TV Recap: Heroes - It's Coming

The eclipse is on its way! Sylar learns more about his abilities and moves one step closer to having a babymomma. Lines are further drawn and more post-humans choose their sides. Claire is like a transformer - more than meets the eye, unless the eye meets a self-centered cheerleader with delusions of grandeur. Okay, so maybe they're not delusions.

Once again, we pick up where we left off - with Arthur Petrelli crushing Hiro's poor little brain. Ando tries to save Hiro with some kind of flying ninja-punch or something, but Arthur easily catches him and tosses him away with his telepathy. Arthur is, however, distracted by Ususu's painting of an eclipse long enough for Ando to tackle Hiro and yell at him to teleport them away. I figured that Arthur was taking away Hiro's powers, but Hiro now seems like Arthur gave him brain damage or something because he has no idea what Ando's talking about. Ando finally gets him to blink and they teleport away just before Arthur catches them again.

When they arrive at their destination - a bowling alley that serves Hiro's favorite waffles - we finally find out that Hiro thinks he's ten years old. Ando patiently tries to explain to Hiro that he's almost thirty and has powers, but Hiro doesn't buy it until Ando shows him how he used to stop time and teleport. Hiro must usually be subconsciously limiting his powers or something because, after a few practice rounds, Hiro is showing the best control over his powers that I've ever seen.

Sylar's watching workmen repairing the window that he tossed Peter through when Daddy P. returns from stealing Hiro's memories and Usutsu's head. Arthur tells Sylar that he knows that he saved Peter from the fall. Papa thinks that Sylar's empathy may be the key to conquering his hunger and gaining abilities without killing. As part of the experiment, he locks Sylar into a room with Elle, who's chained to a bolt in the floor.

Elle's still a bit upset with Sylar over killing her father and fries him with her powers. Sylar knows that an apology is not enough for Elle and recognizes that she needs vengeance, so he offers to take everything she can give. After a long time of Elle electrocuting Sylar until she's exhausted, Sylar healing, and then doing it all over again, they finally talk about Elle turning Sylar into a killer. Sylar recognizes that she was just following orders and forgives her, but tells her that she also needs to forgive herself. Apparently, Elle chooses this moment to finally forgive herself, because her pain stops and she regains control over her abilities. Sylar then shows that he's gained her ability through empathizing with - and coming to understand - Elle. They bond over aiming electrical bolts and start to make out, but all we get to see is that Arthur has been watching their interaction and seems very pleased with the progression of his plan.

Suresh is frustrated over the results from his experiments with the two halves of the serum. All of the test subjects develop mutations even worse than Suresh's. He theorizes to Arthur that there must be a third part of the formula, a catalyst, to make it work. He further theorizes that it couldn't be kept, stored or created synthetically and would likely have to be kept in the blood of an individual, though he's not sure who it could be. Arthur realizes that Hiro's father must have hidden the formula and he thinks he knows where it is.

Matt and Daphne arrive at Primatech to enlist help against Pinehearst, but the building seems abandoned until Matt sees a vision of Usutsu. Matt chases the vision into Mama Petrelli's room. When he can't revive her, he decides to enter her mind to help her while Daphne "goes to find help."

Before she finds any kind of help, though, Daphne runs to report to Papa Petrelli (who's examining files on Kaito Nakamura and Claire... innnnteresting.) about Matt trying to help Angela. Arthur seems unconcerned and says that if Parkman tries to help Angela he'll "be waiting."

In Angela's mind, she tells Matt that it's useless to help her. She's handcuffed to a chair and, even if Matt can get her out of those, all of the doors are locked. Matt finds one door that's unlocked, but Daphne is behind it and stabs Matt. In "the real world", Daphne gets back to the room and sees Matt bleeding. She somehow get Matt to bring her into Angela's mind, where she tries to help Matt. Having just been stabbed, he isn't feeling very trusting, especially when another Daphne - that turns into Arthur - is telling him that Daphne has already betrayed him once and will keep betraying him, because that's what all women do, just like Angela betrayed him. Daphne tells him that she's sorry that she's made a mistake, but she loves him and she won't do it again.

Angela chimes in and tells Arthur that Matt and Daphne love each other, just like she knows there's a part of Arthur that still loves her and blah blah blah he should just let her go. Surprisingly, he does, and Angela, Matt, and Daphne all wake up.

When Knox and Flint show up at Primatech, Peter and Claire figure that they're coming for Peter. Peter makes a run for it while Claire holds them off by taunting them and then tossing herself out of a window. The two villains chase them into a sewer while Peter tries to tell Claire to go home to maintain her innocence. He's terrified by the idea of her turning into a killer and working for Pinehearst, but she's more concerned with protecting him now that he has no powers. When the villains begin to catch up again, Claire tells Peter to run ahead again while she holds them off, but the villains reveal that they've come for Claire and begin to drag her off.

Peter chooses then to get ballsy and taunts Flint into attacking him by doing his flamethrower act. What Flint didn't notice was the broken gas pipe between him and Peter. Claire, who can't feel pain anymore, recovers first and runs away with Peter back to Primatech to meet up with the other "heroes."

Nathan and Tracy arrive at Pinehearst to confront his father. Nathan gets a little speech-y, first about remembering when the grounds of Pinehearst were a fishing spot that Arthur took his sons to and then about the reasons he has to confront his father (in short, Nathan's entire life has been defined by Arthur). Arthur gets all creepy when Nathan and Tracy enter his office, first asking Nathan for a hug (he never gets that hug) and then asking Tracy to excuse them so that Arthur can make his pitch to Nathan.

Arthur tells Nathan that he was always his favorite son and the one most like him. Arthur claims to want Nathan to become President in order to aid his plans, but Nathan's finally figured out that Arthur was behind Linderman and wants no part of Arthur's plan. After Nathan leaves to go back to Primatech, Tracy enters Arthur's office and offers an alliance - she'll bring Nathan over to Arthur's side if he'll watch over her "when the dust settles."

When Peter and Claire arrive back at Primatech, Matt initially attacks him, thinking that he's the same Peter that sent him to Africa. For his part, Peter doesn't trust Daphne since she was one of the people who helped Future Claire attack him and Future Sylar. Once they get that straightened out, though, all is good, other than Claire's realization that she is the missing catalyst.

After some fun with his powers, Ando gets Hiro to teleport them somewhere that will help him regain his memories. Hiro picks the ultimate repository of knowledge for a ten-year-old (and certain *cough* twenty-nine-year-olds) - the comic store! Hiro wonders aloud what the publishers were on with certain storylines, like the death of Captain America (would have been crap if written by anyone other than Ed Brubaker), Red Hulk (incredibly crappy storyline written by now-ex-Heroes producer Jeph Loeb), and Spider-man revealing his identity (since undone). Yay for fanboy pandering!

When Hiro sees an issue of "Ninth Wonder", Ando realizes that it will guide them on the right path, but Hiro thinks it's all a trick somehow. Ando finally convinces him that it's real and they flip to the end to find out what's next, but there's just an image of an eclipse and the words "It's Coming."

The villains all gather around Arthur while he's trance-sketching the same image from the last page of "Ninth Wonders". This is intercut with the heroes gathering around together. The lines seem to be drawn, but I think there will still be some surprises. I'm betting that Sylar - and probably Elle - will end up on the side of the heroes and a few "heroes" (Nathan, maybe Momma Petrelli, maybe Daphne) will end up being villains.