Review:

Watching "Homecoming" is a little like watching the Star Wars prequels. You know the ending; it's just a question of finding out how it ends, and what cool stuff is going to be thrown in along the way.

For the most part, the paintings gave it away: Peter showing up at Claire's high school; the locker doors; the blood-stained banner; Claire running towards the stands with an ominous shadow behind her. The only part not yet explained is the painting of Hiro and Ando standing underneath the banner.

I guess you could argue that the suspense comes from not knowing whether Claire and Peter are going to survive. But honestly, I can't see the show killing either one of them off. Mohinder, maybe, or Niki or Matt. But it seems to me like Claire, Peter, Nathan, Hiro and Micah will be the ones who make it to the end of the show's run.

Boy, am I going to look dumb when all of them are dead and written out by the series finale.

This episode again modifies the structure of the show: every character makes an appearance, with the notable exception of Matt.

*Sigh*

That said, many of those appearances by the characters are short, and contribute more to advancing the plot than to advancing their own character arcs. There are some well-written scenes for Claire and Mohinder, but the episode is essentially about providing a denouement to the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" tagline which had been rammed down our throats for the past five weeks. It's apparently also about throwing in as much blood, mangled limbs and sliced scalps as possible for the full effect.

Previously on Heroes ... "A new hero is discovered but meets a tragic fate." Yeah, rub it in, why don't you? C'mon, guys, don't waste a good character played by a good actress. Bring Charlie back.

In other recap-worthy news, "Peter solves the mystery of his destiny" (he DOES?!) and "a father will stop at nothing to avert catastrophe." Well, he's not "the face of evil" anymore. At least that.

The opening scene at Claire's school is pretty much lifted out of Mean Girls, but it's still nicely done: the cliques divide at the stands, with the cheerleaders gathering next to the jocks, the nerds poring over comic books (cool homage to Battlestar Galactica on one kid's T-shirt), and the goths with purple hair scaring the heck out of everyone else.

And Voice-over Mohinder is off: "We are, if anything, creatures of habit. Drawn to the safety and comfort of the familiar. But what happens when the familiar becomes unsafe? When the fear that we've been trying desperately to avoid finds us where we live?"

Uh, if you're Claire, you stab that fear through the neck with a two-foot steel rod and hope it won't come back to life. Or drive it into a wall at 100mph. Which, it turns out, is the springboard for the whole pariah angle this week.

The question is whether it fits in with the plot in a coherent, logical way, or whether it feels like it's been shaped and molded so that it fits the requirements of the plot.

The answer is both. It works if you assume, as I think we're intended to, that everyone found out Claire drove Brody into a wall, and, more importantly, that she intended to.

But then, if we're to make that assumption, the whole issue about WHY Claire drove Brody into a wall comes up, and you have to figure that if everyone KNOWS that the jock sitting in a wheelchair is an attempted rapist (as several girls could now confidently attest) it's not like they'd be marginalizing Claire for taking revenge on him.

Or rather if they did, they'd be branding her a psychotic attempted murderer.

As it stands, the only explanation we're given is that by putting their team's MVP in a wheelchair, Claire "annihilated any hope of [them] actually winning this game."

Again, it makes sense depending on how you look at it. If Jackie really is that shallow (and I really don't think she is), then the prospect of her school winning or losing a game is enough to decide whether she and Claire are BFFs or enemies. Alternatively, if Jackie really is as smart as she seems, she's ignoring the fact that her friend was involved in a near-fatal car crash, from which Claire mysteriously emerged unscathed, and using it as a pretext to alienate the cheerleader she's fiercely jealous of.

So either the success of the school's football team is enough to make Jackie hate Claire, or Jackie hated Claire all along and is now using the car crash as a reason to ridicule her former-BFF.

Which is probably reading further into it than the show wants us to, but my point is the rationale behind Jackie suddenly hating Claire is unclear, and it damages the believability of the story leading up to her death. It ends up feeling as if Jackie turned on Claire because the plot needed her to rather than because of a plausible justification.

That said, a lot of Claire's story thread this week works extremely effectively, with Claire finally accepting her fate as an outsider when her stable environment turns into a murder scene. In that respect - and this is a rare occurrence, so treasure it - this week's voice-over has some intelligible meaning.

