Review:

Previously on Heroes: there were a bunch of episodes which introduced characters who were nice and all, but whose storylines weren't particularly compelling.

This week on Heroes: most of the newbies get benched, the subplots for two of the central characters wrap up, the old characters come together again, and it's all pretty awesome.

You don't think there could be a connection, do you?

Greg Beeman does!

"I know that many fans will be happy that this one brings many of last year's characters together again. This episode also concludes Peter's story in Ireland and has Hiro leaving feudal Japan to return to the present..."

Then, color me stunned, Tim Kring this week addressed fan complaints and admitted that his show "took too long to get to the big-picture story," and that the next volume would focus on "doing something about it."

Which is staggeringly humble and honest of the guy, but which, on the strength of this episode alone, seems like a resolution he'll be able to keep. Because, minor complaints aside, this episode was quite simply phenomenal.

We open in the Land of Sark, where Hiro's pretty dopey from being held over a pot of opium. Cool detail. At least someone thought up a foil for Hiro's abilities. Otherwise, we'd be asking why Hiro doesn't freeze time, free himself from restraints, remove Yaeko and Papa Swordsmith to a distant hilltop, behead White Beard, bury the stockpile of guns which the army amassed, then teleport Kensei to the middle of a field and give him a stern ta-

Oh. Wait. He does get a chance to do some of that...

Ah, never mind. The pot of opium was still a cool detail.

Kensei calls Yaeko "my love," with quote marks in the subtitles. Neat touch. The way he looks at her in this scene, I still struggle to believe he ever cared about her enough to be so angry, but details like that at least embellish the bitterness.

Kensei's going to get half the country -- and Yaeko -- if he hands Hiro over to White Beard. So, only half the country will be painted in different shades of green and covered in purple flags? I'm not sure which half I should feel sorry for.

More relevantly, what would White Beard want with Hiro when he can coerce Kensei? As far as White Beard knows, it's Kensei with the ability to make swords disappear, disrobe the 12 Stupid Samurai, slaughter 90 cannibal warriors, and rescue a swordsmith from the center of White Beard's army. You can imagine how difficult it would have been for Kensei to convince White Beard that Hiro was the one with the ability he wanted.

"But it's not me with the special ability you want, it's Hiro!"

[White Beard stabs Kensei through the gut. Kensei heals.]

"Yeah, OK, that's a cool party trick. But Hiro can make people's clothes disappear!"

[White Beard gouges Kensei's eyes out. They grow back.]

"Oh, fine, so I can do some neat s**t too. But, look, TRUST ME, Hiro's the one you want to coerce into doing your evil bidding."

[White Beard castrates Kensei. Kensei's organs immediately regenerate.]

"Good point, well made. Who cares about teleportation when you can do that."

Kensei: "I will be the greatest leader Japan has ever known. I will change history."

Great delivery by David Anders. I still don't buy the idea that Hiro's babbling -- or even Yaeko -- would change Kensei from a drunken, aimless coward to a decisive, power-hungry leader; but Anders gets props for the way he changes the character's whole demeanor this week: the level stare, the confident swagger, the authoritative tone. It makes the Adam reveal all the more believable. As per last week, if you can forgive the flimsy rationale behind it, it's a blast to watch.

CG Ukraine. Less CG now because it's just a warehouse.

I love how Noah enunciates "a g-u-n" to Mohinder like he's an imbecile. If Mohinder's worried that Niki will inspect his cell phone for picture messaging then Noah's probably not far off, but this scene reaffirmed once again that Noah doesn't really trust anyone, and that Mohinder was never really an equal partner in the plot to overthrow The Company. I'm not even sure Noah trusts the Haitian. As far as we know, there still hasn't been a serious conversation about the whole reporting-to-Mrs.-Petrelli-over-Noah's-head issue.

I feel pretty bad for Mohinder here. Between The Company's shady agenda and Molly's illness and Noah apparently not caring if Mohinder's in danger, the guy blatantly has no idea who to turn to or who to trust. And as much as people decried Mohinder's stupidity for coming clean with Bob this week, this exchange between Mohinder and Noah set up why Mohinder felt he had nothing to lose by ending the charade.

Noah striking the match on the ground and setting fire to the paintings? That's awesome. The flames from the fire reflected in Noah's glasses, though? That's doubly awesome.

