Review:

Welcome, dear readers, to Volume Two of Heroes, and to a second season of reviews from HeroSite.

You don't need me to state the obvious here: this was one monstrously detailed episode. As such, it demands a review of monstrous proportions. Between the fact that the episode clocks in 10 minutes longer than usual and the fact that it's a season premiere and that there's ALWAYS a crapload to cover in a season premiere, the inevitable consequence is that we're going to gloss over the pleasantries and plunge right in. If you need to pee, do it now.

Long story short: this episode didn't suck. I have nothing but praise for the way the Petrelli arcs were handled, and the Kensei story (for the most part) worked fine. The rest of it wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't particularly remarkable either. It served as an introduction to new viewers and a reintroduction to fans who joined last season, and did a solid job of setting the new story up. That said, there are some problems with the way the character arcs are set up, particularly the Parkman and Bennet arcs. We'll get to that.

We start out with the opening from last season: the globe, the eclipse, the logo, the Shenkar vocals. Before I go any further, I just need to say,

IT'S BAAAAAAAAACK!

V.O. Mohinder rambles on about "a new dawn," and "the debt" which us poor saps owe the supers for saving a city from exploding. And how the supers walk among us and are brought together by destiny to do extraordinary things.

The crazy thing here? This voiceover actually made sense. Within the context of the previous season and the finale and the way the characters are now trying to get back to their previous lives, this resonates. Kudos to whoever finally managed to write V.O. Mohinder some intelligible material.

The other thing is that this opening killed about a dozen birds with one stone. It recapped the essential moments needed to grasp the story: Matt finding Molly, Future-Hiro meeting Peter on the subway, and Peter turning nuclear and Nathan flying him into the atmosphere before he exploded.

We also got a bunch of clips from forthcoming episodes: Monica's there for a moment, so is Noah backhanding a white-haired guy, so is unbearded Nathan running onto the Rooftop of Pigeonly Delight in the snow.

And on top of the "Four Months Digested" and the extended trailer, there's also V.O. Mohinder's dialogue overlapping with Regular Mohinder's lecture in Cairo, to the point where the voiceover pretty much segues into the lecture and we don't know what's directed at us, the audience, and what's directed at the audience in the lecture hall.

In under two minutes, the show managed to recap, elaborate, reintroduce, and preview. Well played, editors.

CHAPTER ONE
"FOUR MONTHS LATER..."

And BAM! Straight into a new story: the superhero virus.

Mohinder's projector throws up an image of The Map. You'll note that the image of Mohinder's map has a LOT of pushpins and strings across it. We can conclude that the time Mohinder figured out how to make a new list has yielded quite extensive results.

Mohinder's new best friend walks in, and it's STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY! Ned Ryerson! You know, the salesman in Groundhog Day who suckered Bill Murray into buying every kind of life insurance ever invented so the guy would shut up?

Mohinder's lecture draws to a close. There are about 10 people in a hall which looks like it could hold a few hundred. Oh, Mohinder.

Ned tags along as Mohinder leaves, praising his "inspirational" lecture. Wow, so those last 15 seconds weren't just inspiring, they were inspirational. Ned sure knows how to blow sunshine up Mohinder's ass.

It's kind of hilarious how, even though Mohinder obviously suspects he's working for The Company, he still gives him an autograph before grabbing him by the jacket and pinning him to the wall. The show seems to be trying emphatically to convey the distance its characters have covered in one season. We've gone from a Mohinder who bails out of cabs and runs for his life to a Mohinder who grabs strangers by the jacket and pummels them. And who gives autographs to members of The Company.

"A year ago I would've run -- BUT NOT ANYMORE!"

You go, Mohinder!

Ned offers Mohinder a job.

Mohinder: "I've been down that road before -- it doesn't end well. In fact, it ends with the Dumb As Mohinder Award from that Otis Barkley dude over at HeroSite."

OK, maybe he doesn't say that. It was probably in the first draft and cut for time.

