Review:

This week's featured word: "extraordinary," appearing in a variety of contexts which are often unintentionally hilarious, but which sometimes also genuinely relate to the quality of this episode. Because this was probably the strongest of the season so far, and, despite one or two flaws, a sign that the show is finding its focus and finally gaining momentum.

Previously on Heroes: Ricky decided to handle the "little blonde," sent Peter away with Caitlin, and got Ellectrified. It was sad.

We start out with a chalk outline and police tape around the crime scene. Disturbing image, but subtly tying in with the title and the theme of the episode. BAM. We're seconds into the episode, and already the details are such that you know this is going to be outstanding.

Caitlin gets on-board with the whole "clairvoyant painting" concept a little too quickly for it to be believable. She's seen the electric bolts and instaheal and TK, but the way she assumes the painting is prophetic and decides to go with Peter to Montreal seems like a jump, as does getting past the initial shock and devastation over Ricky's death and moving onto anger and vengeance.

But the vengeance works for me for two reasons: it gets Peter out of this storyline, and Caitlin wants to be there when Peter finds Elle. "TO KILL THE BITCH."

Caitlin is now officially my hero. I don't even need to censor it because it's dialogue. Awesome!

I'm glad I was wrong about Caitlin being dead before Peter left Ireland. Given the vendetta against Elle, I still wouldn't bet on her surviving beyond the volume. But I hope I'm wrong about that too.

Sophistication High. Aw, Heroes. You brought back May. You guys must really want me to upscore this episode.

Claire tries out for the cheerleading team with a cheer for Earth Awareness Day. Debbie is not impressed by Claire's effort. I was paying more attention to May than the cheer, so I'll have to take her word that it was "agonizing." May protests that it was "awesome," which in turn makes her awesome. At this point, I'm wondering whether cheerleading matters enough to May to spend so much time with people she really doesn't seem to get along with. If not, she's a Company plant. And a co-conspirator with West. Maybe? Or not.

Debbie tells Claire that Sophistication High deserves "cheerleaders that are EXTRA [dramatic pause] ORDINARY." And Claire, apparently, is "simply NOT [dramatic pause] EXTRA [dramatic pause] ORDINARY."

And NEITHER [dramatic pause] IS [dramatic pause] THIS [dramatic pause] STORYLINE.

Claire looks hurt. I'm not sure if that's because her cover for dating West was blown, or because she genuinely wanted to make the team, or because she's frustrated that she can't just deck Debbie the way she decked Jackie.

Mohinder brings Monica back to Company Medical to turn her into a gymnast. Very cool. I worry that Great Aunt Uhura, Micah, Camille and the Tomato Fu manager are all freaking out after Monica took down a gang-banger and mysteriously disappeared, but maybe Micah covered for her.

Mohinder explains to Monica that she's at "a privately-funded company whose sole purpose it is to help [her]." I can't tell if he's only saying this to reassure her, of it he actually sees the truth in it. He probably knows about the vivisection and mindwiping from Noah, but the way he upsells The Company's virtues here, you almost wonder if he has any reservations about taking it down. Monica comes away from this with the impression that a group of people are around to support her. And, sure, that's a facade. But in spite of its corruption and morally questionable motives, scenes like this underline why The Company serves a purpose when it comes to reaching out to people who are discovering their ability.

Mohinder tells Monica that she's been given "an EXTRAORDINARY gift." Midas Bob agrees. And I think this is probably the first episode in which Stephen Tobolowsky is himself "extraordinary," because the twinkle in his eye and the bubbly veneer are this week more convincing than ever. With Mohinder, you know he's lying to Monica when he's about to give her the shot. With Bob, you really can't tell what's going on behind the veneer.

Mohinder explains to Bob that Monica can "replicate any action -- it's really quite EXTRAORDINARY."

Oh, come on. This is getting ridiculous. Is it some private joke in the writers' room?

Bob has a dossier labeled "Adam Monroe." Which, dun-dun-DUN!, portends Great Dramatic Significance.

