There’s not a lot new in this episode. We mostly get context for HRG’s past actions, more of Nathan’s petty justifications for his actions, and the reveal of what happened to Daphne. Hint: She’s not dead – yet! Also, we finally find out which side HRG and Angela are on. Or do we?
Last week’s episode ended with Peter, Suresh, and Matt drugging HRG and kidnapping him out of the bar, this week starts with them bringing him to a hotel room and tying him up for interrogation.
Via Matt reading HRG’s mind, we get a series of flashbacks adding context to the past five weeks.
After Primatech burnt down, Angela told HRG that she was shutting down Primatech and all of its operations. She gives HRG an envelope of money as a severance package and a gold watch, symbolically retiring him.
Roughly a week later, Nathan shows up at stately Bennett Manor to warn HRG about the impending “enhanced human” roundup. He tells HRG that he’s trying to keep Claire off of the lists, but he needs HRG’s help. He initially just wants to know how HRG used to track them down, but Noah senses a purpose and decides he wants to join up. To prove his point, he takes Nathan to a storage unit where he’s stored a lot of his old equipment, files, and money. Nathan seems convinced and agrees to bring HRG in on the project.
Suresh has been vociferously protesting the interrogation, calling it torture and saying that they can’t even trust the information they’re getting. In an attempt to get him to shut up, Matt writes down the address of the storage unit and combination for the padlock and tells Suresh to go check it out, but Peter grabs the address and says he’ll go.
Unfortunately, The Hunter has been monitoring everyone, including Nathan, himself, and (most important at the moment) HRG’s storage unit. While Peter’s gathering weapons, money, and whatever else he can grab, a commando team surrounds the unit. Just as they open the door and prepare to charge in, Peter tosses out a stun grenade and flies away.
Back at the hotel room, the flashbacks reveal that, while HRG thought he would be in charge of the round-up, The Hunter has been placed in charge instead. The Hunter’s single-mindedness makes HRG uneasy and HRG’s split loyalties between his job and family makes The Hunter distrustful.
HRG pops into Suresh’s cab and tries to warn him about what’s coming, but Suresh seems skeptical.
Matt goes into a rage about Suresh knowing what was coming and not warning anyone, but Suresh insists that he didn’t believe HRG and nobody would believe him (Suresh) based on his recent history. This is probably true, but Matt doesn’t’ seem to care. They start to throw down, but Peter arrives just in time to break it up.
Back in the mind-meld, HRG shows up at the Hunter’s apartment in an attempt to make peace, but The Hunter doesn’t seem terribly interested. HRG tries to tell him that some of the people they’ll be hunting are good people. The Hunter insists that they’re all targets. It’s at this point that this really seems to be more than just a job to The Hunter. He’s got a serious hate-on for these people. I bet we’ll find out that either he has powers and has some self-loathing thing going or that someone he cares about was hurt/killed by a powered individual.
Anyway, this nets The Hunter’s address, and Peter flies off to take care of him.
Peter shows up just as The Hunter’s getting home and holds him at gunpoint. The Hunter practically begs Peter to pull the trigger, since that will just prove his point and they’ll all be hunted down as killers.
Since The Hunter has himself under surveillance, they know what’s going on back at the headquarters. Some nameless dude asks Nathan if they should send a team, but Nathan says that he’ll take care of it. He shows up just as The Hunter finishes his hate speech (he REALLY just wants to kill them all), to the Hunter’s suspicious surprise. He concurs that killing The Hunter would just make things worse and begs Peter not to do it and just let Nathan try to fix things. Peter puts the gun away and escapes. Rather than being grateful to Nathan, The Hunter just seems very suspicious of Nathan. I bet Nathan gets locked up before this is all over.
The team from the storage unit has tracked Peter back to the hotel, so Suresh and Matt are running out of time. Matt’s about to just shoot HRG and get out of there, but HRG shouts that Claire’s still alive. Matt doesn’t believe him and says that he doesn’t have time to read HRG’s mind anymore, but Suresh tells him that he’ll hold them off.
Suresh takes off out of the building and just starts stomping ass until they shoot him up with like 15 darts.
This buys Matt enough time to read HRG’s mind one last time, and he finds out that Daphne’s hurt but alive and being held in Building 26 with the others, like Tracy. Unfortunately, Suresh didn’t buy him enough time to actually escape and the team finally finds and captures him. Just as they’re walking him out, though, Peter swoops down and carries Matt off.
Back at Building 26, Nathan tries to recruit Suresh to help him find a way to remove everyone’s powers so that they won’t have to be locked up. He gives a Tony Stark-esque speech about how all of this is going to happen with or without his involvement and he’s just trying to minimize the damage, but Suresh isn’t buying it. Nathan then ups the stakes by showing Suresh a video of Daphne and telling him that eventually Nathan will lose control of this thing and, if Suresh doesn’t help, Nathan’s “friends” will eventually kill Daphne. Then they’ll kill Suresh. Then Peter, then Claire, and everyone else.
In a warehouse at an undisclosed location (though it kind of looks like Isaac’s apartment/Suresh’s old lab), Matt is painting like a madman. He’s totally freaked out when he “wakes up” and sees that he’s painted sticks of dynamite, himself wearing a dynamite vest, and a scene of Washington, DC, exploding.
HRG is walking with The Hunter, telling him that now that he has no family, he’s fully committed to the job and is convinced that The Hunter is correct with his hard-line approach. The Hunter tells him that things are about to get a lot more hardcore, gets into a van, and drives away.
HRG walks over to a park bench and sits down. As the camera rotates, we realize that he’s sitting next to Angela. Through their conversation, we find out that HRG’s actually playing The Hunter. Angela warns him that he’ll have to make hard decisions and do some questionable things to make sure The Hunter trusts him. HRG just smiles and says he’s always been comfortable in the morally grey areas. After he leaves, Angela notices that he left the gold watch behind.
