Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!

November 21, 2006

Tonight's the big night. The world will know the meaning of those cryptic words: "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!"

Since this is my first post but the 9th episode, I'm going to recap briefly.

We were first introduced to seven people who were just beginning to see their gifts after a solar eclipse:

Claire, the cheerleader from Odessa, Texas. She has Zach, a boy from school, videotape her attempts to kill herself only to realize she is indestructible. She and Zach come upon a train wreck and she has Zach film her running into the flames to save a man. Her cheerleading uniform burns but she walks away unharmed.

Niki Sanders, the single mom from Las Vegas, Nevada. She tries her best to provide for her son, Micah, but finds herself at a loose end and ends up owing money to a mobster. She "sees" another person in the mirror.

Peter Petrelli, the nurse from New York City who is trying to save the world one person at a time. He has big dreams and thinks he can fly.

Nathan Petrelli, Peter's older brother who is running for city counsel. (I think, some kind of political office.) He doesn't want to hear Peter's fanciful ideas of being able to fly. All he cares about is one thing: himself.

Mohinder Suresh, a professor in India who is shocked to hear that his father was murdered, possibly for his research in looking for those with extraordinary abilities. He drops everything to go to New York and try to find out why his father was murdered.

Hiro Nakamura, a computer programmer from Toyko, Japan. He feels that he can bend time. His friend and co-worker, Ando, thinks he's crazy.

Issac Mendez, a cartoonist/artist from New York who can paint the future. The only problem is that he can only paint the future when he is under the influence of heroine.

We are later introduced to Matt Parkman, a police officer who can hear people's thoughts and Niki's husband, DL, who can go through solid objects.

Others are uncovered like Micah Sanders, who can manipulate electronics, yet no one knows of this ability yet.

Claire just wants to be normal but finds out that keeping her secret is going to be harder than she realizes. The tape of all her "experiments" mysteriously disappears and ends up in her father's possession. As it turns out, her father is someone who is tracking those with special abilities.

She then seeks revenge on a boy, Brody the schools star quaterback, who took advantage of her by crashing his car head on into a barrier. She walks away with barely a scratch. Later, the tape shows up only to then be watched by her brother who freaks out and locks himself in the car.

Niki starts losing time after Lenderman, the mobster who Niki owes money, sends two henchman to "collect" from Niki. She wakes up with both men dead in her garage. She then goes to pick up Micah when her cell phone rings and she doesn't know where she is or how much time had gone by. After she picks Micah up, she finds a red convertible outside her house with a map and the two dead men in her trunk. She follows the map and buries the bodies in the Nevada desert.

On her why back to town, she is pulled over by a police officer who happens to be on Lenderman's payroll. Lenderman's people give her an "opportunity" to erase her debt. All she has to do is "occupy" Nathan Petrelli. She refuses to have sex with him, leaves and then is greeted in the elevator by one of Lenderman's men who tells her that she needs to fulfill her obligation or Micah will be in danger. This enrages Niki who then lets "someone out to play". When she wakes up in Nathan's room with no memory of what happens, Lenderman's people shows her a videotape of what happened. Niki then approaches Nathan and tells him that Lenderman will blackmail him the way they blackmailed her.

Niki goes home to find that the police have camped out on her front door in hopes to catch, DL, her fugitive husband. DL does show up and the two talk about starting over. This is when Niki realizes that she has an alter ego/split personality, Jessica. Jessica comes out to do the things that Niki is too scared to do herself, like kill Lenderman's men. She tells Niki that it was her that set DL up with the police and stole the money. She also tells Niki where the money is hidden. DL catches Niki crawling out of the attic crawl space with the money and is furious. Jessica quickly takes the matter in her own hands and proceeds to fight with DL. It is during this fight that we discover that DL can go through solid objects, like walls and even sticks his hand into Niki's chest and stops her heart. DL leaves with Micah.

Peter longs to do something extraordinary. He climbs on top of a building, calls Nathan, tells him its "my turn to be someone now, Nathan!" and jumps hoping that he will fly. Nathan flies up to catch Peter but loses control and they both plummet to the ground. Peter wakes up in a hospital. Nathan tries to tell Peter that he had tried to commit suicide but fell to a fire escape. Nathan then climbed up and carried Peter down. Peter does not believe Nathan so he tells him that he really will jump unless Nathan tells Peter the truth. Nathan tells him that they both flew but Nathan lost control. Peter is angry because he thinks Nathan is lying to him again only to see that he is floating about three feet off the ground.

