Well, I guess now we know that Sylar comes by his delusions of grandeur honestly. Freakgirl and I half-expected that his visit to his mother would be a self-serving one — that maybe she had a power he needed to suck out of her brain. Turns out, he was just looking for some kind of redemption, or maybe even hoping she would talk him out of his present course of action. Using Isaac’s power, he knows that he might be responsible for the deaths of millions, and this isn’t something he can justify as part of his philosophy of “natural selection”.
Unfortunately, Sylar’s mother is a bit loopy — she first fuels his sense of self-importance, then rejects him out of fear when she learns just how “special” he really is. She ends up dead by her son’s hand, and Sylar then goes completely over the edge, fully embracing his explosive destiny as he fingerpaints with her blood on the floor.
Meanwhile, Linderman & Mama Petrelli seem to have no scruples at all about their plan to blow up millions of people for the greater good. Mama keeps Nathan in line when his conviction begins to waver, and they even bring in Eric Roberts (whose character’s name I can never remember) to ride herd on him as well.
Unaware of all this, Mohinder has grudgingly jumped on board the PrimaTech train, with a clear goal to find and defeat Sylar. But ER quickly distracts him with the task of saving the life of Molly Walker, who as it turns out is PrimaTech’s ace in the hole to find Sylar … and any other enhanced person on the planet. For the X-Men fans out there, this makes her a much cuter version of “Cerebro”. Molly has the same disease that Mohinder’s sister died of, and as it turns out, his own blood contains the antibodies needed to create a cure.
Back from the future, Hiro and Ando track Sylar to Brooklyn, and Hiro makes a half-hearted attempt to kill him, but despite Ando’s best efforts, Hiro’s heart just isn’t in it. Sylar freezes his magic sword, and breaks it in half, and the two of them teleport away before he can kill them. My guess is that Hiro’s choice will end up being the right one, though — that waiting the 2 days to match things up with Isaac’s comic will result in something happening that wouldn’t have if Sylar died too early.
In a swank Manhattan apartment, Micah is being held captive by Candice. He figures out that she isn’t really his mom, and we learn (or have it confirmed) that her power isn’t so much shapeshifting as creating illusions. Which is how she keeps him from escaping. Meanwhile, back in Las Vegas, Niki convinces Jessica to work with D.L. to rescue Micah, and they end up in Linderman’s inner sanctum, where they learn that he’s been keeping tabs on both of them their entire lives. Not only that, but D.L. seems to suspect that theirs was an “arranged marriage” of sorts, perhaps designed to create a hero child. If so, then how many more of these marriages have Linderman and the other “First Generation” heroes arranged over the years?
Over at the Petrelli Mansion, Uncle Peter convinces Claire not to go to Paris, and after swapping some information, the two of them go looking for Nuclear Ted, who Peter now realizes has the power that will cause him to blow up the city. So what’s Peter’s plan? Give Claire a gun to shoot him in the back of the head with, in case he absorbs Ted’s power and starts to blow up. A better plan might have been to NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THE GUY WITH THE NUCLEAR EXPLODEY POWERS. But this is Peter, and we all realize by now that he’s not the sharpest knife in the hero drawer.
The episode ends with Claire & Peter meeting up with Bennet, Matt, & Ted, and — big surprise — Peter’s hands start getting all glowy as he begins to absorb Ted’s powers. It’s still 2 days from the projected apocalypse, so I assume he’ll either find a way to control himself or Claire will shoot him in the heart or something, to temporarily incapacitate him. And then it’s game on. Because I think all the heroes are in New York now, right? Except for Nessica and D.L., of course … but they’re on the way.