Bob hands over "a variant of the Shanti virus." He named the supervirus after Mohinder's sister? I guess it's understandable if Shanti was the first victim, but it's not like Mohinder's going to be gung-ho about inflicting a virus with his sister's memory attached to it.

Where did this sample come from? Was it taken from Molly? Was Mohinder's research enough to allow The Company to manufacture the virus from scratch? It's not crucial to the plot, but I spent the rest of this scene trying to figure that out.

Mohinder protests that manipulating the virus could endanger the general population. I wonder why Bob needs to be reminded of this risk when he was the one in the premiere who pointed it out. Mohinder then objects to robbing an individual of their ability, which again makes me wonder because Mohinder was already talking about "elimination" of abilities when he went to Montana with Sylar.

The difference is obviously that Monica isn't intent on losing her ability, and I get that it's necessary exposition when Bob's talking about making that decision on someone else's behalf. But it seemed like Mohinder spent this scene pointing out stuff which Bob already knew, then objecting to notions he'd already thought of himself.

Mohinder again phones Noah from a location which The Company has almost certainly wired and bugged. Noah's CG environment looks slightly less fake than it did last week, though.

Noah: "To bring down this company, sometimes we have to do bad things."

Good dialogue. Nice way to foreshadow Noah shooting Ivan, and an indication that Noah's willing to commit an act of evil to stop evil on a larger scale.

Noah: "Don't disappoint me, Suresh."

Again, good dialogue. Underlines how Mohinder was never really working with Noah, only for him.

We meet Ivan, played by Elya Baskin, who I know best as the avaricious superintendent in the Spider-Man movies, but who, like Tobolowsky, has appeared in just about every movie and TV show ever produced.

Noah and the Haitian break into Ivan's apartment. How? Beats me. What's interesting here is that they let the wife and grandson leave before they began extracting information from Ivan. Might be a coincidence, but it seemed like an intentional echo of "Company Man" -- Noah having a chance to hold Ivan's family in front of him and using them as a bargaining chip. Noah letting the family go before he confronts Ivan seems to imply that, even if he kills his mentor, Noah isn't going to put Ivan's family through the same ordeal that Noah's went through.

But then, Noah still leaves Ivan's family psychologically scarred by a brutal murder, so I'm not sure how far that consideration extends.

Is it me, or is Noah speaking Russian about twenty times more menacing than Noah speaking English? I hope he greets West this EXACT SAME WAY before he pummels the living daylights out of the punk.

Claire: "I have to listen to my parents. Don't you?"

West: "Claire, I can fly. Kinda makes the whole parental guidance thing a non-issue."

On the one hand, this line makes absolutely zero sense. I mean, do West's parents know he can fly? Presumably at least one of them has an ability, although it doesn't seem to have engendered any sense of trust or respect in the family. Also, there's West. Which, well, says a lot without words.

But on the other hand, D'Agosto's delivery is so good that you don't care what he's saying. Claire's clearly fascinated by the answer, which I can almost understand because the way D'Agosto delivered the line -- as a steady, monotonal rebuff -- was pretty much the actor's one moment to shine in this episode. It gives absolutely nothing away, but it screams "backstory" because you just KNOW he's hiding something.

Claire tells West how Debbie didn't consider her "EXTRA [dramatic pause] ORDINARY enough."

West: "That's ridiculous. You're a total babe, and you have a power. By definition, you're better than she is."

And WHOA!

I know it wasn't supposed to be disturbing. I know West only wanted to boost Claire's confidence. And I know it's not as if the show was trying to write a political undertone into West's dialogue here. But SERIOUSLY?! When West starts suggesting that attractive people who have an ability are automatically superior, it doesn't just make him arrogant and judgmental -- it puts him at a particular end of the political spectrum.

Here's the best part, though: West makes remarks with an extremist subtext and Claire thinks it's "sweet." I wrote Claire a poem in my second review last season and get nothing.

Is that fair?

Wait, here's something even more unfair.

