Aired on October 23, 2006
A messenger from the future named Hiro Nakamura has come to Peter Petrelli to deliver a simple message, "Save the cheerleader; save the world." Before Hiro restarts time, he instructs Peter to visit Isaac, and not to tell Suresh too much. Meanwhile, a group of doctors work on Claire as Brody stares at her from a nearby hospital bed after crashing his car into a wall.
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In Las Vegas, Mr. Bennet and the cleaner walk Nathan from the hotel at gunpoint. Nathan threatens to kill them both if they do anything to him. When Claire's father tells the cleaner to "put him down," Nathan looks to the sky, leaps, and takes to the safety of the clouds.
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When she wakes up in the morning in Nathan's hotel room, Niki has no idea where she is. Nor does she know where Nathan is when his security detail asks for him. Linderman's henchmen arrive on the scene to tell Niki that her debt is absolved, but Niki insists that she didn't sleep with Nathan, even though there's a DVD that shows otherwise.
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Janice Parkman is worried sick about her missing husband, but worry turns to anger when she discovers him waking up on their couch. He recalls working with the FBI, but doesn't know where he's been for the past day. Reading her thoughts, Matt is surprised to learn how much she still cares about him, even though they hardly speak anymore.
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After suffering a beating at the hands of some unhappy gamblers, Ando and Hiro are tossed from a van and into the Nevada desert. At a diner, the two friends argue and Ando storms out. Hiro turns to look out the window just in time to see Nathan Petrelli zoom in to a landing on the scorching desert sand. In the diner, Hiro tells Nathan that he is also special, that he can bend time and space, but Nathan doesn't believe this seemingly insane Japanese man.
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Claire tells her father what happened at the bonfire and admits that she attempted to hurt Brody by driving into the wall, but she really just wanted to prevent him from attacking other girls. Mr. Bennett promises he won't tell anyone.
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Without Suresh, Peter arrives at Isaac's studio asking for his help, but Isaac is less than welcoming. Looking through Isaac's paintings, Peter finds one of a dark shadow falling over Claire.
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Nathan drives Hiro back to Las Vegas. While Hiro struggles with rental car's controls, Nathan runs into Niki and asks what happened last night and why two men tried to throw him into a van. She doesn't know what happened and doesn't remember a thing about the night before. Niki tells him that Linderman blackmailed her into sleeping with him... just like Linderman is going to blackmail him.
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Nat King Cole's rendition of "Stardust" lilts through the air as Matt surprises his wife with a gourmet that's complete with all the food and wine she's been thinking about for years. Everything she could have thought of, he's thought of first. His romantic gesture is almost too much for her to accept.
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Mr. Bennett pays Brody a visit. Brody thinks that Claire is a freak and denies trying to rape her. Bennett swoops in and clamps his hand over Brody's mouth as he calls in his mysterious compatriot to "hollow out" Brody's memories.
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In Isaac's loft, Peter tries to make sense of all the paintings when one that's unfinished takes his eye: a man standing over Claire. Staring at it, Peter realizes that he can finish the painting on his own. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, they're clouded over white. He picks up a brush and begins to paint while in a trancelike state.
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Claire apologizes to Brody for driving the car into the wall, but Brody doesn't know who she is. He doesn't even know his own name.
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Niki returns home to find her house crawling with cops looking for her husband, DL. When the front door opens, their guns come out, but it's not DL entering the house... it's Ando, who used to be one of Niki's regular clients on her website.
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As Nathan checks out of the hotel, Linderman's representative has a few words with him about the tape of his encounter with Niki. Nathan turns the situation around by asking for an additional four million dollars in campaign funds. If he was so important to go through all this trouble for two million, then four million will guarantee his victory, making him even more valuable to Linderman in the future.
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After making love with his wife, Matt reads her mind that she wants coffee ice cream and he goes to the store to get some. The thoughts from the other customers' heads swirl through Matt's mind until he centers on those of a young man planning to rob the store at gunpoint. Matt talks the man out of it and takes the gun, but when the customers see Matt with the gun, they think that he's going to rob the store. Their voices rise in his head until they get to be too much. He passes out.
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Ando seems genuinely sad when Niki sends him back into town without any help. With Ando and the cops gone, Niki thinks she hears something strange in the house, but she doesn't find anything out of place. But she's right. D.L. hides just around the corner.
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Ando and Hiro make amends and resume their journey to find Isaac.