Side note: this season, Mohinder gets a chance to redeem himself. I'm scratching his name from the award and making it a generic Dumb As Award until one character wins it on five separate occasions. The first character to commit five incredibly dumb actions will earn this season's Dumb As Award. Actions (or inactions) which qualify include: a character being too dim to think of a blatantly obvious solution, being too slow to realize what's right in front of them, and repeatedly demonstrating an unacceptable degree of naivety or short-mindedness. Whatever it is, you name it, I'll count it. If I miss one which you think qualifies, let me know, and I'll include it in the following week's review.

Ned tells Mohinder that he found a copy of "Activating Evolution" in the parapsychology section. It's got to be embarrassing to hear that Papa Suresh's magnum opus is stashed between hypnosis and alien abduction, but let's keep in mind that this book was no bestseller, and making it all the way to a bookstore in Cairo is in itself an achievement.

Ned points out that the least Mohinder can do is let Ned buy him a drink.

Wait for it ...

"Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right?"

Oh, come on. Was shooting on a tight schedule that day? Or is it just that Groundhog Day jokes were outlawed?

In San Cristobal, Honduras, Maya and Alejandro evade a cop car -- which, you'll note, is a Nissan. Product Placement #1.

The yellow subtitles were a neat way to offset the Spanish subtitles from the Japanese, and Dania Ramirez and Shalim Ortiz both make their characters likable and sympathetic.

If there's a but, it mostly relates to the whole "Maya-is-the-new-Niki" debate. Maya and her brother go to incredible lengths to find Papa Suresh, so I'd have to give props to the way they're portrayed as pro-active when it comes to putting a stop to the trail of bodies Maya's leaving behind her. That's sort of what sets Maya apart from Niki: she's fighting to overcome her predicament, as opposed to giving in to the whole "I'm-so-afraid-and-I-don't-know-if-I-can-go-on-because-it's-all-just-too-much-for-me-to-bear" thing. The way it ties directly to Mohinder's research into the virus, it also looks like Maya will integrate into the main story more easily than Niki did last year.

"Claire & Noah Bennet."

That looks so weird. I'm going to run with it and call the guy "Noah," but I can't guarantee the occasional "Daddy Bennet" won't slip in.

"You should be excited. I am!" Aww. And double-aww when you realize the soul-destroying environment Noah works in. It's unclear to me how Claire's only just starting school while Noah's been working at Copy Kingdom long enough to establish himself as an uncooperative slacker. Has Claire already joined another school? Or has it just taken this long for the administration departments to sort Claire's paperwork out? Not a big deal, but the gap in the backstory made me wonder.

"Wading into the shark-infested waters of 11th grade."

That's really, horribly, unforgivably bad dialogue. I choose to believe someone as talented as Tim Kring is incapable of writing a line as hackneyed as that, and that instead someone at NBC insisted on these particular words going into the script.

What was so "sophisticated" about the students here? All I saw was the camera zooming in on a really tall brunette with a striped top and ginormous sunglasses. Did I miss something? Whatever. Let's call this place Sophistication High.

James Kyson Lee is now a cast regular. Congrats to the actor. Well-deserved.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT #2.

"The Rogue? BEST DAD IN THE WORLD!"

Buy a Nissan Rogue! You too can be

[ ] popular in high school;
[ ] an inconspicuous member of the crowd;
[ ] one of the masses whose car finances a show in which environmental damage necessitates rapid evolutionary advancement;
[ ] responsible for a shameless attempt to plug a car on a drama which last season created a beautiful father/daughter dynamic, and which this season implies that buying a car for your daughter will make her love you more than taking a bullet to the abdomen.

^ ^ Please tick where appropriate.

If you can get over the product placement, Noah contemplating the number of times he said goodbye to Claire on the first day of school is kind of moving. My problem is the product placement pulled me out of the scene so hideously that it made me want to shout at my TV. I get that the show needs to promote the car if it doesn't want to bankrupt itself, but this really wasn't the best moment for it, and this wasn't the best way to slip it in. Maybe, as the season goes on, the show won't preface every thoughtful and well-acted character moment with a Nissan plug.

Claire runs across the road and nearly gets run over by Larry Fouch. It's one delightful little Bring It On/Election community.

