Heroes: "Company Man" Review

You know how you love all those wild characters on Heroes, like Peter, Sylar, Mohinder, Isaac, Jessika, etc? Well guess what? None of them are on this week! That's right, we stay focused in one place for the first time in the series run, that of the Bennet house, and go right into Super Mega Ultra Lost Flashback mode with Mr. HRG Bennet.

So here's the thing, Matt Parkman and Ted Sprague, who combined are Radioactive Mind, coming soon to a concert hall near you, have broken into the Bennet home. Seems like a calm thing to do, until the family shows up. Ted thinks fast and finds himself coercing Matt to hold them hostage until they get their answers. We see what we saw last week as they confront them and things don't go down as much as they had hoped.

During this time, Bennet has his flashbacks. We see him getting his front of a paper company from Eric "I am not a Vulcan" Roberts. The Whobo, Claude, is looking ok here and is Bennet's new partner. Eventually Bennet screws things up a bit and he has to call in the Teen Haitian, complete with matching reference to Jessika's tattoo. What does that mean? I'm sure we'll find out next season. Bennet is also handed over the baby Claire...by Sulu himself, the father of Hiro. Hiro is even there as a kid, pushing up glasses and all with his videogames. Bennet is clearly answering to both Sulu and Roberts, which makes him less of a threat than we think, I think. In the end, we learn Claude was protecting a hero, meaning HRG has to kill him. They go to a bridge and he begins to shoot him, but the Whobo disappears and we all know where he winds up.

So where is this all going? In the current time frame, Matt is trying to get answers and realizes that Claire knows more than she lets on. Ted begins to freak out and Matt combined with HRG's thoughts sees that he needs to shoot Claire to make the situation better. Matt finds out that Claire can heal and it's all to hold off Ted. So Matt and HRG go to Primatech to get the info Ted wants, the Haitian there as well. HRG is not happy with the Haitian but that will have to wait, there's an exploding man just itching to get revenge...and not so much answers.

Roberts screws it all up when he runs in and shoots Ted, causing him to start up his nuclear timer. They rush to get everyone out, but Claire goes to neutralize Ted. Eventually the house is seriously burning down and has a little explosion, but the sucker doesn't really go nuclear so we can assume it was nothing big. What is big, is Claire coming out looking like all hell, pure walking charred remains, an image that will last with you. She slowly heals it up and it begs the question, what exactly does this cheerleader need being saved from again?

As Ted is kept locked up (yeah that worked so well last time with Sylar) and Matt may become HRG's next partner, Roberts wants Claire brought in. In an act of beautiful kindness and love, HRG wants the Haitian to shoot him on the bridge, just enough that it will look like they got away and he lives. He then gets mindwiped by the Haitian as Claire cries on. Clearly the Haitian and Claire will be on there ways out of Odessa and to something better, we hope. But HRG, he won't remember a damn thing, a shame.

A rather powerful episode in the end, that even though we didn't get multiple storylines, was more tense and taut than most so far. It really had to be seen to know how well executed it was. I'll gladly give this one Gonch's Gold Medal of Paper Mindwiping. Godspeed, Claire.

-Gonch