NBC"A Hero will be lost...and in a show known for its surprise endings, you ain't seen nothin' yet."
Yee! I sure hope you heard that warning, because then you'll realize there are only six shopping days left to stock up on paper bags (for requisite hyperventilation) and adult diapers (um, in case an elderly relative should happen to visit) before said episode of "loss" and "surprise" airs. 'Cause let me tell you, Promo Dude is so not kidding. Not even a teensy-weensy wittle bit.
Reliable sources close to Heroes tell me someone—a certain heroic someone—indeed bites the dust in the next episode, which airs this very Monday. But, hmmm, wait a minute, come to think of it, I'm pretty dang sure two Heroes actually die within the next few episodes. And producers are even planning a third! Talk about a body count. At this rate, the only character left at the end of the season will be Mr. Muggles, the Bennetts' dog.
Anyway, here's a juicy morsel of exclusive scoop that you can keep in mind when you discover which Heroes bite the dust in the next few eps: One of the deceased was supposed to be on the show a while longer, but he or she ran into a few problems with his or her contract, and this particular Hero is getting killed off six episodes earlier than originally planned. The storyline of this insta-ousted character got a wee bit of a jump-start, if you will, so buckle up and hold on to your couch cushions, 'cause things are whipping into fast-foward. Believe you me.
Here's What We Learned Tonight• Sylar's hot. I mean, so he steals people's brains in order to power up to destroy the world—we all have bad habits. I bet I can change him. Or at least have fun trying.
• Jessica was Niki's twin sister! I'm sorry, but again, I just have to mention that Jessica was the bad, hot, blond twin in the Sweet Valley High books, and if there's an episode in which she dyes her hair black and steals Elizabeth's, er, Niki's boyfriend, I'm so calling out the writers on this "homage"! Regardless, it's a pretty badass twist, what with Daddy killing Jess and all. Her "powers" are becoming a bit more evident, no? Maybe? Maybe not? Yeah, I'm just as confused as you are.
• Hiro now speaks pretty much perfect English, so either he has absorbed the waitress' power, à la Peter Petrelli (P.S.: Did you note the Petrelli nod in the last ep of Veronica Mars?), or he has teleported back in time and taken three years of a Pimsleur language course. (Psst, in all seriousness, from what I've been told, his new English skills were at the request of the show's higher-ups.)
Here's a Bit of What Lies Ahead (Yes, It's Spoilery)
• Peter won't be in jail for long. (A shame, really. I was hoping for a Michael Scofield crossover, with him being in Texas and all!)
• There's going to be a hostage situation—of a family. And just who is doing the holding in this sitch will surprise you.
• Someone will be killed. And someone will be sacrificed.
And now I'm shutting up, before someone who works on this show comes in and cleans out my noggin! So, I'm handing over the reigns to Dr. Anna Graham, who has a recap of last night's episode for you...
Heroes Recap: "Chapter 10: Six Months Ago"
by Dr. Anna Graham
Sorry for the length, team, but it's flashback week, so there's lots of interesting backstory to cover here.
Hiro jumps back in time to save cute Charlie. He romances her, as only Hiro can—well, as only Michael Scofield and Hiro can (paper-crane mash notes for everybody!)—and they fall in love. He's about to carry her off to Japan, away from the threat of Sylar, when she reveals she has a blood clot in her brain. She's due for a deadly aneurysm any minute now. They're about to kiss when Hiro inadvertently flashes away to Tokyo, and he realizes he can't change the past. Well, sure he can, but hopelessness and lamentations seem to be the point of it all.
Dr. Niki Jekyll is a good-natured, one-year-sober, nickel-and-dimed-in-America sweetheart. Ms. Jessica Hyde is a murdered 11-year-old girl who takes over her surviving twin sister's mind to help Niki survive childhood abuse and/or unravel any other little snafus that knot up her life. Micah's power is that of every modern kid: a seemingly supernatural ability to understand and manipulate technology. (He's a hacker/phreaker/engineer-to-be. Whee!) D.L. is kind of helpless in the face of Niki's issues, but we knew that already.
Linderman is a Mob boss. Daddy Petrelli is his lawyer. District attorney Nathan is asked to prosecute Linderman. (Completely unbelievable conflict-of-interest-much?!) The boys decide not to betray bad old dad, but no matter. Linderman goes after Nathan and Mrs. Nathan anyway. They're on the way home from a party celebrating Peter's graduation from nursing school when a black SUV roars up behind them. In the middle of a speech about how it's his willingness to protect his family that separates him from the lesser invertebrates—like his brother, Peter—Nathan literally flies away from the oncoming danger that's about to snap his wife in half. It's awesome.
Claire-bear gets in a tug-of-war with Jackie and accidentally puts her hand through a glass-pane cabinet. The cut is so bad it needs stitches. Chandra calls Mr. Bennett and tells him his daughter is special. When Mr. Bennett returns from his fact-finding mission to New York, the cut is completely healed, giving him a little clue as to the nature of his baby girl's special power.
Eden, in a Jackie O 'do, drives a Ferrari faster than the speed limit and gets pulled over by Parkman. She persuades him to go eat some doughnuts instead of citing her, and he ends up hanging out in his squad car until minutes before the detective test. He flunks, due to distraction and dyslexia.
Mindfreak helps Bennett capture Eden, and Mindfreak somehow manages to strip Eden of her powers, at least in regard to Bennett and Mindfreak. Mr. Bennett reveals that Eden has a loooong rap sheet (she invented her own morality, he says), and he wants her to redeem herself by helping him. His most immediate goal is persuading Chandra Suresh to remove Claire from his superpower spreadsheet.
Enter Gabriel, whose nifty but anachronistic day job as a watchmaker treads into the territory of creation-by-omnipotent-deity versus evolution. (Dun-dun-dun!) Chandra Suresh identifies him as a possible super, but repeated testing reveals no powers.
Gabriel does, however, have some rage issues, which lead to eyebrow-raised disapproval/dismissal/rejection by Chandra. On his way out the door, Gabriel grabs a sticky note with the name of one Brian Davis, who turns out to be the guy who plays David the Junior Coroner on CSI. Brian has the power of telekinesis, much to his own dismay. Gabriel, who uses Keyser Soze's old move creating monikers from the brand name of a nearby object, starts calling himself Sylar and under this alias offers Brian "the cure," which turns out to be massive head trauma.
Gabriel Sylar, you see, apparently graduated from the Death Eaters Medical Academy of Grenada. He knows the mystery of life is in the brain, but he's not so much with the fine motor skills that most good doctors Shephard/Shepherd (Jack or Derek—take your pick) would employ to remove the invasive power, so he just opens up the skull and pokes around with a fork until he finds something yummy. Mmmm...delicious brains. (Let us call him McZombie)
Next week on Heroes: Claire-bear makes moon-calf eyes at Peter.