Matt and Nathan show up at Company Medical to get Bob to safety. How did they know where to find Bob? Who knows. Who cares? This reunion is so amazing that you can forgive anything.

Look at that wistful gaze between Matt and Mohinder. This is a great moment for Matthinder fans.

"Yeah, baby. That night really did cost me 7,973 bucks. And it was worth every cent."

If we had a scene like this every week, it would probably lose its appeal. But does the show realize how much of a kick we got out of it? This scene crackled with energy, and I can't help wondering if we'll ever get something like that out of a meeting between Maya, Monica, and Elle, even a season from now.

And that's if they all survive that long. Which they probably won't.

The newer characters lack the gravitas of the original characters, and their on-screen chemistry is unlikely to match what we're looking at in this scene. Is that a failure on the show's part? It could be. Or it could be that we're unwilling to embrace new characters because we love the original ones too much and can't bear to see them marginalized or written out in favor of new ones.

More obviously, it's an enormous obstacle when it comes to introducing new characters, especially when the biggest complaint from fans about the new season is that it spends too much time with new characters whose stories have failed to captivate the audience the way the original characters' storylines managed to last season. It means that new characters are constantly going to suffer from having their story, charisma, and chemistry with other characters compared with the original characters'.

Future NY. Also less CG than last week. I totally fell for the landmark buildings in the background and wondered if the scene itself was shot in New York and the Peter/Caitlin portion was green-screened into it.

The armored vehicle pulls up, the Hazmat guys rush out and pin Peter and Caitlin to the ground, and it's as if the whole meandering chronicle of iPods and soccer bets and Identity Boxes and Irish mobster ringleaders never happened. This is the kind of storyline we waited a quarter of a season for; something epic; something which puts one of the central characters in jeopardy; something which ties Peter's thread to the overarching story arc for the volume.

And a GREEN ECLIPSE. Too cool.

Canine Central. Before we get to the waffles, I need to point out how incredible this week's title card was: the letters expand as Claire's pillow bounces back into shape. Whoever came up with that effect -- it rocks.

OK, so West visits Claire before she wakes up, introduces himself to Sandra, ingratiates himself with the family by feeding and playing with Mr. Muggles, then texts Claire to let her know he's downstairs.

Is this behavior:

(a) presumptuous, brazen, arrogant, rude, etc.

(b) just plain creepy,

(c) thoughtful, and kind of sweet,

(d) a valiant attempt to assuage Papa Butler's aversion to all of Claire's boyfriends until she turns 21.

Do take a moment to put the situation into its relevant context:

Sandra doesn't look that peeved for the rest of the scene, although West does kind of look that smug the entire time. But Sandra seems to be waiting for the guy to sprout wings and pull out a harp, so at least part of the plan worked. And, you know, I'm still holding onto the theory that West is a Company plant, meaning this was just the latest stage in his effort to fracture the family and alienate Claire from her parents.

But to get back to the point, was this a sweet gesture? As much as I hate West, the guy actually asks if "Mr. Butler" will be joining them. And even though he's nervous about it, I grudgingly have to credit West for walking into the lion's den and trying to make a good impression. In a story thread defined by interminable Secrets & Lies garbage, this seemed like an effort on West's part to please Claire's parents, to do something thoughtful for Claire, and to end the sneaking around.

Alternatively, it was presumptuous, brazen, arrogant, rude, etc. And just plain creepy. You decide.

West shows Claire the newspaper article.

^ ^ Not a real article!

"Postponement of substantive debate may require implementation to encourage individual conference time and availability"?

Oh, come on. You call that a nod to obsessive fans? You guys got Mark Harelik on the show! And you've already got D'Agosto! At least get the guy from the props department on Election who used a newspaper article in the movie to ask if we realized what a thankless task it is to write fake newspaper articles, and to wonder what kind of people freeze the frame to read them.

Dude, have you met the people who watch this show?

The Midas Study. Bob's cello is still there!

Mohinder: "Isn't this all a bit reactionary?"

Well, it would be, if Maury was after Nathan because he planned to overhaul New York's political system. But I think Mohinder meant to ask if this wasn't all a bit of an overreaction.

Papa Parkman is named on-screen as Maury. I don't like it as much as Papa Parkman, but I'll run with it.

Matt plans to take Bob into custody to protect him from Maury. This earns Matt a

PING!

