Episode 8 – Once Upon A Time In Texas
Hiro goes back three years ago to Midland, TX, when Charlie was still alive and working in the Burnt Toast Diner. He has to steal clothes from a clothesline and change out of his hospital gown, but then a boy dressed in a cowboy outfit says that those clothes are his dad’s. Hiro tells the boy Petey about why he has to save Charlie, and what eventually happened to her. When Hiro points Sylar out at the diner, the boy thinks that the man must be a bad guy because he wears a black hat.
In the present, Samuel thinks that Arnold might die tonight and he lets Lydia know. They need another time manipulator so they have to bring Hiro over to their side. He injects Lydia with ink and sees Charlie, and Noah, Claire and Sylar are connected to Charlie. Samuel asks Arnold to take him back to three years ago to talk to Hiro.
Sylar and Charlie speak after Charlie brings him a cup of coffee. She sees that his watch is rare, and mentions that she really likes Wikipedia. Sylar realizes that she has an incredible ability and wants to understand it. Meanwhile, Samuel finds Hiro at the diner and asks to talk to him. Noah is also in the diner, speaking with a Company agent named Lauren. They talk about how frustrating it is that they have to keep their real jobs a secret from their families. Lauren seems to be the only person Noah can talk to about this, and Lauren wonders if Noah is flirting with her. She says that she booked a hotel room for the both of them, but Noah gets a call and leaves before he says anything else.
Hiro talks to Samuel and says that he wants to save Charlie, and Samuel warns that interfering in destiny is dangerous and wonders if Charlie is worth it. Hiro insists that she is. Just as Sylar is about to cut into Charlie’s head, Hiro freezes time and puts Sylar in the luggage compartment of a bus going to Odessa. He then goes to find his earlier self, telling him that he has to go back in time and fall in love with Charlie. The younger Hiro does so, and Hiro confirms that he’s in the photo of Charlie’s birthday party on the wall of the diner.
At Primatech, talks with Isaac about the paintings that he did of Claire. Noah asks Isaac where Sylar is but he doesn’t say anything. Lauren comes in, realizing that Noah didn’t tell her that he knew Claire was going to be attacked. She kisses him, but he ends up pushing her gently away. Lauren says that they’ll stop Sylar before he gets a hold of Claire.
Hiro talks to Samuel again and he says that he managed to save Charlie without therwise altering history. Samuel reminds him about Ando, and Hiro goes to Ando and tells him to wait for the earlier Hiro to come back before he leaves the diner. Then he goes to talk to Charlie, and offers to take her anywhere she wants to go. She says Otsu, Japan, and then she starts mechanically reciting everything she knows about Otsu, and then grows weak. She says she has a brain aneurysm and could die.
Hiro tries to find Sylar at the Odessa bus station, but Sylar attacks him. Hiro avoids him using his ability to free time, and Sylar realizes he has a tumor and can’t keep it up forever. Hiro pleads with Sylar to help heal Charlie, and that he knows Sylar’s future. If Sylar helps Charlie, Hiro can tell him how he will die. Sylar attempts to cut through Hiro’s head, but Hiro keeps freezing time before he can do that. Sylar agrees, returns to Midland, and removes the blood clot from Charlie’s brain.
Meanwhile, Claire walks to the homecoming rally with a group of the other cheerleaders and she sees her dad nearby. They talk for a while, and she asks him what he wanted to be when he was in high school. He says an English teacher because he’s always loved Shakespeare. Claire suggests that it could be a better job than at the paper company, but Noah doesn’t think he could still become a teacher.
Hiro then tells Sylar how he will die: he will have all the powers he seeks, but he will eventually die alone after others band together to stop him. Hiro then says they have their paths to follow, freezes Sylar, and takes Sylar back to Odessa so he can return to the correct temporal path and go after Claire.
Noah later goes to Lauren’s room and tells her that he can’t sleep with her. She asks him if he wants to still pretend or if he wants to be himself. He says that he wants to be able to tell his family everything in the future, but if he ends up sleeping with her, he can’t do that. He still wants to stop Sylar, and still needs Lauren’s help.
Ando talks to future Hiro and Hiro tells him to just keep waiting for him. Charlie says that she keeps thinking that she’s cheating death somehow, and she can’t see why Hiro let Sylar go so that he could kill more people. Charlie tells Hiro that he’s being selfish and walks away. Later, Noah receives a note from Lauren, saying that she had the Haitian erase her memory.
Hiro and Noah speak in the diner, and Noah wonders if he’s seen Hiro before. Hiro says that he might have lost his one chance at true love, and Noah is sympathetic and tells him good luck before he leaves. Charlie and Hiro then talk. Charlie says that she didn’t treat Hiro well, and Hiro understands that he’s being selfish. However, he thinks the world is a better place because Charlie is still alive in it. She tells him that she loves him and they kiss. When Hiro goes outside of the diner a second behind his love, he finds Samuel there and Charlie gone. Samuel explains that he’s taken Charlie to his carnival. Hiro grabs Samuel and teleports to the carnival immediately, regaining control of his time travel
Surrounded by the other carnival residents, Samuel tells Hiro that Charlie isn’t at the carnival. Hiro searches the grounds for Charlie but stumbles upon Arnold’s dead body instead. Samuel says that he asked Arnold to lock Charlie somewhere in time. And he’ll tell Hiro where she is if Hiro agrees to help him reverse the mistake he made of killing Mohinder Suresh.
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