Hiro lands outside Kyoto, as per the end of last season. One of the soldiers on horseback even has a giant, extremely fake-looking white beard. Nice way to tie the story to the Yamagato Fellowship documentaries.

The eclipse was beautifully put together. Major props to whoever came up with the shot looking up at the eclipse as the arrows come down. Probably the most visually stunning moment of the episode.

Hiro freezes time and walks over to Kensei on his horse. Was this one big backdrop? I couldn't tell. I know the cast usually just stand really still when they shoot these scenes, but the horse?

Hiro sees the symbol on Kensei's sword, twigs that this might be his childhood hero, and bows. To a dude who's frozen in time on his horse. That kills me. Again, I'd love to know if that was in the script or a Beeman/Masi make-it-up-on-the-spot stroke of genius. The fact that little touches like this in Masi's scenes always come up in Beeman's episodes makes me wonder.

Hiro adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose, and I guess someone finishes ticking off the items on their "Hiro's Awesome Mannerisms" checklist. The amazing part is that none of these details felt overplayed, and not even Hiro's exuberance this week felt overdone. This brought back all of the charm and subtlety of Hiro's scenes at the start of last season, to the point where it felt like Hiro was ready to take back the show he pretty much owned at the start of last year. More of this, please!

Then we get to Matt's first scene.

Matt: "I know this sucks ..."

Keywords: This sucks.

"... NYPD showing up at your door like this ... This is what happens when you take somebody hostage!"

Well, he'd know.

I really don't know if Matt's promotion was meant to bug viewers, or whether we were meant to cheer while Matt aced the exam. Matt stands in front of two people, can't decide which one's the hostage and which one's the hostage-taker, uses his ability to hear their thoughts, and puts a bullet in one of them. The question here is what would happen if Matt found himself in a situation where he didn't have time to use his ability. Maybe Matt would have reached the same conclusion about the hostage-taker; he mentions eye contact and tone of voice to Boss Detective, so it's a possibility. But the gist is that Matt's fumbling to explain how he figured it out, and that if he hadn't had time to use his ability, he'd have been %*@#ed.

So, last season, Matt's arc involved him winning over his wife by fooling her into thinking he was this incredibly sensitive and intuitive stud -- which was a lie. This season, Matt's arc apparently involves him using his ability to make life-or-death decisions, then fooling his colleagues and superiors into thinking he can work through a crisis by assessing people's motivations and applying astute observations skills -- which, again, is a lie.

Keywords: This sucks.

Not because of the character or the plot, but because the circumstances leading up to this development portray Matt as a fraud. How much cooler would it have been if Matt identified the hostage-taker WITHOUT resorting to his ability? How much more would that have said about Matt and the way his awareness of people around him has benefited from his ability?

Let me stop for a moment to say -- character-related objections aside -- this scene was AWESOMELY shot. We get the same bird's-eye overhead camera shot that was used for Matt in the alternative pilot: the camera follows Matt through the apartment and into the hallway outside. Very cool.

Matt: "I've wanted to be a cop my whole life -- four bullets to the chest aren't gonna change that."

I know we're going to find out what happened as the season goes on, but come on. Unless there's someone like Linderman out there who can work the be-superhealed whammy on Matt, there's no way he'd be in the field four months later -- TWO MONTHS BEFORE HIS SIX-MONTH SUSPENSION FINISHES.

But let's watch Matt get his badge and feel good about himself. What a guy.

Sarcasm? You bet -- soak it up!

Sophistication High. Bunsen burners and Darwin. What a great curriculum!

Let's fry a hole in the palm of our hand!

*PING!*

This season's first Dumb As Award goes to Claire Butler. Noah would be so proud.

Fouch parks his ass next to Claire and introduces himself as West, then starts off on the whole "One of them/One of the others/Robots/Aliens" spiel.

I need to credit Nick D'Agosto for doing the best he could with some thankless material. The guy looks like he's trying hard as hell to make his character likable. The problem is the character ISN'T likable. He's not suave or witty so much as self-assured and arrogant. This dialogue? It was good. TOO good. This dialogue felt SO polished and SO well-thought-out that it makes West look like the kind of jerk who'd read a line like this somewhere and then rehearse it so that he could use it on unsuspecting girls in class.

