Intrigue

Sylar begins to feel confused and more uncertain about himself when his new shape-changing powers begins to get out of control. He begins to imagine his late mother giving him advice on what to do, while Danko continues to use him to find and kill people with abilities and wants to zero in on 'Rebel'. When Sylar discovers that Rebel is in fact Micah Sanders, he saves him. Sylar decides to change his ways after figuring out that Danko is plotting a so-called 'Final Solution' to exterminate all people with abilities once and for all. Meanwhile, Parkman plans to return to his home in California with his infant son unaware that there are more kill-squad agents after him, Hiro and Ando rashly decide to make a heroic, and probably futile, attempt to make an assault on Building 26.—matt-282

"Heroes" - "I Am Sylar" - April 20, 2009

Previously on Heroes: We are reminded of Sylar's mother, Virginia Gray, from s1, and are shown Danko pointing out Agent Taub to Sylar from his office (from another deleted scene?).

We pick up where we left off with Angela, Peter, Nathan, Claire and HRG in the diner watching the faux-Nathan, aka Sylar, giving his press conference on TV.

The screen tells us what we are about to see happened 18 Hours Earlier in Washington, D.C..

Sylar wakes up as Taub and isn't sure why. He morphs back into himself and pulls a tooth out.

Matt's on the phone with his ex-wife. He puts Little Matt on the phone with her. Big Matt says it's good to hear Janice's voice before he hangs up. Matt plans to take little Matt home. Ando thinks it's a bad idea. Hiro thinks it's a good idea. But they both want him to help them take down Building 26. Matt just wants to go home and raise his child and tells Hiro and Ando to give up their plan and just be happy to live free lives. As Matt leaves Ando wonders if Matt isn't right since they don't have a plan. Hiro says a hero never concedes defeat.

Danko meets Sylar in a park and wonders why one of his agents spotted Sylar again since Sylar is supposed to be dead and not showing up on Building 26 surveillance sitting in a park. Danko says he has to stay disguised, "Sylar" died to give him his freedom. A sullen Sylar thinks this is ironic since he's not free to be himself. He explains he went to bed as himself and woke up as Agent Taub without purposefully trying to become him. He feels like he's losing himself. He shows him the crazy extra tooth he found in his mouth earlier. He says he's spending too much time as the other dude and it's messing with his actual DNA. Danko suggests he stay Taub. Sylar says Taub's a nobody and he wants to be somebody. Danko says if that somebody is Sylar he'll have no choice but to hunt him down and make his life hell. Sylar becomes Taub again. Danko is pleased. Sylar raises his finger and carves "I Am Sylar" into "Taub"'s arm. (Yet he doesn't see the "Chapter Eleven:" written momentarily above it before it heals.)

The screen tells us the man we're seeing in his kitchen drinking tea is BALOK! No, wait, it's Tom Miller of Richmond, VA (guest star Clint "Ron's brother" Howard). His phone rings and it's a text from Rebel saying "get out now!" Taub morphs back into Sylar as he walks down a hall. He pops up on Tom's couch. Tom says Sylar doesn't want to startle him since he can hurt him. Sylar says he does understand and that he's just like Tom and that he wants to help him. Tom wonders if he's Rebel. Sylar says he's "a rebel." Tom wonders why they're being hunted. Sylar asks him to show him his power. Tom can deteriorate things into dust with a snap of his fingers (just like Gordon Hovey in last week's GN, #133). Sylar thinks it looks like fun. Tom thinks that's crazy. Sylar says the agents are on the way and will Tom pick them or Sylar? He, sadly and predictably, picks Sylar, who promptly begins cutting the top of his head. The agents approach as Tom screams, but all they find is Tom's dead body and a message scrawled in blood in huge letters on the wall: "I Am Sylar." Taub looks at it over Danko's shoulder and says Sylar has got some ego. Danko isn't amused.

Back in Danko's office in Building 26, Danko tells a shaken Sylar he's put him in a difficult position by insisting on being himself. He shows Danko Tom's cell with the Rebel text, meaning he's still in D.C. Danko thinks this is good. He asks for Sylar's help. His or Taub's? Danko says Sylar needs to play dead. Sylar is freaked that one of his eyes stayed blue post-morph for over an hour. Danko says he's had eight multiple lives, wives, and spoken six tongues over the last five years but he never forgot who he was. He basically tells Sylar to get an anchor that reminds him of who he is. Danko shows him his dad's pocket watch, his anchor. Sylar takes it from him and examines it, notes it's running three minutes fast, about half a second an hour. Danko wonders who he killed to get the power of knowing how things work. Sylar sighs, it's the only one that was ever truly his.