Claire becomes Homecoming Queen. The nerds, goths and freaks gather to cheer her name and rejoice. Claire lets out a laugh of surprise and delight. Jackie calls them all "freaks" and looks like she's about to have an aneurysm. It's a bright and happy start to a dark and somber episode.

Meanwhile, in New York, Nathan and Simone meet at Isaac's apartment to inspect the painting retrieved from Linderman.

Read that last paragraph again. I trust you'll appreciate the absurdity, so I won't dwell on it; there are other plotholes this week which are more fun to dwell on. Suffice it to say, it's unclear why Nathan wanted to meet Simone at Isaac's apartment and inspect/destroy the painting, when Nathan doesn't seem to know (1) Simone, or (2) Isaac. It's not even clear whether he knows that Isaac's the artist.

It turns out that Nathan told Simone not to reveal to Peter that the painting had been recovered. You have to wonder how that conversation went. It must have been along these lines:

"Hello? Simone?"

"Who is this? Stop disturbing me! I'm getting my nails done!"

"Uh, this is Nathan Petrelli."

"The guy who invited me to the fundraiser and called his brother suicidal? You piece of despicable scum!"

[Hangs up phone. Phone rings again after ten seconds.]

"Hello? Simone? Don't hang up on me, OK?"

"Make this quick. My appointment at the salon is in fifteen minutes!"

"I have the painting Peter wanted. I understand you're the one who sold it to Mr. Linderman?"

"Yes, I did. Peter will be thrilled to know you got it."

"Actually, he doesn't know I got it, and I don't want him to find out."

"Why?"

"I just don't. So don't tell him."

"Er ..."

"Look, it's for his own good. I know he's your boyfriend, and I know I'm the villainous brother who's asking you to keep a secret from him. And I know you two share everything with one another, so asking you to do this is like asking you to stop being an inconsistent, whiny, egotistical, miserable little bi-"

"Hey, you know what? THAT'S IT! I'm meeting you at Isaac's apartment right away! And I won't say a word to Peter!"

"Alrighty, then. I'll meet you there. Thanks, Simone!"

So Simone gets to Isaac's apartment. They crack open the giant box containing the painting, look at it for a moment, and Nathan's all, "I don't get it. What is it?"

We don't see the painting, but it evidently involves Peter at Union Wells High School. Simone, just for the heck of it, tells Nathan about the theory that Isaac is clairvoyant, and that Peter thinks he needs to save the cheerleader and, by extension, the world. Nathan's like, "Riiiight." Simone doesn't seem to believe it any more than Nathan does, despite having been mightily inspired a while back by her father's words about Peter saving the world.

So Nathan pops open a can of black paint, throws the contents of the can across the painting, and tells Simone that by undermining Peter's "delusions of grandeur," he's in fact "saving his life."

As always, Adrian Pasdar enhances good writing with excellent acting. On the surface he's a meddling, unsupportive %*@#, but beneath that lies an inherent need to protect Peter from getting himself killed.

The genius, in the way it's scripted and the way it's delivered, is in the ambiguity. When Nathan asks Simone whether she believes Peter's crackpot save-the-cheerleader-save-the-world delusion, the twisted, sarcastic smile makes us hate Nathan. But at the same time, his motivations ring true, and they reflect genuine concern for his brother.

Meanwhile, "somewhere in the Nevada desert," Jessica practices firing a sniper rifle. We know it's Jessica because of the frilly 'S' on her right shoulder, but in case no one spotted it the caption makes it clear.

Jessica's made out to be evil because of the black shirt, the badass expression, and, naturally, THE RIFLE. The only thing which undermines this slightly is ... dangly earrings! Ali Larter's gorgeous whether she's wearing earrings or not. Just saying, would the alternate personality buying a sniper rifle in the desert be bothered about earrings? Niki would. Jessica wouldn't.

The rifle costs Jessica two grand. She throws the seller a wad of notes without bothering to count them, making us wonder whether Jessica knew it would cost her that much beforehand or whether she just threw him a couple of grand extra. More importantly, you have to ask why Jessica didn't just put a bullet through the guy's head and make off with the rifle. She's actually civil enough to pay him and finish the deal, proving that she's less of a vicious, bloodthirsty, man-hating she-beast who slaughters everyone in sight (as a lot of you on message boards make her out to be) and more of a cool and calculating killer who limits her violence to specific targets.

