Review:

This would have made such an amazing season premiere.

It's the one thought that kept coming back to me throughout the episode. If only it had been the season premiere. It wouldn't have fixed everything, but it would have gotten the season off to a much better start, and it would have led to storylines that made a lot more sense.

Not Maya's and Alejandro's, obviously. At this point, I'm not sure anything can save that. But the episode achieved everything that "Six Months Ago" managed to last season, and it opened several story arcs for the remaining episodes in the volume.

The scene-by-scene:

V.O.-Mohinder delivers a monologue as Peter wanders around the Montreal Junk Room and cries out for Caitlin. The gist seems to be that our capacity to remember is what makes us human and guides our decisions and warns us of the pitfalls we've encountered.

That's sort of apt for this show's second volume, right?

A week on, the instahealing hand is still indescribably cool, and still one of the coolest effects the show has done.

You can tell this scene was reshot; David Anders plays his opening dialogue with less certainty about whether Peter's going to go along with the plan to "change history." It's probably the right choice given that Adam has no idea where Peter's been for the past four months, but it takes away a little of the flair from the actor's entrance last week.

Adam realizes that Peter's been Haitian-whammied, but explains that Peter can recover his memories because he "can do what [Adam] can do." How does Adam know this? Beats me. Maybe he's had his memories wiped by the Haitian on a bunch of occasions and regained them by stumbling onto photos of Yaeko and Hiro.

Perhaps more importantly, does this mean that Peter and Claire, like Adam, are now immortal?

Adam advises Peter to recall "what matters most" to him. I feel bad for the girlfriend who Peter left in a post-apocalyptic future, especially after he told Ricky that she was the only thing in his life that meant something. She's clearly not what matters most to him a few days later.

The zoom-in on Peter's eye and the montage of images was a neat effect. Very reminiscent of the time we zoomed in on Noah's eye, but the shot was even smoother. I caught most of the images of Nathan, but the one that made me laugh was the clip of Nathan giving Peter women's nursing shoes. Cute detail.

And BAM! We're where the finale left off. Peter's going nuclear at Superhero Square and Nathan's carrying his brother into the upper atmosphere.

Nathan lost a shoe after Peter exploded? I know it's morbid humor, but it is kind of funny. You can see it's missing when Nathan's falling back to earth; the guy's left shoe and sock have been blown off.

The effects for this entire sequence are beyond amazing. I mean, when you can look at a shot and say, "That's an amazing effect," it's a compliment to the team who created it. But when you can look at a shot and can't even say for sure if it's CG, you know it's been created by geniuses.

At this point, the following turned up in my notes: WHY THE %*#@ DIDN'T THEY SHOW THIS IN THE FINALE?

For the cliffhanger. I know, I know. But after a lackluster scene involving a parking meter and fisticuffs, I couldn't help thinking this would have redeemed the conclusion to last season. If we'd seen how Nathan was burning up as he carried Peter into the sky; if we'd seen how Peter needed to push his brother away just to get the guy to let go; if we'd seen how Nathan was freefalling, unconscious, and THEN faded to black?

Would the impact of the cliffhanger have been lost? Maybe. But it would have brought the horror and the tragedy to life even more vividly, and it still would have left us wondering all summer what happened to both characters.

Peter explodes, instantly regenerates, and HIS SHIRT IS STILL ON? It's not like I'm advocating more shirtless Peter than we're getting, but ON THE ONE OCCASION WHEN IT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE? The guy exploded. His clothing would NOT survive that.

Also implausible? When a guy finds himself at the center of this:

... and turns out to be right as rain within about 10 seconds. We can only tow the tenuous suspension-of-disbelief line so far.

Niki and Micah take D.L. to a hospital in Manhattan. This is where you again start playing the what if game. What if we'd seen this and not known that D.L. was going to die? Would the sense of relief and optimism resonate more than the sense of impending tragedy? Because this story thread was all about D.L.'s hope that life would get better, and I can't help thinking that not knowing how Niki and Micah end up crying over his grave would have allowed us to share that hope and get lost in the narrative a little more easily.

Aaaaaand it's time for the Maya and Alejandro thread ...

"Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic."

