S03E04 - A Spoonful of sugar
In the cold-open two college-age students are making breakfast together in an apartment while listening to music. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is playing. They are smiling and laughing and we only see them from behind and angles that don't show their faces. One starts making eggs in a cast iron skillet and the other student come up from behind him and kisses him on the back of the neck. The young man making eggs turns and we see it is Peter Petrelli. He smiles and puts a hand on the other man's cheek and leans in to kiss him, then straightens his glasses and laughs. We see that it is Paul Sylar.
Sylar calls Peter "Petey" and walks over to the counter in the middle of the kitchen and leans over it and asks Peter if he's going to his brother's fundraiser. Peter scoffs and says he isn't and asks Sylar how he likes his eggs. Sylar said "firm" with a wink and Peter throws a potholder at him. Sylar laughs and leans over the counter, asking Peter to ditch his brother and come out for drinks. Peter says that he might, then asks Sylar if he's going to see his adoptive father in the hospital. Sylar looks distant and says "probably not."
Peter looks disappointed and when he's done fyring the eggs he says, "Gabriel cares about you. You should make sure you get to say goodbye." Sylar says Peter should stop worrying so much. He looks at his eggs and says thank you.
After the Season 3 intro we cut to an aerial view of New York City.
Five Years Later.
Late Winter, 2009.
"Gabriel" and Eileen are sitting on the rooftop of an abandoned tenement building overlooking the Rookery in Staten Island. They are wrapped up in a large blanket, Eileen has her back against Gabriel's chest and he has his arms around her. Gabriel asks Eileen to tell him everything she knows, and Eileen says that might be dangerous. She explains that they weren't always on good terms and is afraid if she tells Gabriel the truth he'll hate her. Gabriel says he couldn't hate someone who gave him a sense of purpose. Eileen reluctantly tells him that his name isn't Gabriel, it's Paul Sylar. Gabriel looks confused, repeating the name, and he looks distracted by his thoughts. Eileen is tense and nervous, but all Gabriel says is that it "feels familiar."
Eileen asks Gabriel what name he wants her to call him. Gabriel looks conflicted, then finally looks at her and says, "Call me Sylar."
In Brooklyn, police cars surround a site of a suspected murder. A white van is situated in a parking lot and its back doors are open. A pair of bodies in white biohazard suits lay on the ground, blood is everywhere. Elisabeth Harrison pulls up in an unmarked car and steps out, ducking under the police tape. She stops when she kicks a shell casing with her boot, then keeps going to the scene of the murders.
Elisabeth is met by homicide detective Richard Myron (Linden Sellers) who tells Elisabeth that the two men have no identification and the vehicle has no VIN or license plate. It appears stripped of all identification. He shows her where he thinks the shooter was standing and says forensics identified the rounds as M193, the kind typically fired by an M-16. Elisabeth asks if they've done blood tests to see if the two men in the suits are Evolved, Myron says it came back negative.
Myron then tells Elisabeth that nothing was stolen and that they found a stash of sedatives, restraints, and hoods in the back. Elisabeth remarks that this doesn't seem like gang-related activity and Myron agrees that it doesn't seem that way at all. Elisabeth says she's going to take a look around and Myron lets her go. As she walks away, Elisabeth pulls out her phone. The first words out of her mouth to the person on the other end of the line was, "Tell me this wasn't you."
At the Ferrymen headquarters, Wireless comes down a flight of stairs into the map room and tells Norman, Helena, Lynette, and Teo that she just received a call from "Detective Harrison." Helena is surprised that Elisabeth went back to being a cop. Wireless says that someone found one of the abduction vans and shot it up. Helena asks if they found Magnes, and Wireless says there were only two corpses. Elisabeth forwarded information from the crime scene to Wireless, who was able to run facial recognition on the corpses.
Wireless brings up the deceased's photos on a nearby monitor and says that they were Armenian's living in the United States with suspected connections to organized crime, specifically the Russian mafia. Norman says this doesn't seem like "mafia work" and Wireless agrees and thinks they may have been hired contractors. Norman supposes there's a money trail, but Wireless hasn't been able to find one yet. Helena wonders if these two were the only kidnappers, and Wireless says she intends to find out. She has their addresses and forwarded one to Elisabeth. She suggests Teo and Lynette check the other. Teo agrees and says he'll do "whatever it takes" to help find Magnes. Wireless says she's going to hold him to that.
On Staten Island, Gillian wakes up in her car sleeping under her jacket. She gets out and walks through the Rookery to an open-air market. We see that the Rookery is dirty and impoverished and people are struggling to get by. Staten Island barely has electricity and running water. Gillian is troubled by everything she sees. Gillian starts asking around about people who might have washed up after the bridge explosion last year. She eventually is led to the harbor where she find a fishing boat in dock.
