Review:

No, I'm not making that last part up. I wish I was because it's just plain bizarre. And there's a lot of stuff like that this week: stuff that wouldn't make any sense if you thought about it rationally. Would Angela really send an unstable agent into the field just because he's her son and has good survival instincts? Would the Haitian really collect a formula capable of destroying the world on his own without any support? Is Matt's life really interesting enough that someone could spend their life painting it?

Thing is, the episode's such guilty fun that it's hard to care.

We open where the previous episode left off: Angela visits Sylar in The Basement and tells him the mother of all secrets. And I know Cristine Rose mentioned in interviews that last week's reveal was the "icky" part of all this, but come on:

This? ... is just ... ew.

Angela laments that she ever gave Sylar up for adoption, which raises all kinds of questions about whether Angela wanted to raise Sylar and didn't get a say in it, and whether Zimmerman's "creation" project involved planting supers in different environments to see how the individuals and their abilities would adapt. Alternatively, it's all just one giant mindfrak with Sylar. Which, judging from the way Sylar's on the verge of hyperventilating during this scene, is having the desired effect.

Angela tells Sylar that Bridget Bailey's going to "feed" him, except the way Cristine delivers it, it's not so much "feed you" as "feeeeeeeeeeeeeeed you." Great delivery, and great ambiguity as Angela's stepping out of the cell and walking away from The Basement, because her look of pride is only slightly offset by the "Aw, shucks, it had to be done" look she gets when Bridget starts screaming. I don't know if that makes Angela the unconscionable Company Woman who's happy to lose a few employees if it means sending Sylar on missions and getting the job done, or if she's just the misguided mother who disapproves of her difficult son's vices but knows there's nothing she can do about them.

V.O. Mohinder monologues about "the search for self" and whether "the hero or the villain inside us win[s] the day" as we cut to the Ice Fortress, where Tracy ...

... goes cryo on a bunch of roses, most of whom are like, "Thanks, b**ch! What did we ever do to you?" Cool effect, and a cool way to establish how Tracy's the antithesis of Niki, confronting her ability and pursuing the truth instead of running away from it.

We cut to the Villainous Four in a location that, according to the chyron, is Poughkeepsie, New York.

Beautifully shot, and, with hindsight, driving the knife even further into the wound when you realize this is all the opportunity Francis Capra will have to play Peter. If the plan was to kill Weevil off within three episodes, it's not like a lot of viewers were going to forget it was Present-Peter in there; and if the plan was to tie the Villainous Four's storyline with Noah's and Sylar's so quickly, it's not like viewers would bash it for being removed from the central arc the way the Ireland storyline was. Capra could easily have played Peter-in-Jesse.

The Villainous Four enter the bank, and the Heist of the Villainous Four begins. The German Magnetoes the blinds shut, Flint goes blue-pyro, and Present-Peter just sort of stands there looking dumb, probably wondering what he'd rather be doing instead of holding up a bank.

The Company Man returns to The Basement to trade quips with the Company Woman.

Angela: "You can take the man out of The Company ..."

SNIP! Edited because this script is awesome!

Sure, she could have finished the sentence and it would've only added a few seconds to the running time. But why bother when we know how the sentence ends and when Noah doesn't have the patience for it? For all the criticism you can heap on this episode about the way a lot of it makes zero sense, Joe Pokaski's script is a 5 out of 5. Quick, snappy, well-crafted, and above all a script that sounds natural in the mouths of the characters.

There's some verbal jousting over "our Claire" that speaks volumes about the proprietary contest between Noah and Angela, and then Angela tells Noah that the Haitian's "on a pick-up assignment." And even though it's kind of hard to buy that Angela would send the Haitian on a monumental mission like this by himself, particularly after the numerous times he's double-crossed The Company and played its various factions against one another, it also jars quite startlingly with the Company's "one of us, one of them" policy that we're now reminded of. You could speculate that Angela's stockpiling her supers to sustain Sylar at snack time, but the non-supers? You would have thought Angela would send one of them to Berlin along with the Haitian.

Noah rattles off the old "one of us, one of them" policy, and I can't help thinking the reason they put this reference in here was to remind us of the good-natured pigeon-feeding Bearded One that Noah tried to kill so long ago -- specifically to contrast Ol' Doctor Fantastic with the latest replacement:

I love how Sylar's got this little "Whoopee!" half-smile while Noah's more:

"YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!"