We hear wedding bells. Alejandro and his bride are smiling ecstatically. This is a Very Happy Moment for the character whose role on the show so far has been limited to

(1) running,

(2) absorbing black goo,

(3) disapproving of his sister's crush, and

(4) smiling like an idiot.

I know it's not especially ironic that Alejandro gets to do three of those things again this week, but the fact that it's Maya who disapproves of the wife who Alejandro's known for four months? This when we know she's going to end up smiling like an idiot at her psycho-killer crush when she's known him for less than a day? I don't know; that seems kind of ironic to me.

Possibly in the script: "Maya forces a smile and claps unenthusiastically as her brother gets married."

Possible direction from Beeman on set: "Dania, I want you to remember: your character is very, very contemptful about this."

^ ^ Contemptful!

Even if she hadn't killed the bride with the Tears of Death, I'll bet you Maya was planning to smother the woman with a pillow or pour acid onto her face or push her in front of a bus. 'Cause Dania Ramirez wants us to know that Maya really hates her brother's bride.

Alejandro: "Family is something we never had."

Maya: "So why start now?"

This worked for me. It doesn't do Maya any favors, mostly because it establishes that she was caustic and cynical even before she became whiny and hysterical, but it reveals the dynamic between the characters before the Crying & Dying Routine began, and it shows Alejandro rationalizing a marriage he doesn't seem totally sure about. It also underlines that, even before the Tears of Death, Maya and Alejandro really didn't have anyone except themselves.

Are Maya and Alejandro orphans? Did their parents disapprove of the wedding so vehemently that they didn't attend? Alejandro got a brief line a while back about promising their mother that he wouldn't let Maya slow down on the way to America. The implication here seems to be that he was making that promise to a mom who's in heaven.

Does Alejandro even know about the cheating bride? It's not clear whether Maya tells him what made her so upset.

And we don't really pause to think about it, because it's time for

ALEJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANDROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

and

MAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

That's not just Maya, folks. That's me reacting to what I'm reviewing.

What if this had been the first time we'd seen it? Would it have had a little more impact? My guess is yes; the tragedy of a church square filled with corpses on a wedding day outweighs the tragedy of a bunch of unknown faces on a convoy dying, a distant family acquaintance dying, a couple of lazy police officers dying, or a few thuggish border patrol officers dying.

And some of those came back to life.

If you count the time Maya nearly killed Sylar, that's now six times we've seen the Crying & Dying Routine.

SIX TIMES.

IN EIGHT EPISODES.

It's got to be some kind of a joke: how many times can the show pull the same situation in different contexts? It felt repetitive on the second occasion, but on the SIXTH? Unless the show thinks we've been Haitian-whammied, I don't understand how they expect us to be engaged in this story anymore.

Peter brings Nathan to hospital. Elle and Bob find him there.

Bob stepped in to take over The Company only hours after Linderman's death? OK. He was probably already planning a coup anyway. Maybe?

Bob and Elle knew exactly which hospital Peter would bring Nathan to? OK. It was probably the closest hospital to the explosion. Maybe?

The hospital isn't inundated with reporters on the night when Nathan's landslide election was headline news? OK. The doctors probably didn't ID the burn victim until later, and the accident was kept under wraps until a certain family member again meddled in her son's political career by instructing him to resign. Maybe?

Maybe I should shut up; the plotholes revolve around a guy who's been burned to a crisp from exposure to radiation, and the smaller details can probably be forgiven. It just seemed like a lot of the details here could have been better thought out.

The Midas Study. Elle marvels over Peter and gets a rebuke from Bob. Because Milo's "not a toy."

Elle: "He could be..."

Gaaaaah! The baby voice grates.

Then:

That is funny. Even I'll admit that. That, and the excited giggle she gives when Peter lurches upwards in shock. It was the first moment when I wondered whether Elle might not be as insufferable as she could have been.

But the hair-fondling and the earlobe-stroking and the straddling? I think, even if we discount the possibility that Adam could still be Elle's father (in spite of the Big Mistake he made six years ago), the idea of Bob watching his daughter become such a sex kitten in front of him is just ... ew.

I love how Beeman goes for this tight close-up on Tobolowsky when he tells Peter he's "an old friend" of his parents. It captures the phoney, fake, slimy pretense so perfectly.

"Your folks were lunatics, kid, but don't worry -- I'm one of the sane ones!"

