Heroes Recap: Hiro’s

I need a Hiro…holding out for a Hiro til the end of the night. I am lovin me some Hiro and some Heroes. I think this show gets better and better with each week. Are you guys loving it? Well Julie better be, or else it sucks for her to have to write a recap every week. Check it out and send the love.

Title: Hiro’s
Original Air Date: October 23, 2006

We’re back in the silent, eerie subway, where Future-Hiro meets Present-Peter. His message: “The girl. You have to save her…The cheerleader. It’s the only way to prevent it.” What? “Everything.” Yikes! He instructs Peter to go see Isaac and then call Hiro to tell him where to meet. “Be the one we need,” he counsels Peter, before time starts up again. “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.”

When time picks up again, Peter’s ranting crazily, wondering where Hiro went. Everyone’s staring. But…this is a NYC subway. They should be used to this, right?

Claire’s been taken to the hospital. She’s fine. Unfortunately, so is her would-be attacker Brody, who is coherent enough to call her a “crazy bitch.”

Las Vegas. Big Bad Daddy and his taciturn sidekick escort pajama-bottom clad Nathan towards a van. (And let me just say, nice work snagging that one, Natalie Maines.) Nathan runs away, and tries to jump over a chain link fence, but he doesn’t get far before the evil ones catch up. “Put him down,” BBD tells his silent companion. As the henchman approaches, Nathan skyrockets upward, a blur shooting through the cumulus.

Back in their hotel room, Niki wakes up alone. Nathan’s assistant comes in looking for him. Of course, Niki remembers nothing about the previous night, not about what she did or where Nathan went. However, Asian concierge lady reassures the assistant they are “working on it.” Having seen the tape of Niki’s fantastic performance with Peter, she tells Niki her debt to Mr. Linderman has been repaid. “Feel free to go home secure in your solvency.”

Still on the subway, Peter tries to convince Mohinder of what he saw. Mo finds the “save the cheerleader” a bit tedious. Whatever, Mo. Just ’cause you don’t have powers doesn’t mean you have to get snippy with people who do, or think they do, or absorb them from others like a leech.

Matt’s wife chews out someone on the phone, trying to determine Matt’s whereabouts. When she finally realizes Matt is indeed home and groaning on the couch, she throws the phone at him. “Where the hell have you been?” She keeps grilling him about where he was – gone for a day – but he can’t remember. He does hear her thoughts, briefly, so at least he hasn’t been sapped of his powers entirely.

Ando, Hiro, and their luggage get tossed out in the middle of the desert. I think I see Hiro pick a wedgie, thus cementing his status as the most normal of the whole superpower crew. The pair spots a nearby diner and head in. Hiro’s pretty excited about a certain diner staple: “Waffles!” (He should be eating breakfast at Claire’s.) They have an argument about how Ando is sad he came, not having fun, and is going to strike out on his own. Out the window, Hiro spots Nathan soar through the sky and make an off-kilter landing. The exhilarated look on Hiro’s face says it all. That was excellent.

After situating himself, Nathan enters the diner, makes a crack about his pajamas, and buys a shirt (“Fly by night” – har) as Hiro stares at him. Hiro-worship! Hee. Hiro then heads over, introduces himself, and tells Nathan he saw him fly. “I bend time and space.” It’s kismet! Nathan looks simultaneously disgusted and mused, but he listens to Hiro’s tales of the future indulgently. When Nathan’s cab arrives, Hiro asks for a ride, and even Nathan looks surprised as he agrees.

Matt orders himself and his wife a romantic meal. Clearly having been listening to her thoughts, he echoes back to her how he hasn’t been the best husband. To make up for it, he decides that they should play hooky.

BBD visits Claire in the hospital, where she confesses that she rammed the car on purpose. “You’ve got to start trusting me,” BBD tells her. As she starts to explain about the bonfire and Brody’s failure to understand that no means no, he looks like an appropriately concerned father. She begs him not to say anything, and he comforts her that “no one’s gonna know.” Well…certainly not Brody.

Peter turns up at Isaac’s asking for his help. He says he believes Isaac that he can paint the future. He’s special. He can save the world! Isaac’s response:”Is that what I sound like? No wonder she left me.” Self Pity Village, Population Isaac. (It’s adjacent to Self Involvement Isthmus, Population Peter.) Peter looks around at Isaac’s paintings, spotting the cheerleader in peril.