Jessica is forced to comply with the obligatory 'mirror reflection' interlude, only this time it's Niki in the side mirror of the van instead of Jessica. Niki has this look of concern on her face, one that doesn't say "Please don't hurt anyone!" so much as, "Hey, are you guys really more entertained watching this psycho than me running around helplessly?"

The sad truth is, we are. It's not that Ali Larter isn't playing both sides of the character superbly. It's simply that Jessica makes for a more compelling character because she takes charge of the situation and makes things happen, as opposed to screaming in terror when things inevitably happen to her. It's the same distinction that was made in the previous scene when Simone said she wasn't sure what to believe, and Nathan replied that he was. Part of Nathan's virtue as a character is that he's decisive. He acts like a b*****d most of the time, but he has a conviction about it which is admirable. Simone, by contrast, sums up her character when she says she doesn't know what to believe; the character, as she's portrayed, spends most of the time letting herself be thrown into situations rather than taking a stand and supporting the people she cares about. The first exception being this week when she helps Peter get to Texas, a hopeful sign that the character's arc might be improving.

Similarly, the decision to use Jessica in the story instead of Niki means the character's story thread could now have a chance to drastically improve. It doesn't this week, simply because it doesn't get the time to, but the potential is there.

D.L. and Micah drive up to the Cafe BBQ, which the caption tells us is "along HWY 12, Utah." There's another of those father/son scenes which manages to be poignant without becoming overly-sentimental. Micah's loyalty to Niki remains, and D.L. says for the first time that he still loves Niki. Which we sort of knew anyway, but it's worked into the script in a way which doesn't feel contrived.

A Batman reference finds its way into the dialogue before Micah takes off. This kid really is going to be the smartest, sneakiest superhero of the lot in ten years.

In Chennai, India, Mohinder is ranting about his dreams. Nirand tries to attribute the memory of Shanti to the grief Mohinder sensed as a baby, and the football kid to a previous encounter in his life.

At this point, I'm not sure who I feel sorry for more: Nirand, the character, or Shishir Kurup, the poor guy who plays him. Can you imagine what it must be like to listen to your friend raving like this? Maybe you can. Maybe you HAVE. Moreover, can you imagine what it must be like to play the character who listens to his friend raving like this? Maybe you can. Maybe you HAVE.

But even if you haven't, you can probably imagine that it's not much fun doing either.

So Mohinder's like, "These dreams were REAL!" And Nirand's like, "Yeah, whatever, can we skip to the next scene already?" And Mohinder's all, "No, wait! I have to uncover the truth! I have to find Sanjog Iyer and his stupid football!" And Nirand's all, "Dude, I get it. NOW can we move on?"

From a critical standpoint, this scene DOES manage to contribute something. It's basically the same set-up as Mohinder's earliest scene with Nirand in "Genesis": Mohinder's arguing some crazy-assed theory, and Nirand's trying to provide a rational explanation. It effectively brings Mohinder full circle, back to the character he was playing at the start of the show: the one determined to find the truth, the one determined to prove he's right. Which means he's finally moving beyond the intensely-sarcastic-and-skeptical phase and returning to the character he portrayed at the start.

Back in New York, Peter rushes to Isaac's apartment to meet Simone. He asks her what was so important that he had to meet her there. It requires another one of those imaginary phone calls.

"Peter! You need to meet me right away!"

"Simone? What's wrong? Are you OK?"

"[Sobbing] No, I'm not OK. I didn't make my appointment at the salon!"

"Well, darling, that's terrible, but maybe you can -"

"[Between sobs] Look, Peter, I need you to meet me at Isaac's apartment. It's important."

"Simone, what's going on?"

"I can't tell you."

"Is it about Isaac? Do we know where he is and if he's OK?"

"I can't tell you."

"Is it about his paintings? Do we know where they are?"

"I can't tell you."

"Simone. Darling. You're acting very mysterious. Why can't you just tell me what's going on?"

"Because it would detract from the dramatic impact, silly! Plus, it would make me seem like the kind of character who just says what's going on and doesn't hide things from the people she cares about or hide the fact that she knew her boyfriend's brother had the painting which was so important to her boyfriend but didn't say anything and now knows that the painting has been destroyed and still doesn't say anything."

"Geez, Simone, that sounds serious. Hang on, I'll be right there."