Spurred on by this new found knowledge, Peter goes to the library, finds Chandra Suresh's book and seeks out the scientist. He finds Mohinder instead and tries to convince him that he really can fly. Unable to prove his ability to Mohinder, Peter talks him into going to Issac Mendez's apartment so Peter could show Mohinder that there are others with special abilities. Issac wasn't home so they give up and head back. On the subway, Peter gets a visit from Hiro Nakamura, the future Hiro, who bends time and space to give Peter this message "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World."

Mohinder doesn't believe Peter that he was visited by someone from the future and tells Peter to leave him alone. Undaunted, Peter returns to Issac's house and tries to piece together the paintings Issac has drawn of the future. Issac has one unfinished painting that will tell what happens to "the cheerleader". Issac is unable to finish it without being high, so Peter stares at the painting and miraculously finishes the painting that shows that the cheerleader is killed. Both Peter and Issac agree that they have to prevent this from happening. Issac gets a call from the "present" Hiro and Peter tells him the same message the "future" Hiro had given him. Peter asks Simone, his patients daughter and Issac's girlfriend/art dealer, if she still had one of the missing paintings that they need to "save the cheerleader". Simone tells Peter that she sold the painting to Lenderman. Peter goes to his brother's house to ask for help only to be practically kicked out the door by his own brother because Peter interrupted a interview that was supposed to be positive PR. Peter promises not to embarrass Nathan if Nathan will ask Lenderman for the painting.

Nathan only cares about winning his election and twists the news coverage of Peter's jumping into that his brother had tried to commit suicide. He then goes to Las Vegas to ask for funding from Lenderman. This is where he meets Niki and has sex with her without the knowledge that they are being videotaped. He wakes up to find Claire's father and his "Haitian" in his room. They try to kidnap Nathan who escapes from him by flying away. He ends up outside an out-of-the-way diner in his pajamas. No one sees his spectacular entrance except Hiro, who feels a camaraderie with Nathan because of their gifts. Hiro also tells Nathan that he went to the future and saw that Nathan had won his election.

Nathan brushes off Hiro and returns to New York. He sets up a brunch with a newsman who was supposed to spin some positive PR but instead confronts Nathan in front of his wife about his excursion in Las Vegas. Peter covers for Nathan by telling the man that Nathan was looking for a mental facility for Peter and the woman he was seen with was actually a doctor. Nathan agrees to ask Lenderman for the painting only to sweep it under the carpet.

Hiro tries to bend space and transports himself to New York. He finds a comic book of his awesome feat that happened just minutes before. The comic book artist is Issac Mendez. Hiro goes to Issac's studio only to find Issac dead on the floor with his head hacked open and brain gone but he also discovers that he had transported himself over a month into the future. He transports back to the present but not before he sees New York go up into some sort of explosion.

He shows his friend, Ando, the comic book and proves to him that he can bend time and space by saving the life of a little girl. Ando agrees to go with Hiro to New York to "save the world". Hiro and Ando stop in Las Vegas because the comic book shows them driving to New York. Ando gets a "great" idea and has Hiro "help" him win some money. They are caught by some other men that they cheated at a poker game, get beat up and dumped in the desert. This is were Hiro meets Nathan.

Ando leaves Hiro and goes to see Niki who he knows from her Internet stripteases. Hiro returns to the car and waits for Ando. They eventually make up and continue on their journey. They stop at a small diner where they meet a waitress, Charlie, who is suddenly remembering everything she reads. She speaks a little Japanese and Hiro becomes smitten. However, she is mysterious murdered and Hiro decides to go back into time to warn her. He leaves Ando at the diner and goes back in time.

Mohinder moves to New York to find out why his father was murdered. He takes over his father's job and apartment. Claire's father tries to talk to Mohinder but he runs away. This encounter makes Mohinder even more paranoid than he already was. He tries to continue his father's research but comes no closer to finding out what his father had been doing.

He finds a man trying to bug his phone and runs into Eden, his neighbor who was friends with his father. She helps him by telling Mohinder conversations she had with his father. Eden finds a portable drive in the lizards cage that Mohinder believes will unlock his father's research. They also find a small notebook with different notes, a key and the name "Sylar" with an address. They break into the apartment to find a bizzarr back room with a map similar to Mohinder's father's map. When Mohinder and Eden return to the apartment with the police, the whole apartment is cleaned out.

Not sure what to do next, Mohinder decides to take his father's ashes back to India. Mohinder spreads his father's ashes in the sea and goes back to the university. He is offered a job with his old girlfriend but his father's research "needs to stay in that box."

