Heroes Recap: “Nothing to Hide”

Title: “Nothing to Hide”
Original Air Date: 11/6/2006

Peter reads the paper to Charles, Simone’s father. He makes a bad, morbid joke, but somehow it inspires a sweet reaction from the dying man. “In the end all that matters is love. I love you, Peter.” When Peter reciprocates, Charles says Peter can tell him anything. “I can fly,” he tells Charles. Show me? He opens wide the window and soars out of it. Floating around the city, he awakens in his bed to the buzzing of the door. He opens it to find a tearful Simone telling him her dad passed away about an hour ago.

Claire’s friend Zach shows up, relieved that the tape of her superhuman feats turned up. She’s safe! Claire takes a different perspective, punching him for not finding it earlier. Her mom, show dog in hand, heads out to the car, telling Claire to watch her brother. As the teens help with her bags, the kid brother spots the tape and snags it.

Niki wakes up with a start, Micah’s name on her lips. She searches the house frantically. Finding it empty, she resorts to pleading with her reflection to help her.

Matt and his wife chat. Haven’t things been better? They sure have. Why settle for real intimacy when you can have the fake kind generated through telephathy? Matt’s about to come clean with his woman about his gift, but as he pauses he hears her: “I thought I’d been so careful. Oh god, he knows.” It can wait, he tells her.

Back in Las Vegas, Niki surveys her apartment. Things are torn up, in disarray. Her friend Tina arrives, and Niki explains DL came back and took Micah. “I tried to protect my son, but I couldn’t. I failed him.”

At Isaac’s, Peter and Simone find Isaac’s gone, as are his paintings. Simone recalls how important the paintings were to Peter. She actually seems to have a little faith in him. Maybe it’s because before her father died, he woke up from his coma briefly, saying he’d dreamed of flying around the world with Peter. In the dream Peter said it would all be okay and he would save the world. “The painting you want? I sold it to a guy named Linderman.” If Peter had that painting, he could save the world. What’s really been saved is my opinion of Simone. I didn’t want to muzzle her in this scene. Brava!

Nathan’s mother and wife Heidi (Rena Sofer, recognizable from all sorts of things) sit at the table, picking postcards for the campaign and planning for a influential journalist Oliver to come to brunch. Nathan’s against the idea, but Heidi says she’s been hiding in house for six months because they thought it would hurt campaign, and she’s done now. Good thing: Mama Petrelli has already planned for Oliver to be there in an hour. “I’d better get ready,” Heidi says, and wheels away in a wheelchair.

Matt suits up! Barney would be proud! Er…actually he’s suiting down in the cop locker room. Before we can get to the good stuff, Detective Audrey comes in amidst hoots and explains to Matt that Sylar has killed again, and the FBI needs his help. Matt changes and heads out with her.

Kid brother Lyle is watching the tape of his daredevil sister, horrified. Claire wrenches away tape, but not before we, and Lyle, see her get hit by a car and then right her broken self like nothing.  “It’s amazing what you can do with special effects these days, huh?’ Claire brushes it off, but her bro’s not fooled; he takes a staple gun and sticks one in her hand. Claire shrieks, but then they both watch as blood retracts and hand heals. Lyle runs out to some crazy soundtrack tunes, then hops in car and locks it with Claire and Zach hot on his heels.

Audrey and Matt learn the latest victirm is Robert Fresco, an oncologist at UCLA med center. We learn that Sylar’s victims are random, with no MO. The oncologist was the victim of severe burns with serious radiation, but they did manage to recover one clue: a fingerprint seared to his bone. The fingerprint matches one Theodore Sprague. Audrey bets it’s Sylar, but I’m betting it’s way too soon for that.

On the road, DL tells Micah they had to leave Niki because they weren’t safe. “Is she dead?” No, she’s going to be fine. They just didn’t have a choice but to leave. “Heroes don’t run away,” Micah counters, saying his dad must be a bad guy.

Niki reminds Tina about the bad dreams she’s been having, then reveals what we’ve known for a while: that her reflection is someone else. Also – and this is new — she has a name: Jessica. “When someone tries to hurt me, it’s like she comes out.” Sure, but you’d think she’d pick something more menacing than Jessica, the most popular name for girls born in the late 80’s. Jessica screams puff-paint more than it screams “I’m going to rip you in half.” Unless you are a pair of jeans and she’s making cut-offs.

DL and Micah come upon a burning car. DL rushes to the car trying to get woman out, eventually resorting to using powers to unlock car. Hiro and Ando, who were driving nearby, stop as well and get out to look at the accident. Flames are spreading, and Micah’s getting worried. Hiro to the rescue! “You no worry. I help.” The car explodes, but Hiro stops time. Muttering that he should have super strength too, he pushes DL and the passenger to safety. Later, At the crash site, Hiro and Micah bond over comics before DL and Micah skedaddle.

