(S02E01)

Usually, when a series returns from a long season break, it takes me a little while to get back into the spirit of the show. That didn't seem to be the case with tonight's season premiere of Heroes.

After the brief narration by Mohinder, which took place over a montage of the characters past actions and current whereabouts, I was completely acclimated back into the world of Heroes. It was like it never left, and I consider that a testament to the quality of the show and its well fleshed out story and characters.

Before we get into things, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that tonight's TV Squad reviewcap is in no way, shape, or form brought to you by Nissan or its hideous little Rogue. Thank you.

An absolute ton of stuff happened this episode and in rapid fire succession, so you'll have to pardon the rapid fire style of the recap. As the season progresses, and we actually start having some real commercial breaks and longer sequences, the format will adjust accordingly.

The show began with Mohinder giving a lecture to a nearly empty auditorium speaking on the evolved humans he's encountered, and the plague that is threatening their existence. He points out that the fate of humanity hinges on these special individuals as the powers they possess, such as regeneration, could be very beneficial to mankind. Mohinder is ostensibly seeking out funding to help cure the disease.

We're introduced to a bespectacled man that tells Mohinder his father's book was found at the library in the parapsychology section between hypnosis and alien abduction. He's basically telling Mohinder that no one believes in his "special people". Mohinder is no fool and realizes that the guy in glasses has been present at his last three seminars. The guy ultimately offers Mohinder a job that will allow him to find a cure for the plague. Mohinder appeared to be noncommittal but agreed to let the bespectacled fellow buy him a drink.

We were immediately introduced to two new characters by the name of Maya & Alejandro, and they found themselves running from the police. These two characters, one or both of which will exhibit some powers in the near future, are trying to make their way to America. They are both wanted for murder as indicated by a wanted poster.

Claire, Noah, and family have apparently joined the "Hero Protection Program" and have now taken up residence in sunny California. Claire is about to attend her first day of school and father Bennett is encouraging her to keep an extremely low profile. Of course, he immediately gives her a new vehicle. Anyone want to guess the make and model of this vehicle?

As Claire made her way into the building, she was nearly run over by her potential newlover who we later learn is named West. I immediately yelled to my TV, "Get away while you can West! All her friends eventually die!" It didn't do any good.

We cut to Hiro in a field in the midst of an all out Shogun battle set in 1671 Japan. Hiro looked up and watched the moon pass before the sun as a swarm of arrows headed towards his face. The day is turned to night (by the eclipse – not by the arrows 300 fans), and he freezes time just before three arrows are about to pierce his skull. He looked up to Takezo Kensei (the guy whose sword he kept looking for last season), realizes a few arrows are about to pierce his skin too, and teleports both of them to safety.

The episode is whizzing along at this point making it pretty difficult for me to keep up. We now come to Parkman, the least menacing looking NYPD officer ever to have the job. It looks like he's in the middle of some crazy drug bust because he barges into an apartment and is capping people like its crack dealer season and he's the only one with a hunting permit. As it turns out, this was just an NYPD drill.

It was fun watching Parkman utilizes his gift for reading people's minds when he had to choose between shooting a perp and the perp's hostage. At this point we discover that Parkman has made detective, effectively making him the least menacing looking detective ever to have the job. Sorry Parkman, but I'll always see you as the clumsy oaf on Felicity that tried to create a new condiment. It's nothing personal.

Claire is doing the exact opposite of what her dad requested, and is baking her hand over an active Bunsen burner flame. In a not so unexpected twist, West ends up being her lab partner. What a convenient coincidence! West asks Claire if she's a robot or an alien. Robots do what they're told. Aliens do their own thing. Claire fails to answer the question.

We find ourselves with the wonder twins once again, only they're not trying to activate any powers. Instead, they're trying to negotiate a covert trip into The United States. The shady human smuggler they're dealing with tells them that it will cost 10,000 Lempiras to get them 600 miles from the US border. A quick Google search showed that Lempiras are the currency in Honduras.

Of course, these people smugglers were not to be trusted and later in the episode, tried to raise the price up to 20,000 Lempiras. Alejandro ended up getting the poop kicked out of him, and the smugglers took off with his sister Maya.

When Alejandro eventually caught up with he vehicle, he found everyone in the truck dead with blood streaming from their eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Maya is the only one left alive and obviously used some power to kill everyone. I can't quite tell what her power is, but I'm guessing she has the ability to give everyone in a 20 foot radius the Ebola Virus.

We didn't get to learn a great deal about Molly last season aside from the fact that her parents were killed, and that she's got a built in Hero locator for a brain. I thought she was a good new character, particularly one that could relate to Micah, and I'm glad she's going to have a bigger role this season.

