Mohinder
Mohinder is in India when he takes part in his father’s funeral. After the funeral, he is offered his job back and he settles into his father’s office at the university.
While settling in, he is visited by Mira, an old girlfriend. She had been recently promoted to head of genetic research at the company she works for and wants to offer Mohinder a job, provided that he leave his father’s theories behind.
Mohinder has a dream in which he sees conversations between him and his father and between his parents prior to his father’s departure to New York, and another dream in which he sees his father’s death in New York. In both the dreams he also sees a young boy. So either Mohinder also has some extra-normal ability, or the boy does.
As a result of something mentioned in the first dream, Mohinder speaks to his mother and learns that he had an older sister who died when he was two years old. His mother says that she was special. Whether this means that she had any powers or not isn’t clear.
In the second dream, Chandra is attacked by someone while in his came. In the struggle, his assailant’s watch gets broken and stops at seven minutes to midnight (which is where the episode title comes in).
Also in this dream, the boy hands him a key. It’s the same as a key which Mohinder found inside one of his father’s books, and it fits a drawer in the desk in his father’s office. In the drawer he finds a folder which contains, amongst other things, a picture of the boy from his dreams.
Matt
Matt and Audrey question Ted Sprague, who tells them that he blacked out and lost two days in a similar manner to Matt. He also shows them the two lines on his neck, and Matt reveals that he also has them, albeit on the other side.
Ted blacked out while in a bar. One of the people in the bar was a student from Haiti, presumably the Haitian who we’ve been seen hanging around with HRG.
So HRG and the Haitian are kidnapping and marking people with powers. From Matt and Ted’s comments, it seems that their powers only became fully developed after the missing two days, so it seems as though HRG might have something to do with that process.
The interview is ended when a group of people from another agency (which I don’t think is ever named – it could have been another group within the FBI) take Ted away. Since he’s been emitting radiation, they assume that he’s been in contact with nuclear material and they want to know where it is.
The woman in charge says that Matt shouldn’t even be there as he’s been suspended for a month following his attack on a fellow officer. I admit that I don’t know exactly what’s involved, but I see no reason why Matt’s suspension should preclude him from working with the FBI.
Matt gets home and discusses the suspension with Janice. She reveals that she had been sleeping with the officer he struck but that it’s now over. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Audrey, who tells Matt that Ted has escaped.
HRG, Eden and Isaac
HRG arrives at his place of work, which is a paper company. Eden had brought Isaac there, and he’d spent the last few days detoxing.
HRG talks to Isaac, and tells him that the cheerleader he’s been painting is actually Claire. It turns out that the organisation has been keeping track on individuals with special powers for a while, and that following an incident fourteen years earlier, HRG took in a baby girl, namely Claire.
The organisation knows about Sylar, and that he’s been killing people with powers, but they haven’t been able to track him down. HRG also reveals that the homecoming at which Isaac has painting Claire being killed is the next day.
This was something I certainly didn’t see coming, as I was expecting this to be one of the big events towards the end of the series, not a third of the way through. It also raises the question of who will be there to “save the cheerleader”, thereby saving the world.
Hiro and Ando are currently also in Texas, and one of Isaac’s paintings shows them and the homecoming banner, so they’ll clearly be there. However, the impression was given that Peter would also be there, but unless he can get hold of the painting that Linderman has, he has no way of knowing where to be.
HRG naturally wants more details, and asks Isaac to paint for him. Isaac tries, but says that he hasn’t been able to do it without drugs, but he doesn’t want them anymore.
Since there’s no success with a drug-free Isaac, HRG gets Eden to get Isaac to take some. It looks like she might have the ability to get people to persuade people to do things, proving that there’s a lot more going on with her. HRG also mentions that she was like Isaac when he took her in, so there’s something else going on there.
Hiro and Ando
Hiro and Ando stop off at a diner in Texas. My knowledge of American geography isn’t that good, but isn’t Texas south of Las Vegas? If you were travelling from Las Vegas to New York, would you really go through Texas?
Charlie, one of the waitresses at the diner seems to have a very good memory. She says she started remembering things well recently, so clearly she has the power to recall things in great detail, and the power has only recently developed.
Amongst the things she remembers are phrases from a Japanese phrasebook, and she and Hiro hit it off. I guess you could call what they were doing flirting, although flirting doesn’t usually involve teaching people another language.
Watching this is a figure whose face we never get to see. One of the shots shows his drink moving towards his hand seemingly of its own volition.
When we saw Sylar in the FBI headquarters, he appeared to be able to move things without touching them. Add this to the fact that we never see his face, it’s pretty clear that the guy in the restaurant is Sylar. He’s also wearing a watch that is stopped at 11:53, which indicates that he is the person who killed Chandra Suresh.
Of course, when Sylar’s around, there’s usually violence. The victim is Charlie, and while she is busy in the storeroom we see her face, and then blood starts to run down it, as though someone had sliced off the top of her head.
This is indeed what has happened, and when Hiro learns how she died, he remembers that the same thing had happened to Isaac when he saw him in the future. Hiro decides that he should go back in time to try and stop Charlie from going to work that morning.
If he stops her from going to work, then she won’t die. But if she doesn’t die, there’s no need for him to go back in time to stop her going to work. But if he doesn’t go back in time and stop her, then she’ll die. If she dies, then he’ll go back in time to stop her. But if he stops her from going to work, then she won’t die…
I think I’ll end there before my head explodes. This is why I’m not a big fan of time travel stories, as they can lead to problems like this.
Anyway, Ando tries to stop Hiro by reminding him that he doesn’t have complete control over his powers, and something could go wrong. Hiro is not swayed, and says that he’ll be back by the time Ando counts to five. Ando counts to five, but Hiro’s doesn’t return.
We see a picture of Charlie and Hiro together. This picture had to have been taken some time in the past, so Hiro did manage to go back in time, but he must have overshot his mark.
Still, he must have changed things to some extent, otherwise Charlie would have recognised Hiro when he came into the diner. Unless the Haitian’s paid her a visit in the meantime…