Dianna A-R-G-O-N? They wouldn't even spell her name right in the credits? I get that the character's mean and all, but did Dianna Agron deserve that?

"Outside Parcela Delgado, Mexico -- near the U.S. border."

This is such a visual story this week. I don't know if I can describe it. I mean, this image? It says so much about the pace of this story. And Sylar gazing longingly at Maya's scalp? That's a telling sign of the humor which Sylar -- and Zach Quinto -- bring to even the dullest plot.

Maya: "You want to be different?"

Sylar: "I want to be special. Unique."

Great dialogue. Probably the first honest thing Sylar ever said to Maya, and it's driven home by Quinto's sincerity, in spite of the sly smiles and the way Sylar's blatantly playing Maya for a fool. Quinto rocks.

Ando returns to the Kensei Fan Club and discovers that Tatsuya's reading the scrolls without him. Ando is outraged. Frankly, I'm not. The quicker this thread comes to a conclusion, the better.

Sword fights! Good! Not in the bloodlust sense, but in the sense that this story has recovered a pulse and taken a dramatic turn.

Ando: "Stop!"

Me: "No, DON'T stop! For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT STOP!"

Land of Sark. Hiro looks out across White Beard's army and wonders whether history can be saved. Kensei makes his way through the army, risking his life to locate Yaeko's father. And Yaeko paints a map of the army.

Read that last part again. For me.

Sure, it's important to know the layout of the army, and perhaps Yaeko's doing this to take her mind off the anxiety caused by her father's capture. But then, she's painting the flags on the map PURPLE! And the hills around the army are in different shades of green! No joke -- check it. I swear I'm not making it up. If Yaeko was alive today, she'd be the type who'd put giant circles over the i's and color them in.

And this is the woman Hiro breaks history over?

Yaeko tells Hiro she fears nothing as long as Kensei fights at her side. It's naive but brave, and elicits a look of admiration from Hiro to convey that he has a Great Emotional Attachment to Yaeko. But when we learn that Yaeko's trust in Kensei stems from Hiro's magic tricks against the 12 Stupid Samurai Who Were Afraid To Lose Their Clothes, plus maybe a couple of empty promises, I can't help thinking that her trust is as superficial as her love is fickle.

Yaeko wonders where her father might be. Hiro ignores the smaller, plain-painted tents and points to the largest, most formidable-looking tent on the map. Given that Papa Swordsmith is a swordsmith, and given that there's smoke coming from the tent, could it be that Yaeko's father is here?

We should have a new weekly award: the Smart As Hiro Award. Because this was indeed a feat of deductive reasoning.

Yaeko: "This is no time for lucky guesses. My father's life is at stake."

Oh, fine. Hiro and Kensei can check one tent at a time while Yaeko stands under cherry blossoms and contemplates the mystique of her hero and cheats on her Great Love and paints purple flags.

PURPLE FLAGS, PEOPLE!

Yaeko? You are NOT [dramatic pause] EXTRA [dramatic pause] ORDINARY.

Charlie? We miss you!

Yaeko places a heartfelt hand on Hiro's shoulder. Masi works the heartbroken puppy-dog eyes. And he excels at it, I'll admit that. But the problem is two-fold: we don't know why Yaeko would fall in love with Kensei, except that he saved her from a tough spot and agreed to rescue her father, neither of which really justify boundless love; we also don't know why Kensei or Hiro would fall in love with Yaeko, except that she's pretty and brave. Which are great virtues, but are they enough to make a guy betray his hero, or to make a hero forfeit his new-found heroism and return to greed and hedonism?

My point isn't just that the story this week doesn't make sense; it's that no matter how phenomenal the Kensei story becomes this week, it was poorly set up, it was poorly paced, its staple components were poorly established, and the story here -- which hinges on Hiro and Kensei being so in love with Yaeko that they'd betray one another over her -- fails to ring true because of it.

Kensei appears on the hill. Has he found the swordsmith?

"Yes, my love. In the tent that smolders."

