Review:

We're back, folks! Welcome to a third season of Heroes and a third season of episode reviews from HeroSite.

Previously on Heroes: a whole bunch of ordinary (but genetically blessed) individuals discovered they had extraordinary abilities. New York nearly exploded, a virus nearly wiped out all of mankind, and lots and lots of family drama ensued.

That's pretty much the past two seasons, although in the interests of clueing in new viewers and everyone that forgot who had which power and who was related to who, NBC kindly provides us with a one-hour Countdown Special before the two-hour premiere. In this, we learn that the upcoming volume is titled "Heroes: Villains," which is not to be confused with Heroes and Villains, although you can imagine the way video store owners are milking that confusion for all it's worth. And it would be kind of funny if everyone on this show had historical code names. Sylar could be Napoleon, Peter could be Spartacus, Claire could be Attila the Hun ...

Anyway, the Countdown's all about letting us know that this season's supposed to be pretty good. If the first two episodes are any indication, there's reason to be cautiously optimistic. The best thing you can say about the premiere is that it gets right to the central storylines, it's fast-paced, and it's obviously been well thought out. The worst thing you can say about it is that there's a LOT going on in the first hour (and I shudder to think how it must have looked to new viewers), that certain characters are still getting shafted with either weak or near-nonexistent storylines, and that the show's falling back on a lot of the same plot devices it used in previous seasons. Also, Maya's still around.

A word of caution before we start: for readers outside of the U.S., please be aware that the first two episodes aired back-to-back here and that you'll find references in this review to the following episode. If you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, hop off the train until you've checked it out.

That said, on we go.

Future-Peter's running like hell! You can tell it's Future-Peter because of (1) the slicked back hair, and (2) the big-ass scar, which still hasn't been explained, but whatever.

Helpful captions tell us that it's Manhattan, New York, and that it's four years in the future. And I know there's all kinds of discussion to be had about how this future compares with the other future we've seen, but I stopped following the plot round about here:

Sure, the brunette thing's been done, the "black leather = baaaaad person!" thing's kind of overused, and the "hooker look" ... well, yeah, that's valid.

Who cares. She looks GORGEOUS!

Future-Peter finds himself at gunpoint. I'm not sure why this gets him so panicky. Between the instaheal option, turning invisible, letting the bullet phase through him, TK'ing the gun or the bullets across the warehouse or -- as turns out to be the solution of choice -- freezing time and teleporting out of there, it's not like Peter wouldn't have a dozen escape methods.

We learn that this future is similar to the one in "Five Years Gone": superpowered individuals are being hunted and herded and vivisected and forced into hiding. Future-Claire reminds Peter that she's "different" and "SPECIAL," and I kind of have to put that in italicized block capitals because there's just no other way to convey the venom Hayden spits it out with. Great delivery and, in retrospect, great echo of Sylar's words at Canine Central after he scalps her.

"Sorry, Peter. I always loved you."

Oh, come on! That's a niece talking to her uncle? Are you kidding me? I don't care how innocuous those words look on paper. The way she says it? That's no niece talking to her uncle. That's a reason for everyone who ever wanted the show to retcon the Petrelli family tree to celebrate. Paire shippers, rejoice!

Future-Claire shoots, Future-Peter freezes time and the bullet stops in mid-air with a plume of smoke behind it. Very cool. It loses a little of its impact after we've seen Sylar TK a bullet to a standstill, but that's the first of many instances this week of, "It worked in Season One and they're using it again."

Future-Peter removes the gun, teleports away and time restarts.

Am I the only one surprised at the way Future-Peter's flying by the seat of his pants here? It seemed like the shooting last season was planned and timed pretty methodically, but the way it plays out here -- he just happens to find Future-Claire with a gun he can use to shoot Nathan, he just happens to find a hat and a coat at the police station to disguise himself -- he's making it up as he goes along.

But here's the problem with making it up as you go along: you end up winning HeroSite Dumb As Awards!

*PING!*

Chalk one up for Future-Peter for the most extreme and unnecessary solution he could come up with.

