(S02E11) When Kristin offered up the chance to review the Fall (Season?) Finale of Heroes, I couldn't resist stepping in to help. While this episode lived up to a lot of the promises of the season, much like last season's finale, it may have been a little lighter on the action than you'd want. There are a lot of big changes for a lot of the characters and yes, the promised "hero" death. We get resolutions on the virus plot, the Sylar/Mya journey, Hiro's quest to stop Adam, the Bennet situation, and in the end, there's enough to entice us to come back for more. It's all here and let me tell you, if Kristin was yawning and checking her watch through the last episode, there wasn't time this week. This episode is absolutely jam-packed from start to finish. "Volume Two" wraps, and as with last year we get a teaser of Volume Three. But we'll get to all of that after the jump.

In this "Finale," Heroes came together and story threads intertwined, but not as extensively as last year. Ultimately, there are four separate threads throughout the episode to follow:

Mohinder, Molly, Maya, Sylar and eventually Elle - Brooklyn and Manhattan, NY

Mohinder arrives home to Maya happily cooking breakfast for everyone and Molly asleep in the other room. In her enthusiasm for Mohinder's assistance in getting rid of her powers, Maya inadvertently reveals that Sylar has lost his powers. At this, the illusion is shattered when Mohinder makes a move and Sylar pulls a gun on him. In a moment of anguish in realizing that Sylar is perhaps the monster he's been painted after all (well, duh!), Maya loses control of her powers. But when Molly comes stumbling out of the bedroom dying, Sylar is able to convince her that she must not kill him if only to avoid taking more innocent lives. She restrains herself.

They travel to Mohinder's lab, where he discovers that Sylar has the same strain of the virus that Niki has. As such, he does have the cure. At the same time in Manhattan, Bob expresses his overwhelming disappointment in daughter Elle for failing to handle the Claire situation and leaving it with Claire intending to go public with her abilities. His Father of the Year moment comes when he says in disgust to her, "When I think about all the hard work I put into raising you." Man, this guy is cold to the core about his own daughter. Is it possible that I want worse things to happen to Bob than I do Sylar? At least Sylar knows he's a sick sadistic bastard. Bob seems to think he's a righteous guy who does nothing wrong.

The damaged Elle does have a bit of a breakthrough with Noah, who remains captive. He's a lot of terrible things, but HRG remains a loving father who cares about his daughter, something Elle covets. She threatens to hurt him if he doesn't tell her what her father did to her, but he's not going to break. She finally tries just saying "Please" instead. This little thing is a pretty significant breakthrough for her and could be the start of a new and far more interesting character arc for Veronica Mars. Noah tells her about the harsh experiments Bob put her through at a young age, essentially torturing her to find out the extent of her abilities.

Later, Elle sees Sylar and Mohinder on closed circuit cameras and decides that maybe Daddy will love me if I bring in Sylar. Molly tries to make Maya feel better by "finding" her brother. But when Molly can't find him anywhere, Maya realizes that Sylar killed him. "You killed him! You killed my brother!" at which point Sylar shot her in the throat. "Now look what you made me do." Sylar demands the cure and when Mohinder reveals it, Sylar says first he can cure Maya and if she lives, he can cure Sylar.

When Maya is revived, Elle shows up and gets into a bullets and electricity battle with Sylar. Ultimately, Sylar flees the building with Elle in pursuit. Elle returns convinced Daddy is going to be upset she let Sylar go, thinking herself a failure. Mohinder reminds her that she did just save all of their lives, which is a good thing. Huh. The evolution of Elle continues. While she was gone Suresh discovered the vial with the cure was gone, too; now what will he cure Niki with? Well, about that ...

Niki, Monica & Micah - New Orleans

How stupid does Monica feel, captured and at the mercy of just another neighborhood punk? If only she'd watched some MacGuyver episodes, or even some Houdini she'd have been able to get out of her binds. While she's tied up, whining and crying, her captor is splashing gasoline all over the building. Micah, who is one of the best characters on the show with one of the best powers, returns home to get help. Niki tells him she doesn't have her super strength, but he basically tells her he just needs her to drive. Slam! Why couldn't Niki have died and we could have had Micah and his dad running around together; they're way cooler! Micah uses his abilities to turn the lights green and have his mom's cell phone track Monica's phone via the GPS tracker in it.

The Dynamic Duo arrives in time to see Monica's captor hopping in his cool getaway van. Niki cuts him off and when he gets out all bad and talking smack, she beats him down like a little bitch. She leaves him lying there, tells Micah to call 911 and runs into the smoking building to save Monica. When a girder falls in front of them, blocking the way, powerless Niki manages to lift it enough for Monica to get through, but her strength fails and she remains trapped. Monica runs out and shortly thereafter the building blows up ... twice! Are they really going to get rid of Niki? Okay, so she's really freaking hot, but what has she really done for the show. Her multiple personality shtick is stupid, and other than being the womb that begat the awesome Micah, she really serves no valid purpose anymore. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens here.

Claire, West, Sandra, Noah & Bob - Costa Verde, CA and Manhattan, NY

It's pretty disappointing that the Noah arc has become the least compelling and seemingly least significant arc. Okay, maybe it's a toss up between this one and the Niki/Micah arc. Other than getting to see Lt. Uhura and meeting Monica, whom I do like, we got to meet Micah's annoying cousin, who I'd really like Sylar to babysit, and then what? ... Exactly. Nothing.