Apparently, Parkman is divorced and had adopted and/or is looking after Molly. Molly's teacher informs Parkman that Molly is drawing disturbing pictures in class that usually have a big pair of ominous eyes on them and what looks to be a kid (presumably Molly) confined in a box. Creepy.

A bit later in the episode we get to see Molly in the middle of a recurring nightmare where we distinctly hear a voice say, "I can see you.' Was this the voice of Sylar? Was this the voice of the Bogeyman? Only time will tell.

Umm, I'm going to go ahead and guess that Nathan Petrelli never took office. We got to see him around halfway into the episode and he looked a little bit like a drunk Grizzly Adams.

Nathan is obviously taking the apparent death of his brother extremely hard, and Angela Petrelli, who was also in his apartment, tells him that he needs to accept the fact that Peter is dead and move on.

After Nathan rudely kicks his mom out of the apartment, she finds a picture of herself in the hallway with a red squiggly mark across her face.

This is the same mark that Kaito Nakamura (Hiro's dad) ended up finding on a photo of him that fell out of a newspaper Ando gave him, as the two of them were discussing Hiro's whereabouts. Of note, Kaito mentioned that he always thought Hiro was a bit of a loser until he started his question. I'm paraphrasing. This mark signifies that they will be dead within 24 hours.

Later still, we found ourselves back with Mohinder who was eating lunch with the dorky glasses guy. He's attempting to sell Mohinder on his company that tries to get the special people to use their powers for the good of mankind – which sometimes means they get killed.

It was right around this point that I realized this is the same organization that HRG (Noah Bennett) used to work for. Also, the dorky glasses guy can turn metal into gold and displayed this talent to Mohinder.

After an extremely awkward dinner in the Bennett household, Noah fields a call from Monhinder that lets us know that Mohinder and Noah have been baiting the corporation with using Mohinder's speaking engagements and it's all being done in an effort to bring the evil corporation to its knees. Somehow, I think the corporation knows that they're being baited and are willingly going along with, though I'm not quite sure of their purpose yet.

A few more points of interest before my hands fall off from typing all of this.

My favorite sequence of the night involved Claire attempting to stick up for one of the clumsier kids named Martha during gym class. The snooty head cheerleader (what's the deal with Claire and head cheerleaders not getting along?) was poking fun at Martha, and ended up challenging Claire to do a back tuck off a tower.

Claire climbed up the tower but at the last second heeded her dads "don't make a spectacle of yourself" advice. A bit later Claire ended up practicing a back tuck off the tower and cracks her ankle. She quickly healed moments before West barged into the gym to check up on her. Oh yeah. West is also a stalker and has special powers as witnessed when he was hovering creepily next to Claire's window that night. Creepier.

My second favorite set of events was when Hiro realized that his hero, Kensei, was not the legendary Japanese character from the stories his dad used to read him – but was really a cowardly British guy who would do practically anything for money. How funny was it watching Kensei punch Hiro in the face?

Finally, we're at the part of the show I liked the least. Kaito was on top of the building where everything seems to happen (you know which building I'm talking about) and Ando was about to deliver the sword he promised to get him earlier in the episode.

A hooded figure came out of the darkness and Kaito says something to the effect of, "Out of everyone, I never expected it would be you."

The figure rushed Kaito and much to my and Ando's dismay, pushed him off the edge of the building. Ando looked over the buildings edge and saw Kaito's bloody carcass splattered on the ground. Barring some miracle, that's all we're going to see of Hiro's dad - at least until Origins anyway. Who was the hooded figure? Judging from Kaito and Angela's conversation, it's someone from the inner circle of old school heroes. Guess we'll find out for sure in the coming weeks.

At the end of the show we got to meet Blackie, an Irish guy with the least believable Irish accent imaginable. The Black Donnelly actors are out of work. Were none of them were available?

Anyhow, Blackie and his crew opened up a shipping container on a pier and found Peter Petrelli chained up in a corner. The strange part? Peter can shoot lightning out of his hand and has a case of amnesia that would put Guy Pierce's character in Memento to shame.

It was an excellent, content filled episode that got me right back into the swing of things, and hurt my head in the process. I cannot wait to see what happens next Tuesday.

No signs of Nikki, Jessica, D.L., and Micah this episode, but we're sure to see them in the coming weeks. It's starting to get a little crowded in the Heroes universe. I hope the producers don't find the need to do some indiscriminate character purging...

Did I forget anything? Have anything to add? Sound off in the comments.

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