This has been the worst season ever for Heroes.  They have not recovered since the writer’s strike of ’07.  You’d see glimmers of hope every couple of episode, then they crash and burn the following week.  This season has been full of crashes and burns.  Matter of fact, they should burn the scripts and call it a wrap.  Anyway, recap time….

At the carnival, everyone’s kind of on edge since Samuel brought forth the destruction of an entire town. He gets into it with Lydia because she doesn’t trust him anymore, and everyone is looking up to her for their next move. Samuel decides he’ll do whatever he has to, to get back in the family’s good graces, which I’m assuming will mean things get worse before they get better.

Peter has a weird, messed up dream about Emma and Sylar at the carnival.  Sylar is going to save Emma somehow and oh, I get why this volume is called Redemption now.  Peter wakes up and calls Emma, but she doesn’t answer.  I don’t know how he was going to talk to her via his cell phone anyway.  What the hell?   Did he forget that she’s deaf?  He goes to see his mother and they discuss the mutual dream they shared.  She reminds him that just because Sylar might help Emma, it doesn’t mean he will be reformed.  Somehow, Angela knows where Sylar is and she tells Peter.

Sylar is at Parkman’s place where he talked up Mrs. Parkman by telling her he was on the force with Matt.  Matt comes home of course, and isn’t all that excited to see Sylar.  There’s a tense lunch were Mrs. Parkman is amazingly clueless before Sylar and Matt retreat to the basement.  Sylar admits that he needs Matt to go back into his head and take all of the abilities away. Matt says he’ll try, but only after Sylar threatens Janice’s life.

Matt goes into Sylar’s head and on try number one, nothing happens. So, he tries again. Strike two! Janice walks in with bad timing and Sylar throws her against a wall with his telekinesis. His threat doubles, and he says he’ll REALLY kill Janice. Matt tries to teach Sylar that he’s more than his abilities, and Sylar lets Janice go. She tells Matt that Sylar is broken and he has to be buried so deep that he can never come back. Matt tries for the third time and we see flashes of Sylar’s life in black and white before Matt pulls away.

Sylar says he doesn’t feel any different but when he tries his abilities on Matt, they don’t work.  Instead of taking his abilities away though, Matt trapped Sylar in his own head.  I’m not exactly sure what happened, but now he’s trapped in a nightmare and Matt bricks him up in his basement.   Then, who should show up but Peter who immediately takes Matt’s ability and finds out about Sylar. Matt tries to warn him, but Peter goes into Sylar’s head and it’s an empty city.

Gretchen decides to force Claire to tell Noah about her Sylar escapades.  There’s hand holding and supportive gestures before Claire goes up to her dad’s apartment.  TWIST: Lauren answers the door and Noah isn’t even there.  Claire sees all the carnival stuff lying around and starts asking questions.  Lauren explains via some fantastic Sprint product placement that Samuel buried a town and that the more specials he has around him, the more powerful he gets.

I guess this episode’s title says it all, but if you ask me, this season has pretty much FAILED. Anyway, recap time….

Gretchen tries to get Claire to talk about the death of Nathan, or her time with the carnies, but Claire shrugs her off.  Literally.  And who should appear but Sylar and his eyebrows.  He’s in Claire’s classroom when she gets there.  She explains how much she’d love to kill him, and he says he needs a friend.  And just to drive home that he’s being sincere, he kidnapped Gretchen.  Because nothing says “I don’t want to be alone and I need your help” like kidnapping your college experiment in sexuality.

Sylar makes a list of things he and Claire have in common.  Claire tells him their difference is that he’s a psychopath and she goes to let herself out, but Sylar knocks her down with his ability.  He leans over her and kisses her and oh God, this is the most vomit inducing thing I’ve ever witnessed on this show, and that includes when Sylar was poking around in Claire’s brain.  He goes on for way too long about Claire and her sexual subtext with Gretchen, and is anyone else getting secondhand awkwardness?  Claire stabs Sylar in the eye, which is what I’d love to do to myself right now after that kissing scene.