Nathan takes two bullets to the chest and Future-Peter returns to the closet where he hides his gun behind a box of GRR ILLA Drum Liners. Inside joke? He then runs with Present-Peter in hot pursuit. As we later learn, this is the moment when Future-Peter morphs into Present-Peter and ... switches Present-Peter's consciousness into Weevil's body and inhabits Present-Peter's body? And, what, Weevil's consciousness is still in Francis Capra's body and just submerged beneath Peter's? Or did Future-Peter teleport Present-Peter's body AND Weevil's consciousness into LimboLand and are they just floating around out there until Future-Peter works this bodyswapping whammy again? That needed a little more explanation.

Nathan's brought into hospital, and at this point ...

... Peter looks like this is eating him up. He pleads for forgiveness in the following episode and it's hard to buy that being devastated over shooting his brother is just an act, but Milo brings a lot of nuance to the scenes when Peter's watching over Nathan -- at the hospital and later at the chapel -- so I think you could argue it both ways. I love how Peter's waiting outside the operating room and almost-but-not-quite rests his hands on the wall before he buries his head in his hands and collapses. It's a carefully layered performance, but I think it's also difficult to know what Peter's thinking when he asks the doctor whether Nathan's "gonna make it." You have to wonder how much he's secretly hoping Nathan won't make it.

Nathan being brought back to life: Ghost Linderman working the Be Healed Whammy? Future-Peter working the Be Healed Whammy after unknowingly absorbing Linderman's ability as a kid? Or just classic Petrelli Brotherly Bonding workings its magic? You decide. Whichever it is, for reasons yet unestablished, Nathan lives. Which, AWESOME! But it also kind of kills any suspense that death has on this show. Unless we follow the off-screen drama and know that the actor got a gig on another show, there's really nothing to keep the writers from bringing anyone back now. If it isn't The Magik Blood, it's the Be Healed Whammy. And if the person working the whammy's dead themselves -- well, there's an unestablished plot device to fix that too. Heroes has beaten Death!

Opening credits. I'm delighted that Cristine Rose is finally a cast regular but dismayed that Dana Davis and Noah Gray-Cabey are nowhere to be seen. Sucks to be Monica and Micah.

Yamagato Empire. Hiro sits in Papa Sulu's office and messes around with the clock. He wants a purpose in life, a chance to prove that he's a hero and a chance to save the world.

So, basically, he's where he was at the start of Season One.

You could take it as a throwback to the pilot. It strikes me as more or less a negation of everything that happened to Hiro over the past two seasons. After what's barely a couple of months in Hiro's life, the implication is that he's ready for new adventures and ready to move past everything that happened. "Everything" being losing the love of his life (the first one), putting a sword through someone (and, for all Hiro knows, killing them), betraying and blowing up his childhood hero, watching his father murdered by his childhood hero, and finally burying his childhood hero alive.

You'd think that Hiro would be a little less cavalier about playing with the clock; I get that it's meant to be funny, but in this kind of context, with this kind of backstory, it comes across as callous, particularly when Hiro's sitting in his dead dad's office. But you'd also think that Hiro would welcome a little normality in his life. The implication after Season Two was that Hiro was ready to go back to his old life. Judging from this scene, that didn't last long. Instead we get him playing with the clock and telling Ando he's bored. Woohoo.

What sounds like a sitar *twang* tells us this is A Scene Intended For Comic Relief. Ando enters the office calling Hiro "sir." We learn that Hiro owns 51% of Yamagato, and that Papa Sulu obviously screwed over sister Kimiko.

OR DID HE?

"Two hundred and fifty million in cash"? They don't say whether it's Japanese Yen or U.S. dollars. If it's Yen, it's barely $2m. (Check it!). Which isn't peanuts, but methinks Kimiko's happily living on a tropical island she bought before Hiro even thought of the inheritance.

Hiro reminds Ando that he "saved the world ... twice." I can't figure out if he means the time he didn't kill Sylar or the time he teleported Adam out of Primatech and left a highly contagious strain of the Shanti Virus about to smash on the ground. Either way, Hiro leaves out the part that involves him inadvertently manufacturing the crises he then has to overcome: chances are Kensei wouldn't have been so p**sed off if Hiro hadn't stuck around in 1671, and chances are Tokyo wouldn't be exploding this week if Hiro hadn't opened the damn safe.

Canine Central. Claire packs a bag, presumably planning to call Sandra a few hours later and be like, "Hey, Mom, I'm going to New York to transfuse my Bio-Dad after he got shot ... No, Mom, they haven't caught the shooter yet ... Yeah, Mom, I'll be careful ... Well, I think if he blows my head off I might not regenerate, but the show's getting a little hazy about that, so we'll tempt fate ... Love ya!"

