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What was the point of this episode? Typically, there is one strong main story, with a few, well-written subplots that will eventually tie to the whole. But Fight or Flight seemed fractured, offering up too much idea and not enough development – and not one particular story worth an intro paragraph. It also deviated from the established norm, with Mohinder taking a turn to the stupid when he takes Molly to The Company he’s trying to take down, and Parkman making missteps that a five-year old could avoid. And Peter… don’t even get me started on him. At least, not yet.

Let’s start with Parkman.

Little Molly is still in a coma after her encounter with the Boogeyman, who we now know is Parkman’s deadbeat dad. After arguing with Mohinder, and dealing with his insecurities about meeting the man who abandoned him when he was 13, Parkman teams up with Nathan to confront the Boogeyman. The frazzled and frightened man greets them with a shotgun. He explains that he is terrified. Nathan finds a photograph with the Death Mark over Boogeyman’s face. Could he be the next hero to fall? Were they wrong all along?

Stupid Parkman follows his father into another room (Idiot. You’re a cop. You know better. Guess that’s why you had to cheat on the detective’s exam by pulling answers out of other people’s minds.), where he gets trapped in his own special nightmare. Nathan tries to rescue him and gets trapped in his own nightmare. Then, Boogeyman leaves, grinning all the way down the hall.

They have to physically duke it out with their nightmares to get victory over them. Thing is, it’s actually Nathan and Parkman killing each other. Parkman wakes up, gets Nate up, and they realize Boogeyman is gone. Interesting twist, I will give them that.

On to Mo… Mohinder took a turn for stupid when he panics over Molly’s condition and decides to rush her over to The Company labs. What?!?!?!?!?! Mo is trying to take down The Company, which he knows is evil. This is completely out of character for him. Has his common sense been absorbed by the Borg-like Company?

Mo is in The Company labs, monitoring Molly’s unchanging condition. Bob hands him a folder of a new hero to tag. Mo doesn’t want to leave Molly, but good ol’ Bob has everything under control. Suddenly, Jessica breaks out and tries to kill Bob. She nearly does – until stupid Mo tasers her. WHAT?!?!?! He asks Bob what’s going on. (Duh.) They get her tied back up and Bob leaves, telling her they will help her with her multiple personality disorder. So then Mo – stupid Mo who deviated from common sense to take Molly to The Company – tries to untie Nikki to help her escape. WHAT?!?!?! That’s when she tells him she wants to be there. Am I the only one who thinks this is stupid? The Company is good enough to take care of Molly, the girl he loves like a daughter, yet this (sort of) perfect stranger he tries to rescue? He doesn’t know Nikki/Jessica well at all, yet she’s worth rescuing and not Molly?

In other Heroes news:
• Hiro was an afterthought in this episode, and it was disappointing. Ando took the scrolls he found in the hilt of the sword to someone who could repair the damages so he could finish reading them. Of course, right at the end, the text stops. They have to do more repairs to make it legible. We know that Hiro is in love with his idol, Kensei’s future bride, Taeko, and that the three of them will face off with White Beard’s entire army to save the girl’s father. Hiro fears… Well, we have to wait for them to repair the scrolls to find out. It was interesting that they had a torn map with several pieces that they had to put together to find White Beard’s camp. Reminds me of how HRG is trying to track down Isaac’s paintings to learn the future. I’d hoped for a bit more than the few minutes we got. Hiro’s story is always full of humor and what he does has incredible impact on the future. I thought it would play more of a role in the series, but so far, they haven’t connected his missteps in time to the future.

• Micah shares his powers with Monica, and takes her on a journey to discover her own burgeoning powers. At the end, Mo is at her doorstep, wanting to chat it up. So, she was the one The Company wanted him to track down. How did they already know about her? Torture it out of Nikki/Jessica?

• After the hype, Kristen Bell FINALLY makes her appearance as evil, electric bolt-whipping hero Elle. We discover she works for a company wanting to track down Peter. Her boss? Her father. Maybe this is the flip side of Claire and HRG. Peter’s love interest is Caitlyn, and Elle kills Caitlyn’s brother to find out where Peter is hiding. Daddy pulls her off assignment when he discovers she killed someone – and she’s just a breath away from nabbing Peter. Some might think this made the episode. It wasn’t bad. We just needed more.

• Peter. Well, he just isn’t the same. He’s a gang thug unwilling to explore his powers, or check out the box that has his true identity in it. After Elle’s little barbecue at the pub, he decides he needs to figure out his past before it catches up to him. Inside the box? Nothing that tells him much. Just a photograph of him and another guy (Nathan), a plane ticket to Montreal and his passport. Peter gets the Isaac urge and paints this dark portrait of him and Caitlyn in a city with French road signs. After the murder, the figure out it’s Montreal and he needs to go there. Interesting that his passport and a plane ticket where already in that box. Did Peter envision this before his “death” and pack it away because he knew he’d be needing it based on some paintings of his own?

Overall, I was really disappointed again this week. The episode wasn’t a total loss – the acting was great, as always, and there were some nuggets in there that will keep me watching next week - but I feel like I could have went to bed and caught up on the Internet, rather than staying up to watch it with that anticipatory gleam in my eyes. I expect so much from this series. It feels drawn out this season – like they only have so much plot to stretch over 20+ episodes – and they’ve left the common sense of some heroes in File 13 to carry the story… wherever it is going.

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