Which, in turn, makes him look like a smug, phoney %*$#@.

Matt and Mohinder are Molly's foster parents.

Do take a moment to let the hilarity of that sink in.

Let's assume Matt's hospitalized butt was deemed foster-father material.

Let's also assume Molly had no immediate relatives in the Walker family and that social services figured a convalescing ex-cop who found her at the scene where her parents were murdered was the guy to take care of her.

Let's also assume that there wasn't any objection from anyone in child services when Matt decided to take Molly to the East Coast to live in a friend's apartment, even though said friend was jetting around the world and the ex-cop wasn't even sure he'd work in law enforcement again.

The reason I bring this stuff up is because there's a damn good reason the show pulled the scenes in "Don't Look Back" where Niki squares off with social services. Sci-fi/fantasy shows need their audience to suspend disbelief, and bringing up a situation which is rooted in reality and should have very real implications makes that impossible. From start to finish, this plot development could not have happened.

Let's say you buy it, though. Matt and Janice are now divorced. Janice's choice? Probably. I'm not sure he could blame her after he got a phonecall and disappeared in the middle of the night and left his pregnant wife wondering if she'd ever see him again. But here's the part which I can't get over: the way the end of Matt's marriage gets one line of dialogue -- ONE LOUSY LINE -- in spite of the fact that it was the center of Matt's arc last season. The one thing this show hammered home was that Matt's most important goal in coming to New York was to end the threat from The Company so that he could go back to his wife and child and not worry about anyone bothering him again.

The conclusion to that gets one line. Which, I'm sorry -- even if it's explained in incredible detail in later episodes, just doesn't fly here. There's no way Matt would have abandoned his wife and child.

But here's the really weird part. I watched the scenes between Matt and Molly -- at the playground, then at the apartment -- and I struggled to figure out what was so familiar about them.

Then it hit me: Molly IS Janice.

You've got the nagging, you've got the scolding, you've got the reproachful glances, you've got the SHRIEKING -- it's like the entire Matt/Janice drama has transposed itself from L.A. to Manhattan, and Janice has gotten a bodyswitch and taken control of Molly.

To get back to the scene: Matt shows up to take Molly home, and Molly good-naturedly chides him for being late. Matt loves every moment of it, because there's nothing he enjoys more than letting down the woman he cares about. For this, please see the entirety of Matt's story arc last season.

Molly's teacher expresses concern about Molly falling asleep in class. To which Matt's all, "Nightmares -- pshaw!" And I know there's a huge "Aww!" factor to the Matt and Molly scenes, but this really doesn't paint Matt out to be the most concerned or conscientious foster father. The fact that it takes the scary-eye drawings for Matt to acknowledge that Molly needs help underlines how clueless he is when it comes to sensing what people are going through. And for someone who can hear people's thoughts, that's pretty ironic.

Sliding water droplets. Props to whoever came up with that shot -- that's second only to the raining arrows in front of the eclipse.

Welcome back Superhero Square! Welcome back Papa Sulu! Welcome back AndOHHH, HOLY GOD, THAT'S ANDO IN THE SUIT. So while Matt was instahealing and Mohinder was jetting around the world, Ando was expanding his wardrobe. Well done, Ando!

Ando bumps into Nathan but doesn't recognize him because of The Beard. And I apply capital letters to that because it really is an entity unto itself.

Papa Sulu reads the New York Chronicle -- the same paper which Hiro caught a glimpse of before New York exploded. Good continuity.

Papa Sulu predicts he'll be dead within 24 hours.

THUD-THUD-THUD go the sound effects.

BACK-BACK-BACK pulls the camera.

Awesome directing from Beeman this week.

Did Nathan become a congressman? Did he immediately step down? Did he come forward about Linderman rigging the election? We'll probably find out eventually, but I can't help wondering whether the fact that we're constantly asking these questions while the episode plays out pulls us out of the story.

Nathan ripping the photo from Angela's hands was phenomenal. The actors sold the heck out of the scene. I love how Cristine Rose brings her gritted teeth, and how Nathan puts the photo -- smashed frame and all -- back on the table, next to the lamp. It's such a small detail, but it shows how carefully Pasdar plans every nuance of his performance.