So Peter goes tear-assing across Manhattan to see what Simone's big secret is. Simone tells him that Nathan retrieved the painting. Peter's all, "Wow! Mega-cool!", and wants to see it. Then Simone, having raised Peter's hopes and anticipation to an unbearable level, finally brings them crashing down.

I know the writers on this show don't MEAN for Simone to come out looking this way, but she does. She really, really does. Tawny Cypress is a good actress, and she deserves a better-written character than this.

Peter's like, "Huh? I don't understand." Simone's like, "Nathan splashed paint on it to save your life!" Peter's all, "OK, don't panic. You saw it. DESCRIBE!" Simone's all, "The hell? I'm not describing anything! Especially since I've got a digital image of the painting stashed away in my designer handbag. What does it matter anyway? You actually believe this garbage about saving cheerleaders and saving the world?"

Peter sees the image of himself lying in front of Claire's high school at 8:12. He looks a little dead. Understandably, this knocks the wind out of him.

I know I tend to throw most of the acting praise at Oka, Coleman and Pasdar, but Milo Ventimiglia gets to play earnest and burdened this week, and it raises his performance immeasurably. He plays the resigned acceptance to his fate in this scene so well that it even gives Tawny a chance to shine. When she points out that if the painting's right he's going die, it's like a ray of hope that the character might grow. It's one of only two occasions when I've sympathized with Simone (the other being when Charles Deveaux died). Which isn't a reflection on Tawny's abilities; it's just rare that her character expresses a sentiment which rings true: she really is afraid that the painting reflects the future, and that the person she cares about is going to die.

Simone begs Peter not to go, but knows he's going to anyway, so she reveals that she's already booked a flight to Odessa for him.

Which is a wonderful thing for Simone to do, and darn, I feel like preempting Claire's words to Zach by asking "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NICE?!?" But when you realize that Simone planned this whole scene out, from Peter seeing the painting and Simone showing him the image to Peter resolving to go to Odessa in spite of her efforts to persuade him not to, it seems awfully calculated. Not Jessica-style calculated, but it definitely makes Simone out to be craftier than we thought.

Still, it makes her a tiny bit more sympathetic for helping Peter, and, more importantly, it defies the character we've seen so far: the one who had no clue what was going on, who didn't know what to believe, and who stood around while bad things happened to her.

Ando is still at the Burnt Toast Diner, stuck in the perpetual time bubble. Seriously, this is like the Montecito: is he ever going to escape? Peter calls Hiro's cellphone and Ando tells him that he and Hiro are already in Texas, not far from Odessa. "That's great!" says Peter. And it is. It's also incredibly convenient for the plot.

A small shrine is shown in a corner of the diner. A fellow waitress stands there trying unsuccessfully to hold back tears. Red candles burn. A framed picture of Charlie sits there along with flowers, her name tag and a Guest Check Pad with the words "We'll always remember you Charlie" written on it. It's an eerily accurate reflection of our own sadness that the character was so unfairly ripped out of the show after just one episode.

Meanwhile, also in Texas, a heroin-induced glazed-eyed trance-like state leads Isaac to paint … a fiery blaze with eyes! It looks like something Peter would paint. Daddy Bennet is not impressed. "It's useless! How is THAT supposed to help me find Sylar?" Isaac, now unconscious, resists the temptation to leap out of his vegetative state and scream, "Don't like it? Then YOU can shoot up and see how well YOU paint!" [From there, we cut to a scene between Daddy Bennet and Eden standing over a canvas and holding brushes and palettes: "You try!" "No, YOU try!" "You first!"]

Nora Zehetner again delivers a strong performance this week, conveying Eden's growing dislike of the way Daddy Bennet is handling the situation. One question which a lot of you posed is why Eden doesn't just work her coercion-whammy on Daddy Bennet. If she's not happy forcing Isaac to shoot up, why not just tell Daddy Bennet to forget that idea? Chances are she's too afraid to try, but given the immensity of her power, to the point where even Sylar can't oppose her, you wonder why she hasn't tried.

Eden sharply refuses to continue forcing Isaac to paint. Daddy Bennet shows her the recently-developed prints of Charlie's open scalp. He tells Eden he'll do whatever it takes to stop Sylar. For some reason, that excludes flying Claire to Fiji and convincing her to join the rugby union.