Hiro and Ando are creeping into Isaac's loft with the "plan" to be captured. Hiro explains they will use Ando as bait. Ando will learn the location of the bad guy's "secret lair" and then Hiro will save him and they will defeat the bad guys. Ando is the bait because Hiro can't stop time if he's unconscious and he's assuming the bait will be rendered unconscious. Ando has come up with a name for his superhero alias: the Crimson Arc. Hiro dubs it dangerous yet ladylike. Ando again complains that Hiro doesn't seem him as an equal. Hiro says he loves that Ando has his red lightning thing. Ando says he saw him smirk and had hoped they would be a team but that maybe he should be more of a loner like Batman. Just then agents bust in and Hiro and Ando hit the deck. Hiro stops time, gets up,and apologizes to Ando for making him bait. Ando pops up protesting, and they both realize for some reason Hiro's power did not stop him and that he doesn't have to be bait after all.

Sylar/Taub gets a cold case box delivered to his house by a cop. It's his adoptive mother's unsolved murder. (You'll recall he accidentally killed her). He takes out her sweater and sniffs it. He pulls out different objects and remembers killing her. He tosses and breaks a snow globe. He hallucinates her picking up the Eiffel tower and he asks why she never told him the truth about his real parents. She says she wanted to protect and love him and didn't think the truth mattered. He says it mattered to him. He whines that all his life he never felt like he fit in. He says he went to see his real dad and he was pathetic. So he took the morphing power, now he can be anything he wants, so he wonders why he feels so lost. She says he's not lost, he's her son and even if she didn't give birth to him, she loved and wanted him right from the start. He points out that he killed her. She says then there was no one left to love him and now she's back. There is a knock on the door that startles her. It turns out that he had morphed into her to have the conversation. It's Danko at the door, saying they've found Rebel and to suit up as Taub.

Back at the loft Hiro thinks Ando didn't freeze because Hiro was touching him at the time, just like Baby Matt. Ando is jazzed saying he feels like he's in Hiro's secret clubhouse and he plays around with the frozen agents. Hiro tells him to stop. Ando says he understands that it probably feels like he's infringing on what was Hiro's "me time" before, but now it's their time, like Batman visiting Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Hiro is psyched that Ando thinks he's like Superman. Ando points out that he's noble, for truth and justice and a little bit fascist in that he doesn't want Ando to be a superhero, too. They start bickering again about it and Ando says he has a destiny too just like Hiro and that this Batman can go it alone. Hiro has walked away and, apologizing under his breath, restarts time so the tranquilizer darts hit Ando. He stops it again and looks at the agents. He closely examines one, who appears to be Asian, and says, "just my size."

Danko, Taub/Sylar, and other agents believe they're closing in on Rebel in a big old building. They amass outside and kill the power. Inside, Micah realizes he's in trouble and scrambles to grab his stuff. The agents go to make their move. One turns around and asks if Taub is coming, but he's gone. Cut back inside to Micah who turns to run and comes face to face with Sylar.

Sylar is surprised Rebel is just a kid. Micah says he knows who Sylar is and he can help him remember who he really is. He says they can help each other. Sylar says it's too late, he's already joined the other side. Micah says the other side doesn't know Sylar, how special he is, and that he can save all of them. Sylar seems intrigued.

In a transport van, Ando is attached to one of those nose sedation units as the masked agents, now including Hiro, sit on an opposite bench. Hiro slyly touches Ando's foot with his and stops time. He wakes him- Ando is not happy- and says they're being taken to the secret bad guys' lair and to play possum. He restarts time. One of the other agents finally notices Hiro's glasses and realizes he's not who they think he is. The van starts to weave around the road and we see red lightning streak through it. When the van stops, Hiro grabs a GPS unit from an agent and they set off on foot.

Danko is in the building when he gets word Rebel is on the run on the pier. The agents run after him. They corner him. (As the real Micah looks on from the shadows.) One protests to Danko that he's just a kid. Danko says to take him down. After a moment's hesitation, they shoot him and "Micah" falls in to the water. The body never resurfaces. Later, Sylar strolls up behind Danko, who wonders why he didn't take Micah's power. Sylar says his head is already spinning with powers and talking to machines seemed like overkill. Danko points out that there's no body so it's a loose end. Sylar says Micah's not a healer so "dead is dead." Danko says they got info from Micah's system on dozens of "specials" and he wants Sylar to go after the more dangerous ones. Be the hunter instead of the prey, asks Sylar? Yup, says Danko, he can start tonight as soon as he changes his face.