We return to the Heist of the Villainous Four, where Peter's telling the hostages to keep their heads down. Again, I'm convinced Capra could have delivered exactly the same line to the same effect, but it's a cool detail that Milo can communicate how commanding and assertive he is with lines at the same time as conveying how insecure and freaked-out he is with expressions.

The German Magnetoes the safe open and declares with pride, "Es ist offen!" Aw. And I know I'm not supposed to "aw" that, but honestly, I'm struggling to understand what made these guys Level 5 material. I mean, The German beat up the car driver last week, and, OK, he pulls a gun on Knox this week when he realizes he's been betrayed; but besides that, am I the only one who's not getting a Worst-of-the-Worst vibe from this guy? I get the impression that he's really only interested in taking his part of the money and disappearing. We were supposed to believe that these guys would cause "unimaginable destruction to the world." It could be intentional on the show's part, particularly in a volume parading its goal to bring ambiguity to every character's actions, but I couldn't help thinking that some of the actual villains weren't intended to be as sympathetic as they come across. Even Flint nearly going pyro on some random member of staff in the bank only half-succeeds in making him monstrous, mostly because Blake Shields has such an affable presence that he transcends the role he's playing. You can believe he'll torch the occasional guy he meets after he's taken his money and run, but I can't see him destroying the world, and I'm not sure why we should loathe a guy with a penchant for the occasional torching when we laugh off Angela's willingness to feeeeeeeeed her psychokiller son.

We go from that to the eggs and bacon and waffles at Canine Central. Great thematic contrast, but also a great visual set-up for the wholesome family life that Claire's about to give up. Well played, writers.

Sandra asks Claire if she's ready for school. Claire tartly replies that she's not going, and it suddenly occurs to me that it's really only been a couple of days since the drama last season, and I wonder if we're meant to assume that West is still at school and waiting for the superhero crapstorm he was expecting to begin as soon as Claire went public about their abilities. I think the main reason it occurred to me was because Claire's petulant tone and expression here brings back everything that failed with her character arc last season.

Mercifully, the Bratty Claire moment is brief, and Meredith rescues the scene by coming to Claire's rescue and offering to explain to Sandra that when you're "like" them --

Sandra [dialogue]: "Meredith, I'm thrilled that you're here to protect us but I know how to talk to my daughter, thank you."

Sandra [translation]: "Who gave you permission to speak?"

... And Meredith understandably withers before this demonstration of power. I wouldn't have guessed Ashley Crow could be so scary, but I also kind of wish we could have heard Meredith finish her sentence: was she going to say that having an ability makes you feel like the rules don't apply to you, or that a normal life is pointless? Again, props to Pokaski for a brilliant script because the whole point of Claire's storyline this week is to set up why she can't go back to a normal routine and a normal life, but it'd be interesting to get a graphic novel to embellish what Meredith's experience has taught her about having an ability and how that affects her relationships with non-supers.

We cut to the Midas Study.

Beautifully shot, and a scene that's electric because it puts the show's most complex characters together. As with the Sandra and Meredith dialogue, the brilliance is in the tone and the subtext: Sylar's defensiveness when he points out that scalping Claire wouldn't kill her, like, "Dad, it's not like I crashed the car, I just dented it," and Angela's weariness when she reproaches Noah for pointing his gun at Sylar, like, "Noah, I told you to finish your homework and take out the trash 10 minutes ago." I can't tell if that's Sergio Mimica-Gezzan's directing or the actors just nailing their characters and their motives in this scene, but it works.

Noah: "Your solution is to send a psychopath after the psychopaths?"

Great dialogue. Blunt, succinct, and self-parodic in the best possible way. You hear it, and you know the writers hear the audience saying it's nuts, even though they're going to go ahead with it anyway.

Angela: "He's been misunderstood. He just needs structure."

I wonder what Sylar's victims would say about that, but I also wonder if we're meant to trust Angela's assessment of Sylar or write her off as delusional. The way Sylar seems to respond to her, you almost believe she can control him. It doesn't make sense; you would have laughed at it last season, or even last week when Sylar was slicing Claire's head open. But the scene is so well played and the performances and dialogue are so carefully delivered that you struggle to care. You laugh because it's genuinely funny rather than because it's absurd.