Then ...

Dun-dun-DUN!

So calm! So composed! So civil!

Sylar: "Bet you've been wondering where I've been since you saw me last. Let's just say I took a little detour from my career path ..."

Is that what they're calling Season Two in the writers' room? Nice euphemism!

"It's all behind me now, like a long night after a bad taco."

He's summing up our reaction to Season Two PERFECTLY!

The great thing about the chase through the house is that it never descends into camp horror. Claire never comes across as clueless just to fit the conventions of the scene. You can praise the lighting and editing and staging of this scene, but what stood out for me was the way it was paced. It never felt overlong or overplayed.

Chandra's Crib. I know I shouldn't ask, but the cricket bat -- Mohinder's or Chandra's? You have to wonder. It's almost as awesome as Midas Bob's cello.

Maya gives Mohinder the literal equivalent of the pain she inflicted on us last season. "I'm so sorry! I thought it was Sylar coming!" A not unreasonable assumption, but Maya and Mohinder seem to forget it later on.

With Molly on a plane to some unknown destination, Maya gets up in Mohinder's face, all assertive with her heaving bosom, and says -- and I swear I'm not paraphrasing this -- "Now we can finally get started on my examination." Whoa, there, Heroes, easy with the dirty euphemisms! Mohinder backs off and replies, "Yeah ... um, about that ... I really am in no position to help you." Geez, they're REALLY fueling the fanfic fires. The Matthinder shippers are going to love this.

Mohinder says there's nothing left for him here and that he's packing his bags and returning to India. It's definitely Maya standing in the room with him, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was Eden and that this whole scene had been lifted word-for-word from early Season One.

Besides the deja vu, what bugged me about this scene was that Mohinder's once again leaving when his reason for coming back the first time hasn't changed. He still needs to stop the superpowered psychokiller on the loose. He still has the ability to track people with abilities and warn them. He still has connections to a Company with the resources he needs to continue his research. It's difficult to feel any investment in this scene when you know it ends one of two ways: either Mohinder goes back to India, naps in an office at a university in Chennai and dreams of a boy with a soccer ball for a few episodes before changing his mind and coming back to New York, OR ... he never leaves in the first place. Either way, it's a recycled plot device, and -- worse -- it's an UNCOMPELLING recycled plot device. It's also compounded with the development that Mohinder's no longer saying goodbye to someone with a firm handle on her coercion whammy; he's now saying goodbye to someone with an uncontrollable ability that poisons everyone within a one-hundred-yard radius. And HE'S GOING TO JUST GO BACK TO LECTURING AT A UNIVERSITY?

Come on, show. This is dumb. It's ...

*PING!*

Dumb As Mohinder!

Or rather it's still just a generic Dumb As Award until Mohinder wins it on five separate occasions, but it's definitely looking like Mohinder's on course to reclaim his Season One title from Matt.

Maya is distraught. "I came all the way from South America to find you!"

And her brother died along the way from fatal stab wounds!

So did several border patrol guys and a couple of police officers from the Tears of Death!

And a car thief from a fatal blow to the head!

And a couple of viewers from sheer boredom!

DO SOMETHING, MOHINDER!

No, he can't help. So, what, he expects Maya to get a job at a local store and try her best not to kill everyone around her?

Maya is outraged. Her eyes turn black. It's Character Facet #5!

Mohinder is fascinated by this near-death experience. Maya explains that it happens when she's [Facet #1] scared, or [Facet #5] mad ...

... But not when she's [Facet #2] contemptuous or [Facet #3] guilty or [Facet #4] naively infatuated. All of which will be demonstrated over the course of the first two episodes of the season. She's working with the whole palette here.

Mohinder has a Eureka! moment and twigs that something about a sympathetic nervous response and neural pathways is connected to abilities. It turns out that the superpowered population owe their abilities to their adrenal glands. This comes out of leftfield and seems to negate a lot of the Human Genome Project stuff the show came up with during the first season. Plus, it goes without saying that there are a million instances on this show when supers used their abilities and weren't the least bit worked up or upset, so how their adrenal glands trigger their abilities is beyond me. I'm hoping it's just that this went over my head and I need to give it the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is that the writers are saying, "Whatever, the plot demands it, thus it is so."

Yamagato Empire.