"You're evil, Ma! Get out!"

Applause erupts across the nation. Best line of the episode.

Hiro teleports himself and "Kensei" (and the horse) a few hills away, and that just happens to be exactly where the "real" Kensei is hiding?

"Kensei" pulls off his helmet and turns out to be Agent Sark. Hiro needs to pull out his glasses again. I know it's because he can't get over the fact that Kensei's Caucasian, but you have to wonder whether it's not also to check whether it's really David Anders and not Neil Patrick Harris or Paul Bettany.

Copy Kingdom. I can't make jokes about this -- the satire is so brilliant that it's beyond ridicule. But of all the ingenious details here, none impresses me more than the sign outside the store window: "Servicing Costa Verde Since 1996." That the show took the time to produce store signs with the fictional town's name on them -- signs which are reversed in the camera shot and barely visible -- is unbelievable. Whoever's designing these sets needs a dozen bouquets for this episode.

The B*****d Manager struck me as even more over-the-top than the b**chy cheerleaders. I just can't help feeling sorry for the guy, because although he's blatantly a d#*k, it seems pretty obvious from the start that Noah antagonizes him. The whole "dog-eat-dog" speech was supposed to be petty and small-minded, and it was, but it's really just an exaggerated version of the "How do you feel about paper?/It's your life!" speech which Thompson gave Noah when Noah first came to the Primatech Fun Factory. Point being, it's not like Noah isn't an expert at pretending to be passionate about something he couldn't care less about: he did it for 14 years. The fact that Noah now willfully comes to work late, takes longer breaks and tries to aggravate his boss pushes my sympathy in the boss's direction.

In Cairo, Ned clarifies several details about The Company: it formed 30 years ago, it consisted entirely of people with abilities, and the principle aim was to "help their own." Can I just say that I really hope we get an episode chronicling this, or, failing that, at least one episode of Origins set at that point in history.

Ned isn't just Ned -- he's Midas Ned! I love the look Mohinder gets when he takes the golden spoon, like, "Whoa! That is SO much cooler than liquefying toasters!"

Matt brings Molly home to Chandra's Crib. Molly immediately reprimands him for not feeding her a healthy diet. Again, it's in jest, but you just know that Matt's loving this throwback to life with Janice. Nothing beats getting reprimanded for acting like an unpunctual and inept douche.

Molly asks if Matt cheated to get his detective's badge. HALLELUJAH! Someone FINALLY called Matt on it! With the greatest respect to Adair Tishler, though, should it fall to an 8 year old who's scared out of her wits by nightmares of the Ultimate Evil to point out this rather straightforward concept of what's morally reprehensible?

Matt doesn't want to talk about it -- probably because he knows Molly's right, and because nothing's more mature than ignoring an issue and pretending it doesn't exist.

The shrieking scared the life out of me. Matt looks pretty scared too, but his expression also says, "Whoa! This girl is way cooler than Janice!", and sort of, "Can you believe they haven't made this actress a cast regular already?", because the presence she carried in this scene was incredible.

Chandra got "Activating Evolution" translated into Spanish? So, not only can you buy the book in Cairo, you can buy the translated edition in the Dominican Republic. I know we're not supposed to hold that up to scrutiny, and I guess it'd be possible to get the book translated even if Chandra hadn't sold a hundred thousand copies, but to do that you need to actively promote the living daylights out of the book -- and THIS only goes so far.

Maya wondering why God would have cursed her with an affliction if there wasn't a chance for salvation was well handled. The religious undertones are brought out in a way that makes you hope it'll be explored as the season goes on, particularly when Maya and Alejandro discover that Papa Suresh is dead and that his son believes the entire basis for these abilities has a non-religious scientific explanation.

Alejandro telling Maya that he won't "let" anything happen as long as he's with her is intriguing. It'll probably make more sense once we know how Alejandro counters Maya's ability: whether he has the ability to offset or "deactivate" Maya's bleeding-eye effect, or whether he's just the one source of hope and comfort that Maya has, and whether that's enough to keep her from killing everyone around her.

