S03E02

• Name: The Butterfly Effect
• Air Date: September 22nd, 2008
• Season: 3
• Number: 02
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Episode Outline

In order to change history, one would have to disturb nothing. Even touching or killing the smallest of animals like a butterfly would change history forever. This episode deals with what Peter did by shooting Nathan entitled “The Butterfly Effect”. The aftermath of Claire’s encounter with Sylar shows another part of her power has manifested, she can no longer feel pain when she is injured. While her adopted mother Sandra cleans up the glass shards that Sylar broke Claire tries to help her mom. She unknowingly drives a shard of glass deep into her right palm and doesn’t feel a thing. She tells Sandra that she used to feel everything she did to herself, that she was grateful for it; it was the only link she had to people that didn’t have abilities.

Angela is seen walking in to the Primatech facility, with blood splattered all over the wall. She sees the bodies of Hiro, Matt and Peter. She sees Claire being strangled by an unknown man and Noah dead. Then the unknown man, Maury Parkman, Adam and Niki together with Sylar behind her. This however is just a dream, which is the first time that Angela’s ability manifests, the power of precognitive dreaming or the ability to dream the future.

Angela goes to Peter’s apartment in the present and sees Future Peter there setting up a timeline of string, reminiscent of the one made by Hiro in the first season, to find out if anything else needs to be changed. Mohinder sees that the powers granted to him by the formula he created are working well. Maya walks into the lab and sees a different person than the one she left the other day.

Matt begins walking in Africa in search of some water or food, there he runs across an aboriginal and his turtle. Matt is charged with going on a spirit walk to find what he needs. The aboriginal tells him that the turtle will be his guide.

Sylar walks out of the Bennet House with files of people with abilities when two agents from Primatech come to take him in, they tazer him and think it worked but it didn’t. He rips out the pins and throws both of the agents against their car killing them both. Elle is shown a video of this by her father Bob, he blames her for this because she didn’t catch Sylar in time. Elle has no other choice but to be responsible for these actions and she walks away feeling guilty. Back in Japan, Hiro and Ando begin the search for the formula by finding out everything that they can about Daphne. They find out that she lives in Paris, France and so they teleport to find her and the formula.

Tracy Strauss and the governor of New York are trying to figure out how to fill an empty senate seat. The governor goes through a few options and Tracy doesn’t like any of them, she wants Nathan to be the junior senator, a man who won the most populous district in the state and has tremendous upside. She chooses to ignore the fact that Nathan stepped down from that post for personal reasons saying that the press would look the other way if they forced them to. The governor wants Tracy to reach out to him to see if he is interested in the job.

While in a parking lot she runs into a reporter and asks her about Niki, who was the other character that Ali Larter played, saying that it seems a little bit suspicious that someone that looks exactly like her would end up in a prominent spot. She is later seen in the episode in the same parking lot that she was cornered by the reporter going back to her car, when he tells her that she is going to run the story about her alleged past she gets mad and her ability manifests, she freezes the man and he disintegrates into hundreds of bits.

As Hiro and Ando search Daphne’s apartment it becomes pretty clear that she is a thief, she has massive amounts of guitars, art pieces, urns, vases, diamonds, busts of famous people in history and the ultimate prize the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. In order to find the formula Hiro hatches a plan to catch Daphne when she gets to her apartment. Hiro tells Ando about the future him, the one that he thinks kills him, and tells him that the reason he is making Ando participate in the trap is to teach him a lesson; don’t kill him and Ando tells him that he won’t kill Hiro as long as Hiro isn’t mean to him.

Daphne comes back to her apartment and Hiro tries to get the other half of the formula back by stealing her 1st place running medal, the thing he believes means the most to her. She does take the bait but ends up cutting Ando in the throat during the exchange making Ando believe that Hiro cut him. Meanwhile, Future Peter talks to Nathan about his actions and why he did what he did. Nathan is in a state of shock when he hears all of this because he doesn’t what to do, he asks what happens in the future Peter came from but Peter claims he knows what he needs to do to set things right. While later playing a game of chess with the ghost of Linderman Nathan decides that he should take the senate seat and hopes that he makes all of the right decisions this time, without the influence of anyone around him.

Claire goes back to being old Claire, she makes a tape of her getting hurt terribly to make sure that she is still human after her encounter with Sylar. She repeatedly steps in front of a train and lives to keep doing it; Peter stops her and tells about the future and how that event should have never happened. Claire pleads for him to help her learn how to fight but Peter says that he can’t be the one to do it. Nathan meets Tracy for the first time while he is praying in his room. He mistakes her also for Niki which she reputes and tells him about the governor and how both of them want to seat him as the junior senator from the state of New York.

Elle is seen next in her father’s office and she is pleading for his forgiveness, she wants him to know that she will be better and that she is sorry that Sylar escaped. She goes to check on her father because he isn’t saying a word and discovers that Sylar chopped his head off and took his ability. Elle instantly runs to Noah’s cell, the only man that can help her contain Sylar. Elle walks out of Noah’s cell and is instantly thrown up against the wall by Sylar. Noah carefully walks out of his cell with his gun raised and proceeds to shoot Sylar with five rounds of his gun. None of them stick because of his newly acquired ability from Claire, which Noah goes berserk about.

Sylar goes to take Elle’s ability but as he is about to cut the top of her head she lets out a large amount of electricity and shorts the circuit of the entire building letting go all of the detainees of Level 5, including Noah who is seen trying to put a couple of people into cells who couldn’t make it out. Elle watches over Sylar in his Level 5 cell as Angela comes up next to him. She is told that Angela is now the first in command at Primatech and that she will no longer be needed. Elle pleads with Angela that she has given her entire life to the company and she will have no place to go. Angela tells Elle that the only reason they kept her around was at the request of her father.

Noah is back in his home and tells Claire that he is going to hunt down the twelve people that escaped Level 5 highlighting some: Knox has the ability to turn other people’s fear into his own strength, Flint with the ability of pyrokinesis, The German has the ability to control magnetic fields and Jesse has the ability to manipulate sound waves. Claire wants to go and find all of the escapees and bring them back to Primatech but Noah says that it is too dangerous and brings Meredith to protect Claire and the rest of his family from any dangers that might arise.

Future Peter comes back to Primatech to see Angela standing in Level 5 after all of the detainees have escaped. Future Peter tells Angela that he stuck Present Peter in the body of Jesse Murphy, who Angela fears and tells Peter that he better find her son and get him out of his body. Four of the Level 5 escapees: Flint, Knox, The German and Jesse (Peter) are seen torturing a woman at a gas station and Peter calls Nathan from Jesse’s body to warn him about himself. After Future Peter leaves Level 5 Angela is seen going into Sylar’s cell and telling him that her other two sons have been such a disappointment and that her last son should make her mother proud. Sylar is revealed as a third Petrelli child.

Written by: Brendan G.

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