Papa Sulu! Welcome back, George Takei! They can bring you back from the dead anytime they want!

"If you're watching this, then I am dead ... And it's all your fault because you made Adam angry 400 years ago by stealing his girl and then you let him throw me over a rooftop and, you know, I was only trying to be profound with all that talk about Destiny! You were supposed to save me! What kind of son are you? That's it, Kimiko's getting everything!"

OK, maybe he doesn't say that. But he should!

"I have left you my fortune ..."

I love how Hiro gives a little bow to the TV screen when he hears that. I don't know if that's a Masi improv, but it's a neat touch.

Hiro is saddled with "a sacred duty," one that involves harboring "a dangerous secret."

Oh, dear God, Papa Sulu's going to tell Hiro about the affair with Angela, isn't he?

Hiro's sacred duty is ... to never open the safe! Which, of course, he immediately does.

I'm not awarding that a Dumb As. Papa Sulu rigged the safe to open with Hiro's fingerprint so obviously he wanted Hiro's curiosity to spur him on. This whole Tokyo-exploding thing is still Hiro's fault, but it's not like Papa Sulu didn't indirectly help to put it in motion.

Hiro gets a look at The Formula:

... Which apparently is part of this volume's end-of-the-world storyline. Papa Sulu then rambles about protecting this half of The Formula with a Chosen One with pure blood who can be The Light that safeguards The Darkness. All of which is intriguingly (/exasperatingly) cryptic and effectively sets up the story arc for the next 12 episodes.

The Formula disappears from Hiro's hands and Hiro freezes time.

Beautiful effect, and an ability in a character that's beautifully owned by Brea Grant. I was fully ready to hate this character. The Hiro/Daphne Batman/Joker analogy grated my last nerve when it was used for the billionth time over the summer, mostly because it never rang true and you could tell right away that Daphne was going to be an antagonist rather than a villain. I'm pleasantly surprised because she comes across as charming and refreshingly direct here. I can still see this being a reverse-Elle and Daphne going from quick-witted and snarky to obnoxious and petulant, but Daphne's a lot less annoying at the outset than Elle was.

Hiro introduces himself, straightening his posture and placing his hands on his hips. Masi improv? Again, seems like something he'd come up with.

Hiro asks Daphne if she moves "fast," and Brea Grant gets this delightfully insulted look. And then glares a bit. And then asks whether time would stay frozen in Tokyo if they both went to Bangkok, which is a question I've been wondering since way back when Hiro was making origami cranes. Yeah, Daphne's cool.

And getting cooler when she decks Hiro. Given the way Hiro's been acting this episode, I wonder whether the writers wanted us to applaud Daphne for it.

Odessa Police Department. Peter returns to the GRR ILLA liners to retrieve Future-Claire's gun and, presumably, shoot Nathan again. Matt finds Peter searching for the gun, realizes that Peter might be an accomplice to murder -- or, somehow, a suspect -- and ... steps into the closet with Mr. Superpower and ... closes the door? Without backup? That's really dumb.

Dumb As Parkman, you might say.

*PING!*

It really is going to be a battle between the two heavyweights this season, isn't it?

Future-Peter jams Matt's mind-reading frequencies the way Maury did and teleports him away. The remarkable part of this scene is in the detail: the way Milo staggers his performance as he drops the Present-Peter charade even before he morphs back into Future-Peter; you can see how Peter's smile dissolves and his head tilts down and his eyes narrow. Again, subtle acting. It's also a cool sequence for the way Future-Peter TK's Matt towards him rather than just reaching out to grab him, and for the way the teleporter remains where he is while the teleportee gets whisked away.

Nathan visits a chapel and, driven by delirium as near as I can tell, speechifies about God, our hopes and dreams, and how we can only make our lives meaningful if we work together.

It goes without saying that Heroes operates with religious undertones. I think it's always done a solid job of not letting the undertones become overtones, but this is a remarkable turn for the show -- and for Nathan as a character -- because it effectively turns the biggest non-believer into a believer.