The Haitian appears behind Peter. We learn that he's the one preventing Peter from TK'ing the glass to his hand. Cool detail, but it opens a huge can of continuity worms which the show must have realized we'd pounce on. Until now, the general theory was that it was only mental abilities -- mindreading, coercion, time-freezing -- which the Haitian could block. That's how Nathan managed to fly away from him, and how Peter ALSO managed to fly away from him.

This week, we discover the Haitian can apparently nullify ALL abilities. Except Elle's Ellectrification, which seems to work just fine whenever she wants to use it. You could argue that the Haitian controls whose abilities he blocks and whose he "allows," but that also goes against the show's continuity, because we've seen how a mindreader gave himself a nosebleed trying to get past the Haitian's power-blocker without the Haitian even realizing it.

But, you know, all of that's pretty trivial next to the revelation that the Haitian is once again working for The Company. Aren't they under the impression that he shot Noah and kidnapped the super with cellular regeneration? Wasn't he reporting to Mrs. Petrelli over everyone else's head?

Isn't the Haitian now the most devious character on the show? Doesn't this level of scheming just make Noah look like a total amateur?

Seriously, what are the possibilities? Was the Haitian answering to Bob above Angela? Is that why Angela never finds out that her son is alive and well and in Company care? Or did the Haitian plan all along to wipe Peter's memory and ship him off to some distant location? And if that's the case, did he count on being immediately and implausibly forgiven by The Company after turning rogue?

Bob explains how research on a power-blocker "vaccine" had been shut down 30 years earlier, but that the project is now again up and running.

What?! Wait a second, WHAAAAAT?!?

So the ElderSupers were messing around with the Shanti Virus when Shanti died? Was the virus synthesized from the start? Did Shanti die from some crazy-ass experiment by Linderman, Bob, Petrelli & Co.?

And when Bob meets up with Mohinder in Cairo a couple of months from now, the whole time he'll probably be thinking, "Damn, I wonder if this Dumb As Mohinder guy's going to figure out that me and my fellow ElderSupers CREATED THE VIRUS WHICH KILLED HIS SISTER."

This was one heeeeeyuge scene for idle speculation. I could come up with questions about these storylines all day. I'm not going to because that would be pathetic, but the point is, I could. It raised so many questions and so many ideas.

I really need to praise Kristen Bell for the bats**t-crazy smile she gives Peter when he agrees to stay with The Company:

Now that impresses me. I still hate the character, but something like that? It's easy to appreciate how much thought Kristen's putting into the role, and how much nuance she's applying to Elle's craziness. Even if the character's fundamentally unlikable, she's still intriguing.

Angela visits Nathan at hospital. This is some extensive time in the make-up trailer for Adrian. It's so grotesquely convincing.

Nathan raises the headrest on his bed and sees his reflection in the mirror. I love how Angela half-heartedly tries to obscure Nathan's line of sight so that he can't see himself. Great staging. Great acting. Great directing. Great make-up. Great everything.

And, you know, all of that was enough to overcome the plotholes, because who does Angela think brought Nathan to hospital? Even if he disappeared within seconds, the doctors and nurses must have been able to describe the kid with floppy emo-bangs who brought Nathan in.

Bob pays for D.L.'s treatment using the Midas Touch. His influence apparently also extends to ensuring that no one saw the explosion over New York, and that none of Linderman's lackeys even opened their mouths about Linderman's death, let alone anticipated the killer checking into a hospital. Bob is clearly much more clued in to Company and superhero activity than Linderman or Thompson ever were.

Bob: "Linderman made a mess of things and I'm here to right the ship, so to speak."

Great dialogue, and great delivery by Tobolowsky. You know he's lying; you know the "so to speak" speaks volumes and that "right the ship" translates to "vivisect" and "murder" and "violate human rights." But there's something so disarmingly warm and good-natured about the character that you want to believe him.

At the Company Jail, we learn that it's Elle who cut Peter's hair. Your reaction to this will vary depending on your feelings about Peter losing the emo-bangs, and your feelings about Elle. I have no particular feelings about it either way, but I think there's a certain hilarious significance to the idea of Elle snipping away a chunk of Peter's old life. Therein lies great symbolism.