Hiro and Ando teleport to Daphne's location in Berlin, which turns out to be a movie theater hosting a Buster Keaton midnight special ... which is either hilariously appropriate to the slapstick simplicity of this storyline, or completely random. Daphne promptly shows up at the entrance to the theater, and Hiro's all, "Nemesis!" Which is intended to be funny, but it underlines everything that's ruining this storyline. It's a reminder that Hiro's first priority is to give his life meaning by convincing himself that he's a hero on an adventure, and that the second priority is to retrieve The Formula and, you know, save the world. It's also a little sad that Hiro's having to overdramatize his meeting with Daphne and pretend he's a hero after the real heroism he's demonstrated in the past. As weak as Hiro stabbing Sylar was, he was taking a life to prevent Sylar from taking more. As lame as the entire feudal Japan story arc was, it led to Hiro burying his hero alive. And while you got a "Yatta!" after the first instance and morose puppy-eyes after the second, both of those were preferable to calling a superfast thief "nemesis" and offering popcorn to a guy who's just been conked over the head.

It's not that they need to remove the comic-book undertones altogether, just that the show needs to dial them down if they don't want Hiro to look like an idiot.

Now, all of that said, this:

... is adorable. And telling. Not because of anything Hiro does besides letting Daphne adjust his glasses, but because you realize what's carrying Hiro's storyline is the charm and energy of the supporting players: the intrigue behind the Haitian's mission, Ando improvising with the plan, Daphne offering popcorn in the theater. When Daphne adjusts Hiro's glasses, she's not just adjusting his glasses: she's usurping one of Hiro's trademark mannerisms. Essentially -- and probably without realizing it -- the show is saying that Hiro has lost what made him unique and relying on the characters around him to keep him unique.

Hiro loses his time-freezing and teleporting, and Daphne loses her speed and shows us that her normal run is a lot like Phoebe's. Which I'm going to assume is an intentional nod. It's possible that Brea Grant really is that uncoordinated, but I'm going to go with the theory that Daphne's ability comes to her so effortlessly that she doesn't need to try. It also adds a little depth to the medallion Hiro found last week, because if she was a clumsy and awkward kid before twelfth grade then getting her ability and becoming superfast and graceful would be like winning the superpower lottery.

The deactivation of abilities can only mean ...

Welcome back, Jimmy Jean-Louis!

Canine Central. Claire finds Meredith standing outside the house.

Am I the only one struggling to buy Meredith's good intent? I don't doubt that she cares about Claire, but the way she manipulated Claire and Nathan during the first season needed to be addressed here, if only with a couple of lines. Jessalyn Gilsig does a solid job with Meredith's portrayal as the streetwise less-a-mom-than-a-big-sister to Claire, and it's an effective way to foreshadow how Claire will emulate this hardened personality and become the leather-clad gun-toting Future-Claire. But we don't know how much Noah and Sandra know about the extortion, the money-grabbing and the way Meredith tricked Nathan into nearly never meeting Claire. Less a criticism than an oversight, but there was a conversation that needed to be had about how much the family can trust Meredith.

Claire asks her Cool Mom to teach her how to fight, which is kind of a slap in the face to the Normal Mom who raised two kids and a show dog and accepted her human-vivisecting covert-organization husband and self-regenerating adoptive daughter for who they were. Just saying, if that's not an uphill struggle worth learning from, I don't know what is. But if Claire wants to learn how to kick guys in the groin, she should try this.

Nathan braves the Ice Fortress to ask Tracy why she skipped his swearing in. Tracy brings up the way Nathan called her Niki Sanders the other day, then shows him the footage of the wild night her double spent with Nathan at the Corinthian and demands to know who she is. I'm going to take a wild stab at this: could her name be Niki Sanders?

Tracy: "Tell me what you know about her."

Oh, Tracy, don't go there. The show's lost enough viewers as it is.

The Heist of the Villainous Four continues. We learn that Knox called the cops to alert The Company and lure Noah to the scene. Which works out pretty well for him, but it's a plan that relies on a lot of variables: Knox couldn't have known that Angela would release Noah from his cell, he couldn't have known that Noah would stick around to recapture the inmates if Angela did release him, and he couldn't have known that The Company would even hear about the heist unless it was run by people who actually follow the news ... which, judging from the scene coming up, wasn't an option that Angela had considered.