It seems like the "delirium" part is what's crucial. If Nathan's in his right mind then the epiphany carries real weight and suggests that the most cynical and power-hungry guy can find faith and redemption and a higher purpose for his ability. On the other hand, if he's just delusional -- or, worse, putting on an act -- then the show's essentially dismissing the idea that the characters' abilities on this show can be God-given. Not that the same thing hasn't been implied in the past; between Adam and a couple of the graphic novels, the implication is that these abilities evolved over millennia; between the Haitian and now Maya, the implication is that God doesn't grant salvation before nature or scientific progress do. And with the whole Formula storyline now being set into motion, the angle the show's taking seems to be that it's less about God and more about DNA-splicing.

If nothing else, it's an interesting acting challenge for Adrian. It's bold of the show to bring a religious motif to the forefront at the same time as pushing the opposite angle with the Formula storyline, but I wish we hadn't been left with a message that seems to boil down to, "People with abilities only attribute their ability to God if they don't understand the science behind their ability, or if they're delirious and the ghost of a dead guy tells them Divinity brought them back."

The episode cuts from a religious motif to a scientific one that involves tyrosine, dopamine and cortisol. It all sounds ... plausible. Can anyone vouch for this stuff?

Then ... Oh, no.

Gaaaaaaaaah!

You know where this is going, people! You can see it coming A MILE OFF, but being prepared for it doesn't make it any less obscene or any less unbearable. Please, show, STOP! There's a superpowered psychokiller out there! Maya's brother was just murdered! MAYA was just murdered! Mortal danger! Lethal abilities! I'd expect this kind of idiocy from Maya, but Mohinder? FOCUS!

There's chemistry between them, no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean this makes sense. There was chemistry between Mohinder and Niki. There was chemistry between Mohinder and Matt and Mohinder and Noah. IT DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD MAKE OUT!

Off topic for a second:

Lizard-Mohinder lives!

Mohinder has prepared another Magik Cocktail: this one will give anyone an ability. Maya's all, "Hey, GIVE an ability? What happened to, you know, REMOVING MY DAMN ABILITY?" But Mohinder doesn't seem to care much about that. I'd say it's "out of character," but right now I'm stuck on "totally bizarre."

Canine Central. Claire's still trapped in the closet.

It's possible Sylar didn't get back all of his abilities from the Mohindaire Cocktail last season. It would explain why he doesn't liquefy the chain on the closet door or TK the door from its hinges altogether. I like the theory that Sylar already knows he's going to catch Claire and that he's deliberately taking his time and savoring the experience. It's debatable because Sylar's generally a "Get in, scalp 'em, get out" kind of guy, but we've seen him leave Noah alive in a Company cell instead of killing him, and we've seen him terrorize Sandra before he decided to kill her. You could argue that he wasn't interested in harvesting an ability from either of them, but I think Sylar has a fixation with this entire family that goes beyond taking Claire's ability.

Folks, if you're squeamish or eating while you watch this episode, look away during this scene, 'cause ...

Dayum!

We learn that Sylar acquires abilities from his victims by poking around the inside of their brains and ... looking at them? But that he definitely doesn't eat the brains or take them to a shrine or anything. Which is a defining moment for the character as far as a lot of fans are concerned. Frankly, I didn't care one way or another. Future-Peter's scar? The truth about Papa Petrelli's death? Mr. Muggles's special ability? Those are questions I want answers to. I can appreciate why people loved this, and why they loved the "Eat your brains? Claire that's disgusting!" line, but to me, it felt like fan gratification. There's nothing wrong with a token to the fans, but there should be a point to it. Giving Daddy Bennet a first name made sense because he was going to stick around and needed more than a second name and "HRG," but did we need to know what Sylar did with the brains?

This scene saddles the show with a villain who's now close to invulnerable, but also -- and perhaps more importantly -- with a character who's now emotionally and physically numb after being traumatized by an experience that borders on violation. I think the show was brave to go there at all, but the way this was written and staged, it's hard to ignore the implication behind Sylar breaking into Claire's house, getting what he wants from her, leaving her distraught and walking away feeling proud of himself. Given the theme of the volume and the revelation that Sylar's a Petrelli, it seems like that was a challenge the show intentionally set itself: to make us wonder what's worse than a serial-killing pseudo-rapist, whether Sylar can be forgiven, and whether he can be redeemed or reformed. I'm not sure how I feel about the show going there in the first place, but, at least creatively, it's bold of them to film a scene like this with the express intent of then challenging our disgust and hatred towards the character and attempting to overturn that antipathy.