^ ^ Actual dialogue!

The "my love" is important. Taglines like this (along with meaningful glances) are required to reaffirm the Very Special Bond between Kensei and Yaeko which wouldn't be especially obvious otherwise.

CG Ukraine. Ivan's been handcuffed. Did the guy happen to have cuffs in the apartment, or did Noah bring them from California?

The Claude reference was a decent nod to continuity. You could nitpick and point out that Noah was a rookie compared to Claude when he joined The Company, but you could equally speculate that Ivan trained both of them at separate times rather than both of them together, which is what the graphic novel seemed to suggest this week.

Noah calling the Haitian-whammy "a new trick," though? Wasn't it the first trick he learned?

It's forgivable the moment the camera cuts to the Haitian, though, because when Noah's telling Ivan what the Haitian's going to do, Jimmy Jean-Louis gets this imperceptible little smile. I can't tell if it's pride in his ability or twisted delight at the prospect of wiping Ivan's memory, but it's there, and it rocks.

Noah's about to backhand Ivan, when ...

RINGTONE!

I wish it could have been the Mr. Muggles ringtone that Sandra had back in "Parasite." It's still hilarious. It shouldn't be, not when Noah's in the middle of torturing his mentor, but it totally is.

We get a round of Bennet Secrets & Lies which I find so ponderous that I'm just going to skip right over it and get to the part where Ivan offers Noah his old job back at The Company.

Does Noah consider the offer for a second? The moment when he's studying Ivan's family photo, you know he's formulating a plan. But Coleman's performance is -- as always -- so brilliantly complex that you can't be sure whether he's considering Ivan's offer. It's not like the whole Noah-as-The-Company's-Golden-Boy spiel appealed to his ego, but I think Noah was probably considering whether he could turn the offer to his advantage if Mohinder chickens out of Noah's original plan.

Back at Company Medical, Mohinder chickens out of Noah's original plan. But the way he looks Monica in the eye, smiles, and totally gains her trust when he's about to infect her with a mutated form of the supervirus, you have to wonder if it's the same guy who earned himself the Dumb As Mohinder Award last season. I mean, this was shockingly deceptive of Mohinder.

And the SuperRoadTrip continues ... Maya, Alejandro and Sylar reach the U.S. border.

Again, the visuals convey it far better than I could. Alejandro smiling like a fool accurately mirrors the audience's delight at the story finally going somewhere, but ohhh, dear God, they're NOT going to STOP there to talk about it and enjoy the moment, are they?

Oh, they are.

PING!

Maya, Alejandro and Sylar win a collective Dumb As Parkman Award.

Just drive, you idiots!

Hilariously, the border police then bang on the hood of the car and rock the car about for a bit. This is ineffective and incompetent on their part, and gives Alejandro a chance to bicker with Maya about how this is all Sylar's fault. Maya finally flips with her brother and gets the oozing eyes, agrees with Sylar that it's best to let the officers die and drive on, and willingly becomes a murderer. Which is sort of a dramatic leap forward for the character because it's a world away from inadvertently killing through a lack of understanding of her ability -- and from killing with the caveat that Alejandro will be there to save the victim.

Perhaps more importantly, I think it's a testament to the way Sylar's been written -- and the way Quinto plays him -- that we care whether the psychotic serial killer survives and don't for a moment give a crap whether the border patrol officers do.

Sophistication High. Debbie gets tipsy and uses a marker pen to write the weight of several cheerleaders on their foreheads. At this point, I wonder if I'm using the word "sophistication" too loosely. It was based on Noah's perception of the students at the high school, but I'm not sure whether that says more about Noah's misperception or the students themselves. I might rename it Moron High.

Anyway, May protests. This could get annoying if it continues for much longer, but Janel Parrish is so stunningly gorgeous -- even when she's complaining -- that I can't fault the writers for any material they give her. I just can't figure out whether May's putting up with Debbie purely out of love for cheerleading, or whether she's secretly afraid that Debbie's the one holding this clique together, and that staging an uprising against the head cheerleader will make her an outsider.

