Peter wanders around plague-stricken New York City circa 2008, calling out for Caitlin. He finds himself back in present-day Montreal with Adam, having failed to rescue Caitlin via teleportation. When Adam learns the future plague is caused by the Shanti virus, he tells Peter about one of the Company founders, Victoria Pratt, who first retrieved a sample of the virus from Shanti Suresh in 1977 and used it to create a biological weapon. Adam convinces Peter they need to destroy all remaining strains of the virus to prevent the upcoming catastrophe.
At the Bennet home, Bob delivers an urn containing what he claims are Mr. Bennet's remains to the family. As Mrs. Bennet holds him off at gunpoint, Bob assures her the Company will leave the family alone out of gratitude for Mr. Bennet’s years of devoted service.
Bob tells Elle to keep the Bennets under surveillance for a while. When Elle complains to her dad about her wounded arm, Bob reprimands her for her carelessness in getting shot by Bennet.
Bennet comes back to life in an empty room, befuddled and muttering Mohinder’s name. Mohinder sails in, fusses with his IV, straps him down to the bed, and confirms he used Claire’s blood to resurrect him. It’s official: too many people on this show have magical blood. Bennet tries to give him hell about betraying him and stealing Claire’s blood, but Mohinder takes the moral high ground, which is actually kind of hard to do when you’ve just shot someone in the eye. He tears into Bennet about his recent erratic behavior, i.e. murdering his former partner and being a total jerkwad to Mohinder: “You put us on this path with your violence and paranoia.” Then he knocks a few dents out of his halo and goes swanning off while Bennet bellows after him. Ha! Bennet, you just got outmaneuvered by Mohinder. That’s really embarrassing. Okay, sure, it’s a little disturbing to see how Mohinder seems to have drunk the Company Kool-Aid (though I still think we’re going to see a pretty spectacular double-cross from him somewhere down the line), but after his recent string of catastrophes, it’s nice to see him do something that turns out well.
Somewhere in Virginia, Sylar and Maya share a romantic picnic lunch. They wear cozy sweaters and snuggle together while sipping wine beside a lake; it’s both adorable and surprising to discover Sylar's idea of a perfect date comes straight out of the Napa Style catalogue. Sylar ruins the mood by telling her Alejandro probably hates her for murdering his bride. Maya freaks out and unleashes the dreaded Black Eye Goo of Death, but Sylar gives her a crash course in getting it under control without any help from her brother. Poor Alejandro just became 100% expendable.
Peter and Adam head to Maine to confront Victoria Pratt. Adam lingers behind while Peter does the talking. He tells Victoria about the future plague and the imminent death of 93% of the world’s population. Victoria figures it’s caused by an uber-lethal strain of the Shanti virus known as Strain 138. When Victoria discovers he’s in cahoots with Adam, she shoots both Adam and Peter with a shotgun. Victoria tries to blast off Adam’s head, which she claims will destroy him beyond the ability of his power to regenerate. How very Highlander. Peter regenerates and knocks her out before she can fire.
In Tokyo, Hiro and Ando sort through Kaito’s belongings. From a photograph, Hiro discovers Takezo Kensei is now known as Adam Monroe. He also finds an order Kaito signed in 1977 authorizing the permanent confinement of Adam. Figuring this might be the reason Adam murdered Kaito, Hiro teleports to 1977 to investigate. He winds up at Primatech Paper in the middle of a bioresearch containment breach: Adam tries to release Strain 138, but is apprehended by Victoria Pratt and Kaito.
Alejandro, who was not invited along on the picnic, spends a little quality time googling Sylar. After sifting through all the pornographic fanfiction, he discovers a newspaper article about how Sylar is wanted for his mother’s murder and shows it to Maya. Maya asks Sylar for an explanation. He sticks fairly close to the truth (he was defending himself when his mother attacked him after he revealed his abilities to her), though he leaves out the parts about how: a) his ability involves slicing open heads and stealing brains, and b) after killing his mother, he painted a nice mushroom cloud with her blood on her living room floor. Because she’s a bit of a sap, Maya forgives him. She points out that she’s killed simply loads of people herself with the Black Eye Goo of Death and feels very bad about it. Maya tells Alejandro she and Sylar are setting out on their own, now that she can control her powers without Alejandro’s help.