At Sophistication High, Claire gazes wistfully at the cheerleaders practicing their routines. As with the Darwin reference, it emphasizes that Claire feels constrained by the Be Ordinary Mandate, and that she misses her old life. Thing is, it seemed to me like Claire didn't care too much about cheerleading after becoming Prom Queen and having that major confrontation with Jackie. Part of the message then was that Claire had decided there was more to life than cheerleading, and that she didn't want to be like Jackie.

The message in this episode seems to be that Claire feels trapped by the Be Ordinary Mandate, in which case I'm not sure why she would miss cheerleading when she's evidently more interested in exploring her ability and -- as we're apparently going to see -- trumping Wentworth Miller in a toe-shearing contest.

But for whatever reason, Claire decides she's going to prove herself. And while I praise Claire for not just decking Debbie (which, it seems, would have been Noah's preferred approach), I also have to praise the show for defying expectations and NOT making a hero out of Claire. I'm not sure if it's that Claire chickens out of jumping from the tower, or if she's trying to follow her father's wishes and not draw attention to herself, or if it's just that she doesn't think the jump -- or the audience in the gym hall -- is worth it. But that ambiguity is one of the few subtle parts of the b**chy cheerleader saga. Well played, writers.

Molly sitting on the description and location of the Ultimate Evil was a neat character detail. It's probably because she doesn't want to get Matt killed when he tries to take him down, but we could also speculate that it's because she remembers giving him the location of last season's Boogeyman, and how Matt ran off to shoot Sylar and how it all went horribly wrong. What's amazing is that Adair Tishler runs with this material and makes it look like the character doesn't think twice about making such mature decisions. She's sacrificing her own comfort and peace of mind so that Matt won't again do something stupid. And the actress puts that across without it becoming this big melodramatic gesture of self-sacrifice. Again, props to an exceptional cast.

The B*****d Manager at Copy Kingdom points out that Noah's break has ended, which is a valid issue to bring up when it involves an Assistant Manager. Noah doesn't even look up at him when he brazenly says he's going to continue his break. Which, again, pushes my sympathy in the opposite direction, because Noah's blatantly trying to aggravate him.

And then ...

The finger-twisting.

*PING!*

And this week's second Dumb As Award goes to Noah Butler.

The Butlers are taking the lead! Mohinder's safe!

It's funny, I'll give it that. There's something satisfying about it because, hell, we've all been there, and we've all wanted to grab our boss by the finger and watch him squirm in pain. But come on, folks, Noah provoked this confrontation. This in the episode where he issues the Be Ordinary Mandate to his daughter and implores her not to draw attention to herself in any way. Does The B*****d Manager strike you as the kind of guy who's NOT going to bring this to someone's attention? Between the insubordination, the intimidation, the threats and the ASSAULT, it's not like Noah's going to walk away from this with decent references.

But then, you have to wonder where his Primatech references came from. Did he forge them?

In the Land of Sark, David Anders delivers a fairly convincing English accent. It's not perfect, but I'd defy anyone to say it'd be preferable for the guy to attempt an authentic 17th century Brit accent and make it decipherable for a contemporary audience. For the most part, Faux-Kensei's accent flies.

Faux-Kensei insists he's fighting smart, not dirty. And, you know, not to say Hiro's wrong to think the guy's a total wimp, but I think the legions of Alias fans who tuned in to see the guy can totally buy into the prospect of him plowing his way through 200,000 soldiers. Plus the fire-breathing black bear and the snake women. I don't know if the show's going to cover all of that, but I have to admit I can see Agent Sark pulling that off before Hiro does. My money's still on Faux-Kensei becoming the real Kensei.

Otsu goes up in flames, and Hiro realizes that perhaps he shouldn't have stood around wasting time with all that "You're my hero! I'm your biggest fan!" talk. But here's the thing: we've seen Hiro freeze time long enough to make a thousand origami cranes. And the time-freezing thing is the one thing which Hiro rarely -- if ever -- screws up. So, in this instance, I'm not sure why Hiro couldn't just freeze time, get everyone out of the village, arrange troughs of water around the parts of the village where the fire was out of control, then find White Beard and teleport him across the hill and kick his ass.