Props to Hayden and Zach for the way the way they played this scene, because you can see how Hayden's playing Claire as bewildered at the same time as horrified, and how Zach's playing Sylar as civil at the same time as monstrous. I love how Sylar's actually considerate enough to return Claire her scalp and to close the door on his way out. That's a testament to the actors' skills, but also to the distance their characters have come since the show started, because you wouldn't have imagined a scene like this when they made "Homecoming."

Sylar: "I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to."

Claire has a "WTF?" face, and so do a lot of us, because, hey, tree root? Shard of glass? Bullet to the head?

"You can never die. And now, I guess, neither can I."

Settles the debate about whether or not Claire's ability extends to immortality, but also forces us to ask whether the show's writers are making this up as they go along. If Adam or Claire or Sylar's brain matter goes through a wood chipper, they're dead. I don't see how the show can get around that, so I'm just going to assume that Sylar's wrong.

Maya visits Mohinder at the Apartment of Clairvoyance and implores Mohinder to destroy his research.

"No, we're doing this for SCIENCE! For HUMANITY! For unspecial people EVERYWHERE!"

I guess you could argue that the prospect of fending off Sylar with a power of his own is so thrilling that Mohinder's blind to all reason, but I don't buy it; I don't buy that he's developing this serum to stop Sylar or to protect Molly, or even to help Maya. He's doing this because he's thrilled to make a scientific breakthrough, he wants an ability of his own, and his ambition and greed outweigh his conscience.

All of which are plausible, but the show ain't gonna get there in one episode, and when it tries, this is what you get: Maya suddenly posing as Mohinder's conscience when, for the duration of the show, Mohinder's been Mr. Conscience. He's the guy who berated Bob for daring to decide who lives and who dies. He's the guy who couldn't bear to test the Shanti Virus on Monica. He's the guy who battled with his conscience over whether to betray Noah if it saved the population from an epidemic.

With all of that in mind, the ethical dilemma is now limited to:

"But Mohinder, what if some poor sucker shoots up a power and ends up with something like mine?"

"It's like a box of chocolates, Maya -- you never know what you're gonna get."

"But what if your research falls into the wrong hands?"

"Err, I'll give myself an ability and fight 'em!"

And this in a volume that promises moral complexity? I hope it gets better than this.

We cut to Bruce Boxleitner in a hotel room and see Ali Larter in lingerie.

She's gorgeous, and I appreciate that every show needs gimmicks and a little flesh to boost its ratings, but it used to make some kind of sense in the context of the story: Niki stripping expressed something; it said something about her financial desperation, about her struggle to look after her son and her determination in the face of adversity. Even Jessica sleeping with Nathan said something about the alter ego stepping in for her sister to help her out of a tough situation with Linderman. As near as I can tell, this was here purely to boost the ratings. You could have taken out the shot of Tracy slipping on the gown and nothing in this or the following episode would have been affected.

It's great that Ali Larter's back, it's great that she's getting a new character to play, and, yes, it's great to see her in her underwear. It just would've been nice to get that in a reasonable context where it conveyed something besides, "Ooh, watch this, there's a hot blonde in lingerie!"

CG Tokyo. Ando suggests going back in time to ask Papa Sulu what he was rambling about, and Hiro's like, "No way, never going back in time ever ever again." Which is short-sighted of Hiro because it makes more sense to figure out why anyone would want The Formula in the first place than to just see what losing The Formula causes. Then again, if going back in time starts another seven-episode subplot about how Hiro needs to "fix" history, it might be in the show's best interests to rule the option out completely. Well played, writers.

Hiro goes forward four years into the future. How does he know how far forward to go? Beats me, but it's awfully convenient because not only is this the exact moment to gauge the destruction Hiro's little quest causes, it's also the exact moment he witnesses Future-Ando whooping Future-Hiro's ass. This Future-Hiro doesn't yet have the soul patch or the ponytail, but Future-Ando?

Unspecial Ando becomes Darth Ando and works the Force Lightning!

It seems Ando's going to betray Hiro. I think it's more likely that Hiro betrays Ando, but that's only because James Kyson Lee's not nearly as good at playing a badass as Masi is.

Now THAT? ... is impressive. I love how it's such a detailed and progressive shot: how it goes from the crumbling buildings to the fire to the roads being torn up to the cars falling.

