Heroes- Landslide

Father-Son Swordplay

Heroes is so consistently awesome, it's hard for the writers to wow me anymore. It's like the Melinda Doolittle of TV shows. They should make like Lost and lower my expectations for awhile so as to impress me anew.

Nonetheless, last night was action-packed, and I love to see more characters coming together. It makes everything less unwieldy. Check it out, y'all.

THE HRG CREW: Parkman, Ted, HRG, Claire and Peter are all in the city where we left them. They discuss taking out the tracking device and keeping Peter from exploding. HRG smartly tells Claire, Pete and Ted to head to the middle of nowhere. If they're not in NYC, they can't blow it up. And if they do blow up in the middle of nowhere, do they make a sound? Heady philosophical questions, indeed. Parkman and HRG, meanwhile, will head to Company HQ in order to stop the tracking device.

Great ideas all, but unfortunately, Sylar is listening in. Peter, having stolen Parkman's ability to mind read, can listen in to his listening in, but it ends up not mattering. Sylar reports that fugitive Ted is in town and gets him arrested by Parkman's old FBI friend. As Ted is being caravaned to Gitmo, Sylar crashes the car and cuts open his head. Looks like somebody has a new power to play with!

Claire and Peter are stuck in traffic on the way out of town when they decide to get out of their car to figure out what the hold up is. Of course, it's Sprague's crashed FBI van. Peter realizes it's Sylar who's going to blow, not him. The heading out of town plan suddenly looks like a bad idea...

Parkman and HRG find a way to get into the Company HQ building, where Mohinder has cured Molly of her disease. They run into the CEO, and HRG saves Parkman by killing him. Continuing after the tracking device, they find Molly and Mohinder. This is bad news. HRG knew the "device" was a person, but a little girl? Not just any little girl, but the little girl that Parkman saved from Sylar way back in like, episode 1 or 2?

HRG decides that there's no other way and pulls a gun on Molly. Mo knocks out Parkman and pulls his gun on HRG. And then they freeze in that standstill for the last 20 minutes of the show. No joke.

PETRELLI'S CHOICE: Nathan is still feeling all kinds of unsure about this whole letting New York blow up thing, so Linderman comes by to do a little last-minute pep-talk on him. He reveals that Nathan's dad was a Hero as well. He fought to make things better, and when it didn't work out, just gave up. This begs the question again: what can Grandma Petrelli do other than rock a smart pantsuit? She's got to have a power.

As Linderman leaves, he shakes the paralyzed Mrs. Petrelli's hand and heals her. Considering he put her in the chair, it's not really a favor so much as calling things even, in my opinion. Though obviously happy, Nathan recognizes how weird it would be if his wife could suddenly walk on election day, so they decide to keep it quiet.

Speaking of election day, Nate still has no idea how he's going to win and the exit polls aren't looking good. Enter Micah, who Linderman has been keeping under Candace's watchful and ever-changing eye.The two of them go to a polling booth (with her "dressed up" as his doting mother) and Micah uses his powers to "talk" to the main election computer and change the results. He gives Petrelli a landslide victory.

In Nathan's acceptance speech he talks a lot about "making the difficult decision for the greater good." Ruh-roh. Is he, as Hiro said earlier in the day upon seeing him, already a "villain"?

HIRO GETS TOUGH: Hiro and Ando take his broken sword to get repaired, and are surprised when Mr. Nakamura, George Takei, shows up. This time, he hasn't come to take Hiro home so much as inform and train him. He tells Hiro that he knew about his powers, he just wasn't sure he'd be strong enough to wield them. Also, as we know, he was once a part of The Company. Takei tells us and Hiro now, he no longer agrees with their plans.

Hiro fills his Dad in on his recent failure with Sylar, and Takei tells him the sword is not important, the journey is. He teaches Hiro how to use a sword and reminds him of a story they used to read, the lesson of which is basically: Hiro needs to be willing to die in order to fight. By the end of the episode, Hiro is prepped to meet Sylar again.

But before he can go after our newly-nuclear bad guy, he has to track down Ando. Worried that Hiro was abandoning his mission and going back home, Ando bought a sword at the repair shop and went after Sylar himself.

NIKKI AND DL GET EVEN: With the help of Nathan, Parkman, and HRG, Nikki and D.L. find Linderman in the Company HQ and demand Micah back. Linderman puts Nikki/Jessica to the test, offering Jessica $20 million to kill D.L.

Nikki overcomes the Jessica side in her and turns the offer down. Linderman goes to shoot her, but a touched D.L. blocks the bullet. He's got enough energy left in him, however, to put his fist through Linderman's head in one creepy death (I think?) sequence. D.L. falls to the ground and tells Nikki that he always knew she was stronger than Jessica. We are left uncertain of D.L.'s fate (though he's in the next week on, so things look decent).

Next week: It's the season finale. Can the Heroes stop Sylar?