thing about TV shows sometimes; when you get a teaser of what could be a potentially series-shattering scene, but see it without any context whatsoever, you wind up being pleasantly surprised. And that was the case with Heroes’ latest installment, “I Am become Death.” First things first, and that’s most of what occurs in the episode has the “four years later” disclaimer. There are some jumps back to present day, but we’ll discuss them as they come. Want to know what happens FOUR YEARS LATER? Your obligated recap and opinion follow after the jump.

• So, when future Peter rescued present Peter, we all kind of wondered where he went to, well we see that, FOUR YEARS LATER, a lot of people are literally flying around town. As it turns out, Mohinder’s breakthrough might have been co-opted and replicated for widespread use. Future Peter is shot by future Claire, and present Peter, left a little shaken by this, tries to figure out what he wants to do, and he eludes Claire, who is part of a group that includes Daphne and Knox.

• Back to the present, where Tracy is still trying to find out how she got this power she has, and is still talking to the Doctor that “created” her. As it turns out, Tracy was not the only one that was created by the Doctor. We know about Niki, but there’s also a third, named Barbara(?), who apparently was born during sweeps. Tracy can’t deal with this power, and decides to submit her resignation to Nathan, who, at the ghost Linderman’s suggestion, rushes to save her from killing herself on the 14th street bridge in DC. Oh yeah, Nathan flies over to do it. Jump ahead to FOUR YEARS LATER, and Nathan, now President, and Tracy, the First Lady, holding a press conference. Or is that Barbara…

• So how’s future Mohinder doing nowadays? Well, not all that well, actually. As it turns out, present Mohinder is still suffering from adverse reactions from injecting himself with the powers. He also discovers that he has quite a bit of a temper now, interjecting himself in a fight between a neighbor and his wife, and yelling at Maya, who is apparently openly channeling Rosie Perez’ inflection now. I read somewhere that if she becomes a full-time cast member next year, a baby will be sacrificed. But I digress. Future Mohinder knows where Sylar is living now, and gives the information to Peter, who reads his mind. Future Mohinder goes back to living under the sewers while present Peter, who’s in the future, goes to confront Sylar, who’s living in the Bennet house, raising a son named Noah. More on that later.

• As for Parkman, who’s trying to find out the girl in the picture that he can’t save, he last saw him eating what appeared to be moldy wallpaper paste, and looking like Ralph Wiggum in the Simpsons episode where the kids end up on a desert island. With the help of Usutu, we find out that FOUR YEARS LATER, he’s in New York, living with Daphne and continuing to raise Molly. Wait, Parkman lives with Daphne? How does this happen? Funny you should ask, because Parkman asks Usutu’s help to get back to where he’s supposed to be, after seeing this future revelation. Usutu tells him to follow a turtle. I know, it’s gone from Ralph Wiggum to Homer Simpson possibly kicking his “spirit guide” turtle over a pyramid, so I’m going to guess the f’ing around by Tim Kring should cease on this pretty soon.

• Sylar? Oh yeah, living in the Bennet house, raising a son named Noah. Peter visits him to get his powers, which Sylar resists giving him, and he warns him of the dangers of having these powers. Sylar does give him the powers eventually and with some regret, and Claire, Knox and Daphne show up to get Peter, threatening Noah in the process. Daphne and Peter get to throwing down, while Knox and Claire try to work on Sylar. However, a nasty wrinkle is thrown into the mix, when Knox kills Noah in a surprisingly gruesome scene, and Sylar’s rage gets the better of him, to the point where he incinerates Costa Mesa, much in the same way Peter did at the end of Season One. Daphne dies in Parkman’s arms, but we don’t see what happens to Peter, Claire or Knox. Two of them can never die (three if you count Sylar I guess), so that leaves two to guess on.

• But not, since Peter is captured by Claire who starts to torture him. Claire’s real Dad, you know, Nathan comes in to stop her, and actually frees Peter, and Peter decides to reads Nathan’s mind to discover his intentions, but in this attempt, the old Sylar-esque urges come out. He stops short of killing Nathan, but teleports out of that cell, back into present-day Level 5, where he finds his other brother waiting for him.

• Hiro and Ando are released from Level Two to meet with Angela, and they discuss the whereabouts of the formula, and Ando promises (for Hiro) to not rest until the formula is recovered, to which Angela responds and says that Hiro’s the only one to really do it. But Hiro is going to need some help, and enlists the aid of the formerly buried Adam Monroe to do it, and…”To Be Continued…”.

Cue the thoughts:

This was definitely better than last week’s episode. Stories were moving both in present and future environments, and the stuff that happened FOUR YEARS LATER was compelling, more so than the present day stuff, which was OK, for what it was.
Based on what Kring and others close to the show were saying at season’s beginning, Peter’s prominence in the season is finally emerging with excellent results, as the Peter-Sylar role reversal where Peter’s the ice-cold killer and Sylar’s the warm-hearted nice guy is very intriguing to see how it plays out. Moreover, the dynamic between them looks to potentially be 15 different kinds of awesome.

Next week’s episode looks promising as well, exploring Claire’s fighting motivations a little bit more, but also the return of an older cast member. Let me throw a couple bucks on the very long odds and say Charles Deveaux. Overall, this dark, action-packed episode brought everything that last week lacked, and hopefully the forward momentum continues.
So, without stepping on any butterflies, what are your thoughts?