Would Claire and West's plan have worked if Debbie WASN'T drunk? It's one of those parts of the plot which are favorable for the outcome, but if Debbie had been sober enough to pull out her cell phone and photograph West? Or if she'd screamed for help the moment West grabbed Claire? Or if she'd run TOWARDS Claire after she fell and then seen her regenerate?

But look, kids, there's an important message here: drinking is bad.

It leads to suspension. And critical errors of judgment. And catastrophic accidents.

But more importantly? It leads to individuals who are NOT [dramatic pause] EXTRA [dramatic pause] ORDINARY getting onto the cheerleading team!

And to hallucinations of flying masked men lifting students 30 feet into the air and then dropping them!

And to humiliation when you explain to the cops that you saw a flying masked man lifting another student 30 feet into the air before dropping her!

Don't drink, kids! And don't be mean to the new girl! What should you do instead? You should give the mean head cheerleader "a taste of her own medicine."

How?

By making her think a fellow student died, and by making her think the killer's coming after her!

Yeah. That ought to do it.

ROLE MODELS!

Revenge for attempted rape is one thing, and in this episode alone there's revenge for murder and betrayal. But Claire immediately regretted taking revenge on Brody. Revenge out of bitterness towards a mean cheerleader? Debbie's malicious, and she deserves to be suspended for drinking, but does she deserve to watch someone die? Should Claire and West be proud of that?

Land of Sark.

Kensei: You've given me purpose, Carp. I'm really a hero because of you. And, more, you've made me a better man."

Ten seconds of dialogue, but probably the most important moment of the entire storyline.

In context, it doesn't make sense, mostly because we still don't know why discovering an ability and winning the heart of a woman he never really noticed before would suddenly inspire Kensei to become a hero.

But take it out of context and ignore the way it was set up, and this conveys how far Kensei has come since Hiro first met him. David Anders worked a miracle with this scene. He made me want to buy into it. He made me want to believe Kensei was fighting out of a sense of innate good and obligation to defend Yaeko and her father and all of Japan. Why would Kensei suddenly choose this in favor of drink and debauchery? I have no idea. But the way Anders delivered this dialogue bordered on spectacular. The actor actually sold the notion and managed to make it convincing.

Kensei walks up to the guard outside Papa Swordsmith's tent. He actually needs to announce his presence to the guard by tapping him on the shoulder, so why he doesn't just behead the guard is beyond me. But the sword through the gut and the astonishment on the guard's face are funny. It was probably a large part of Kensei's success as a swordsman -- taking advantage of his opponent's shock when it turned out he couldn't be killed.

Papa Swordsmith: "I had stopped hoping!"

Who could blame him?

Papa Swordsmith: "Kensei? I thought you were a drunk."

Kensei: "Turns out I'm a hero."

Again, funny, but also, again, to Anders' credit, because the way he delivers the dialogue reminds us that he doesn't quite believe it himself. He wants to, probably out of a sense of idealism, but he's as surprised by this turn of events as we are.

White Beard has thousands of guns, which apparently he didn't in the timeline which Hiro knows. So, presumably, by impeding the Battle of Otsu, Hiro's arrival led to the capture of Yaeko's father, which in turn has now led to a tyrant obtaining firearms before history intended him to. Hiro really did break history.

Kensei learns that his destiny is to destroy White Beard's arsenal of guns.

Kensei: "Very well."

And again kudos to Anders, because the way he delivered that line -- that mixture of humility and intent to do what's right -- is what makes his betrayal and his decision to turn Yaeko and Hiro over to White Beard so tragic.

You know what else is tragic? Mohinder taking Molly to the place where supers are vivisected, leaving her there to go find other supers to be vivisected, then deciding to take Molly away from the place where supers are vivisected before the people who vivisect the supers have a chance to help her. Or, possibly, vivisect her.

Mohinder does not win this week's Smart As Hiro Award.