What!? I'm just saying. It's nicely hidden away, good climate, and invulnerability lends itself to certain professions.

Daddy Bennet switches to Plan B, which involves sending Eden to the place where blood gets sprinkled on banners and where locker doors fly. When the time is right, Eden is expected to "neutralize" Sylar and "take him out." This, we'll learn, doesn't involve whipping out stun guns or boxing gloves. Eden's power is cerebral. This show values mental power over physical conflict.

Although watching Claire deck Jackie is still fun.

Claire becomes the voice for the nerds, goths and freaks who fill the 'unpopular' quota of the school. This, it turns out, was the premise of Zach's strategy while campaigning for her. Claire, busy mutilating herself, never learned of his efforts until now.

So Zach's basking in admiration from Claire for making her Homecoming Queen and buying her a copy of "Activating Evolution" and generally being an amazing guy. It prompts Claire to make the incredulous observation, "You're being so ... NICE!"

At which point I stopped to make the following note: "Zach is evil, or he's going to die. Or both."

I hope I'm wrong. Not just because Zach's a likeable character, but because the implication this week that he's gay is something which is genuinely to the show's credit; the way Zach doesn't respond to the implication makes it ambiguous, but the prospect of keeping a supporting character on the show who happens to be gay, and who turns out to be gay without it becoming an issue, seemed like a very elegant way to do it.

Jackie shows up and asks whether "the gay boy" will be Claire's date to homecoming. Claire gives Jackie a black eye. Universal applause erupts across the nation.

It seems that no one is more delighted about this than Daddy Bennet, who now has a plausible reason to ground Claire. He probably would have thought of some other reason to keep her at home, but the unlikely coincidence here must mean Daddy Bennet's thanking his lucky stars for the way this turn of events fell out of the sky and presented itself.

We get a very short scene at Utah where Micah's about to hop a Greyhound and go explore the world, fixing broken payphones along the way. D.L. catches up to him and another moving exchange between them follows, in which Micah's bitterness about being abandoned becomes clear. The awesome part of this scene is the story possibilities it opens up now that everyone knows everything (bar Micah knowing about D.L.'s power to phase through objects). It's revealed that Micah knows about Jessica, and that this has been going on since D.L. first left. So WE now know that Micah knows, and D.L. now knows as much as Micah knows. Which hopefully sets up a situation in which D.L. can figure out how to subdue or eliminate Jessica and restore Niki.

Back in Chennai, Mohinder is on a mission to show his photo of Sanjog Iyer to every individual in the marketplace. Danger lurks in every corner; Mohinder's "fancy shoes," according to Nirand, make him a target. Mohinder becomes said target when he parts with 500 rupees to learn that the kid he's looking for is about 20 yards away, playing football. The edited portion to this scene involves Nirand and the swindler wrestling to the floor to decide who gets the 500 rupees. Needless to say, name-calling and hair-pulling ensues. The swindler wins.

So the kid watches a strange wide-eyed man approach him, kneel down and tell him, "You came to me in my dream last night." Instead of screaming and running away, the kid starts giving Mohinder the kind of cryptic drivel that's usually reserved for Voice-over Mohinder. "I don't come to anyone," he tells Mohinder, "they come to me." Mohinder tells Sanjog he has two paths, but isn't sure which to take. Sanjog tells him he already has the answer he's seeking. Mohinder's all, "Oh no you don't! That's not my 500 rupees' worth! Talk sense, kid! Talk right now or I'll run away with your football!" Now he know how it feels to listen to his voice-overs every week.

Ando remains in the Burnt Toast Diner. It's getting ridiculous. I mean, there's only so long you can stay in a diner without attracting suspicion. I get that the staff are giving him time to grieve (while he shells out a fortune on caffeine), but he wasn't THAT close to Charlie, and someone at the diner must seriously be wondering what's going on with this guy. In a moment which seems like a minor and incredibly subtle detail, Ando gets up to borrow another table's sugar dispenser. It turns out that this minor detail is the Important Plot Device designed to lead Ando to the photograph next to the shrine; the one with Hiro at Charlie's birthday party. A waitress tells Ando that Hiro and Charlie "were tight," and Ando's all, "What the...?", trying to figure out how the timeline works now.