The next morning, Micah is sleeping on a couch and wakes to Sylar's mother saying she's proud of him for saving the lost little boy, even though it confuses Sylar himself. Micah sits up and watches as Sylar morphs back and forth from his mother to himself in order to have this conversation and is, understandably, creeped out and fascinated. Mom says Sylar understands how Micah feels without a mommy to love him, right Micah? Sylar morphs back into himself and confronts Micah, saying it was a mistake to bring him here. Micah points out his mother did something similar and she fought her power to become a hero. Sylar says he's not Micah's mother. Micah says Sylar should change into someone powerful, like Nathan Petrelli and tell the President he's made a big mistake. Sylar tells Micah he's giving him a chance to get out and he should take it. Micah doesn't need to be told twice. Sylar yells at him not to come back or he'll kill him.

In Nathan Petrelli's Office, Washington, D.C., Sylar is poking around, morphing back and forth between himself and his mother, complete with flashbacks to her last moments. His mother is impressed with Nathan's fancy office. Sylar is complaining that Nathan had everything handed to him in life. His mother is saying Sylar is special and he didn't need help and now he could be anything he wanted, a senator, or maybe even president! He says he's not better than Nathan since he killed her. She says it was an accident. He says it wasn't, he wanted her to die since she looked at him like he was some kind of monster, it made him feel so small. He wonders how he can be special when he killed the only woman who ever loved him. She says that's how he lost himself and why he brought her back. She says she forgives him. He apologizes and agrees he can be anything, including president and he morphs into Nathan and says he won't let her down.

Matt arrives at Janice's house and she's left a note she'll be right back. He marvels at the fancy pad as he chats to baby Matt about his and Janice's past. She returns, happy to see the baby and Matt. He hugs her and listens and realizes there are a group of agents down the street watching them and they have to go. She suggests her parent's lake house. He tells her to pack. She wonders if he's coming. He says he's not sure if he wants back into her life but he wants to see if he can be and he wants to be part of baby Matt's life. She says they have a lot to talk about. As she finishes packing, Matt finds his old LAPD badge and has an epiphany that he will never stop running unless he stands his ground and fights and that he has to do that for his family, he informs Janice. The agents begin to close in, entering the house as Matt grabs Janice and the baby close, saying he will take care of it.

We're back at Nathan's press conference, this time from the perspective of inside it. Danko paces off camera as Nathan/Sylar is saying that the world is in chaos- economically, terrorism, etc.- and the nation is ill-prepared. Nathan wants to share his ideas on how to save the world but he says the President who promoted change, won't even meet him to shake his hand and talk.

Hiro and Ando watch on TVs through the window of an appliance shop.

We've caught back up in time as we switch back to the Coyote Sands diner, with the Petrelli/Bennet crew watching the conference. Nathan says the president's staff is probably arranging a sit-down with "him" right now after a speech like that. He says he's going to fix his mess. Everyone tries to convince him he'll need help, that Sylar will outsmart him. He insists on going it alone and takes off. Ten seconds later Peter takes off after him.

Hiro and Ando arrive at Building 26. Ando says from here on out they need to operate as partners, not leader and sidekick. Hiro agrees saying the Crimson Arc needs a partner and so does he. Ando puts his hand on Hiro's shoulder as he goes to freeze time. But there is some kind of problem, Hiro grabs his face saying his head hurts bad. He pulls his hand away and he has a bloody nose. Ando rightly surmises that they have a problem.

In Nathan's congressional office, Sylar confronts him, as Senator Nathan, and marvels at how the grungy Nathan had everything handed to him and yet he still loathes the thing that makes him special, his power. Sylar morphs back into himself. Nathan protests Sylar doesn't know who he is. Sylar says among the 'gifts' Angela Petrelli gave him was the power to know the history of any object he touches and he picks up several things in the office explaining how he learned Nathan's story of family betrayal. He holds up a jacket and says Nathan was wearing it every time he betrayed them. Nathan says he doesn't need to defend himself to a pathetic psychopath like Sylar and he's the reason he went to the President in the first place. Nathan says if Sylar thinks anyone will believe he's Nathan, he's wrong. Sylar says he's going to be better than Nathan, and then bids him goodby as he raises his hand. But before he can cut, Nathan's hit by a tranq dart from Danko's gun. Sylar is mad as Danko shoots Nathan again. Danko isn't having it saying as a senator, they have to handle Nathan delicately and Sylar needs to become Taub again so they can take the others down.

We cut to Mohinder still at Coyote Sands, poring over the filmstrip Peter gave him. Agents enter and take him down as his voice over blathers about how all sentient beings return to the same question who am I? We get a montage of: Ando and a bloody Hiro; Janice and Matt surrounded, but unseen by agents; Angela Petrelli, Claire, and HRG being stopped at a roadblock and swarmed by agents.

When Sylar refuses to play Danko's games he stabs Sylar in the back-of-the-head sweet spot and Sylar collapses. As Danko goes to call for a clean-up crew he's startled as Sylar stands, pulls the knife out of his head, looks at it, looks at Danko and says "that hurt."

To be continued...