Heroes, Season 4 – Episode 17: The Art of Deception
Jan 26
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.

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.
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+.
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.
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.