At the very proper Petrelli home, they’re all sitting down to brunch with their guest Oliver. Everyone’s on their best behavior, even as Oliver asks touchy questions, like how Heidi is coping. When she replies that she was angry for a long time, Oliver cuts right to the bone: “At your husband? Wasn’t he driving?” Ouch. Luckily, Peter arrives to provide a distraction. Nathan’s irritated to see him, but Peter doesn’t care. He wants Nathan to work his Linderman connection and get the painting. Nathan is resistant, until Peter subtly threatens to blackmail him with the details of his airborne capabilites.

Bratty little brother taunts Claire about the tape, saying “I’m going to put this thing on YouTube, make like a million bucks.” She pleads with him not to tell parents. “They’d think it was a mistake to ever adopt me. Then we wouldn’t be a family anymore. Please.” Finally swayed by her fears, Lyle rolls down window and hands over the tape. She gives him a hug.

Matt and Audrey arrive at creepy run-down house. Like the oblivious fools in a horror movie, they head inside to poke around. Radiation levels are safe, but things are scorched here and there. They hear noises and head for a room with a burned door, behind which the ceiling is gone, the room destroyed, and the radiation levels skyrocketing. “Let’s get out of here.” Audrey opines. Way to clue in, Clea.

At the Petrelli’s, Peter has derailed the brunch conversation. Oliver the reporter gets it back on track by ambushing Nathan and Heidi with questions about his trip to see Linderman, his subsequent absence, and something about a blonde woman. Things are looking grim for our heroes, till Peter swoops in with an explanation that Nathan was checking out a private clinic outside of Vegas. What a devoted brother!

Outside the cinder shack, Audrey gives Matt some anti-radiation meds. Doesn’t she need them? She’s a Cylon! The pills remind them of some chemotherapy pills they found inside, with a prescription for one Karen Sprague, from Robert the dead oncologist. Worth looking into? Hell yes.

At the hospital, they find Karen’s room, and Ted in it. He knows why they’re there, and says he was only trying to convince the doctor to help his wife, but things got out of hand. When they press Ted to go downtown for questioning, he grabs a nurse and holds her, insisting they let him stay with his wife. Matt, now a master negotiator, manages to dissuade him from doing any harm more than a burn on the arm. “Karen wants you to stop….You’re still her teddy bear.”  Ted lets the nurse go, having one last tender moment with his memories of his wife before she croaks.

Niki calls Nathan in desperation saying she knows she has no right to call, but her husband took son. Nathan tries to reason with her for a moment, but hangs up when his wife approaches. “Do you still love me, Nathan?” Of course he does! You’ve got to love your wife during an election year. She says she’s going to walk again, but she can needs a reason. She needs hope that life can be like it was.

In Vegas, Niki breaks a mirror. Or rather, as we see from the tattoo on her back, Jessica breaks a mirror. Tina comes in to see what’s wrong, and a very composed Jessica tells her to leave. “She doesn’t need your help anymore.” Tina, displaying more brains than I’d have suspected, does.

Audrey explains they’re going to run Sprague through decontamination, then put him in a special holding tank. She clumsily segues into telling him to call his wife, which he finally does. He leaves a message: “I have the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me…. I just wanted to say, I love you.” His wife listens, with a guilty expression.

Nathan’s on the phone with Linderman, saying Peter has “developed some sort of emotional attachment to painting.” It seems like he agreed to send it to gallery, but when Nathan shows up at Peter’s, he informs him Linderman won’t let the painting go. Did I misunderstand, or is Nathan just being a jerk because Peter told him he has to be honest with Heidi? “She doesn’t need the truth, she needs hope.” Yeah, whatever gets you to sleep at night, liar.

Nathan then tries honesty for a change, coming clean about the kidnapping attempt in Vegas. He describes his captors as: “Horn-rimmed glasses plus spooky euro-dude.” Peter’s skeptical, but Nathan thinks it makes sense. If people knew what they were capable of, they’d lock them up and throw away the key.

Back in the police locker room, Matt eyes two scratches on neck – just like we see on pyro Ted’s neck in his mug shots. Matt’s partner (the duplicitous Dr. Griffith from VM), says they decided to let him retake the detective’s exam, with interviews this time. Great news! Smiles all around! Or there would be, if not for what the partner is thinking: “Loser. I’m nailing your wife and she is so fine.” Matt looks at him for a moment, then socks him in the face.

At night, outside a motel, Micah goes to use the payphone. Voiceover tells us: “You do not choose your destiny. It chooses you.” Though it says out of order, Micah puts his hand on phone, closes his eyes for a moment, and manages to muster up a dial tone. When he reaches his mom, she insists he tell her where he is.” But Micah knows something’s off. “Put my mom on the phone.” Jessica manages to get the motel name out of him before DL arrives. Micah says he was just playing, and the lack of a dial tone seems to confirm it. But I imagine Jessica is already on her way…

Julie is a firm believer in “all things in moderation” — except when it comes to TV, writing, Logan Echolls, and carbonated beverages. When she’s not debating TV Boyfriends with GMMR, she’s writing for her site, TV & Sympathy, or kicking ass and taking names.