Gillian speaks with one of the fishermen, learning that they pulled a badly wounded man up from the river right after the explosion. They were worried he was in trouble with the government and were afraid of drawing too much attention to themselves, so they got him to a doctor on Staten Island and took him in and explains that he had a serious head injury and couldn't remember his name, much less anything else. She learns he has been going by the name Gabriel. Gillian asks where he is and the fishermen say they haven't worked with him in a few days, but one of them says he saw him hanging around a young woman with a pet bird. Gillian pays the men in cash for their information and asks them to keep quiet about this.
At night, Elisabeth returns to her apartment from work and finds Richard going over stacks of legal documentation. She asks him what is going on and Richard says he's been meeting with his attorney about his legal options after the raid that closed his business. He says that the government was never able to pin any direct association with the Ferrymen on him and the federal government has yet to press charges. He thinks he might be able to sue to unlock his finances and get his business back and running. Elisabeth is impressed with Richard's resourcefulness and he says it's the "one thing I'm good at."
Elisabeth laughs and asks if he's had dinner, and he asks her the same. They've both eaten. Richard instead offers Elisabeth one of her own beers from her refrigerator and she teases him for being a "bad house guest." They flirt and talk about his legal options. Richard asks Elisabeth about her work and she fills him in on the situation with the van. Richard wonders if the Ferrymen might have killed those two men, and Elisabeth says she isn't sure but "hopes not." Richard says the Ferrymen are good people, but he worries they're one bad day away from burning the city down. Elisabeth looks conflicted but says nothing.
In Brooklyn, Wireless uses a pair of bolt-cutters to break into an NYPD storage garage where the van is being kept. She inspects the area, then picks the lock on the van's door and climbs into the driver's seat. Wireless inspects the radio equipment set up in the van and scans up and down the dial, finding only static. She looks deep in thought, then turns off the radio and presses her hand to the dashboard. A light flashes behind Wireless' pupils and when she moves her hand away she has a small smile on her lips.
In Harlem, Teo arrives at Kain Zarek's nightclub and goes inside. It is very similar to the scene from earlier in the season, except Teo looks tired and strung out. The club is depicted as more claustrophobic, the music muffled, and Teo doesn't effortlessly move through the crowd but is moved around by them. He arrives in Kain's suite, and Kain greets him like a friend and motions to a half-naked women to get Teo another bag of cocaine. Teo says he isn't here for drugs and Kain asks him why he's wasting his time because they're not friends.
Teo sets down a roll of money and asks Kain about the Armenians that were found dead with the van. Kain eyes the money but doesn't touch it. The woman in the room with him takes it and puts it in a safe. Kain says that the Armenians worked for a Russian crime syndicate but were bought out by a private contractor who hired them for personal security. Teo asks if Kain knows who the buyer was and Kain says he forgets. Teo presses Kain, telling him that they abducted Magnes. Kain doesn't seem to care and says he put "all of Richard's bullshit behind him." Teo pleads with Kain who finally lets on that he only knows a name: Pinehearst.
On Staten Island, Sylar and Eileen lay on a bare wood floor together in a tangle of blankets lit only by moonlight. Sylar asks Eileen why she stays with him, and Eileen says all they have is each-other. Sylar asks her again what happened to her adopted father and Eileen changes the subject. She tells Sylar that she thinks he should keep rebuilding his abilities, because people who are afraid of him are going to come for him one day and "lifting bricks and turning them to sand" will only go so far.
Sylar says he doesn't want to be a killer, he wants to help people, help the world. Eileen says that sometimes the world doesn't want to be helped, but has to be forced. Sylar disagrees. Eileen places a hand on Sylar's cheek and kisses him and says that it's either him or the world, and the world has much sharper teeth. Sylar asks Eileen how sharp her teeth are, and Eileen presses a finger to his nose and says, "birds don't have teeth."
In Brooklyn we see Peter Petrelli walking at night in a long coat. He is following a white van down the street and watches as it slows down nearing a park where people displaced by the Midtown explosion live homeless in a tent city. The van doesn't stick around, and Peter slips away into the darkness of an alley after it turns away from the park.
In the Ferrymen's headquarters, Wireless jolts up from a meditative state in her new sanctuary. Monitors come to life and she calls for Norman, who comes walking in to the tangle of computers and wires. Wireless says she picked up an encrypted radio signal on the same frequency as the van the NYPD found. Norman looks tense and says he'll "round up the troops."