Ando gets powers, Peter gets his powers back, Sylar gets his bad-ass back, Nathan's just a horse's back...side, Hiro goes back to the future, HRG gets his Clairebear back, and Heroes will be back in seven weeks.
HRG, Angela Petrelli, Claire, and Meredith all prepare to invade Pinehearst when they notice that there are quite a few dead bodies in the hallways. Catching his cue, Sylar pipes up over the PA to let everyone know that Arthur's already dead and, if things go according to his plan, they'll be joining him after Sylar shows them that they're monsters just like him.
HRG leads the search for Sylar's hiding place while he (Sylar) continues to taunt them, reciting each of their litany of sins including Angela's manipulation of everyone including her sons and her attempted murder of her husband; HRG's willingness to sacrifice everyone for his mission, and so on.
Meredith begins to question if Sylar can really be stopped and Claire points out that her weaknesses would also be Sylar's weaknesses - specifically her weakness to items being inserted into her brain stem, which will be important later.
The hunt for Sylar doesn't go terribly well, so HRG sends Claire and Angela to hide out in Angela's office while he and Meredith free the Level 5 prisoners. HRG tells them that the man who brings him Sylar's head will go free, but they're all locked in the building with Sylar and won't be able to escape until he's dead.
Meredith later comes across the remains of several of the prisoners and is attacked by Sylar. Doyle the creepy creepy puppet master tries to save her by using his powers on Sylar, but Sylar uses his telepathy to give Doyle a stroke or something along those lines - Doyle's nose starts bleeding and he drops.
Meredith tries to run, but Sylar catches her and injects her with adrenaline and teleports her into a Level 5 cell. When HRG goes in to find out what happened, Sylar locks them both in and warns HRG that he'll have to either shoot Meredith before her powers go completely out of control from the adrenaline or shoot himself before he burns to death.
Sylar points out that he's just turning HRG into the monster that HRG turned him into - he's apparently still really upset about that whole episode with Elle.
In Angela's office, Sylar calls Claire and offers to let her, HRG, and Meredith go if she kills Angela. Claire's response is to shoot the phone and take the fight to Sylar. She tries really hard to look like a bad-ass, but she just can't pull it off. It's kind of pathetic, really.
Claire leads Angela by the hand until she hears a noise and goes to investigate. When she comes back, she grabs a hand and I'm not fooled for a second that it's anyone other than Sylar. He lifts Claire by the throat and gives her the same choice - save her dad or save her grandmother - but says that he knows she'll choose her dad even after everything he's done to her. Sylar wonders aloud what that says about Claire and disappears again.
Claire eventually finds HRG and Meredith, but can't release them since Sylar destroyed the keypad. Meredith's steadily losing control of her powers and HRG looks like he's seriously considering shooting her, but then he gets the idea to have Meredith superheat the bulletproof glass wall of the cell and then shoots it. The glass cracks, but doesn't shatter so Claire decides to throw herself through the glass to break it. HRG climbs out, but Meredith stays behind to try to get control of herself.
In Angela's office, Sylar berates her into admitting that she's not his mother and recruited him because she needed a killer that she could manipulate into doing her will. She tries to bargain for her life by saying that she knows who his real parents are and he'll never find out if he kills her. His lie detector power tells him that she's telling the truth, but Claire sneaks up and stabs him in the brain stem with a shard of glass from the cell. She, HRG, and Angela go back to get Meredith out of the building before it blows, but she stays behind while the Primatech building explodes.
HRG, Claire, and Angela watch the facility burn.
At Pinehearst, Nathan comes up from the lab to find Peter looking over Arthur's body. Peter tells Nathan that he didn't do it - Sylar did - but he's still going to stop Arthur's plan. Nathan tells Peter that it's his plan now, that he's going to use the formula to make the world a better place. Peter points the gun at Nathan and they argue about crap for awhile before Peter wusses out and puts the gun down. Nathan figures he won and starts to relax, but Peter punches him in the jaw, knocking him out, and heads down to the lab to destroy the formula.
Ok, points for knocking Nathan out, but Peter really needs to learn to pull the damn trigger.
The marine from last week wakes Nathan up to report that he was the only one injected before Tracey stopped the process for some reason. Nathan tells him that they have to stop Peter and the marine heads off to follow orders. He pauses in the doorway, turns like he's about to say something else to Nathan, and Knox steps out and snaps the jarhead's neck. It was AWESOME! Claire, take notes - Knox? Hardcore. Sylar? Badass and deliciously evil. HRG? Pretty damn badass. You? Not so much any of those.
Knox tells Nathan that he and Flint are working with Peter to destroy the formula (we'll explain why later with Flint) and nobody is going downstairs until the formula is destroyed. Knox and Nathan bicker a bit and Knox looks like he's about to put his fist through Nathan's face, but Tracy pops up, freezes Knox, and shatters him.