Dumb As Parkman Award, because I can't believe his memory's so bad he'd forget what happened to the last ElderSuper he took into custody.

This does, however, raise the question of Maury's proximity to the victim. He gave Molly nightmares and put her in a coma all the way from Philadelphia. Was he at the police station where Angela was held, or did he scare the life out of her from his apartment? And if he doesn't need to be within a certain distance of his victims in order to get inside their heads, WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING HERE? The plan was very clearly to use the people surrounding Bob to kill him. If that's the case, Maury could pretty much have gone back to his apartment and curled up on the couch while this whole thing went down.

Bob uses the same dialogue Linderman used last season. Nathan immediately zeroes in on it. Great nod to continuity, and to showing how the ElderSupers think alike, even if their methods differ. It also shows up rather elegantly how observant and perceptive Nathan is when it comes to speech, which is a big plus in the character consistency column for a guy whose career used to depend on using the right words at the right time. Well played, writers.

Bob tries to convince Mohinder that injecting Maury with the virus is the only way to prevent him from using Mohinder's worst nightmares against him. This made me wonder what Mohinder's worst nightmares might be. Probably going on a roadtrip with a psycho-killer, or behaving like a deranged madman, or possibly having his family's legacy relegated to a shelf between hypnosis and alien abduction.

Land of Sark. The tents are red in real life. And the guard's hat is pointy. I hope Yaeko's paying attention to this for future reference.

Papa Swordsmith laments making the guns. LazyGuard finds these laments boring and walks off. It's convenient for the story, because now Yaeko can use her hairpin to pick the lock on her chains.

Yaeko: "They always underestimate women. Their folly."

I hope one day Yaeko can forgive us, for we have underestimated her resourcefulness and doubted her perfection. She is, after all, the one who kissed Hiro and sent Kensei on a 300-year vendetta. She is, after all, the one who painted pictures while her father was coerced into supplying stockpiles of guns so that his daughter would be safe. And she is, after all, the one who now helps Hiro to teleport both of them away from the camp, and presumably Papa Swordsmith too. Problem is, Papa Swordsmith was on the other side of the tent and still chained up when Hiro and Yaeko teleported out of there. And he isn't on the hilltop where Hiro and Yaeko appear. And he isn't in the tent when the guard returns.

So the creator of Kensei's legendary sword is now AWOL. Bummer.

Future NY. Peter and Caitlin get hosed.

It's not every day I get to write a line like that.

Peter's clearly scared out of his wits and anxious to make sure Caitlin's OK, so why the CDC workers aren't collecting their severed, electrified limbs from every corner of the warehouse escapes me. But this whole Virus Future timeline is so disturbing that nothing could pull me out of it.

Peter's forced to park his butt at the L-Q table. And every table has a wastepaper basket next to it. And there are spare water tanks next to the cooler. That kills me. All of the details in this storyline were flawless: color, tone, lighting, props, even the grit and the dirt. Top to bottom, this whole storyline rocked my world.

The guy in charge of shoveling the body bags shows up, and it's Mark Harelik. Awesome.

Peter gets a tour of the warehouse, and we learn that the Shanti Virus mutated and crossed over into the general population just as Bob feared it would.

Is that CG? Probably. It's probably the same as the offices at Yamagato. But if it is, I can't tell. And it's convincing enough to scare the bejesus out of Peter. Now he really won't sleep for two months.

Company Medical. Matt sits at Molly's bedside.

Matt: "I'm supposed to be out hunting Maury, but I needed to see you."

I know I could rip this apart; if he'd only found Maury sooner, Niki might not have needed to inject herself with the virus. But you know what? Greg Grunberg was so great in this scene that I almost don't care. The guy gets tears in his eyes. Not the Hayden cry-on-demand kind, but the I'm-trying-to-hold-it-together kind. When he's telling Molly how he thought his dad left because he was too slow and fat and stupid, you feel for the guy. Grunberg puts across a sense of shame and regret without turning it into a whole pity-me-because-my-daddy-left-me performance. It's moving drama without devolving into melodrama.

How To Make The Male Cast Hotter In Season Two: Baring your soul and elaborating on a lifetime of self-esteem issues to the comatose kid you think of as a daughter. Grunberg doesn't get a lot of scenes to shine on this show, but this is one of them.