The German balks at Knox's plan because all he wants is to take his share of the money and leave. Which, again, really doesn't strike me as the scheming of a mastermind bent on world domination so much as a quick and easy escape plan.

Knox explains that the scared hostages are "powering [him] up," which provides a solid rationale for why he wanted to carry out the heist during the day. The fact that the German also pulls a gun on Knox at least partly explains why Knox kills him and only beats on Weevil later on, although the bond between Knox and Weevil is also developed in this week's graphic novel, even if the majority of viewers have no way of knowing that.

Knox puts his fist through the German. And by that, I mean he actually ...

... puts his fist through him.

They killed The German? But I was saving the Sauerkraut jokes!

Damn, that was quick. I guess they'll need to thin the herd pretty fast if they're planning to show us all 12 of the escaped inmates, but I figured these four guys would be the focal group. I didn't think they'd off two of them and imprison a third so early in the season. It screams "We have a plan!", which is reassuring, but it also gives the show a chance to reinforce how ruthless Knox is. Which, again, is partly in the details -- particularly Knox casually wiping the blood off his hands with the German's jacket -- but also Jamie Hector's embodiment of the role, because the guy's so charismatic and plays Knox with such volatility that the scene comes to life every time the camera cuts to him. You're afraid for the camera man because you're not sure if Knox is going to pat him on the back and tell him he's doing a good job or rip his head from his shoulders and use it as a football. After a scene like this, you realize why he's the villain who ends up in Angela's dream after the other ones fade away.

We return to Matt and Usutu in the Desert of Clairvoyance, although you'd be forgiven for forgetting this story thread existed because it's so far removed from the others.

Matt and Usutu are walking. Yes, it really is that exciting. Matt's starting to look seriously blistered from the sun, which earns the make-up department a couple of points. It's also kind of funny that rescuing Matt from this scorching sun is at the absolute bottom of Future-Peter's checklist of Things To Do before he returns to the future.

Usutu continues to blather about how it's not right that Matt's here, and how he was told on his spirit walk as a boy that he was destined to paint Matt's future ...

Read that again. It's just ... horrible. Not the storyline itself (although that's pretty bad), but the level of torture inflicted on this guy. Can you imagine dedicating your life to painting Matt? The traffic directing, the coffee ice cream after sex, the leaky pipes?

We get a glimpse of the tedium Usutu was saddled with when he got this gig:

It's amazing, it's even got Greg's Herculean hands and Adair Tishler's perky little nose. Usutu probably decided that if he was stuck with painting this garbage he might as well do it accurately.

Usutu: "This I painted when I was a boy. I'm not a boy anymore, Parkman."

Did anyone else just find themselves humming the chorus to Britney's "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman"? I'd do a multiple choice for what's on Usutu's walkman, but you're only going to need one guess.

The highlights of Matt's life: the Superhero Square Showdown ... when Matt got shot with his own bullets. And the time he got thrown out a window. And the time he got his mind-reading frequencies jammed while trying to read Peter. And those are just the highlights. Poor Usutu.

Midas Study. Sylar puts on a suit and slicks his hair back, and looks ...

Doubtful? Conflicted? Remorseful? Repentant? Guilty?

One of those. Or he's just playing Angela.

Angela consoles her boy, telling him it's not his fault that he's a murderer and that it's just his ability; and that he has a hunger that he can't control, which, at least on some level, I guess Angela can relate to.

It goes without saying that Angela wanted Sylar to buy into this, but a more interesting question might be whether the show wanted us to buy into it. I'm not sure whether we were expected to buy that Sylar's a victim of his own ability and that, if you took his ability and his "hunger" away, he'd be a decent guy. Angela's obviously manipulating him, but is the show trying to manipulate us? Is it trying to persuade us that a psychopathic serial killer is "misunderstood" and good on the inside? Or is the message that the abilities corrupted a man who was rotten on the inside from the beginning, and that no amount of conditioning or rehabilitation could "fix" him? If we're pausing to think about that, I think the show's playing the moral ambiguity motif the way it wanted to.

Gehen wir ins Kino! I know I shouldn't ask, but do you think Hiro and Ando bought tickets to this screening? We see the Haitian with a ticket and Daphne probably sped past the usher, but I have a hard time believing Hiro teleported to an exchange bureau to cash a few euros. Criminal. Moral ambiguity indeed.