In Odessa, Claire skips homecoming to read about spontaneous regeneration (oh, come on, that's not a bad trade!). Zach climbs to her window and urges her to defy Daddy Bennet by going to homecoming.

See, THIS is what people are thinking of when they say Zach must be evil. He said himself that he thought school spirit was beneath Claire, and that he only went along with it because it was important to her. Given that perspective, why would he now be stopping at nothing to ensure Claire goes to homecoming? He wouldn't, unless he

(1) wanted Claire to be found by Sylar and get her scalp ripped off,

(2) thought Daddy Bennet could use more of a reason to be furious with his daughter and forbid her to see those bad friends who tell her to climb out her window,

or (3) wanted Claire to find herself in another situation where she could punch Jackie's lights out.

The only way Zach's motives add up and seem half-benign is if you figure he's trying to help Claire maintain some semblance of normality. In which case he really is an amazing friend.

The conversation becomes profound. Zach starts talking about knowing who he is and liking who he is, but wishes Claire liked who she is. And Claire tells Zach that she realizes who her friends really are, "and that maybe being different isn't the end of the world."

It's great in one way, terrible in another. Great, because it removes the ungrateful, resentful side of Claire which annoyed so many viewers; Claire seems to accept her individuality and the way her ability singles her out, and it means we're less likely to see her complaining about her power the way she did in the premiere.

That said, it also removes the angle which set Claire's story thread apart from the others: the fact that she wanted to ignore her power. You could argue that Niki also ignores her power, but it's more that it controls her, whether she wants to or not. You could argue that Nathan ignores his power, but it's more that he's aware of it and consciously chooses not to use it.

Claire was unique on the show because she was the one character who wanted to deny she even had a power. She was the one character who was desperate to continue a normal life, even though she was curious about exploring her power. Her acceptance of that power takes that away, because it means she's now reconciled to her "inner freak." And in a way, that means Claire becomes less unique.

Ando stands outside the Burnt Toast Diner. We're rocked by this dramatic change. Peter shows up and meets Ando. Ando provides weighty exposition by recapping Charlie's death and Hiro's decision to go back in time. Peter shows Ando the image of Isaac's painting and says he's going to save the cheerleader. Ando's like, "Whoa, you must have a power too! Super-strength? Bending time and space like Hiro?" Peter grudgingly concedes that he doesn't have a power as such, but rather absorbs the powers of the people around him. Ando gets this bewildered look that says, "Huh? How lame is that!?"

Peter gets to don the trenchcoat, turn the collar up and make a broody exit out of the diner. Milo fans everywhere swoon in delight. He's so cool when he's meeting his destiny.

Mr. Muggles returns! And dog statues on the mantelpiece!

Sandra reveals that she watched Claire and Zach sneak across the lawn and head off to homecoming. Daddy Bennet looks like he's about to grab the staple gun from the study and fire a hundred staples into Mr. Muggles. He settles for tearing Sandra's copy of People magazine out of her hands. Presumably to read it himself.

Back in Chennai, Mohinder sits at the computer which never shuts down. His touch-typing is the fakest ever. At this point, you figure no one would let that get on the air ... unless, of course, it was a dream.

I knew it! Sanjog shows up and gives a cheeky smile. Mohinder's all, "Kid, I want you to make those 500 rupees mean something!" and goes running after him. Mohinder finds himself in a marketplace watching Papa Suresh debate the merits of his theories with Nirand. Nirand says he sounds "like a madman." Papa Suresh says he doesn't care, and would rather lose his tenure than give up his research.

We cut to the scene which, for me, went an enormous distance in redeeming Mohinder's portrayal. Now, finally, we learn how Mohinder read "Activating Evolution" and decided to support his father. We learn how Papa Suresh tried to push Mohinder away for fear that his son didn't have the prerequisite cold-hearted objectivity. We learn that Papa Suresh was trying to "protect" his son by forbidding him to follow his research.

Does it fix Mohinder's change in perspective in New York? No. If anything, the passion in Mohinder that we see here makes his incredulity in New York seem all the more implausible. BUT, this scene manages to establish how Mohinder went from admonishing his father for pursuing crazy theories to adopting those same crazy theories.