Mohinder describes Bob as "morally gray," which is another subtle echo of dialogue used in a different context. I don't know if that implies that Bob's the new Company Man who'll turn out to have a heart of gold, but if Elle is his daughter, and if he is using objectionable methods to achieve a noble goal, the parallels to Noah are going to become even more overt.

The Midas Study contains seven volumes on Angela? Imagine that. Seven volumes on her badass punk-rock days. What I wouldn't give to read those.

Nathan asks Bob to "uncomplicate" the situation with Adam Monroe, and we get yet another rendition of, "We were lost, but we came together; we thought we could save the world, but some of us were lunatics, so it didn't work out." And it still sounds great, even after it's been recounted by Linderman, by Papa Sulu, by Maury, and by Bob.

I'll sound like a broken record if I say it again, but I really, really wish a volume with the title "GENERATIONS," a volume which was supposedly going to involve the sins of the parents being revisited on the children, could give this backstory a little more detail. The Shanti Virus is obviously a key part of it, but I can't help thinking that the whole story deserves more attention than it's getting.

"Snow Falls in Miami" could have read "Tsunami wipes out Eastern Seaboard." Intriguing. Is that because there was a crazy weather-blessed super out there and The Company stopped him? Or because there was going to be a natural disaster and one of the ElderSupers used their ability to avert it? It's fascinating either way. More on this, please.

Bob recounts how Adam started to think of himself as a god, and how he started to talk about holocausts and plagues and punishing humanity. And I know I wasn't supposed to attribute this to West's remark last week about an ability making someone better than everyone else, but I couldn't help wondering; if you gave West another 10 years as an outcast and a loner, and if the guy spent all that time floating above town, mocking the population the way he did in the graphic novel for being too closed-minded to look up, wouldn't he end up thinking this way too?

Nah. He makes waffles for his girlfriend.

So, Adam and Linderman were one faction of The ElderSupers. And Angela was clearly on their team most of the time. And Papa Sulu and Papa Deveaux were apparently the non-believers who wanted to uphold a non-lunatic approach to "making a difference." I'm going to go out on a limb and say Bob's closer to these guys than the Adam faction. Maury seems like the kind of ideological sheep who'll be swayed into doing what anyone wants. (I don't want to say Matt's the same way, but given the way things turn out in at least one timeline, it doesn't bode well.) And Papa Petrelli and the rest of the ElderSupers have yet to be characterized.

Beeman? Kring? You guys still listening to fans complaining? I want you to ask yourself whether the drama from these characters and this story wouldn't have been about fifty trillion times more compelling than a super who cries black goo, a b**chy cheerleader who gets her comeuppance, and a princess in feudal Japan who paints purple flags. Because, good God.

At least we're moving in the right direction this week.

Hilariously, you'll note that Bob spent this entire scene looking away from the video surveillance footage he was supposed to be watching in case Maury showed up.

Future NY. Angela visits the warehouse to smack some sense into her boy so that he'll go back in time to prevent the outbreak of the Shanti Virus.

And even in a bleak, post-apocalyptic future, Angela's STILL WEARING FANCY EARRINGS.

You have to feel for her here. Even though she's the Ice Queen. And even though she lied to her boys. And even though she stole socks. And even though she arranged faux-brunches to fool the press. And even though she basically kidnapped Claire. And even though she slept with Papa Sulu. And even though she orchestrated a scheme in which her son exploded and leveled a city and killed millions of people.

... In spite of all that, can we STILL feel sorry for Angela when one son dies and another gets amnesia?

You can't tell me that doesn't say something about Cristine Rose. If the actress can make a character sympathetic in spite of all of that, she doesn't need a superpower on the show. She has a pretty amazing one in real life.

But here's the moment which sparked off an extensive debate on the nature of Angela's ability: did Peter's memories come back of their own accord, or did Angela restore them? I'd say it was mostly just meeting a familiar face and hearing her voice which restored Peter's memories of his mom. But I can also totally see Angela's ability being a counterbalance to the Haitian's mindwipe, or the ability to climb into people's heads and mess around with their synaptic pathways or something.

More interesting to me is the way Angela's now making a full-time job out of using both of her sons as tools. First using one son as a springboard for political influence, then using another as a catalyst to unite humanity through grief, then using that same son a year later to go back in time to fix a mistake which, in all likelihood, her circle of deluded supers probably brought about in the first place. It's not like Angela isn't right to ask Peter to alter history to prevent a global epidemic, but it's also kind of shocking how she manipulates her sons at the same time as caring so much about them.