Daphne and Hiro exchange not-so-witty banter, although Daphne's as amusing as ever when she says she doesn't care if the world ends as long as she gets paid, and when she demonstrates how separable Hiro and Ando are. But Ando telling Daphne that Hiro's his best friend and that they'll "never leave each other's side"? Aw. He probably doesn't realize how he just jinxed their friendship, but we do.

Desert of Clairvoyance. Matt looks at more paintings of his life, I continue to feel bad for Usutu for such a thankless calling, and we finally discover that a painting of Matt with a cute-looking blonde and a baby ... isn't going to happen anymore. I wonder what else in Matt's life isn't going to happen anymore, and whether painting what isn't going to happen might actually be more creatively rewarding for Usutu than painting what does happen to Matt. Usutu blots out this family portrait, plugs in his headphones and starts off on the glazed-eyes mania. And, I kid you not, Shenkar's wail when this happens is DEAFENING. Did someone in the editing room think we wouldn't realize this is a momentous moment in Matt's life? (Side note: this clearly constitutes a highlight in Matt's life -- I wonder if Usutu can paint Matt watching him paint Matt?) Did they need to clobber us over the head with a musical accompaniment so loud it could shatter windows just to convey that This Is A Very Important Moment For The Character? Because I think we got that part just fine anyway.

Heist of the Villainous Three. Sylar does a remarkably convincing job of masquerading as FBI Agent Hanson, chastising cops for failing to adhere to barricade regulations and throwing in a free decaf for Noah. Which, aw, but also wow: for the nod to AudreyClea, for the ingenuity Sylar demonstrates, for Noah's disbelief at the way Sylar threw himself into the role, and for the switch in the role that Zach usually plays. It's not quite as funny as Hiro trying to communicate with Nathan in broken English at the diner back in "Hiros," but it's on that level. Hilarious, delightful and surprising.

Knox agrees to let the hostages go in exchange for Noah.

Sylar: "You do realize they're not gonna let you out alive?"

Noah: "Well, that's very touching -- a monster cares about my well-being."

Sylar: "You're so concerned with proving you're better than me that you're willing to get yourself killed."

Noah: "I am better than you."

Great dialogue, and great delivery. You watch a scene like this play out and you almost wish the story arc wouldn't end so we could get more like it. The actors bounce their lines off one another so fluently and the tone between them is so bizarrely familiar, you wish every episode could have scenes like this: snappy verbal sparring between two complex characters, villains trying to be heroic, ordinary people being extraordinary without abilities; this is what makes the show great.

Tracy visits the Dawson Superhome. She finds Niki's surprisingly uncharred body in a casket and meets Micah. Micah follows the Season Three Honest & Forthright Trend and skips to asking Tracy about her ability and telling her about his and Niki's abilities. Which moves the plot along, but also somehow makes Micah even more adorable when you remember he's grieving and an orphan and still trying to help a stranger -- mostly because she looks like his mom, but probably also because he encapsulates what it is to be a hero.

Micah technopaths his way through the web and establishes that Niki and Tracy were born at the same hospital on the same day and with the same doctor. And, again, even though you know this scene is basically just functional -- "Tracy finds her double and learns who can give her answers" -- Micah's bond with Tracy is so poignant that you realize what this show lacks because of the character's absence.

Heartbreaking. And after a scene as moving as this, I defy the show to justify why Micah and Monica were written out while a glorified big kid like Hiro gets to stay.

Um Mitternacht im Kino! We learn that Mrs. Sendhil Ramamurthy is a Company Agent, which is all kinds of awesome. The Haitian meets her behind the movie screen and spends about fifty billion years scrutinizing Angela's half of The Formula, either because he doesn't trust Agent Ramamurthy, or because he has a photographic memory and knows he'll need to reproduce the document after it inevitably gets stolen. Either way, the Haitian finally verifies its authenticity and starts to exit the theater. But he didn't finish watching the movie!

Then:

... the show's ability to surprise us is redefined. Future-Peter being the shooter? Tracy being an ice queen? Angela being Sylar's mom? They all pale in comparison: ANDO'S PLAN TO PWN THE HAITIAN WORKS!

To recap, Daphne's adjusting Hiro's glasses, the Haitian's supplying general charisma, and Ando's doing the thinking for Hiro. And ... for some reason Hiro's still the center of this story thread.