He starts having dreams about with a boy leading him through the past and he learns that he had a sister that he never knew about. He also sees his father's murder. Not knowing what to think, he has another dream where the boy shows him the locked drawer in his father's office. The key that Mohinder found in the notebook unlocked the drawer and found a file hidden behind the drawer of the boy that Mohinder saw in his dreams.

Matt Parkman is standing outside a house where a multiple murder has happened, directing traffic, when he hears a small girl crying "Don't hurt me." He runs past the FBI agents, into the house and finds the girl hiding in a secret room behind the stairs. Suspicious of how he found the girl, a FBI agent take him in for questioning. He tells her that he heard her whispering and to prove that he heard the girls thoughts, Matt reads the FBI agents thoughts. She brings him on the "Sylar" case.

She believes that a man named Sylar is behind several grisly murders where the victims dead but there are no signs of a physical struggle and the bodies are displayed in obscure ways, many have the top of the skulls removed and the brain missing.

Matt goes home to a very upset and angry wife who demands to know where he's been. She is too angry to be excited that Matt has been asked to work with the FBI. Hearing her thoughts, he leaves the house and goes to the bar to drink away his sorrows. He is listening to the thoughts of the other bar-goers when he hears nothing. He sees a very dark, Haitian man and then passes out. Matt wakes up in some sort of lab with Claire's father looming over him. Claire's father tells the Haitian to "clean him out."

Matt wakes up on the couch at home with no memory of how he got there. His wife is even more furious because he has been gone for a day. Matt hears her thoughts and uses them to heal his marriage. His life is going good: he is working with the FBI and his marriage is better but he is unprepared for what he hears next, "Oh God, he knows. He knows I had an affair!"

Matt returns to work with the FBI. His next task is to "talk" to the little girl. They hear her screams to find a mysterious man grabbing her. The FBI agent runs after the man while Matt calms the girl. He goes to assist the FBI agent to find her frozen with her gun pressed to her temple by her own hand. Matt shoots the man and helps Audrey up. The man raises up and escapes.

Audrey pulls some strings for Matt to retake his detectives exam but he dream is cut short when he hears the thoughts of his friend/coworker. "He has no idea I'm sleeping with his wife. She is so hot." Hearing that, Matt punches the guy in the face.

Audrey and Matt follow a lead that Audrey thinks is Sylar. They go to the house to find a almost burnt out shell with very high rads of radiation. They find a prescription bottle with a woman's name on it and go to the hospital. There they find a man whose wife is dying of radiation poisoning. He also has a gift. He can "microwave" things, including his wife. Matt reads his wife's dying thoughts and gives the man some peace. They try to question the man and discover that this man also was kidnapped by the "big Haitian". Before Matt could find out anything more, the other FBI agents take the man away. Matt goes home to his wife and she already knows that he has been suspended for punching a "superior officer".

Issac can paint the future but only when he is high. His drug of choice is heroine. Simone tries several times to get him clean but each time Issac slips. When Simone finds Issac overdosed, she calls Peter to help her with Issac since Peter is a nurse. Before he OD'd, Issac painted New York going up in a nuclear explosion, the same explosion Hiro saw. Believing that he can paint a way to stop the explosion, Issac refuses to get clean and Simone leaves him.

Issac continues to paint until he wakes up in a strange place. There he meets Eden and Claire's father who have helped him get clean. When Claire's father asks Issac to paint what happens to the cheerleader, Issac says he can't do it clean. He is asked to try and when he can't Clarie's father has Eden "persuade" Issac to use the drugs.

Some side comments:

Micah used his gift to call Niki/Jessica to tell her where he and DL were.

Simone sought solace after breaking up with Issac in Peter's bed.

Eden works for Claire's father and has the gift of "persuasion".

Peter is not really sure what his gift is.

Claire's friend, Jackie, took credit for Claire's heroic feat of saving a man out of a train wreck.

Cast:

Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) Best known for playing Jess on Gilmore Girls

Claire Bennett (Hayden Panettiere) Best known for movies like Ice Princess, Raising Helen & Racing Stripes.

Niki Sanders (Ali Larter) Probably best know for her whip cream bikini in Varsity Blues opposite Dawson's Creek alum, James Van Der Beek.

Matt Parkman (Greg Grunsberg) Best know for roles on Felicity and Alias.

Issac Mendez (Santiago Cabera)

Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka)

Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress)

Micah Sanders (Noah Grey-Cabey)

Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy)

This show really plays on all our desires of doing something more with our lives. Who wouldn't want to be indestructible like Claire? Or have a part of us able to do the things we are too scared to do ourselves like Niki? Walk through walls? Hear people's thoughts? Fly? I know I really enjoy the possibilities.