Played By: Greg Grunberg
Ability: Telepathy
Age:

A "beat cop", a man of the streets, Matt can get into people's heads - litterally - and can hear their thoughts.

Known Relatives: Janice Parkman (wife), unborn child

What We Know

Episode 1x01 - "Origins"

• Matt Parkman did not appear in this episode.

Episode 1x02 - "Don't Look Back"

• Matt is on duty and on the scene of a double murder in Las Angeles when he starts to hear the faint sounds of a little girl talking in his head.
• Matt follows the girl's voice inside the house where the murders took place and find a little girl hiding in a room under the stairs.
• When questioned by his superiors about how he found the girl he starts to realize that he can hear other people's thoughts.
• When he drops the name "Sylar" he is arrested because no one outside of the small investigation should know the name.

Episode 1x03 - "One Giant Leap"

• An agent is interrogating Matt Parkman. The agent is not convinced his mind reading powers allowed him to find the hidden girl and demands a demonstration. Matt obliges by picking up her feelings that no one believes in her. She’s convinced and offers him a job.
• Matt and the agent walk through the building. The agent wants him to use his power on Molly Walker, the girl he rescued. She’s been traumatized mute. Sylar has killed before, impaling people with household objects, breaking bones without leaving evidence of physical contact, and occasionally adding mutilation of the head or neck. She’s convinced Sylar has done them all, and that it’s going to get worse.
• Matt and the agent step off the elevator into a hallway with dim lights flickering. They have kept the girl down here for safety, but her screams tell them it didn’t work. They round a corner and see Sylar dragging the girl away, but he bolts when the agent pulls her gun. The girl’s guard is dead, pinned to the ceiling with a chair. The agent gives chase while Matt stops to calm the girl, responding to her thoughts. She doesn’t know how Sylar found her.
• Sylar reaches a dead end. The agent levels her gun at him as he turns around. She suddenly points the gun at her own head and struggles against pulling the trigger. Matt appears on the scene and pumps seven bullets into Sylar. Sylar and the agent both drop. Matt turns to make sure the agent is alright, and doesn’t see Sylar get up again. By the time Matt turns around again, Sylar is gone.
• Matt’s wife is going over papers on the bed when Matt arrives. He starts to tell her about his day, but she doesn’t want to hear it. He missed their marriage counseling session when the FBI arrested him. His wife had recently gotten a promotion to associate, and her success contrasted against his failure on the detective’s exam has stressed their relationship. He tries to apologize, but hears her thinking she wants him to leave. He does, leaving her confused.
• Matt drinks at a bar in Los Angeles and eavesdrops on the thoughts of the patrons of the bar. He focuses on a serious-looking man near the back who happens to wear the Symbol on a chain around his neck. Thoughts go silent as Matt concentrates on the stranger. Suddenly awkward, Matt breaks his concentration and gets up. The room reels around him dizzily, and he passes out.

Episode 1x04 - "Collision"

• Collision opens with Matt Parkman, after he's passed out in the bar, he wakes up to find himself in a utterly blue room with Claire's father standing over him. Matt is unable to read Claire's father's thoughts because of the mysterious man that he saw in the bar earlier. The mysterious man is ordered to "go deep and clean [Matt] out" after Matt overhears a stray thought about Claire. However, we are unsure of what this means, and we don't see Matt again in the episode.

Episode 1x05 - "Hiros"

• Janice Parkman is on the phone trying to find out where her husband has gone when Matt groans and sits up on the couch. Janice hangs up and throws the phone at him. Matt thinks he drank too much and passed out on the couch. He heads to the kitchen for some aspirin while Janice tells him he’s been gone for a whole day. The precinct told her that he was working with the FBI, and it’s news to her. She demands to know where he’s been, but he can’t remember. She’s been awake all the time he was gone, worrying. That surprises him because she’s hardly spoken to him outside of their therapy sessions. To him, it’s a good sign.
• Matt quietly orders a fancy meal over the phone. Janice approaches as he hangs up. She’s upset that he’s not at work. They haven’t been getting along well lately, and Matt’s missed her. He voices her opinions of him as picked out of her thoughts: that he’s lazy and all he does is mope. He’ll try harder. He’s made plans for the day, and they’re both calling in sick. Janice doesn’t resist much when Matt sends her back to their room to dress again in something fancy.
• Matt finishes setting the table when Janice enters the room. She’s astonished to see what’s laid out for dinner. Matt’s obtained her favorite wine, entrée and music, picking her preferences out of her mind. She accuses him of being with another woman: first he vanished for a whole day, and then he showers her with affection. Matt’s hurt. Janice says it’s been their best day in a long time, Matt finishing her sentence with her. It’s the first of many. Janice climbs into his lap and makes clear that they have plans for the evening.
• Matt and Janice take a break after some serious passion. He’s been using his ability to read her desires, but all she wants now is to sleep for a week… and some coffee ice cream.
• Matt grabs a couple of bucket of ice cream and heads for the register. A headache strikes, painful enough that he stops a moment and shakes his head. Thoughts of those around him grow louder. He grabs some aspirin at the counter and is about to check out when he hears the thoughts of a man planning to hold up the store. Matt focuses on each of the customers, hearing their thoughts until he zooms in on a punk eyeing the register nervously. Matt approaches him to talk. Matt knows what he’s got planned. He knows about the gun in the punk’s pocket, but he also knows that robbing the store would ruin the kid’s life and the handful of twenties in the register wouldn’t be worth it. The kid’s got people waiting for him at home, and all he has to do is put the gun down and leave. After a moment’s indecision, the punk sets the gun on a shelf and bolts for the door. Matt picks up the gun. Immediately those around him begin to panic, thinking that he’s a robber. Matt tells them he’s a cop, but their panicked thoughts make his head pound and his sight blur. Overwhelmed, Matt passes out.