A lot of useless yammering between Hiro and Ando ensues. Daphne finally snatches The Formula and zips away before Hiro can teleport after her. The Haitian has regained consciousness and is mightily peeved. The popcorn is funny, but after an episode that reminds us how tired the Hiro slapstick farce has become, it's also a little sad.

Heist of the Villainous Three. Knox interrogates Peter-in-Weevil while Flint administers obligatory punches to the gut. Noah is brought in and strapped to a chair.

Knox: "You took away my life!"

Noah: "You're a criminal, Knox."

I love how Coleman delivers that with the same I'm-just-a-paper-salesman tone he used with Matt and RadioTed back in "Company Man." It says a lot about the way Noah communicates with a super who wants revenge on him, but also reminds us how calm he can be in a crisis situation. Great consistency in Coleman's performance.

Peter-in-Weevil insists that "NO ONE DIES TODAY!" and lets out the EchoSoundWave ... which looks a lot less impressive than Echo's did. It's understandable given the budget concerns which Beeman mentions in his blog this week, but also a little mystifying given that the webisodes are made with a fraction of the show's budget. Maybe time constraints factor into it, but where Echo's ability was an elegantly-conceived, progressive ripple, this is a blur with papers getting blown about.

Peter-in-Weevil KO's Flint with the first wave and is in the process of unleashing another less-than-stellar EchoSoundWave on Knox when Future-Peter shows up and freezes time. I wonder if he found out about the heist by watching the news the way Noah did. It doesn't seem like he absorbed Molly's ability at Superhero Square back in the Season One finale, although I can't see why he wouldn't if he got D.L.'s phasing ability. But then, Future-Peter using the SuperGPS to find Present-Peter is like trying to find himself on a map, which would probably confuse the hell out of the ability until it said, "Hey, quit screwing around with me! I'm for finding other people, not yourself, you idiot! I'm ashamed to be one of your abilities! Unabsorb me RIGHT NOW!"

Future-Peter surveys the scene and gives Knox a loooooong and meeeeeeaningful glare. This tells us there's An Important Backstory for these two. [Note to editors: this was achieved WITHOUT a deafening Shenkar wail.] Future-Peter then pushes Present-Peter out of Weevil. Which, like the EchoSoundWave, could have looked better, but it's veiled in the awesomeness that is two Peters meeting while time is frozen and bickering about what's wrong with the world.

The two Peters teleport away from the bank, leaving poor Noah to fend for himself against Knox and Flint AND Weevil. Thanks a lot, Peters! That's the last time Noah does either of you any favors. You could have at least tied the villains up and locked them in the safe.

Knox is about to pummel Noah when Sylar shows up. Knox gets TK'd to a standstill, Weevil gets the TK Choke, and Flint gets shot by Noah. And on the one hand that sucks because these guys were supposed to be about 10 times more villainous than Sylar, so neutralizing two of them while Noah gets a clear shot at the third is a little disappointing; but at the same time this scene is such a vindication of Angela's belief in Sylar and it's such a thrill to see the look of surprise in Sylar's own expression when he realizes he's doing a good job. In the end, plot points be damned. When you see that knowing half-smile between Sylar and Noah, you don't care if it makes sense or not. It's too much fun to care.

Meanwhile, somewhere near Canine Central, Meredith persuades Claire to step into a cargo container with her.

Cool effect, and if the scene itself weren't so disturbing I'd be relishing the prospect of reviewing a scene in which two gorgeous blondes get hot and sweaty in a container. The jokes end there, though, because Meredith going pyrokinetic on Claire until she thinks she's suffocating is both brilliant and seriously messed up.

The flashbacks to Claire getting scalped at the house help to bring the horror to life, but they're also relevant to establishing why this scene is effectively a continuation of the scene at the house. If Claire's trauma from that experience is what causes her to become so angry, these two scenes set up the character's arc for the rest of the volume -- and, in all likelihood, the rest of the series. As a way to establish the psychological damage done to Claire, this is about as intense and unnerving a way to do it as the show could have come up with. I'm not sure if it's ironic that the money-grabbing, manipulative bio-mom is the one to force Claire to confront her anger and admit that her core motive is vengeance; but the fact that the super who Noah assigned to protect Claire is the one who convinces her that her old life is over seems laden with irony, particularly when Noah's half of the duo who caused the fire that brought Claire into his care, and particularly when it's his career in The Company that put Claire in danger in the first place.

