It's parents night on 'Heroes'

It was work-out-your-parental-issues night on Heroes Monday, with Peter confronting his father, time-traveling Claire bending the ear of hers and Hiro meeting up with his mother. Oh, and the Real Sylar is back too.

I'll give you the spoilers right after I finish these waffles.

Monday's episode featured a fair amount of momentum heading into next week's "Villains" finale, and the scenes involving Hiro and his mother -- our first look at that relationship -- had a dramatic heft that the show has sorely lacked this fall, even if they were in service of yet another of Hiro's blundering plans. Other parts of the show, though, felt pretty rushed, as if the writers really wanted 15 or 16 episodes to wrap up this arc but had to cram everything into 13.

Perhaps the biggest driver of that momentum was Sylar, whose dalliance with the denial of his true nature didn't take. Having dispatched Elle last week (and burned her body at the top of this episode), Heroes' original bad guy is back to his old, head-opening self, so sorry about that, human lie detector Sue Landers. In case there's any doubt about whether he's really back, Sylar also shares that he'd forgotten how good it feels to kill.

Meanwhile, 16 years ago, Hiro is elated to discover that he's zapped himself and Claire back to a time when his mother (played by Tamlyn Tomita) is still alive. Alas, it's also a time when Kaito is sorely disappointed in his son, telling his wife that the boy will never amount to anything. That he says in Japanese, but while young Hiro is around the Nakamuras speak English so he won't understand that he refuses to give his son the catalyst -- which is not an innate characteristic, apparently, but something passed on from one super to another. Claire, of course, overhears and races off to find the Bennets and their newly adopted child.

After talking her way past Sandra and bonding with her baby self, Claire convinces her skeptical (but not yet cynical) father not to take the call from the Company that will lead to Claire inheriting the catalyst. So all's well, right?

Yeah -- no. Around the same time, adult Hiro tells his dying mother who he really is, and she naturally wants to know all about his life. Which is tough, since Hiro doesn't remember most of it. Fortunately, Ishi Nakamura possesses the power to heal with a kiss, and she restores his memories with a peck on the forehead. The mother-son reunion is actually kind of touching; both Tomita and Masi Oka turned in some nice work in those scenes.

Unfortunately, things go sideways when Hiro convinces his mother to let him be the guardian of the catalyst. His mother die in transferring it to him, and he no sooner has it than Arthur Petrelli swoops in to steal it, along with his powers (presumably just to prevent Hiro from following him, as he already has teleportation skills via his draining of Peter). It occurs to me that Hiro would be one godawful chess player, given his inability to think even one move ahead.

With the catalyst now in his possession, Arthur sets about completing the formula -- which, we're told for the first time ever, can be used to bestow specific abilities on people. (Really? That seems like an awfully big breakthrough to go unmentioned until this point, and forgive me, but I'm slightly skeptical of Suresh's abilities as a scientist at this point.) The first test case will be a Marine who plaintively tells Nathan that if only he had been a little better than human, he could have saved some of his buddies in Iraq.

While Suresh, Nathan and Tracy -- whose transition from what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me to drunk on the idea of political power has apparently occurred mostly off screen -- oversee the test, Peter arrives at Pinehearst with the Haitian and a gun, acting on orders from his mother to take out his father. Peter had given a nice little speech earlier on about how just as it was the Haitian's (can the dude get an actual name sometime?) burden to bring down his brother, so it would be Peter who'd have to put a bullet in his father's head.

Peter being the moral being he is, though, he can't quite bring himself to take the shot, even as the Haitian implores him to act while he still has the strength to suppress Arthur's powers. He finally does pull the trigger, but of course pops has broken through the haze and psychically rips the gun from his son's hand -- and also provides a plausible explanation for Future Peter's scar (no powers for Peter means no healing, which means that's gonna leave a mark).

Enter Sylar, who stops the bullet long enough to ask Arthur about his lineage. Of course I'm your father, Arthur replies, but ah -- it's here that we discover Sylar had practical reasons for hunting down Sue Landers. "You're not a killer," Sylar tells Peter, adding that since the young Petrelli no longer has any powers, he's of no interest anymore. Sylar out, and the bullet continues its path through Arthur Petrelli's head. "It's over," Peter intones over the body of his father. If only.

We know that not to be true, because the episode ends with the Marine coming out of his post-injection jitters, ripping the chair from its anchor in the floor and throwing it through a pane of glass. "I feel good," he tells the stunned Suresh, worried Nathan and turned-on Tracy. Coming next week: the Petrelli family feud continues, and "Villains" (mercifully) concludes its arc.

A few more notes from "Our Father":

• After all the buildup to Isaac's "lost sketches," they didn't really tell us a whole lot this week, did they? Ando, Parkman and Daphne probably would have figured out that Hiro was stuck in 1992 eventually, but the leap Ando takes -- I'll get power and teleport back to bring Hiro home! -- seems rather silly, given how we've already seen a powered-up Ando kill Hiro in one version of the future. I'd be curious to see Hiro refuse to go with Ando because of that vision and try to be a hero without his abilities, but somehow I don't guess that will be what happens.
• So last week Claire learned that she was the catalyst, and while she's back in 1992 she convinces Noah not to make baby Claire the recipient of said catalyst. But even though Hiro's mom gave it to him in this version of the past, wouldn't the teenage Claire -- whose parents did take that phone call from Kaito, and who did let her take in the catalyst, still have it inside her? I'm thinking that might come in handy for someone looking to create thousands and thousands of superpowered people.
• I rather like the idea of Peter being without his abilities and the potential story-telling avenues that opens up. It'd be kind of cool to see the show stick with that for a while.
• One last thing: When NBC talks about "the last Heroes of the year" in promos for next week, it's talking about the calendar year 2008. The show is far from done for the season; the new volume premieres in February.

How'd you like this week's Heroes? Does it feel like we're headed toward a strong finale, or is the show just rearranging the chairs on a sinking ship at this point?

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