1.17 Company Man

A slight flashback: Mr Moggles watches as someone melts the door latches on the Bennet home. Moments later, Ted and Matt enter. The original plan was a simple break and enter to search for clues, with a second plan to kidnap Bennet at the paper factory. When the entire family arrives home, Matt wants to leave but lets Ted convince him that now is the time. As Matt and Ted hold the Bennet family at bay, a flashback takes us 15 years into the past, where Mr Bennet is being welcomed into a secret organization whose role is to protect the world from mutating humans. Bennet meets his partner, Claude; purposely, mutants have been allowed into the organization, supposedly to keep everything above board.

Claire confides fully in Matt.

We flashback again, this time to the scene of the fire when Claire was a baby. Hiro’s father is revealed to be the head of the secret organization. He asks Bennet to raise the baby as his own, but makes it clear that the baby belongs to the organization, and if and when it manifests power, it will be handed back.

Matt’s conscience gets to him. To stop Ted from shooting Sandra, he bows to the thoughts of Mr Bennet and Claire and shoots Claire. Claire now know that Mr Bennet tried to protect her from being taken away. With Matt’s encouragement, she agrees to ‘play dead’. Matt convinces Ted to stop killing people for now. Matt will accompany Mr Bennet to Primatech to get proof of the abductions, while Ted stays with the family.

Flashback to Mr Bennet, revealing the first time Sandra found some evidence that he wasn’t a paper salesman. Bennet boss tells how the solution involves a newly discovered Haitian boy who can selectively remove memories. We meet the Haitian, still a boy at this time.

Matt agrees to Mr Bennet’s plan to tranquilize Ted.

Mr Bennet confronts The Haitian, demanding to know who he has told about Claire. The Haitian tells him no one else knows yet, but that this will change, and says he is following the orders of someone in Claire’s life.

Flashback seven years. Mr Bennet and Claude are heading for a mission. Claude has been hiding a hero, and Bennet has been assigned to kill him for breaching security. Claude doesn’t think Bennet will follow orders, but he is very wrong. Bennet fires a few rounds into Claude before Claude disappears.

Matt, Bennet, and The Haitian argue about the best way to proceed.

Claire tricks Ted and Lyle escapes, but Claire is captured. Sandra watches as Claire heals.

Ted is now highly suspicious of Matt and Mr Bennet, but when Bennet arrives with a thick file containing Ted case history, Ted accepts it. But just as tensions ease, Bennet boss arrives and shoots Ted. It starts a chain reaction that Ted cannot stop. Mr Bennet is unable to get close enough to inject Ted with a tranquilizer, so Claire takes over and is just able to make it. She emerges from the destroyed house, her body partially gone, but as she walks back to her family, she is already regenerating.

Bennet has been able to pin the blame for hiding Claire on The Haitian (or Bennet’s boss has just assumed that the Haitian is the culprit). Ted is now heavily sedated and is a prisoner of the organization. Bennet’s boss intimates that Ted will be studied and then killed. Matt is also being studied by Primatech, and possibly groomed to be Bennet’s next partner. Bennet’s boss asks when Bennet will be bringing Claire in. Bennet says, "I’ll bring her in now."

Mr Bennet is driving Claire somewhere, away from Primatech, away from her family, in one last effort to protect her. On the same bridge where Bennet shot Claude, he hands Claire over to The Haitian. As rehearsed, the Haitian then shoots Bennet and removes selective memories.

Flashback to Mr Bennet telling Claire that he is not her biological father.

Comments

Now we finally understand why Mr Bennet was so determined to hide Claire’s powers from the world.

This long scene is another good example of a well-structured plot, where who knows what (and who doesn’t) plays a big part in what happens.

This is an above-par episode, focusing on one scene and going a long way to creating an even deeper relationship between Claire and Mr Bennet, before an emotional ending of the relationship.

Memorable Moments

• Claire shifting loyalties from Mr Bennet to Matt and Ted

• The Bennet Family Group Hug

• Claire saying goodbye to Mr Bennet

Quotable Quotes

"I’m comfortable with morally gray."
- Mr Bennet

Claire: He’s not a paper salesman.
Ted: Guess she’s not Daddy’s Little Girl anymore.

Mr Bennet: Just do what I say and nobody gets hurt, and you -
Matt: Yeah.
Mr Bennet: Do what I think.

Mr Bennet: She wasn’t supposed to remember any of this. I gave you specific instructions!
The Haitian: I answer to someone whose instructions supercede yours.
Mr Bennet: In this company?
The Haitian: In your daughter’s life.

Claude: I was in your office when they told you to kill me.
Mr Bennet: Then why’d you get in the car.
Claude: Evidently, I think you’re a better man than they do.