Connections

Wow. Nathan is a dirty whore. I knew I was right in my prediction last week that Nathan is Claire's real father. Which leads me to my very important point of the day: Nathan is a DIRTY WHORE.

He's cheated on his wife at least once (with Jessica), and it was with such little remorse that it's safe to assume that he's done it before. And now we find out that he hooked up with some woman from Texas, two heroes amazingly getting together (randomly or no?) and producing Claire. I'm super-curious as to what circumstances would have brought Nathan and Claire's mother together in the first place. She seems a little low-rent, and he's obviously the complete opposite. Still, I sort of like Nathan's moral weakness, his ambition, his selfishness, his ruthlessness — it makes those tender kiss-worthy moments he has with his brother more emotional.

This revelation should put to rest those "Peter and Claire should get together" threads that I've seen on various message boards. Ew. He's her uncle, which makes the fact that he saved her from Sylar — and vice versa — that much more interesting and affecting. It also strengthens the bonds between everyone on the show — Claire is connected to Nathan, who's connected to Peter, who's connected to Simone, who's connected to Isaac, who's connected to Hiro, and so on. Of course, Linderman's at the very top of the food chain.

Chapter 14 (titled "Distractions") really soared admirably, especially in the second half. In Hiro and Peter's case, family is what held them back from achieving their destiny, and family is what brought them closer to fulfilling their missions. When Hiro's father was inches close to packing him back on a plane to Tokyo, Hiro and his sister were able to persuade him to let Hiro go off and do his own thing — which he should have in the first place. Can you seriously see Hiro as an efficient manager, let alone an executive vice president?

As for Peter, he was inches close to believing Claude's noxious philosophy that people are "selfish, deceitful, and gassy." Yet when push came to shove, it was thinking of sweet Claire, who he still doesn't know is his niece, that saved his life. Wow, would Claude have felt like a jerk if Peter hadn't regenerated. The people Peter loves are not distractions. Who would've thought, a dozen episodes ago, that Heroes would be a more gripping family drama than Brothers & Sisters?

Yet the most tragic of the stories is still with the Bennet clan. Having inadvertently let Sylar out of his cage, H.R.G. almost lost his family, dashing into his home seconds before Sylar could end his wife's life. And H.R.G. was pissed ("Find him. He dies!"), so I can't wait to see what happens when the two cross paths again. And then, having barely saved his wife from a nasty death, H.R.G. had to erase her memory yet again. Her brain must be mush, and that's sad for her, but is anyone else a little sad for H.R.G., having to do these things and put up these facades around his family? What a lonely life it must be. It's funny how we were so close to finding out his first name. But, the writers were clearly screwing with us when they had Ms. Bennet say, "It's so funny how all of y'all call him Mr. Bennet. I've always just known him as —" before yelling at Mr. Muggles.

Then there is poor Niki, who first kills her therapist. Then, for some reason, Linderman arranged for her to be cleared of all charges. When she finally gets home, we learn that Jessica has completely taken over with Niki now trapped in the mirror. Why doesn't Niki just stay away from mirrors? Seriously, Niki, just stay away from reflective glass. I'm curious to see whether her two personalities are eventually going to come together into one super-strong person. I guess that won't happen next week as Jessica is on a full rampage and it looks like she takes out Matt (YAY!).