Mohinder wakes up, decides he WON'T quit the eternally-running software on Papa Suresh's computer, and discovers he needs to get past a password. Well, at least that. He figures out the password is 'Shanti', and a long list of names and locations appears on the computer, much to Mohinder's joy. Just think, for 500 rupees he could have paid someone to hack past the password and save him a lot of trouble.

Some of the names are in red: deceased. Others are familiar, like Nathan Petrelli. Fortunately, the sight of this name doesn't spark off another fit of disillusionment in Mohinder. Although I guess there's no telling when he'll change character again.

In Odessa, Peter shows up at Union Wells and starts looking around. He stops at the "JACKIE - YOU'RE OUR HERO!" case with a bunch of articles about Jackie saving a man from a train wreck. He figures, "Hey, that's gotta be the one!"

Peter and Claire meet. And I know a lot of you don't want to admit this, but the smiles between these two, the eye contact, the chemistry ... these two just connect. Is it romantic chemistry? Probably not. But between this and the dozen scenes we've seen between Peter and Simone, there's just no comparison. This scene was electric.

In this week's Unsolvable Predicament, Peter now has the crucial information he needs: a cheerleader named Jackie Wilcox needs to be saved, and she'll be on the field at half-time in about five minutes. Peter needs to decide whether to

(1) use the image of Isaac's painting to find the exact spot where he's supposed to die in twelve minutes, and stand there waiting for something to happen,

(2) go straight to the field, find Jackie and do the bodyguard routine,

(3) buy hot dogs and soda, grab a seat in the stands and enjoy the game,

(4) flirt with this gorgeous blonde he just met in the hallway [my preferred choice].

The plot requires Option (1), but I suspect Peter's leaning towards (3) and (4). Though not necessarily in that order.

Meanwhile, back in the hallway, the scalp-slicing fiend appears. And he's interested in the glass case with pictures of Jackie. Because apparently Sylar has no more of a clue about which cheerleader he's looking for than Peter. Does he have the same list of names that Papa Suresh had on his computer? If that's true, why would he see Jackie's name in the glass case and think she's the one he's after? Shouldn't he know that he's looking for Claire? Alternatively, is one of Sylar's abilities a sensor to detect superpowers in other people? He seemed to have an idea about who he was slicing when he de-brained Isaac and Charlie. For some reason, his super-power sensor is a little off tonight.

In the meantime, Claire and Jackie have a non-violent confrontation in the locker room which leads to Claire admitting that she was the one who saved the guy in the train wreck. And now her Jackass Mutilation tape serves a purpose: it's evidence. The profound discussion about identity resurfaces as Claire tells Jackie that she's tired of being someone she's not, and that honesty and happiness are more important than popularity.

The lights in the building go out, shadows dart across the walls and eerie music plays. Sylar grabs Jackie and slams her against a locker, lifting her several feet off the ground. Claire clambers onto Sylar's back and tries to pull him away, but gets thrown across the hallway and into a wall. It doesn't look too serious at the time, but it turns out that Claire's collision with the wall broke several of her bones and covered her in wounds.

Sylar, still assuming that Jackie's the invulnerable one, waves his finger in front of her head and telekinetically slices the scalp open. We get the blood-spattered Homecoming banner. It's morbidly cool. Gross, unnerving and horrifying, but also a very memorable shot.

Claire snaps her arm back into place while her hideously-deformed face insta-heals. Jackie demonstrates a final moment of benevolence when she tells Claire to run. Sylar? He can't figure out what the heck is going on, although it seems that ... maybe ... he just gave his scalp treatment to the wrong cheerleader.

Claire runs for her life. Sylar drops Jackie, but instead of running after her just stands there. Claire again bumps into Peter. Oh, come on, I asked for another scene with them together and you guys give me THIS?

Sylar catches up with Claire, even though she's been doing the 100 meter sprint while he's strolling at a geriatric pace. Peter works his hero charm telling Claire to run. Claire obliges. Peter stands at one end of the hallway, Sylar stands at the other.

The locker door painting comes true when Sylar telekinetically sends them flying towards Peter. Peter gets struck by three or four locker doors which are flying towards him with enough force to knock an average person onto the other side of the school. Peter bats them away as if they're feathers and follows Claire out of the building. I know it turns out that Peter absorbed Claire's abilities, but as far we know, her ability to regenerate doesn't include effortlessly deflecting heavy aluminum locker doors which are flying towards him at incredibly high speeds.