Peter gulps down the Haitian pills without hesitating. This is arguably worth a Dumb As Parkman Award, but since Peter's first goal is to ensure he doesn't end up going nuclear a second time, and since he assumes the people in this organization are affiliated with his parents, it's understandable that he trusts them.

The camera shot that swoops from Peter's cell, through the vent and into Adam's cell was flawless. Again, great directing from Beeman. The shot itself is effortlessly smooth, but it's also done abruptly enough that you see Kensei in the present day and need a moment to process what you're seeing.

And it's another what if, because I can't help wondering how cool it would have been if this was the first time we saw David Anders on the show. What if we'd seen the friendship form between Peter and Adam and then flashed back to 1671 Japan and watched the friendship disintegrate between Hiro and Kensei? We would have known about Adam's regeneration, but we would have spent the whole story arc wondering if Kensei was Adam's ancestor and if he just happened to have the same ability, or if they really were in fact the same person.

"THREE MONTHS AGO." Micah had a birthday party in his backyard. This whole scene blew me away: the care that went into creating the set -- the balloons and streamers, the towels on the chairs, the "trying-to-be-cheerful-on-a-low-budget" look of the furniture. And then there's Ali Larter's performance as the clinically-depressed mom who can barely smile at her son on his birthday, which is so convincingly portrayed that Ali deserves to be a candidate alongside Jack Coleman for the show's next Emmy.

No one eats Micah's cake?

Plus points for good continuity: the cake's decked with the cover of the same St. Joan edition of 9th Wonders that Micah showed Monica. It's unclear whether Micah holds onto this specific comic because of or in spite of the memory he has of his 11th birthday.

D.L.: "I wanna say things'll get better, but I know how that sounds..."

Again, great dialogue. D.L. knows his optimism rings false when his wife's forced to fight back an alternate personality using a medication that leaves her apathetic and depressed.

But then comes the qualifier,

"...but the truth is they will."

And you're reminded how far from false D.L.'s optimism is. He's so hopeful and so determined to keep his family together.

Did Peter suffer from the same depression that Niki did? I can't tell whether telling Adam that he's happy to stay in his cell forever is a sign of depression, or whether it's another instance of amnesiac Peter telling his girlfriend that he'd rather jump in the sack with her than let his family know he's alive and well. Future-Angela sang Peter's praises last week, but honestly, on the strength of dialogue like this, I wonder if the show's intentionally writing Peter as the kind of guy who doesn't think it's important to let his family know he's alive.

"TWO MONTHS AGO." Elle visits Peter's cell and clambers onto his bed wearing a skirt and high heels. I'm trying not to be won over by her charm, but Kristen Bell's wearing me down. I love how Elle gives Peter this gleeful hug after she zaps his hand. He really is like a giant teddy bear to her.

Then we get Elle's life story: how she set her grandmother's house on fire, how she caused a blackout in Ohio, how she wound up in a glass room and pumped full of lithium, how she grew up inside The Company, how she's a diagnosed delusional psychopath, and how she's never gone on a date, been on a rollercoaster, or gone swimming.

The amazing part about this mini-bio is that Kristen doesn't deliver it with a trace of self-pity. I mean, there's a tinge of resentment in there, but it's more, "These are the facts, I'm only going to talk about this once, and if you mention it again I'll zap the life out of you." I don't think it's that Elle feels sorry for herself or regrets the experiences she missed. We sort of feel sorry for her while we're wondering if she's about to go berserk and start firing electric bolts around the room, but I think Elle relishes her ability and her control over people too much to wish she'd had a different life, which is why I think Kristen was right to deliver the dialogue in that whole "these-are-the-facts" tone instead of a "pity-me-because-my-childhood-sucked" tone.

And, holy crap, can you believe I just wrote AN ENTIRE PARAGRAPH ABOUT ELLE? That's got to be a sign that she's come some distance since the obnoxious pout and the ultrasonic whining in the car.

Look! An elephant! Let's talk about the usefulness of video surveillance:

^ ^ That little installation on the wall look familiar?

^ ^ What about that thing behind Adam's head?

Are the cameras switched off? Are they there just for fun? 'Cause I'd really like to know how someone as clearly well-organized and well-informed as Bob could have installed surveillance into the cells of two highly-powerful and highly-intelligent supers WHO ARE NEXT DOOR TO ONE ANOTHER without realizing they're communicating, flushing pills, and phasing through walls.