The effect itself? Impeccable. But it's like Ali Larter in lingerie: its impact depends on the context. Tokyo exploding at least has some context with The Formula, but it's essentially a rerun of New York exploding in Season One: we've seen it before, and -- like the bullet frozen in mid-air -- it loses its impact the second time round. It's a better visual shot than New York being leveled in "Don't Look Back," but it lacks the suspense and the shock because we've seen it before. It seems like the show is desperately trying to imitate itself; that it's taking its strongest elements from previous seasons -- an exploding city, future versions of the characters, lots of cool superpowers and a Big Mystery To Be Solved -- and reworking them.

Hiro returns to the present. "We've gotta find that formula." As in, "We've gotta find that sword"? Hopefully not.

The Ice Queen returns!

Peter waits for Angela outside Nathan's room, and the hostility when they have this little confrontation? You can feel it radiating off the screen, the actors play it so well. Angela immediately realizes this guy's a fake and demands to know where Present-Peter's gone. Big Reveal Of The Episode #52,864: Angela's ability is precognitive dreaming. Which sounds cool, and judging from the dream we see in the following episode it looks cool, but how useful does it turn out to be in practice? It explains Peter's dreams about flying and meeting Claude and Peter exploding, but in terms of batting average, this ability's pretty useless: she never saw the New York bomb plot falling apart, it doesn't seem like she knew about the Shanti Virus outbreak or that Adam and Maury were coming after her until it was too late. And the day-to-day things? She couldn't even plan a sock-stealing caper without getting caught. Seems like Isaac's ability trumps Angela's, at least as far as accuracy goes.

Angela lambastes Peter for shooting his brother. Peter lambastes Angela for creating The Formula with the ElderSupers. There's a whole lot of lambasting going on until Angela -- and I'm not making this up -- grabs Peter by the jacket and slams him against a wall. That's got to be the most aggressive thing Angela's ever done on the show. Even better than slapping Papa Sulu.

We get a glimpse of The Basement and our first look at Weevil, Knox, Flint and ...

... Noah?! He's Level 5 material? The Company has a few issues with him, but Level 5? It seemed like his deal with Bob at the end of last season was to come back to his usual job, not say goodbye to his family permanently and live in a cell. Either I was really slow on the uptake when it came to the deal, or that final scene at Canine Central in "Powerless" was even less clear than I thought it was at the time.

V.O. Mohinder returns to recite the Yeats poem the episode is named after. We cut to Canine Central, where Sandra and Lyle find Claire looking seriously messed up. We cut to Matt in an African desert, where he works a cool trick and uses his mind-reading as a radar to find out if anyone's in the area. Also?

The Boulder of Clairvoyance!

Finally, we find Mohinder at Superhero Harbor.

Melodramatically staged, but beautifully shot. Mohinder injects himself with the serum, we have the Obligatory Convulsing That Signals An Important Physiological Change, and then Mohinder wakes up to a couple of random guys at the harbor trying to rob him and works the superstrength smackdown on them.

Thieves attack one of the mains at a harbor and get their asses handed to them? It's another recycled plot device, but at least it's without the fake Irish accents. Or the iPods.

Also?

The Warehouse of Clairvoyance!

This episode was by no means terrible, but it wasn't the finest when it came to consistent characters or original storytelling, and it wasn't the epic return to form a lot of us hoped for.

Hiro's character arc and storyline bugged. It's like his story over the past two seasons never happened, and, Papa Sulu and some neat visual effects notwithstanding, it's like his entire storyline about witnessing a catastrophe in the future and making it his mission to avert it is taking place all over again.

Mohinder's storyline bugged. Which might not be entirely his fault because he's been coupled with one of the weakest characters the show has created, but it isn't helped by a rerun of Mohinder preparing to up and leave and then bizarrely turning out of character just because he figures out how to give himself an ability.

And Matt ... wasn't around much at all. As per Season One. So it's difficult to say how his story thread's going to play out. With hindsight after the second episode, it's not looking great.

All of that said, plus points go to several of the other threads, and in some cases aspects of the less-stellar threads: the Claire and Sylar stuff was well-performed and well-shot, the Future-Peter and Nathan stuff was thought-provoking, and the Daphne and Angela scenes were electric. There were also some genuinely cool details throughout that showed a lot of hard work went into making the episode. Problem is, you judge a show on what it makes of itself rather than what goes into making it. This is a season premiere that makes itself by cannibalizing its previous counterparts rather voraciously.

3 out of 5