Kensei becomes a hero in the Land of Sark and leads Hiro, Yaeko, and Yaeko's father to safety. He gets a sword and fends off the samurai, but Papa Swordsmith doesn't, and neither do Hiro and Yaeko, despite being valiant warriors. This, too, was clearly not worthy of a Smart As Hiro Award.

One of the 12 Stupid Samurai shoots at Hiro. Hiro teleports Yaeko to a nearby hill. The editing of the time-freezing and teleportation seemed a little choppy here. It should have been as smooth as Peter slowing down the tasers before TK'ing them.

This next scene is either incredibly romantic or incredibly dumb. It depends on your feeling about this whole story arc.

Yaeko: "You can make people move from one place to another."

Well, yes, Hiro took us from an exciting story about defeating the Brain Man to a dull story about a drunken Englishman and a fickle princess. But that's not the point.

Yaeko: "It was you that did those amazing things."

If you call threatening to disrobe the 12 Stupid Samurai "amazing," then yes. I guess. Sort of. But isn't that sorcery or something?

Shouldn't someone check on Kensei and Papa Swordsmith on the battlefield? Maybe make sure they got out of harm's way without getting recaptured and needing to regrow limbs?

No? Alrighty then ...

Yaeko asks Hiro if he loves her. Hiro admits he does. I feel bad for Yaeko. She has no idea how quickly Hiro gets over the women he loves.

Charlie, we still miss you!

And, you know, thinking about it for a second, it hasn't even been four months for Hiro the way it has for the rest of the characters on the show. He's gone straight from the showdown at Superhero Square to this. So it's been about six weeks since Charlie's death, tops. Sort of detracts from the impact when Hiro tells Yaeko he loves her.

Anyway, Yaeko realizes that she never really loved Kensei, but merely the idea of someone who could swoop in to save the day and make promises under cherry blossoms.

Hiro freezes time and hesitates before kissing Yaeko. That's something. If nothing else, Hiro at least knew he was wrong to kiss her. It seems like he's more concerned about repairing history than not betraying the hero he'd befriended, but whatever. At least Hiro felt bad.

But for all the anger that Kensei directs at Hiro, I have to ask: isn't Yaeko to blame as well? Kensei turns her over to White Beard along with Papa Swordsmith, but I get the impression that Kensei blames Hiro for the kiss, and it definitely looks to me like Yaeko's the one leaning forward to kiss Hiro, not the other way around.

The scrolls have now been read. The Kensei Fan Club is devastated. Poor Ando. What will the show do with him? I suggest three episodes at the Burnt Toast Diner, then a two-episode fling with the first damsel in distress he comes across in a hotel kitchen, then wrapping it up with video games at an office.

Come on, show. You made him a regular for a reason. Kyson Lee deserves more than this.

Aaaaand the SuperRoadTrip continues ...

I don't know why this story thread is so intensely visual, but again, the images say so much more than I could.

You look at something like that, and you realize how much effort the actors are putting into the scenes, desperately trying to keep their story ticking over.

Alejandro is furious that Sylar persuaded Maya to become a murderer. This is understandable, although you have to wonder why Mr. GTA is taking the moral high ground with someone who helped them escape from the cops and was ostensibly trying to prevent another large-scale Maya Massacre.

Sylar does that thing which cruel people do with dogs; you know, where they speak in a kind voice and describe how they're going to attach firecrackers to the dog's tail and laugh while the dog bleeds to death. The stunning thing is we still get to the end of this scene liking Sylar more than Alejandro. I'm not sure how that's possible. Maybe we're all just really mean people. Maybe we all need to be chased by a flying masked man.

Sophistication High. Claire is worried that someone saw the superpowered prank. This is a valid concern. Another is that police were called to investigate what amounts to a couple of kids scaring a bully. Which, OK, leads to a student rightfully being suspended for drinking; but if the cops were diverted from rescuing an old lady being beaten to death in an alley, or if they were intervening in an assault at a grocery store where a kid got shot before the robber got everything out of the cash register, I have to ask: isn't this a waste of police resources? There's the drinking-on-school-grounds issue which warrants the 911 call. But it's not as if Claire and West anticipated that. Claire and West didn't really care what the consequences of the prank would be.