Anyway, we cut from that to Mr. Muggles on the couch, watching Claire and West making out. Poor Lestat. And I say that as one of Hayden's biggest fans.

Claire's about to tell West that her father's the man who turned him into a lab rat, but West preempts the discussion by telling Claire they won't "go any further" if she doesn't want to. Which again earns West a little credit, because even if the first conclusion he reaches is that Claire wants to discuss sex -- probably because it's the only thing HE'S thinking of -- he still comes out of this looking like the patient, understanding boyfriend.

Problem is, it's not what she was going to say, and it signals rather obviously that West doesn't understand Claire and has no inkling of what's bothering her.

And, in spite of a couple of redeeming moments for West in this episode, NOTHING could be more satisfying than this. Behold:

Now THAT, my friends, is a prank.

THAT is comeuppance.

THAT is "a lesson in humility."

Noah gets West's popsicle. I don't know if that's supposed to be ironic or if I'm just reading the irony into it. Truthfully, I don't care. West haters, rejoice!

Land of Sark. Yaeko tries to placate Hiro, like, "White Beard won. Meh, s**t happens. Don't feel bad. You're a nerd who quotes comic books and messes around with time -- what can you do to stop an army and an invincible guy?" And Hiro's all, "Baby, he's gone to the Dark Side, BUT I CAN BRING HIM BACK!"

Hiro teleports to the tent where White Beard keeps a dozen kegs of gunpowder. Kensei shows up, and we get a

SWOOOOOOOOORDFIGHT!

It's no Anakin/Obi-Wan duel-to-the-death masterpiece, but as TV budgets and choreographing go, it's about as spectacular as you could hope for. It's also an extremely subtle way to make use of Hiro's training with Papa Sulu, because it allows for a swordfight that's fairly evenly matched.

Kensei: "As long as I have breath, anything you love, I will lay to waste."

He is SO the one who killed Papa Sulu. I'm now worried for Kimiko, Ando, and the cast of every incarnation of Star Trek.

The exploding tent was off-the-charts stellar. As stunts go, it's one of the best the show has produced. How we went from clunky flying sequences and computerized Angry Ronin to this is beyond me, but this absolutely rocked.

Company Medical. Maury uses an image of D.L. to tell Niki she's crazy and going to kill everyone.

The cameo from Leonard Roberts is a delight, even if it's brief, and even if he's really just saying what Maury wants him to say instead of what D.L. would actually say. I'm surprised Niki's worst nightmare doesn't involve Micah a little more; maybe an image of Micah getting shot would have been too much, for the character and for the show when it came to having a pseudo-morally-gray-hero shoot a kid. But even if the show didn't want to tempt the FCC like that, you'd think an apparition of Micah watching his dad die would be the fastest way to manipulate Niki.

Bob AGAIN ditches the video surveillance, this time to pull up footage of Peter being treated at Company Medical after exploding over New York.

Let me get this straight: Bob knew Peter was alive and Angela didn't? What happened? Did Bob expel her from the inner circle after Linderman died? Is she totally out of the loop when it comes to Company operations?

Niki shows up outside the Midas Study and goes postal on the door, which is both terrifying and formidable, and lends credence to Yaeko's observation that "they always underestimate women." I'd love to know how Maury immediately knew Niki was the one he'd use to kill Bob. Was it just the snippet of dialogue he heard in the corridor about brutally ripping people in half?

Niki realizes she's being controlled by Maury and injects herself with the Shanti virus. We get the obligatory single tear.

But as with Matt's scene at Molly's bedside, it doesn't feel unnecessarily overplayed or melodramatic. Maya's more Niki-like than Niki is these days. Unlike Maya crying at every available opportunity, this moment seemed less like arbitrary hysteria and more like an impossible decision which Niki was forced to make in the heat of the moment. The fact that Niki chose to endanger herself rather than let out the killer she became because of Jessica adds to her nobility.