Each episode this season has had at least one outstanding scene for Claire: the scalping at the house, standing in front of the train, now being tricked into thinking she's suffocating and admitting her goal isn't as altruistic as she claimed. What's remarkable is how believably each scene sets up the character we met at the start of the premiere, and how easily that lets us buy into Claire's darkness in the future. It's also remarkable for the way it sets up Claire's agenda to be the same as Knox's: a victim driven to revenge on the person who made them feel helpless.

The scene continues at Canine Central, where Meredith apologizes to Claire but tells her she "did it for [Claire's] own good."

... Which Claire doesn't seem to agree with, and which I'm not sure I agree with either. If there's a flaw in this storyline, it's in something that's overlooked rather than flatout nonsensical. I can buy into Meredith's love for Claire, but I think the episode needed to develop Meredith's motives for fireboarding Claire: did Meredith want Claire to confront her sense of helplessness or her anger? Was Meredith trying to placate Claire's sense of violation or harness it? Was the idea for Claire to accept what happened and return to a normal life (as she says in this scene), or was it to spur Claire on to act on her need for revenge? I struggled to get a handle on the way this storyline was resolved because it was left so open-ended. Meredith was portrayed as shrewd and smart and perceptive in this episode, so the idea that Claire would deal and move on once she'd been forced to confront her rage seems oddly naive. The look on Claire's face throughout this scene -- even when she's smiling -- telegraphs the can of worms that the scene in the container opened, and it's strange that Meredith -- for all her shrewdness and intelligence and perception -- wouldn't realize that.

It's also strange that Meredith would fall for the cheerleader-sleepover-retreat story, but that's just plain Dumb As Award material.

Point being, I hope the show expands on Meredith's motives for the scene at the cargo container. To say it was for Claire's "own good" doesn't go far enough, not when the experience obviously screwed Claire up even more. Meredith zeroes in on Claire's sense of entrapment when she's in the container, and she points out that Sandra "smothering" her will only make Claire push back even harder, but I don't think the show expanded enough on Meredith's aim when it came to confronting Claire's sense of entrapment and claustrophobia. Which, in an episode with the Deafening Shenkar Wail, is both surprising and strangely delightful, because it leaves you wondering what to think instead of having the Correct Conclusion smashed over your head.

The Heist of the Villainous Four concludes ... without an actual heist. And without any of the original four who enacted it. This is because one of them got super-suckerpunched, one of them gets shot and taken back to his Basement cell, one of them escapes, and one of them, as we now learn ...

... gets a bloody nose? Or a bleeding lip? Maybe? Come on, show, you didn't need to kill 'em all this fast.

Bye-bye, Weevil. We wish you'd had more to do on the show besides playing Milo's reflection.

We draw to a close. Tracy visits Reseda to track down Dr. Zimmerman, who unfortunately is not played by Robert Picardo, although it would have been such an awesome Star Trek shout-out if he was. Zimmerman mistakes Tracy for "Barbara," although it could also have been "Barbra," which would explain a LOT. Perhaps in line with references to the way Linderman "arranged" Micah's birth in Season One, we learn that Tracy is the one from Beverly Hills -- one of several who was "created." Dun-dun-DUN!

Aw! You know you should ask what a copy of 9th Wonders is doing in Africa, or at least in Chatsworth, but as with so many delightful touches in this episode, it's difficult to care.

Matt eats berries, listens to Britney, and ...

... gets the Isaac clairvoyance? Are they kidding us with this stuff?

Oh, hell, we had Andrew Hanson and Claire getting fireboarded. I don't care what they come up with anymore.

V.O. Mohinder monologues about our search for self, for answers and for purpose. Nathan turns to the Bible. Claire takes the Rogue with a stack of Noah's Primatech folders and disappears, and Angela puts Sylar back in his cell, although she's not looking disappointed with him so much as optimistic. Who can blame her; Sylar saved her from having to sacrifice another Company employee.

And Hiro and Ando are Sylar's cellmates on Level 5, which undermines the villainy of the Level 5 inmates quite considerably, but also lacks suspense because you know that any guard posted there will let Hiro out the moment he threatens to recount his storyline from Season Two.

Or even his storyline from this season so far.

I'm docking points for the Hiro slapstick. Otherwise, close to perfect. A near-flawless script, some superb thematic work, and some wonderful and surprising comedy.

4.5 out of 5