May shows up to tell Claire she's on the cheerleading team, and apologizes because she thinks she's interrupting something between Claire and West. Which makes May even more charming than before, but also reminds me how much I wish she wasn't interrupting anything between Claire and West.

CG Ukraine. Noah pulls up a chair next to Ivan. I'd love to know who came up with that; was it a director's choice, was it Coleman's call, was it always in the script? It's genius. Noah really wants this threat to be civilized.

Ivan cracks at the thought of forgetting his deceased daughter, which is all kinds of heartbreaking, and hits home how merciless Noah will be when it comes to ending The Company. Again, neat reversal to "Company Man" when Noah ends up shooting a guy who was once his friend, only this time to bring down The Company rather than uphold it.

I love how Noah lowers the gun when Ivan tells him he'll condemn himself to hell by murdering him. For a moment, he wonders. And we wonder.

The pacing so far this season has mostly sucked, but the pacing in this scene? Phenomenal.

Noah adds another individual to the list of close acquaintances he's offed. Only somehow, this one comes across as more brutal than Thompson or Claude. Get this, folks: Noah's standing there as the smoke rises, looking over the corpse, AND THE CLOCK IN THE APARTMENT IS STILL TICKING.

This scene gave me chills. Seriously. Noah's the one character on this show that the writers are incapable of screwing up. No matter what they do with him, he's awesome. He could be saddled with an entire episode staring at Mr. Muggles and he'd still manage to make every minute of it compelling.

Speaking of character assassination, though: Hiro tears himself away from Yaeko's lips long enough to find Kensei in the Land of Sark. And he apparently plans to put on a cheery facade and let Kensei discover in the natural course of events that his Great Love doesn't actually love him.

A lot of this story worked this week, particularly Kensei's sense of betrayal and the implication that it's led to substantial historical rewrites. But Hiro? The guy needs to get out of this story before there's nothing left of his character. Hiro wouldn't cheat on his icon, he wouldn't lie to him, and he wouldn't try to cover his mistakes up.

The dialogue gets incredibly heavy-handed.

Kensei: "After I saved the swordsmith, I came after you, afraid that something had happened to Yaeko -- because I love her ..."

So, in case you didn't get the "my love" tag earlier, the show now clubs us over the head with the reminder that, yes, Kensei loves Yaeko. Why? He just does. And it doesn't seem like the show's confident that we know it yet.

YES, SHOW. WE GET IT.

Kensei: "First, you show me that I can be harmed by no weapon, and then you cut me deeper than any blade possibly could."

On paper, it seems horribly stilted. But Anders somehow makes it sound natural, or at least a little profound.

Hiro admits his guilt, implores Kensei to fulfill his destiny, and Kensei agrees. And, I kid you not, a gong goes off in the background. Too over-the-top? It fits, but it's a little too obvious with the ominous undertone.

Hiro gets pwned by Kensei. Again. Only this time we get that brilliant shot of Kensei's boots stepping over Hiro on the ground, forsaking history and renouncing the role he was supposed to undertake. Well directed, well performed, and mostly well written.

Monica returns to the Dawson Superhome. Bob enunciates Monica's cover story loudly enough for the entire street to hear it, but hopefully experience in covert operations leads him to conclude that no one can hear.

Tobolowsky had better be generously rewarded for the "fully loaded" iPod spot. The actor needs to walk away from this with some dignity. Maybe it's one of the new Company directives which Ivan was talking about: plugging Apple and not leaving the iPods in a pool of blood.

And yet, curiously, the computer monitor at the lab where Monica became a gymnast was a Dell.

Monica seems so earnest when she thanks Bob. It's so sad. You just know the only reason Bob made a U-turn from eliminating her ability to harnessing it was to exploit her.