Adam and Peter ask Victoria for the location of Strain 138. She accuses Adam of plotting to release it to start an epidemic; Adam claims he only wants to destroy the virus. Peter reads Victoria’s mind and discovers Strain 138 is held at Primatech in Texas. It’d probably save Peter a lot of future bother if he'd take a second to read Adam's mind as well, just to make sure he's telling the truth about not wanting to destroy the world. Peter does not read Adam’s mind. Peter’s kind of dumb this episode. Adam kills Victoria under the guise of protecting Peter, and they set off for Texas; it’s kind of like the Sylar/Mohinder road trip last season, only without all the unsettling sexual chemistry.
Niki returns to Micah in New Orleans and breaks the news she has the virus. Micah’s odious cousin (and here I use “odious” with affection, in that I think the young actor is doing a dynamite job of making his character as loathsome as possible) steals Micah’s backpack containing his valuable comic book collection and D.L.’s medal of valor, which in turn gets stolen from him by a bunch of thugs. Monica decides to use her abilities to get it back.
Sylar is confronted by Alejandro in his motel room. Sylar knifes him. Adios, Alejandro. We hardly knew you, and you were stuck in everyone's least favorite subplot, but you were cute and innocuous. Vaya con Dios. Maya knocks on Sylar’s door. Thinking fast, Sylar whips off his clothes, opens the door wearing only a towel, and smooches Maya to distract her attention from her brother’s bloody corpse. It works.
Mohinder comes up with a cure for the mutated Shanti virus. How does he do this? By mixing Claire’s super-healing blood with his own virus-curing blood, thus creating some kind of turbo-charged mega-blood capable of both defeating the mutated virus and raising the dead. Oh, for crying out loud -- I'm throwing a bake sale to raise money for this show to hire a science consultant. Mohinder asks Bob to destroy all existing strains of the virus to prevent it from ever falling into the wrong hands. Bob doesn’t think there’s much risk of that – after all, the Company has a great deal of security – until Mohinder points out that he himself operated undetected for weeks inside the Company as the world’s most obvious double agent. Just imagine what someone less incompetent could do! Bob can’t argue with this logic, so he agrees to destroy the virus.
Mohinder then calls Niki to say he's on his way to New Orleans with the cure. Niki goes to tell Micah the good news and discovers he’s snuck out with Monica.
With Micah standing guard in case of trouble, Monica sneaks into the house where the comic book thieves have stashed the loot. She gets nabbed by a roving band of arsonists, who throw her into the back of a van while Micah watches from his hiding spot. Micah: cute kid, but he makes a terrible lookout.
Claire scatters Mr. Bennet’s fake ashes and monologues about how she’s sorry her idiocy got her dad killed. Her mother and brother stand deferentially in the background several paces behind Claire; it’s not at all clear why the scattering-ashes duty is Claire’s sole province, apart from her being just a little bit more special and important than the rest of her family. By the way, you know how I sometimes also use the word “odious” in reference to Claire? In those cases, I’m not doing it with affection. Claire spots Elle observing the proceedings from a parked car. As Claire storms toward her, Elle has a divine bit of physical comedy where she tries to start her car with one arm in a cast and the other hand carrying a giant Slurpee. Elle and Claire get into a tiff which ends, weirdly, with Claire threatening to reveal her own secret to the world.
Mohinder is in a taxi, presumably en route to fly to New Orleans to cure Niki. He's got several vials of the super-powered turbo-charged mega-blood with him; I really can’t see why he shouldn’t siphon off a bit to heal his broken nose. He’s had the nose bandage and the purple bruises for weeks now, and while I do understand it’s supposed to be some kind of visual representation of his fall from grace, I’ve missed seeing that beautiful face in its natural, non-mangled state. Right now, Mohinder’s probably feeling pretty good about resurrecting Bennet and finding a cure for the virus and not screwing up anything else, so naturally, in true Mohinder fashion, it’s time for disaster to strike.
It does indeed, in the form of a phone call from Sylar. Sylar sits in Mohinder’s apartment, stroking Molly’s hair and barely suppressing his glee. With what might be best described as flirtatious malice, he tells a horror-struck Mohinder he gave the babysitter the rest of the night off and urges him to hurry home. While it would have been much smarter for Sylar not to give Mohinder this advance warning of his presence, I do appreciate the time and care he devotes to finding new ways to mess with Mohinder’s head.
Hiro returns from 1977 and tells Ando about the virus. He teleports to Primatech to stop the outbreak. Meanwhile, Adam and Peter arrive at Primatech. Adam and Peter explore the facility, until time stops for everyone except for Peter. Peter looks around and spots Hiro, who has his samurai sword brandished. Hiro informs Peter he’s chosen the wrong side in deciding to trust Adam and charges at him, sword raised.
Next episode: the conclusion of Volume Two and, if there’s no hasty resolution to the WGA strike, the premature conclusion of the entire season.
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