Episode 6: Dying of the Light - Artie, Peter, Hiro, Pinehearst, Daphne

I admit that this episode wasn't quite as bad as the last five have been. Instead of some sort of festering boils or sexual abuse, this episode felt more like visiting a restaurant I used to absolutely love, but I haven't been to it in years. I order what was my favorite dish and find it disappointing. It's frozen instead of fresh, and there's a sprinkling of curly black hairs in it. The best that can happen if you send it back is that they might get all of the hairs out, if you are lucky. Even if you get it back with no hairs, it still isn't what you remember.

I haven't come to a conclusion on Pinehearst's recruitment program. They have some bad guys, they recruit goody goody Pikachu-Hiro, they want to recruit Parkman, and they want to recruit Mohinder. Clearly they aren't just going for bad guys. What would Petrelli and Daddy Parkman do with Matt? They all know he has a strong conscience and would need to be strongly manipulated to go along with any nefarious plots and I would hope that his ability would clue him in that he is being manipulated like that. Why would Pinehearst want him?

Still, it is sweet that Parkman took his turtle home with him. I hope he didn't have any problems removing wildlife from Africa on an airplane. I wonder if he can read animal minds. Maybe he can find out what Speedy really wants now that he is in America. Maybe Speedy is really a wereturtle and will cause much mayhem at the next full moon.

The Hiro kills Ando scene changed a bit this week from last. Hiro warped to a Japanese shop where he stole a fake sword and some fake blood so he could fake-kill Ando. "But you are a thief," Hiro tells Daphne. Sorry, Hiro, so are you. At least she didn't steal something in a price tag, taking a few yen out of a poor shopkeeper's pocket during these troubled, troubled times.

I find it hard to believe that Ando wasn't scared laying on the ground pretending to be dead after Hiro stabbed him. Knox should have been able to pick up on his fear of discovery like an ex-smoker smells someone lighting up in a No Smoking area.

We finally saw someone who was in more than one episode get killed! Sorry, Adam, I can't really say I'll miss you. There are more than enough other characters who have been wronged to keep your one dimension of depth alive, even though you are a pile of dust! Now, though, it seems extra pointless for Hiro to have rescued Adam. What did Hiro think that Adam could do to help him? And did Hiro really, honestly think that he wouldn't try to escape? So, did Artie know that Hiro would get Adam out of the ground and plan accordingly or was it just a stroke of luck that they happened upon him?

Rather than the whole useless Adam subplot, I think it would have been cool to see some sort of villainy going on with those villains they have and Pinehearst. They could have put together some cunning superpower-enhanced break-in to steal some of Adam's or Claire's blood that is sitting around to give to Artie and make him healthy again. After all, since he absorbed Peter's powers he regenerates now anyway, so as far as I can see we really didn't need this Adam nonsense at all.

While we are discussing Hiro, his performance trying to capture the African dude was just embarassing. Ando convinced him to use his power to go back in time. But he was in the face with a shovel, TWICE! Hiro, YOU CAN STOP TIME! When a shovel is flying at your face, that is a good time to use your ability! TWICE! According the precog, Hiro relied "too much on [his] ability" instead of "using [his] head." He didn't really do either of those.

Daphne is the recruiter for Pinehearst because they have some sort of dirt on her. They will stop doing what they are doing for her, if she stops doing what she is doing for them. Even when Parkman tries to get her to stop, she is still afraid enough of the threat that she ignores her own misgivings. I want to know why Linderman appears to her.

Linderman appearing to Nathan makes sense. Nathan and Linderman had a connection, a relationship. Linderman means things to Nathan, whether he likes them or not, that are reflected in his own position, family, and personality. Does Linderman mean something to Daphne? She still doesn't really seem like she knows who he is. Why does she have to take orders from a brain figment, and why would the brain figment have to be him?

That brings us to Pinehearst. They misspelled "research" as "reasearch" on their business cards, which read as follows:
www.pinehearstreasearch.com
Pinehearst Company
26877 Century Drive
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
877.309.7463

This is a real number with a recording of Pinehearst information. From the main menu, you can select general information, public relations, and human resources. Not a lot of info, but I give them credit for not having a 555 number.

Dad Artie, son Peter, and son Sylar all have power-affecting abilities. Sylar scoops them out of your brain. Peter copies them by being around you. Artie sucks them out of you by touching you. Artie sucked Peter's abilities. I am assuming that means that he took the Sylar brain eating ability, too. Will he be able to control the hunger? Will he even acknowledge having it?

I don't see any loose ends being tied up in this episode. No questions were answered and no revelations were made. We saw Artie's power of sucking powers away from others, but we did know that Artie was the mastermind. Adam died, but there was no point to him being there anyway. This half of the storyline boils down to two developments: Artie is healthy and he stole Peter's powers.

Now, as for the other half of this episode, with Mohinder, Nathan, Nikki 2, Claire, Meredith, and Claire's mom... Waiter, I think there are pubes in my maki. We'll see if there is any hair when he brings it back out.