Mohinder meets Niki at Company Medical. I have to side with the hopeful fans who speculate that it's Jessica; that shadow on the wall and the echo of those heels is so unsettling that there's no way it's just Niki in there. If it is, it's still Jessica's walk. Niki stumbles. Jessica strolls. This was a leisurely, confident stroll.

The one downside to the Jessica theory, if it's true, is that Mohinder will once again be duped. Which is great for Niki and Jessica, but bad for Mohinder when it comes to racking up Dumb As Parkman Awards.

Noah finds the Mendez series in CG Ukraine and helpfully arranges them on the ground in the warehouse. Unhelpfully, the camera doesn't linger on any of them for very long. For the sake of pedantic detail, here's the gist:

Kaito's was the first, so we can assume that the second -- which is barely visible -- is the one of Claire lying "dead" on the steps of her high school. Wow. So West's diabolical scheme was immortalized in paint?

The third is a hand holding a needle.

The fourth is a blonde beating against a wall. I can't tell if that's Niki or Elle, but it looks like Niki.

The fifth is Peter staring straight ahead and looking like he hasn't slept in about two months. There's a radioactive warning symbol in the background.

The sixth is Kensei and Hiro clashing swords. Hiro's in the same blue garment he's been in for the past three episodes, and Kensei's wearing the same armor as this week. Interestingly, Hiro's wearing his glasses.

The seventh is Mohinder with a bandaged nose, looking mightily p**sed off with the person he's just shot.

And the eighth is that delightful image of Noah with a bullet through his eye and Claire in Mystery Guy's arms. Which I still think is the most disturbing of the lot.

Peter and Caitlin leave Ireland and reach Montreal. They find what looks like a junk store, but it could be an extremely cluttered apartment. In either case, it's not the Electro-Entity's secret lair. Caitlin is disappointed because she doesn't get to "KILL THE BITCH."

I love writing that. It's so much more satisfying when it refers to Elle and I don't need to censor it.

Adam Monroe writes,

"Dear Peter,

OMG LOL!!1! this is the coollest thing eva!1! i am write to say we're freinds even tho you dont remember me butt its KO becoz i remember you im Adam and im your freind LOL!1! dont worry youll get you're memeries back but for nowe ive to tell you about we're rite abuot teh company teh world its dangeur its up us to sav it becoz were heros LOL!!1! You're freind, Adam. XOXO"

Oh, fine, so he doesn't write that. But wouldn't it have been cool if he did? Maybe the warm tone would stir Peter's memories.

Caitlin wonders whether the name on the actual note, the one which reads, "We were right about The Company. The World is in danger. It's up to us. -- Adam," rings any bells. Which might entitle Caitlin to a Dumb As Parkman Award, but I'd argue that she assumed a familiar name might evoke some sense of lost friendship in Peter. We'll find out, but the cryptic message was enough to add a sense of mystery and suspense to Peter's story, which is more than The Box achieved.

Peter wishes aloud to know "what the future holds," and he takes Caitlin a year forward in time to an empty Times Square. Which, Whoa!, but also, Gah! That's fake!

It's not like I expected them to use the real location, but isn't there something the show could do to make it a little more believable and a little less Tom & Jerry?

Truthfully, though, not even the bad CGI could ruin the episode for me by this point. The Noah story was off-the-charts awesome. Kensei's story -- badly set up as it was -- ended so dramatically that I at least wonder where the story's going. Mohinder getting Niki as a babysitter gives both actors a chance to bounce talent off one another and create a compelling story. And Peter traveling forward in time to a point when the city's been evacuated is the kind of cliffhanger we haven't seen since last season.

Is it a perfect episode? No. But it made me ask questions about the story and the characters. It brought back the sense of suspense and anticipation I used to feel every week. Most importantly, it made me care about the characters again.

I'm docking a point for the Claire thread. The Sylar/twins thread was weak, but Maya gets plus points for not crying, and all of the actors in the thread get points for acting the heck out of some their scenes, hence the intense visuals.

Overall, quite extraordinary.

4 out of 5