Nathan drops off Hiro, who heads to the rental car. He seems to be having a spot of trouble actually getting it started. Despite decently conversing with Nathan at the diner, Hiro is apparently less adept at reading English in the form of a driver’s manual.

Back at the hotel, Nathan bumps into Niki. They’re both kind of upset at each other. Niki feels violated because she can’t remember what happened. From Nathan’s perspective, that’s nothing a little sweet talking won’t solve: “You come back and attack me, I have one of the best nights of my entire life…The girl I met, that’s the kind of girl you spend your entire life waiting to meet.” Niki eventually tells Nathan they blackmailed him, taped the two of them together, and she’s sorry about it all.

Matt is busting out some rusty moves on his wife: swanky dinner, mood music, the works. It is definitely the result of some mind-reading. Matt’s moves are a little too smooth for his wife, who at first assumes she’s cheating. Eventually satisfied that he’s not, Wifey pretty much jumps his bones, thus proving that few can resist the allure of the Grunberg.

BBD heads to Brody’s hospital bedside. Brody’s surprisingly argumentative, especially considering that he’s talking to someone whose daughter he tried to rape. “I should kill you,” BBD says. “I’m going to give you a second chance. I’m going to let you forget all the terrible things you’ve done.” Exiting, BBD tells his silent bald friend to “hollow him out. ”

At Isaac’s, Peter’s hanging up the paintings. They’re “telling a story like a comic,” he explains. He thinks they’re all trying to help the cheerleader. He wants Isaac to paint more, but Isaac’s being obstinate, thinks he ruined his life “for nothing.” Also, he needs more drugs. Isaac, your power sucks. Peter’s power, however…is better. As Peter stares at an unfinished painting, it takes shape before him. He goes into a white-eyed daze, and paints feverishly.

Claire heads into Brody’s room. She tells him what he tried to do to her was wrong, but that what she tried to do was wrong too, and she’s sorry. “I don’t know you. Who are you?” he asks her. “Why do you keep calling me Brody?”

Back at home, Niki arrives to find the law awaiting her. Turns out, her felonious husband D.L. escaped. They had him in custody, but he “slipped out of his cuffs.” Niki’s worried he’s going to come after her. The cops get word that someone is approaching the house from the back. A man comes in through the screen door. It’s her internet acquaintance, Ando! “Ni-ki?” he says, a bit stupefied, waving even as the cops tell him to reach for the sky.

Nathan checks out of the Montecito. He brings up the tape to the solicitous hotel concierge lady, and manages to bilk her and her employer out of an additional $2 mil in campaign donations. For $2 million, they’re buying a candidate. For $4 million, they’re buying a Congressman, he tells her, with a shit-eating grin.

Matt and his woman are making love. It’s all very “What Women Want.” Well, what Wifey really wants is coffee ice cream. Ah, a woman after my own heart. Dutiful husband Matt heads to the convenience store, where he hears a cacophony of inner voices, finally drilling down to one who’s planning to rob the joint. He tries to convince the guy to leave, and is successful, though there’s a tense moment where the guy takes the gun out and leaves it on the counter. Matt grabs the gun after the guy leaves it, but then people begin to think he’s the perp, despite his protestation that he’s a cop. The voices swirl around him, and he collapses. It’s all very “Earshot.”

Niki chats with Ando, the cops as their audience. “You’re HuggerZ, the guy from Japan.” Ando is indeed, one of Niki’s clients. He found her through a WHOIS search. She’s nice to him, but doesn’t he get that who she is online is different from who she is in real life? She says the cops can let him go home; they say they’ll leave a squad car outside in case DL shows up. After they leave, we see that he’s already inside, in the shadows. And that is why, energy bills bedamned, I love a well-lit house.

Hiro sits in the car. Ando approaches and concedes: “I guess…we call the artist again.”

Peter’s canvas is done. On it the cheerleader lies at the foot of the painting, bleeding, below a vengeful shadow. Isaac’s phone rings, but he won’t get it. Too many calls from a crazy Asian guy. Peter, however, answers. “My name is Peter Petrelli. I have a message for you.”