Angela visits Nathan at hospital and finds Heidi there. Was it really two months before Heidi visited her husband, or was this just the first time Nathan was able to tell Heidi the truth about the explosion?

Angela tells Heidi not to believe Nathan's story about flying. Even though Heidi had already seen Nathan fly. And even though a far-fetched story from a guy pumped full of drugs is more believable than a rational story from The Woman Who Likes To Feel. Witness:

THE HANDS!

THE HAIR!

THE CRAZY EYES!

THE IRON GRIP!

And Heidi's like, "Forget this -- I'm outta here!"

Which is saying something, because it's not like Rena Sofer didn't get her share of dysfunctional family life with the Bauer brothers.

They say on the commentary that a lot of this was improv.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You cannot tell me this doesn't mean something! Is it a variation on Eden's coercion that only works with physical contact? Are Angela's claws magic? Or is it really just that the Ice Queen's using all that touching and feeling to scare her daughter-in-law into backing off so that Angela can keep her burned-to-a-crisp son to herself?

"Zulia, Venezuela." Maya joins a convent and becomes a nun.

No, I'm not joking.

If you can get past that, and the idea that Alejandro just happened to track her down, it adds something to the show's focus this week on guilt and forgiveness. First Peter's guilt over Nathan's burns, then Niki's guilt over allowing Gina to emerge, and now Maya's guilt over the tragedy she caused. Turning to God for forgiveness is also very much in character, given the way Maya later tries to find "salvation" and interprets Sylar's appearance as a sign from God.

Then it all falls back into the Crying & Dying Rout-

Wait, TWICE IN ONE EPISODE?

Come on, show. Enough is enough.

At the Company Jail, Peter decides he should visit his family and let them know his cells aren't being scattered over New York and that he's not at the bottom of the ocean or in orbit. Why it took Peter so long to reach this decision is beyond me, but the fact that he gets there in the end is something, I guess.

Adam tells Peter how The Company has been unable to kill him. Presumably, they've tried the tree root and the shard of glass.

Adam's story about revealing his abilities to the world as part of an effort to help people is intriguing. It's probably a lie, but if it's true, it's noble. It's muted by his manipulation, however, because the guy evidently knows exactly how to play on Peter's wish to help his brother, and on his guilt for being the one who caused Nathan's burns. It's cloaked in good intention; to be fair, even if Adam does ultimately turn out to be the villain of the volume, he's still responsible for persuading Peter to escape from The Company and healing Nathan from his injuries. But it's not like either of those were altruistic; based on this scene, it's clear that Adam's ultimate aim is revenge, and that Peter is a means to an end.

The ambiguity in Adam's intentions underscores the singularity of D.L.'s, though, because his decision to become a fireman and put his old life behind him reaffirms how determined the guy was to be a hero, and how much he wanted to make a difference with his ability.

What makes it doubly heroic is that you can easily see D.L. becoming a fireman without his ability. You can believe that he'd rush into a burning building to save a kid whether he could phase through the house's walls or not. That's the kind of thing I wish we could see on this show every week: characters demonstrating their heroism through their actions, but also the message that heroism stems from courage and nobility rather than from superpowers.

D.L. gets a medal of valor and brings home flowers for Niki. Which, aww, but also a lovely nod to character, because you know D.L. was going to give Niki the flowers and ask her how her first day at work went before he told her he was on the news.

The whole idea of a third personality controlling Niki didn't work for me. Ali Larter again knocks me out by how subtly she plays Gina as a playful, flirtatious variation on Niki and Jessica. But the show spent an entire season creating those two distinct personalities, and even then it was only moderately successful when it came to explaining where Jessica came from and how that personality wound up inside Niki. The show took a stab at explaining it this week when Bob attributed the split personality to Niki subconsciously adjusting to her ability, but to suddenly introduce a third personality in this episode seemed less an attempt to develop the character and more a device to drive the story forward.

D.L. leaves Micah (by himself?) and follows Gina to L.A., where he almost immediately finds her in a club snorting cocaine with Random Guy. I guess we're supposed to assume that D.L. knew Niki when she became Gina, and that this particular club was a regular venue for her, because otherwise, I'm not sure how D.L. just happened to stumble on the right club on the right evening and found someone in L.A. who didn't want to be found.