Meanwhile, Matt -- who was supposed to track down Maury BEFORE he had a chance to channel anyone's worst nightmare -- is taking a nap. He's woken by the sound of someone breaking a door down, and finds himself in a vision of the apartment he lived in when Maury walked out on him. Once again, kudos to the team building the sets, because, as with Maury's apartment, this absolutely nailed the character and the mood. The faded green and yellow wallpaper and cupboards and the cheap furniture and the harsh lighting bring the mood to life; they all evoke the idea of a family that was trying to maintain a sense of cheeriness, but which knew deep down that there was something inherently corrupt in it.

Matt hauls his dad into the same vision, and it's gotten so confusing that I can't figure out who's standing in the corridor at Company Medical and still awake, who's asleep and dreaming, who's in a coma, and who's actually in this apartment right now. It's bizarre.

Maury tells Matt that it broke his heart to abandon his family. He seems to mean it, so as much as I'd like to write the guy off as a monster, I'm tempted to think the show will pull a Bennet and explain why Maury made impossible decisions for some greater good. It could be that Maury was the one who stopped Weather-Super from creating a tsunami which wiped out the Eastern Seaboard. Again, something I would have loved to see in this volume.

Grunberg steals this scene. When Matt's shouting back at Maury that he's a good man, you want to cheer for him. Even though he stole. Even though he deceived his wife. Even though he forced his foster daughter to confront her worst nightmare.

And when he tells Maury that he's a good cop, you again want to cheer for him. Even though he assaulted a fellow officer. Even though he only got a detective job by cheating. Even though he used his gun to take a family hostage.

And when he tells Maury that he's a good father, you still want to cheer for him. Even though you're not completely sure which kid he's talking about -- the one he left with Janice, or Molly. And if he's talking about Molly, hey, putting the kid in a coma was for the greater good! Sort of.

What!? I still think he's right! And Grunberg still knocks this scene out of the park, even if it's a bit of a generalization to say Matt's a good man and a good cop and a good father.

Matt realizes that Maury's standing in his own nightmare, and locks his dad in a super-coma. Molly immediately wakes up and embraces Matt, and all is right with the world.

Except Matt's daddy issues are now probably about ten times worse.

And Molly doesn't even say "I love you too" when Matt tells her he loves her? Mohinder is most definitely her favorite daddy.

Mohinder gives Niki a transfusion, even after she broke his nose. And she apologizes with this little half-smile. And Mohinder smiles. And it's beautiful.

OH, COME ON. IT'S MEANT TO BE!

Or not. Because Bob's gone and created some kind of industrial strength variant of the virus which Mohinder's blood can't cure. And Niki realizes she's going to die. I defy ANYONE to watch this and not be bowled over by Ali Larter's performance. When she realizes she's going to die, there's not a hint of self-pity or anxiety in her voice. It's resignation and realization that she won't be able to take care of Micah once she's gone. Ali Larter is a goddess. I don't know how this show made an episode with such a perfect balance between pyrotechnics and dramatic reveals and character-oriented gems like this, but this episode achieved it in spades.

And if they kill Niki, I'm really going to be p**sed. Although less so than if they kill Noah.

Mohinder gets the g-u-n. He learns from Bob that one possible cure for Niki's terminal virus might be Noah's daughter.

The one who Noah apparently never told Mohinder about.

The one who Matt apparently never told Mohinder about, even though he shot her.

Does anyone ever tell Mohinder ANYTHING? No wonder the guy earned the first Dumb As Award of the series. No wonder he ends up making bad decisions. He's got absolutely nothing to work with.

Is Mohinder wrong to admit to Bob everything about his plot with Noah? I'd say no, mostly because Mohinder realized at this point that trusting Bob might save Niki's life, and that he no longer had any reason to trust Noah. It's not like Bob's any more trustworthy, but he hasn't put holes in anyone's head as far as Mohinder knows, and for the most part, he's been open with Mohinder about the reason The Company wants to research the virus, and why it captures and tests individuals.

On a selfish level, part of it's probably that The Company seems to value Mohinder a lot more than Noah did. On a broader level, it also seems like The Company's goals, at least under Bob's tenure, are benign. If Noah's plan to dismantle The Company ended up undermining an effort to save a super's life from a terminal illness, I can easily buy into the idea that Mohinder would admit there's a rogue ex-employee trying to thwart what they're doing.

Now, all of that said, I can't wait to see how the tables are turned when Adam sells an even more convincing story to Peter than Bob has to Mohinder.