Daddy Bennet runs into the locker room and finds a blonde cheerleader lying on the ground with her scalp torn open. He immediately fears it's Claire. It turns out to be Jackie. Daddy Bennet tries not to convey his relief too obviously.

Claire runs out to the steps, followed closely by Peter and Sylar, recreating another of Isaac's paintings. It turns out that these steps are on the roof of the school. Peter persuades Claire to run away and leave him (again). Sylar goes from standing thirty yards away, patiently waiting for Peter and Claire to finish their conversation, to suddenly standing next to Peter. Seeing as Sylar seems to have no idea who has abilities and who doesn't, you wonder why he's wasting time with Peter. But they scuffle and fall off the roof of the school, landing heavily in front of the school entrance.

The clock in front of the school now says 8:12. There's a rather horrible pool of blood appearing beneath Peter. And Sylar's cap didn't even fall off when he landed. It's intense.

Time for the commercials!

Sylar disappears. Peter sputters back to life and channels Claire's super-heal to fix a broken leg and some severe wounds across his face. Claire bursts out the school door and watches this performance, wishing she could have added this to her Jackass Mutilation tape.

They trade names. I know they're covered in blood and recovering from just having their limbs mangled, but they're STILL cute together. And Claire now (perhaps wrongly) thinks that there's someone else out there like her, someone she can share her ability with. It's very moving, in a bloody, mangled kind of way.

Claire goes running towards the game and bumps into Daddy Bennet. They have a heartfelt embrace, and the prospect of Claire revealing her power to him now looms. You get the impression that the next two or three episodes are going to involve half the cast confessing a secret to the other half. A significant portion of that other half will admit they already know the secret, but half of that other half will now be a little more clued in. Which means everyone will be more clued in. Which means lots of characters can now move forward.

Sylar climbs a hill. Interestingly, it looks like he's limping, and the blood on his hands isn't insta-healing. Eden waits for Sylar at the top of the hill. One has to wonder whether Daddy Bennet would consider her punctuality in "neutralizing" Sylar satisfactory. It's a bit late to be stopping him now after he nearly killed Claire. Eden may not be the stuff that Primatech Paper Co. is looking for.

Eden works her coercion whammy and puts Sylar to sleep. The Haitian shows up and covers Sylar's eyes as he's collapsing onto the ground. Dude, that was SO helpful! How would Eden have survived this encounter without you?

Cops show up at the front of the school and arrest Peter, much to his chagrin after flying in to save a girl's life and scoffing at the ultra-heavy locker doors knocking him down along the way.

Mohinder watches a beautifully-shot sunset and resolves to return to New York. Mama Suresh asks him what he's going to do there. Mohinder's going to find the heroes and warn them, hopefully without getting the response he got from Nathan and turning cynical again. Mama Suresh takes Mohinder's hand and asks him whether anyone is going to protect him.

Yeah, Mohinder's a dead man. Not because his story thread is generally felt to be one of the least compelling on the show, but because the other characters seem to be finding one another, discovering their powers and realizing the danger they're in just fine without him. The sad fact is once Mohinder hands over his list of names to another of the characters, I honestly can't see how he's supposed to fit into the group. He's the guy who'll do the research and figure out how to approach every threat the heroes face, but as this episode showed, they can pretty much do that on their own. It leaves Mohinder's role redundant.

Micah admits to D.L. that he called Jessica. He neglects to mention that he did this by psychically repairing a broken payphone, but it's enough to scare the life out of D.L. We see Jessica aiming her rifle at D.L. and pulling the trigger. Chances are his ability to phase through objects will help the bullet to phase right through him, but it's still a strong cliffhanger.

Voice-over Mohinder can't let the episode finish without getting in a word: "We are all, at our cores, the sum of our fears. To embrace our destiny, we must inevitably face those fears and conquer them, whether they come from the familiar or the unknown."

Which sounds like the usual cryptic tripe, but sort of makes sense in an episode in which Claire, Peter and Mohinder all faced their fears and overcame them. That, I guess, is what makes this episode a masterpiece; it's a dramatic 40 minutes in which the cheerleader was saved, and in which the suspense of the plot building up over several episodes was brought to a stunning conclusion. Beyond that, it's an episode with wonderful thematic undertones about heroes accepting who they are and facing their destiny.

5 out of 5