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Peter and Isaac stare at Peter's finished painting: a gruesome image of Claire turned upside down, the top of her head missing, splayed out in a sea of her own blood. A ringing phone shocks them back to this world, but Isaac tells Peter to ignore it, "Some Japanese guy keeps calling." Realizing that it's Hiro, Peter answers the phone. "My name's Peter Petrelli," he says, "I have a message for you."
Over the phone, Peter instructs Hiro to "save the cheerleader, save the world" and to meet with him and Isaac in New York. Hanging up, Peter turns his attention to a missing painting and insists that he and Isaac contact Simone to track it down as it may contain a clue to the cheerleader's whereabouts.
Claire's father brings his daughter the news that he's found her birth parents. Though in shock, Claire says she's ready to meet them.
Nikki snaps awake in a state of confusion. She looks around her house to discover her husband, D.L., standing behind her. D.L. explains what happened with the $2 million he stole from Linderman - he had planned on leaving Vegas with his family, but an unknown woman killed his crew, framed him for the murders, and made off with the money.
While preparing to leave Las Vegas, Hiro and Ando are stopped by the high roller they cheated. The gambler feels that Hiro owes him a little favor.
Claire's birth parents arrive at her house, but it's not the moment that Claire expected it to be. Claire stares at them in awkward, uncomfortable silence, and when they do talk, their answers to her questions are stilted and halting. More disconcerting, Claire's questions about anything "weird" or "out of the ordinary" that she should know about herself are met with nothing beyond the natural realm.
An angry Nikki tells D.L. that he can stay on the couch for the night but has to leave in the morning. It doesn't take long for Nikki to go back on this and she soon invites her husband into her bed. In the morning, D.L. comments that he heard Nikki get up in the middle of the night, but she doesn't remember. And as she looks at her reflection in the mirror, a different person looks back at her. She is interrupted when Micah comes bounding in, surprised to find his dad has come home.
At a private poker game, Ando plays cards for the high roller while Hiro stops time and switches cards for better hands. When Ando notices that the other players have guns, he excuses himself to the bathroom. From the bathroom, Ando and Hiro hear screams and shots fired someone is dead on the other side of the door. Hiro and Ando make a dash for safety from the bathroom window.
Eden watches as Suresh packs a bag to take home with him to India. Eden tries to call Suresh's bluff by giving him a heated kiss, but he finishes packing and leaves, anyway.
D.L. asks Nikki for a ride into town because he wants her by his side when he tracks down the woman who set him up. D.L. takes Nikki to the lair of some men who used to do work for Linderman. When they get there, they step into the scene of a bloody slaughter - they're the same men whom Hiro and Ando played cards with.
Claire's father spies on Claire with her birth parents, but he is interrupted by a call from Eden, who tells him that Suresh has made up his mind and is returning to India. Eden informs him that there is no evidence that Peter can fly, but that a man who can stop time says to "save the cheerleader." Their conversation ends with him ordering to bring in the "precog."
Nikki tells D.L. that she has seen a similar slaughter scene... in her garage. As she breaks into tears, she tells D.L. what happened with Linderman's goons on that terrible day. D.L. assures her that someone must be setting her up to make sure that he can never clear his name.
Nikki feels that she's going insane. She loses whole stretches of time and can't remember where they've gone. Alone in her bedroom, her alter ego finally speaks to her, revealing that she is the one who killed D.L.'s crew, took the $2 million, and murdered the thugs in the poker game. She tells Nikki that they need to retrieve the money and take Micah away before D.L. gets him first.
Isaac discovers a strange symbol in one of his paintings when there's a knock at his door. It's Eden claiming to be an admirer of his work.
Hiro tortures himself for not saving the men at the poker game. "Maybe I'm not the hero I thought I was," he tells Ando. Ando suggests that if he masters his powers, then maybe he can go back in time one day and fix what happened.
Claire admits to her mom that meeting her "bio parents" wasn't what she was hoping for. Sandra compliments her husband for tracking them down, explaining that when Claire was a baby, they thought she had some kind of disease and they wanted to screen her birth parents, but could never find them.
In the rafters of her own house, Nikki discovers a briefcase filled with cash. She jumps down into her bedroom to come face to face with D.L., who immediately realizes that Nikki was the one who set him up. She explains about her alter ego, but he doesn't believe her. When he threatens to take Micah and leave, she punches him hard, sending him flying across the room and smashing into a wall.
When Nikki turns around after shooing Micah away, D.L. seems to be gone, but then he steps through the wall to attack her. He thrusts his hand through her body, reaching out and up to choke her to death as Micah stumbles onto the scene. Nikki falls over, apparently dead, as D.L. bundles up his son and takes off once more to a fugitive's life.
