Seven Minutes to Midnight (Heroes)

"Seven Minutes to Midnight"
Heroes episode
Mohinder has a surreal dream about Sanjog Iyer.
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 8
Directed by	Paul Edwards
Written by	Tim Kring
Production code	108
Original air date	November 13, 2006
Guest appearance(s)
James Kyson Lee as Ando Masahashi Jack Coleman as Mr. Bennet Clea DuVall as Audrey Hanson Nora Zehetner as Eden McCain Erick Avari as Chandra Suresh Jayma Mays as Charlie Andrews Matthew John Armstrong as Ted Sprague Lisa Lackey as Janice Parkman Stacy Haiduk as Elisa Thayer Shishir Kurup as Nirand Sakina Jaffrey as Ms. Suresh Kavi Ladnier as Mira Shenoy Zachary Quinto as Sylar Karri Turner as Lisa Javin Reid as Sanjog Iyer Josh Clark as Sheriff Davidson Ben Murray as Rufus
Episode chronology
← Previous "Nothing to Hide" Next → "Homecoming"
List of Heroes episodes

"Seven Minutes to Midnight" is the eighth episode of the first season of the NBC science fiction drama series Heroes.

Mohinder returns to India to scatter his father's ashes. He debates whether to return to his job as a college professor. His former girlfriend Mira invites him to interview for a job at a company doing genetics research where she has just been made a department head. However, she says he must not mention his father's research into the evolution of superpowers or consider continuing it. Moving into his father's office, Mohinder sees a running program on the computer; after pressing delete, an "are you sure you want to quit" message appears on the screen and Mohinder hesitates to select yes. Mohinder talks with his mother about her decision to let his father go to the United States to look for Sylar. His mother tells him for the first time about his sister, Shanti, who died when she was five, two years after Mohinder was born. Shanti was "special", according to her mother, and their father loved her so much that he was afraid Mohinder would find his love for his son wanting in comparison. Mohinder also has a series of dreams, depicting a young Indian boy who guides him to various scenes showing his parents arguing and showing his father's murder in his taxi cab by a man whose face was obscured, but was wearing a watch with a broken face, showing seven minutes to twelve (or midnight). After another dream where the boy was trying to get into a locked drawer in Mohinder's desk, Mohinder realizes the key in his father's journal was to that drawer, and opens it, finding a file titled "SANJOG, Iyer", containing a photo of the boy.

Continuing their journey to New York, Hiro and Ando stop at a diner in Midland, Texas, and meet a waitress named Charlie, who recently developed a near perfect ability to quickly memorize any information. As Hiro talks to Charlie, the man in the baseball cap who earlier had attempted to kidnap Molly from FBI custody — Sylar — is watching them talk. As he does so, he uses telekinesis to draw a cup of coffee to his hand from across the table. He also is shown wearing the same watch as the murderer of Mohinder's father, which also is set to seven minutes to midnight. Charlie is later found murdered in the diner's storeroom, with her brain removed in the same manner as Sylar's victims. Hiro tells Ando that he can prevent Charlie's death by going back in time to the day before and preventing her from going to work; however, Hiro fails to return five seconds after his departure, as he promised Ando he would. A worried Ando paces next to a wall of pictures, which he does not notice. One of the pictures, which before had shown Charlie with a birthday cake in the diner, now shows Hiro as well, implying that he went further back in time than just the day before.