For those keeping track, we stand at two confirmed deaths (three with the marine, but does he really matter?) and one implied death. I'm not counting Sylar as an implied death because I don't think the writers are even trying to make us think he died.
Nathan wants to stop Peter and keep the program going, but Tracy wants to take the formula, distance themselves from Pinehearst and the inevitable bad publicity, and start over. She points out that Nathan hired her for this very reason - to make him look good. Nathan tells her that she's fired and heads off to find Peter.
Downstairs, Suresh is telling his audio journal that his infection has advanced into his lungs and he can barely breathe. He figures his last chance is the formula and is about to inject himself when Peter storms in and tells him to put the formula down because it has to be destroyed. While they're arguing about it, something blurs by and the formula disappears from Suresh's hand. This is obviously Daphne, but we'll get back to her.
Suresh uses his crazy fly/spider powers to throw Peter across the room, but Flint shows up to help Peter. Peter doesn't understand why he's helping - Flint explains that if everyone has powers, he and Knox won't be so special anymore, so they want the formula destroyed. Suresh taunts Peter about working with thugs until Flint gets fed up and knocks him out.
Just as Flint and Peter are finishing destroying the lab and the last of the formula, Nathan shows up with a metal pipe and hits Flint, stunning him. Nathan really starts beating on Peter and it almost seems like he may end up killing him, but Flint recovers and attacks Nathan with his flames. In the ruckus, some of the formula runs over Suresh and runs into his mouth. He wakes up coughing and you can see his scabs healing. Peter, separated from Nathan and Flint by the flames, finds one last syringe of formula and injects himself. He has the same type of seizure reaction as the marine had last episode and then flies past Nathan, grabs him, and escapes the building. Outside, Nathan tells Peter that he wouldn't have saved him and storms off.
Ando, Daphne, and Matt show up at Suresh's old lab (is this Isaac's old loft? I can't remember), hoping to get him to help Ando get powers. Suresh, of course, is now at Pinehearst, which Daphne realizes. She does her superspeed thing to steal a syringe of the formula (as mentioned before) and gives it to Ando. Despite Matt's objections, Ando injects himself, has the seizure reaction, and passes out. When he wakes up, he doesn't have time-travel powers, but he does realize he can shoot out red sparks, though he's not sure what they're for. When Matt grabs his shoulder, he begins hearing people's thoughts all over the place. When Daphne grabs Ando, she speeds away so fast she actually goes backwards in time.
I figured it out as soon as Matt heard the voices, but these three are a bit slower on the uptake. After they talk for a minute, they realize that Ando now supercharges others' powers. In Daphne's case, she can move so fast that she can actually time-travel. She and Ando make a plan for him to keep supercharging her until they get back to the time that Hiro is trapped in so they can rescue him.
Speaking of Hiro, he's worked his way back up from the flag pole and convinced Lil' Hiro to help him steal the formula in order to destroy it, thus avoiding the problems of the future. What Hiro discovers in his father's safe is the entire formula, not divided in two. The two Hiros are about to leave Kaito's office when he shows up and demands to know what they're doing. He sends little Hiro to bed and attacks big (present) Hiro, thinking he's a thief. Hiro dodges Kaito's attacks with his katana while trying to convince him that the formula should be destroyed, but Kaito isn't listening. Just as Hiro begins to tear the formula into pieces, Daphne and Ando speed past and "save" him, leaving the two pieces of the formula behind. A bit of predestination paradox, that.
Back in the present, Hiro is a bit pissed off that his chance to destroy the formula was ruined, but Daphne points out that she knows where the formula is kept in the present, since she's the one who stole it for Arthur. She and Hiro head out to get the formula. Tracy's beaten them to the formula, though, and apparently has plans. When politeness fails, Hiro first apologizes, then punches Tracy in the face and takes the formula. He and Daphne then meet back up with Ando and Matt, triumphant.
Tracy later picks up a hitchhiking - and mostly healed - Suresh.
Thus ends Volume Three.
In a prelude to Volume Four, we see Nathan in a limo, giving a report to an only partially seen man on the other Heroes. To keep them from being a threat, Nathan suggest rounding them up and locking them away in a facility where they'll no longer be a problem. The man agrees to get Nathan whatever he needs. Nathan prepares to get out of the limo and says "Thank you, Mr. President."
I know there have been plenty of negative reactions to the season so far, but I've enjoyed it somewhat, no matter what the flaws. This seems to be a great end to the volume and cliffhanger set up for the next volume. The formula is no more, Nathan is set up to be the next big bad, Sylar is out there somewhere doing his own thing, and the rest of the Heroes and Villains are being set up to have to depend on one another to survive.
Has it been done? Yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be done again, and well.
What do you think, folks? Did you like Volume Three? What do you think about the prospects for Volume Four?