Running back to the dorm, she unties Gretchen but Sylar is pissed now and blows out the windows.  Gretchen decides the best way to run and hide is to yell, “Someone’s coming!” as she ducks into a closet with Claire.  Claire explains that she’s afraid of being hurt, so she can’t put herself in this relationship with Gretchen.  Gretchen then suggests that maybe for Sylar to become human again, he has to get rid of all his powers.  And then she turns into Sylar and he peaces out.

Claire runs to find Gretchen in the cafeteria and tells her she wants to hold her hand and doesn’t care who stares or talks.  Sylar sits back and takes the credit for bringing the little love birds together before going to find Matt.

Hiro, Ando, and Mohinder are still hanging out at Noah’s place.  Mohinder makes a compass from scratch and leaves just before Hiro blacks out.  He wakes up in a room with Adam Monroe.  He says it’s up to the judge to decide whether or not he’s living or dying.  It’s the world versus Hiro, and his dad is the judge.  Adam says to a jury that Hiro used his abilities selfishly.  Hiro pleads not guilty and suddenly Ando appears to be his lawyer.  Hiro’s sister and Ando come in as children and testify that Hiro altered time during the slushy incident.  Ando objects and Hiro says that as long as no one gets hurt, it’s okay to alter time.

If you keep up with the news, then you already know that a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti near the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, January 12th.  CNN’s ticker scroll is saying that the death toll could possibly be 50,000+ thus far, and could reach 100,000+.

Having said that, if you’re looking for reputable organizations to donate money, clothing, etc. to the Haitian Earthquake Relief, then this information is for you:

• Yele Haiti is sponsored by prominent Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean. You can donate through its website or via text message.  Wyclef is urging all of his followers on Twitter to text “Yele” to the number 501501. If you send the text, the organization will receive $5. The amount will be added to your next cell phone bill. Consider retweeting Wyclef’s updates and get some of your Twitter followers to donate, too.

• American Red Cross is also using texts to raise donations.  You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti.

• The American Jewish World Service has set up the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund to respond to the crisis by supporting a network of organizations it works with.

• AmeriCares has pledged $5 million to Haitian quake relief, and is soliciting donations to a general emergency disaster relief fund to help it accomplish that.

• CARE is sending relief workers into the city of Port-au-Prince and needs funds to support its efforts. Suggested donations range from $50 to $1,000, but you can name your own amount if you prefer.

• Catholic Relief Services has an office in Haiti, and luckily it’s still standing even though one of its neighbors collapsed. The organization is accepting donations of any amount.

• Direct Relief International has committed up to $1 million in aid through two on-the-ground partners, and is sending containers of medical material aid.

• Oxfam has 200 people on the ground to deal with the crisis, and began its efforts by trying to get clean water to victims of the quake. One of its staffers recorded a podcast describing the situation. You can donate on the American or UK site, depending on where you’re located.

• Google Support Disaster Relief is a website Google has updated to respond to the crisis. Google has promised $1 million in support, but the site is also an easy place to donate money to either UNICEF or CARE. It also provides hospital addresses and links to sources for news on the situation.

As the episode opens, Lauren and Noah are arguing because Lauren feels that he should make up with Claire in order to use her compass to find the carnival.

Samuel talks to Lydia and asks her to be on his side, to help him realize all their dreams.  Lydia points out that they are his dreams, not theirs.  He tells her that he has waited a long while to finally bring Vanessa and the time has finally come.  Lydia tells her daughter that if they are to survive, that they will need a new leader, a man that even Samuel himself said could be the next Joseph.  Her daughter says, “Well maybe you can call him.” “Well maybe I can,” Lydia answers, and then she closes her eyes and starts to concentrate.  We then see Peter, laying in bed asleep, and his eyes suddenly open as the compass tattoo on his arm starts to spin.

Noah visits Matt and tells him that he had left 5 messages, and needs his help with a man named Samuel.  Matt doesn’t really want to help, after the last time that he did.  Noah explains that Samuel Sullivan is a very bad man who is trying to recruit Claire.

Hiro is being committed and Ando tries to slow the process down enough to understand what Hiro is saying.  As Hiro passes Mohinder’s door, he yells to Ando “Watson Watson” telling Ando to free Dr. Watson.  Ando uses his power to unlock the doors to get to Mohinder.