D.L. tells Random Guy to back off. Random Guy's fist phases through D.L.'s skull, which is a straightforward effect, but one of those moments that reminds you of how cool D.L.'s ability is.

If he could react to the punch quickly enough to phase his skull, though, you have to wonder why he couldn't react in time to phase his abdomen and let the bullet pass through him.

So, instead of dying at the hand of a well-defined villain while protecting his wife, D.L. dies at the hand of an anonymous extra in a club where the alternate personality which took over his wife was snorting lines.

An intentionally senseless death? You decide. I think there's a difference between a senseless death which conveys the senselessness of murder and a senseless death which is devoid of meaning. This death lacked impact, and it lacked resonance. Perhaps that was the idea, but it only makes sense if the show wanted to deliver the message that a family can overcome lifelong and insurmountable obstacles, start a new life for themselves, then be devastated by an arbitrary turn of events.

But if that was the idea, I'm not sure what an arbitrary turn of events is doing on a show in which people happen to find one another and come together to save the world. Characters die on this show, and it's not like Simone's, Ted's, or Mama Gray's deaths weren't equally senseless. But generally, people die on this show when their deaths are foretold, when it makes sense in the context of the plot, or when their death serves to advance another character's story or propel the broader story arc.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how D.L.'s death fits in with those. We knew he'd die, but the circumstances leading up to his death were even more arbitrary than Simone's. He didn't need to be killed off just to give Niki a reason to turn to The Company; there were ways to write around that with the character alive.

The part which surprises me is the message this death seems to convey: that optimism and bravery are rewarded with random death. It seems like a much darker message than the one the show traditionally conveys, and I can't help wondering whether the show would convey the same message if it ever decided to kill off one of its central characters.

My point isn't that the show should have kept D.L. alive; not if ideas for the character's story arc had run dry and if the actor wanted out. But the character was one of the most underutilized of the first season, and despite that, he remained one of the most compelling, often turning out to be the one thing that kept Niki's storyline from grinding to a standstill.

Bottom line: he deserved a send-off which resonated, and one which carried greater meaning.

Does Micah find out how his father died, or how his mom stopped her meds, ended up in a club in L.A., and indirectly caused the situation that led to his father's death? I don't know if we'll find out, or if the show will try to shut this storyline down as soon as it can. But it seemed like an important detail, particularly if Micah's going to join the crimefighters he idolizes in comics, whose ethos in several instances was determined by the circumstances surrounding a relative's death.

Great Aunt Uhura, Damon, and Monica attend D.L.'s funeral. Interestingly, D.L.'s mom is nowhere to be seen.

Company Jail. Peter deceives Elle into thinking he's being won over by the repeated Ellectrifications. He pulls her over to the bed, they kiss, and, yes, there is definitely chemistry. It's not Paire chemistry, but it's there, and it makes me hope they'll get a few scenes together again at some point.

Peter phases through the cell wall. Neat effect, and a cool moment, even though there's no way Peter could have known he'd absorbed D.L.'s ability. He didn't even notice D.L. when the guy was bleeding out in a corner of Superhero Square, let alone make a note of what the guy's ability was.

Peter and Adam go straight to the hospital where Nathan's been admitted. Nathan gets a dose of Adam's regenerative blood and immediately begins to instaheal.

Peter's forged passport was made by Adam? So he's the one who made Peter a female?

Peter and Adam reach a harbor, where Elle and the Haitian happen to intercept them. The Haitian apparently "allows" Elle to do her thing. Adam gets Ellectrified. Peter does too. Only in Peter's case, it leads to combustion and further shirtlessness.

How To Make The Male Cast Hotter In Season Two: Part IX. "Have two handsome male cast members engage in hot pursuit of one another while one (or more) of them is shirtless, culminating in physical violence and dominance of one over the other with the application of handcuffs."

I'm not saying I'm against it, but I can imagine how the rest of the male cast might be feeling a little underappreciated right now. I'm sure Quinto, Ramamurthy and Pasdar would welcome a chance to be chased around a harbor by the Haitian while semi-naked.

Peter finds himself chained inside a cargo container which was supposed to contain a dozen iPods. The Haitian tells him he deserves "a better fate."

One that involves the Electro-Entity frying his girlfriend's brother?