Or ... Hiro can stand on the hill and watch the town go up in flames, stamp his feet and insist that this can't be, then berate himself for messing up the timeline. Forget Maya taking Niki's role -- Hiro's throwing down the gauntlet.

On the Rooftop of Pigeonly Delight, Papa Sulu tells Ando to fetch him a decent sword. Where's Kensei's sword in the present? Hiro left it with Ando after ditching him at Yamagato, so is it still in Japan, or did Ando bring it back with him to New York? Probably a detail we'll learn later on, but it made me wonder when Ando shows up with a totally different sword.

Angela visits the rooftop, as far as we know for the first time since that conversation with Papa Deveaux. Ando sees Angela and gets this "Oh %*$#!" expression, then looks back and forth between her and Papa Sulu like he doesn't know whether he should abandon his friend's dad with the Ice Queen.

Papa Sulu speaks English! I wonder if he picked it up after the time he spoke with Noah on the rooftop, or whether he's been fluent in the language since The Company first formed and only switches to the language out of respect for Angela.

Perhaps more relevantly, I wonder if we're ever going to see Cristine Rose attempt a few tracts of dialogue in Japanese.

Papa Sulu self-righteously telling Angela that he helped his son fulfill his destiny is sort of hilarious. It's one of those instances when I wish they'd show a flashback of him ripping the dino-painting to shreds and demanding that his son return to his cubicle in Japan. Just saying, Papa Sulu needs to come down from his high horse and accept that he hasn't exactly supported Hiro every step of the way.

The look which Angela gives Papa Sulu after he says this, though, is priceless. Cristine should get an Emmy nod on the strength of this shot alone, because I don't think she's ever looked colder than she did here.

Papa Sulu then refers to Angela by name, the first time any character has on-screen as far as I can recall, and you can literally feel the backstory crackling with energy. If they don't bring Papa Sulu back from the dead to do more scenes with Angela, the show needs to use the same actors when they do the flashbacks, because the actors made the tension in this scene electric.

Land of Sark. Faux-Kensei points out that, even though the village has burned down, "these things happen." If there's an award for comic timing this week, David Anders snatches it from Masi and Coleman. The way he swipes a drink from a cart, calls Hiro his "strange little friend" and stops to scrutinize the guy from head to toe -- that's almost as priceless as Angela's Ice Queen glare, and almost as nuanced as Pasdar putting the cracked picture frame back on the table.

Am I the only who can see Yaeko jousting and beheading White Beard with Kensei's sword? She may yet trump Faux-Kensei and Hiro to become the real Kensei.

New Canine Central! Lestat's back! And I know Pasdar's barely recognizable because of the beard, but I almost feel bad for Randall Bentley playing Lyle, because it was impossible to tell whether it was even the same actor. The guy's gone from Jake Lloyd to Hayden Christensen over one summer.

You can see what Beeman was trying to achieve in this scene with the awkward silence and the nervous glances, but it feels overplayed. What bugged me here more than anything else was that it really wasn't clear whether Sandra and Lyle have been Haitian-whammied or survived with their memories intact. It could be they remember everything and that they've agreed not to talk about it. If that's the case, though, it's not nearly as clear as it needs to be. Part of the reason this scene failed for me was because I wasn't sure if I should feel sorry for Sandra and Lyle for being so clueless again, or whether I should be wondering what life is like for Sandra and Lyle now, knowing that Claire's wanted by a shady organization which the patriarch of the house used to work for.

Mohinder's infiltrating The Company and working with Noah! Woot! Good for Mohinder, who starts the season with a central, relevant role on the show, and one which ties him to the Bennet thread, the Molly/Ultimate Evil thread, and the superhero virus thread.

Alejandro finds the truck which Maya was in. Dania Ramirez sold the heck out of this scene, but it definitely brings us back to the "Maya-is-the-new-Niki" debate, because it effectively puts the character in the same situation: helpless victim whose ability inadvertently kills innocent people and makes her a murderer, but whose ability also saves her from a dire situation. And, to be fair, it's not like Ali didn't sell the heck out of her scenes at the start of last season.