Episode 1x06 - "Better Halves"

• Matt does not appear in this episode

Episode 1x07 - "Nothing to Hide"

• Matt and Janice look very happy. Janice loves how they have been getting along lately. Matt doesn't want to ruin the mood, but mentions that he feels that they must be honest and is about to tell her about his ability to read minds. Ironically, this ability reveals a secret that Janice has kept hidden. "He knows...I thought I was so careful." Matt eyes Janice but Janice just slaps on a insincere smile. "What did you want to tell me?" she says. Shocked about what Janice's stray thought could mean, Matt changes the subject. "Nevermind."
• Sylar has struck again. Audrey takes Matt to the morgue where she shows him a charred body that is emitting a massive amount of radiation. The only thing found on the body was a fingerprint seared to the bone. A match comes up for the fingerprint: Theodore Sprague of Los Angeles, California.

• Audrey and Matt arrive at Sylar's house and smell something burning. Behind a charred door, they find a room that's been melted with heat and is filled with massive amounts of radiation. Matt finds chemotherapy drugs prescribed to Theodore's wife, Karen, making him suspect that Theodore isn't Sylar after all.
• Audrey and Matt find Ted in his wife's hospital room. Ted says that he didn't mean to kill her doctor, but he can't control himself when his emotions flare. When Audrey says they're taking him to the station, Ted grabs a nurse and threatens to explode and take out the whole city like an atomic bomb. Matt hears his wife's thoughts and repeats them aloud: "Don't do this, Ted... you never listen. You're too damn stubborn." Ted lets go of the nurse revealing terrible burns on her arms. As Audrey moves in for Ted, Karen passes away with the thought that she will remember her time with Ted forever.
• Matt calls his wife and leaves a message that they should be open and honest and that he doesn't want any regrets – if she needs to tell him something she needs to do so now. Back home, Janice listens as Matt leaves the message on their machine.
• Back at the police station, Matt tells his partner that he's retaking the detective test and the officer thinks that this time he'll get it. Matt then overhears his thoughts: he's sleeping with Janice. Matt punches his partner, knocking him down, and other cops have to pull matt off.

Episode 1x08 - "Seven Minutes to Midnight"

• Audrey finds out that Matt punched out Detective Tom McHendrey is upset. She is concerned about Matt getting suspended. Seeing how upset Matt is she then asks if he at least deserved it. Matt nods. He definitely did.
• Audrey is frustrated with the Sylar case, 3 months ago she had a normal life until the Sylar case came to her. Since Ted was ruled out as Sylar, now there was three people in her life with abilities that she does not understand. Shocked, Matt interjects, "Do you think I am one of them?" Audrey doesn't know what to think. Matt doesn't have the answers she wants. So that leaves Ted.
• Audrey and Matt question Ted, who is upset that he was allowed to attend Karen's funeral. Audrey wants answers, and Ted wonders why Matt can't just get them out of his head. She mentions that she needs them for the record.
• Seeing that Ted is dangerously upset, as he makes a glass of water boil (which caused the radiation meter turn red), reads Ted's mind. It is revealed that Ted too had an account with mysterious stranger who Ted describes as a "Haitian student". He then lost memories from a two day period and woke up with cuts and bruises just as Matt suggested and experienced. Ted shows Matt the two marks he has on his shoulder. Startled, Matt shows Ted indentical marks. Audrey is upset that she was out of the loop. Matt informs the two of them that he told no one about this before, not even his wife. The two discuss their stories with the Haitian. Both Matt and Ted suggest that they were changed somehow and want answers. "Find the Haitian!" Ted shouts.


• Matt and Janice talk. Matt admits that he punched Tom, and Janice admits that she slept with Tom. Matt askes if the affair is over. Janice says it is and then asks if she and Matt are now over. Matt says that he doesn't know.


• Matt and Janice's talk is interrupted when Audrey calls. Ted has escaped from Homeland Security custody.