Can we just take a minute to acknowledge how awesome the title of this episode is? A moment. Okay…

Tonight on Heroes Reborn, there’s still no HRG in sight but the first wave of Human Extinction is upon us the night before 11:18am. Hachiro is under Erica’s watchful eye. Nearby, Tommy tells Emily to get her Gateway watch (which everyone heading to the future through Tommy’s power & Erica’s science needs to have on) before he heads into Erica’s lair to begin sending people to the future.

During a break from all of this heavy duty work, Tommy overhears directors talking about saving at least 12,000 people. Angry at the news that not everyone will be saved, he disappears. It’s hard to believe Tommy was this naive to think that everyone would make it. But…okaaaayyy.

He runs outside in his tantrum and sees his mother being escorted away but he escorts them both to the future so that she can see what it’s become. She says she has faith in him to fix the future. Nothing like a mother’s reassurance. Even if it’s corny or something we’ve already heard before. He needed to hear this at just this moment. They head back to the present day where she can hide and he can go on his mission to save the world.

Meanwhile, Ren appears at Gateway and finds himself getting his Gateway watch. In the lobby, he bumps into Emily. With a key to the secret floor in the elevator that he didn’t know he had until this moment (aww, the Heroes symbol!), Ren leads Emily to Erica’s floor and they find Hachiro being attacked. What was that? Was he murdered or just knocked out with whatever needle was put into him? I don’t know but either way, it’s not good.

Onto the next though. Malina and Luke have backseat passengers in Phoebe and Quentin and somehow they end up out of the car and in the woods, separated. Quentin ends up giving a gun to Luke, realizing his sister is gone (mentally) and he needs to pick a side. About time, Quentin. That wasn’t an easy decision but better late than never, especially in this instance. Malina, Luke, and Quentin head to the high school (Claire’s former high school) where everyone is heading for safety. With a news crew nearby, Malina takes off her hood and uses her power, Luke hoping this will catch Tommy’s attention, so that they can tell him to help and hurry.

Micah and Farah see Malina on TV while on a pit stop and Micah broadcasts the message in hopes that it will get to Tommy. Luckily, Tommy’s mom’s phone was on the news as he was talking to her (lolololol yeah right) and he got the message. Next stop? High school. Unfortunately, Erica’s people saw the message too and sent their newest minion, Joanne after her…

I’m jumping back and forth between characters here. So. Matt. He brings Taylor to Erica at gunpoint and uses his power to make Taylor bring his gun to her head, wanting Gateway watches for himself, his wife, and child. Erica stresses that was the deal only if he fulfilled his end of the deal. He reveals that Taylor is with child (which we later learn is an evo child). It looks like Erica hands over not three but an entire rack of watches for good measure. So she isn’t exactly the wicked witch of the west. Good to know the future isn’t worth having without her daughter. If only the feeling were mutual. I believe Taylor’s exact words to Erica after Erica suggested they start over were “I’d rather die than go on living in an empty world with you.” Yikes.

Making this even more heart wrenching was the flashback of Erica, her dying father, and an evo doctor who can bring him back to life – if she sleeps with him. Cue the eye roll. Some people are such perverts. And to stoop even lower as to involve a dying loved one as well. My goodness. Taylor is the result of this rape. Only when Taylor is a sick child and Erica is forced to call upon Doctor Evo’s help again does she kill him (Go, Erica!) after he (heals Taylor and) threatens to take Taylor away. Powerful storytelling here. Wow. So much has been said here in such a small amount of time to tell this story. I don’t even know where to begin to dissect this and part of me hates that rape is the storytelling device here and part of me loves how well it was executed. Anyway…

Back to Matt for a moment. It’s really poetic justice how he did everything that he did for his family only to get into a car accident on the way home to them as a pole came down, forcing his car to tumble down a cliffside right by a river, where the two Gateway watches float down the stream, Matt himself stuck in the car with his cracked Gateway watch. Oh, Matt! I didn’t want him to die. I understand why. It’s still so, so sad how far left his character went. How much he thought he needed to do to be on the winning side. How far he had to convince himself that he was doing the right thing to be on what looked like the winning side. Oh, Matt.

Finally. The high school. Micah, Farah, Jose, and Carlos have made their way there just as everything is going down. The final showdown so to speak. Joanne spots Malina and tries to stop her but Jo shoots twice and in the exact instance after, Luke kills Jo with his power. Literally in one shot of fire, she turns into a pile of burnt ash. Whoa! That was pretty cool. Sad. But the bomb to see. After the initial shock of Malina being hit, we discover that Farah used her invisibility power to shield Malina. Her duty. Fulfilled. Beautiful. So beautiful! Everything is really coming to an end here. Cue the tears.

So much happened in this episode. Many died or are dying. Many stepped into their calling to be heroes. We saw our villain be the hero she thought she needed to be as a teen and we see how that decision affected the rest of her life. There was so much to appreciate from this episode. So much to think about. I probably missed so many subtle things, I always do and I can’t wait to watch this again and see more than I did before because…wow wow wow. What an episode. Now I’m hating that this show came back because the finale is next week and then the world of Heroes will be ripped from us again.

What did you think of this episode?

Watch the series finale of Heroes Reborn Thursday at 8/7c on NBC.