Claire phoning Nathan was a nice detail. I wish we could have seen a moment when she hesitated over whether to dial Zach's number, but if you figure that Claire needed to talk to her bio-dad, someone who had an ability and who'd done a pretty good job of hiding that ability for a while, calling Nathan makes sense.

Making Nathan into a drunken, broken man is just about the only thing which saves his sacrifice last season from losing its nobility. The way it's written here, it seems like Nathan would have preferred to die instead of trying to go on with his life, knowing that if he'd pulled the plug on the Linderman Masterplan sooner he might have avoided Peter's death. It might also be an extremely subtle nod to the conversation between Nathan and Peter last season when Nathan admitted that he didn't know what he'd do without his brother.

The scarred image in the mirror? I have no theory. It could be that it's a reflection of what Nathan's feeling: his guilt, his self-loathing, his disillusionment. It might be that this was the last image he saw of Peter before his brother exploded, and that Nathan wishes he could have met the same fate so that he wouldn't need to drown his sorrows the way he does now.

Or there's some huge backstory involving Peter absorbing Niki's power, then transferring his spirit to Nathan, then Nathan seeing part of his brother in himself. Which seems like a stretch, but definitely wouldn't be beyond the scope of this show.

The theory I'm leaning towards at the moment is that Nathan's just really, really drunk. As I wanted to be after watching this next scene, because, dammit, no one can kill Papa Sulu. Papa Sulu, like Mr. Muggles, was supposed to be off-limits when it came to the "No one is safe" ethos. I don't want to believe it. I choose NOT to believe it. I prefer to live in denial and assume that, before the volume is up, the character's ability will be revealed, and we'll discover that Papa Sulu -- like George Takei -- is immortal.

I'm stumped on Superhoodie's identity. I started with a list of possible characters, then crossed them off one by one, eliminating the obvious ones.

I got as far as crossing off Linderman, Papa Deveaux, and Papa Petrelli. Then I figured it's possible that Linderman's be-superhealed whammy might have saved him. And that Papa Deveaux's extra-sensory abilities might mean he can heal from terminal illnesses. And that Papa Petrelli's death last season could have been faked.

Then I sort of un-crossed those names and found myself back at square one.

Did I mention that I'm really upset about them killing off Papa Sulu? I can't think straight right now.

Cork, Ireland.

Those are Irish accents? Are you %*@#ing kidding me? Those make David Boreanaz sound like a pro who spent a decade in Ireland preparing for his scenes on Angel.

And they even got Dominic Keating to take a stab at the accent? The show brought in Malcolm ^%$#ing Reed and even HE couldn't do a decent job of it?!

Oh, show.

Anyway, the thugs hack open a cargo container and find a dude instead of a dozen iPods.

"What's that?" asks one of them. "That," reply several million hysterical fangirls, "is perfection!" A topless, dirty, slightly damp Milo. WITHOUT THE EMO-BANGS! Bravo, NBC Marketing Department! You have now officially converted an additional five million viewers to the First School of Milo Ventimiglia.

And we wrap with an electric burst and an S-helix pendant, but no V.O. Mohinder and no clue to who cut Milo's hair.

On that note, folks, I leave you with this season's premiere. I'm docking points for the issues in Matt's thread, because those grated, and for some of the Bennet stuff, because Noah flipping out and the confusion over whether the family's memories are intact dragged the scenes down. I'm also docking points for assorted minor crimes, which include (but are certainly not limited to) occasionally weak dialogue, hideous product placements, a curriculum which combines Bunsen Burners and Darwin, truly awful Irish accents, and last -- but certainly not least -- killing off Papa Sulu.

Now, with that out of the way, let me issue this piece of praise: as a set-up for the rest of the volume, this was a solid premiere. There were a lot of really excellent touches, some exceptional details and ideas, and some off-the-charts performances from the cast, particularly Adrian, Cristine, Masi, Adair, and David Anders. If the show continues to tap into those and develop the characters it introduced in this episode, this is going to be an amazing season.

3.5 out of 5