Noah and Matt went to meet Vanessa.  She denied knowing him, but Noah told her that they had pictures of the two of them together, so they are aware that she knows Samuel.  Matt pushes into her thoughts and makes her want to talk to them.  She says that she needs to talk to someone, she is worried about Samuel.

Peter is walking along, and hears the cello which Emma was playing.  He goes up to her apartment, and she lets him in.  Peter asks Emma about Samuel, after she tells him that Samuel gave her the cello.  He tells her that Samuel gave him a fake name, and she shows him the compass.  Peter tells Emma that she should stay away from Samuel, because he is a bad man.  Emma acts as if Peter is wrong and he tries to tell her why he says that Samuel is bad.  Angela walks in and acts very snooty to Emma, asking “Peter what is that woman doing here?”  So Emma leaves.

Vanessa shares with Noah how it was, growing up with Samuel, that his parents lived on her families’ land.  She said that she never noticed that his family was poor and hers was rich when they played together as children.  He showed up in her room one night when she was in college, and then he asked her to marry him and run off to his carnival.  She was seeking a music while at Yale and could not go.  She said since Joesph died, Sam haa been showing up more and more sounding obsessed.  Noah asks Vanessa to call Samuel.

Hey gang, had to shut down my forum.  I think it was the cause of my website being hacked, but anyway, we will discuss tonight’s episode in the comment section of this post, and we will recap future episodes in posts from here on out.  You have the option to subscribe to the comments of the post by checking the box at the bottom of the comment section.  Anyway, here’s the recap….

Last time on Heroes, Claire was at the carnival, Mohinder was in the madhouse, Hiro was cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and the Nathan/Sylar combo pack split up and went on solo tours. Unfortunately, Nathan’s tour went to heaven.

Still reeling from the brain scramble at the hands of Samuel’s carnie cronie, Hiro teleports to Tokyo, Japan.  This time out, he’s not a small child so much as a major geek who thinks he’s living in the greatest, most elaborate anime of all time.  He calls Ando “Sancho Panza,” drops references to Cylons, and litters his language with references to a bevy of other sci-fi, fantasy, and fable.

Ando brings Hiro back to their office, attributing the dementia to his friends’ brain tumor.  Kimiko wants to send her brother to Japan’s top neurosurgeon, but Ando soon realizes that Hiro’s jibber jabber is actually code for some important task.  By the end of our time with this pair, we realize that they are about to rendezvous with the monologuing marvel known as Mohinder in the same asylum in which Hiro deposited the good doctor back in Brother’s Keeper.  The lesson? Always listen to the woman.  It’s a lesson Peter Petrelli luckily heeds in the wake of his brother’s death.

Claire spends much of the first hour acting like she’s in a Geico commercial, to the point where I kept waiting for the world music version of Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me to play as the Eli’s multiplying man kept her inside the carnival via his omnipresent stare.  Having been directed by Lydia to bring Samuel pancakes before his trip to recruit Emma Coolidge, Claire realizes that the great and fearless leader of the outsiders has both a Primatech box full of information about supers and a mysterious map of the nearby landscape.

Samuel’s visit to Emma ties in with the topographical map.  Through him, we learn the true nature of Emma’s powers: she not only makes pretty light shows with sound that only she sees, but she can use those sounds to draw people to her, in a siren-like fashion.  In particular, Samuel needs Emma’s music to sooth the savage beast within one particular powered person, the recluse Ian Michaels.

Ian’s power? The ability to accelerate plant growth.  After incorporating Ian into the carnival, the newest member takes the barren landscape adjacent to it and instantly ups its property value by filling it with grass, trees, plants, and flowers.  Ian’s creation of Samuel’s proposed homeland stunts a lot of Claire’s venom towards Samuel, but Eli’s eyes (all three sets of them) unnerved her enough to leave anyway, albeit with conflicted feelings in her heart.

Upon leaving, Claire checks her messages and learns of her father’s death through Peter’s phone call.  Milo Ventimiglia absolutely brought it tonight in showing Peter’s stunted grief in the wake of his brother’s death. With Claire furious with her father’s deception and Peter’s wariness of his mother all but solidified, the unlikely uncle/niece combination have no one else but each other to turn to in their grief.