The Haitian is adamant. "You must start a new life, Peter. I fear this is the only solution."

This is a dumb plan! The Haitian wins this week's Dumb As Parkman Award for a plan that consists of wiping Peter's memory, shipping him to a destination which the Haitian doesn't even check, then hoping that, by some miracle, The Company won't track him down, and that Peter won't immediately rediscover his abilities, remember "what matters most" to him, and regain his memories.

Having devised this plan, the Haitian presumably returns to Elle and tells her that he "lost" Peter. Somehow, she doesn't Ellectrify the Haitian for losing her favorite toy.

So, to recap:

The Haitian is infected with the Shanti Virus and returns to Haiti. Niki realizes she's endangering Micah with the risk of another alternate personality and checks herself into The Company. Peter disappears for two weeks. Elle finds out which cargo container he was in and where he went and flies to Ireland (and back). Peter flies to Montreal. In the meantime, Nathan grows the Pasbeard and develops a drinking problem. Bob approaches Mohinder in Cairo and sends him to retrieve the Haitian. Adam has no idea where his cellmate got to, but figures he can't stop the Shanti Virus on his own and focuses on the other plan. He discovers that, while he was locked away, Papa Petrelli killed himself, Papa Deveaux quietly passed away, Linderman got shot in his office, and the other supers are still up and about. He visits Papa Sulu on the Rooftop of Pigeonly Delight and pushes the guy over the ledge, sends partner-in-crime Maury to (1) kill Angela by putting scary images into her head and (2) kill Bob using the supers he's working with (neither of which go according to plan), and then pretty much hangs out at the Montreal Junk Room waiting for Peter to show up. Which, by a fortunate turn of events, he very quickly does.

Wait, does that work? Does that all fit together?

Probably not. But most of the blanks have been filled in now, and the season makes a little more sense.

V.O. Mohinder continues about the importance of memories to defining who we are and how we're destined to be light and dark and good and evil and success and failure and you don't seriously expect me to make sense of this and review it in any meaningful way do you I mean I tried last season and the monologues made no sense at all and this season's have been better but this one doesn't make much sense either so let's just get back to the narrative thank you.

Back in the present:

This takes on more meaning now. I mean, it still captures the Maya/Alejandro story perfectly, but you look at it now, and you realize that Maya's essentially treating Alejandro like garbage, telling him to trust her when she says that Sylar's a gift from God and that his instincts are wrong -- this after MAYA MURDERED ALEJANDRO'S WIFE AND DRAGGED HIM INTO THIS INTERMINABLE TREK WHEN ALL HE WANTED WAS A QUIET FAMILY LIFE.

Nathan flies (as in, flies?) to Cork and presumably follows the leads that end with Ellectrification at McMemory Box Harbor.

And Bob releases Niki into the world, knowing she's been infected with the Shanti Virus and that she's going to die from it. Which either makes him an idiot for releasing a victim of the virus into the general population and hoping it's not contagious, or a mass-murderer for intentionally releasing a victim of the virus into the general population with the aim to wipe out supers and non-supers everywhere.

But then, that's this episode in a nutshell: it answers a bunch of questions, but it also raises a bunch of others and leads to a whole lot of meandering speculation.

Was this a worthy follow-up to "Six Months Ago"? Yes. It embellished and elaborated on the story arcs that were already engaging our interest: Peter and Nathan after the explosion, D.L.'s death, and the events that led to Niki handing herself over to The Company.

Even Elle was watchable. It's not like I became the character's biggest fan or anything, but Kristen played her with enough quirky charisma this week for the character to at least be intriguing.

Did the episode suffer from the same shortfalls as "Six Months Ago"? Yes. It was unable to cover all of the story arcs, meaning Matt's split from Janice wasn't covered, Molly's adoption by Matt and Mohinder wasn't covered, and Noah's collusion with Mohinder wasn't covered. It was also an episode which, like "Six Months Ago," was rife with inconsistencies.

Did that drag the episode down? No. Nothing could, not even the Maya/Alejandro story or the way D.L.'s death was handled, because for the most part, the writing, the acting, and the visual effects this week were superb. It's part of why, in spite of any weaknesses this episode might have, I'm convinced it could have changed our perception of the season if it had only come at the start.

That's three solid episodes in a row. A good sign.

4 out of 5