Land of Sark. Hiro retrieves Kensei's helmet from the rubble and teleports back to Yaeko. Yaeko displays no sadness over Kensei's demise -- despite the fact that Kensei was at least partly responsible for locating White Beard's army and rescuing Yaeko's father -- and expresses no grief over the notion that her infidelity very nearly rewrote 300 years of history.

You have to love this character.

Yaeko places enormous confidence in her ability to trumpet Kensei's heroism. It seems this will overcome all eyewitness accounts of the man who could be found in a drunken stupor and who was willing to pay anyone willing to dress up and parade the name "Kensei" in battle.

I guess the heroic version of the story is more appealing than the real one, and that's why it survived. But it's also a fortunate turn of events that Hiro could return to the future and not worry about Kensei immediately showing up to slit Yaeko's throat and prevent her from ever saying anything about Kensei's heroic deeds.

Hiro: "I must go back."

Oh, no. Not again. Please, show, NOT AGAIN. Don't get my hopes high if he's going to stick around for another four episodes.

We get another scene where Masi takes a valiant shot at bringing this romance to life. Props to the actor. Even Eriko Tamura's OK here. As with everything relating to Kensei's switch from money-obsessed drunkard to scorned-and-embittered warrior, if you can forget everything leading up to it, it's beautifully written and beautifully shot and beautifully acted.

If you put it into the context of a weak-ass storyline, it's less appealing. So I'm going to pretend Hiro whisked Yaeko six months into the past, that they had a delightful love affair before this whole situation with Kensei even began, that Hiro folded a thousand origami cranes for Yaeko, that he begged her to elope with him, that she refused for the sake of history, and that everything that happened here was staged to ensure that history recorded the Kensei legend as it was supposed to. That way, Hiro and Yaeko's hearts really would be broken when they said goodbye, and the romance between them really would resonate the way it was intended do.

Yes, I am indeed TOTALLY ripping off a romance we've seen on this show before. Because, so far, it's the one romance the show got right.

Yamagato Empire. Ando's actually working. Isn't this sort of sad? I mean, he's throwing himself into his work, dedicating himself to his career; then Hiro shows up, and Ando will go back to watching online strippers on his iPod and taking unauthorized leave and playing video games on his PC.

But look ...

And look ...

They're so pleased! And WE'RE SO PLEASED! The feudal Japan story is finally over!

Then Ando goes and kills the moment by telling Hiro about Papa Sulu's death. At least he's honest and doesn't try to break the news to Hiro slowly or easily. That's a true friend. Unlike, say, someone who locks lips with your girlfriend and pretends to be cheerful and upbeat the next time he sees you.

Gah! I'm going to need until at least the end of this volume to put the whole storyline behind me.

It gets even better. At Canine Central, the Secrets & Lies blow up in everyone's face. Noah calls Claire on the bratty rebellious streak. Claire calls Noah on the fake business trips which nobody's falling for. Sandra scowls. And Lyle gets told to shut up after one line of dialogue. And Noah wants the family to relocate. And even though it was obvious it would be Claire's fault that the family needed to move house again, I'd like to point out that I, like many, called it way back when Claire was burning her hand over Bunsen burners and clipping off her pinky toe.

Montreal Junk Room. Peter teleports back after watching Caitlin get shipped out of the U.S., and meets Adam, who we immediately recognize as Kensei, although Anders is now playing the character less as a jilted lover and more as a warped and supremely overconfident supervillain. Which, more than ever, underlines how wasted the actor's talents were in the feudal Japan story.

Even if you knew who Adam was, the way the introduction was done was so out of this world that none of the impact was lost. Catching the electric bolt and letting his fried hand heal? Does the guy even feel that, or is his tolerance for pain even higher than Claire's after 300 years of injury? It was unbelievably cool. I mean, I was spoiled about Adam's identity, and this was STILL the single coolest moment of the season.

And it's one moment in an ocean of amazing moments contained in this episode. There were some outstanding performances from Grunberg and Cristine Rose, some exceptional visual effects, and some of the best set work the show has achieved since it started.

Above all, this episode reminded us how well the show can be written. It's been a while since we got an episode in which every scene counted, and in which every line of dialogue served a purpose and sparkled. It used to be the case on this show every week, but this was the first episode of the season which achieved that.

Let's hope it's the first of many.

4.5 out of 5