As for HRG, he was such an important and compelling figure in the first Volume, his demotion to secondary status is a disservice to how great his character is. Here's hoping Volume Three restores him to the prominence he deserves, and well, it looks like that may just happen. After Elle's earlier psychological breakthrough with Noah, Bob confronts him and asks if Claire has any evidence that could put the company in jeopardy, declaring that measures are going to have to be taken to keep her quiet. Intimidating, isn't he? So they're going to storm the house and kill her, right? Nah, nothing so exciting.

As for Claire's big plans to go public, it looks like the follow up for that is for every significant character in her life to take turns telling her not to. First her mother tells her not to, but she says she must. Then West tells her not to saying, "Exposing us isn't going to bring him back." (Remember, they all think Noah is dead.) She sees this as more self-serving of West, so returns his files and says there is no "us" for him to worry about. West flies off and I wonder if this is how the writer's have decided to get rid of his character, as the response to him and Claire's romance has been pretty chilly. Finally, to the surprise of everyone, Noah walks in. And guess what he does? He tells her not to, saying he's agreed to go back to the company in exchange for his family being left alone to live normal lives. See, problem solved. Of course, Claire argues that just because he's not alive doesn't mean that all their problems are solved. He was still killed. All this crazy crap still happened. Huh? Huh? What about that?

Nathan, Matt, Peter, Adam & Hiro - Odessa, TX

Things start with Nathan and Matt confronting Angela Petrelli in Manhattan. She reveals that the company founders started off wanting to change the world ... "to fix it." But Adam decided the world needed to be wiped clean so humanity can start over, thus the virus. Nathan tells her that Peter is alive and helping Adam. Peter's abilities would enable Adam to get to the virus, which is stored in the Primatech Paper Company warehouse in Odessa, TX.

Then, back at Primatech, we pick up the action where the last episode left off, with Hiro charging Peter. They fight back and forth and for most of the episode it's when will Peter realize he's on the wrong side? Hiro tries to tell him and gets knocked out for his efforts. At the last minute, after Peter mentally pries open the vault doors, Hiro appears again to try and stop Adam getting his hands on the virus. Peter stops him and using his Darth Vader powers, stands menacingly with one hand gripping the air in front of him, holding Hiro to the wall with his powers. Matt tries to use his mental powers to coerce Peter into letting Hiro go and stopping Adam, apparently forgetting that Peter mimics powers. Yeah, so that didn't work. What now?

How about we bring out the brother. "Am I on the wrong side, too?" Nathan asks stepping out. Peter's so conflicted. If only he knew what was happening in the vault. In there, Hiro has popped in. Adam tells Hiro that nothing has changed in 400 years. God wiped out humanity when it just wasn't working with The Great Flood. His plan is to wipe out most of the population and be a hero to the survivors. No big deal, right? He's holding the vial behind him and when Hiro reaches out, grabbing him to teleport away, he drops the vial.

Luckily, Peter's convinced just in time to arrive and mentally stop the vial from breaking. He destroys it with his cool radioactive abilities. Did you see the cool 'Heroes' symbol appear in the dust before it started to fall from Peter's hand. How is such a thing like that even possible? Nathan decides he's had enough and determines to have a press conference and expose everything. Like father like daughter, I guess. Synchronicity.

Hiro returns to Japan and Ando, who's been way underutilized this season. But what happened to Kensei/Adam? What's the worst thing you could do to a guy who can never die, but otherwise has no significant abilities? Yeah, he went there. The darker side of Hiro shows a bit as he buries Adam alive in a coffin in a Japanese cemetary. As he's under a fresh plot, is he buried next to Hiro's father? What a great scene as we hear Adam screaming from the coffin while we pan across the serenity of the graveyard. Of course, my second thought was that this guy has all the time in the world, so what's to stop him from just slowly digging his way out. Of course, we don't know what happens when he runs out of air in there, does he die, revive only to die immediatley again, and on and on.

Later, the press conference is set up in the Odessa Police Department. Nathan tells about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities, a company that seeks to suppress everything. Like a true politician he does a lot of talking without saying anything specific. But then, he says "I have the ability--" and BANG! He's shot! A crowd shot shows a trenchcoated man walking away. It looks like a larger man, but who could it be? How much time has passed between the virus' destruction and this scene? Is it HRG, back in league with the company? Bob? The Haitian? John Wilkes Boothe?

"Volume Two" wraps with Angela Petrelli on the phone. "I know. It was unavoidable," she says. Holy crap! Was she behind the hit on her son? "You do know that you've now opened Pandora's Box." Who is she talking to? Bob? The Haitian? John Wilkes-- oh, I already did that.

END OF VOLUME TWO

VOLUME THREE: VILLAINS

A brief intro to the next volume, which hopefully will involve a lot more action and suspense. It's Sylar in an alleyway injecting himself with the cure. Does it work? Hells yeah it does! His wounds heal and he summons an empty can across the alley to his hand. "I'm back!" It's a villain cliche, so he has to say it.

Bottom Line

The stage is set for a good third volume, and with "Villains" as its subtitle, things should get even darker and more dangerous for our heroes. Personally, I think things were way too light and breezy this volume. The best drama comes from conflict, so with Sylar powerless the biggest threat they faced was from Matt's dad, who was ultimately dispatched pretty easily, and Bob. Come on. These ordinary people with extraordinary abilities were way too ordinary this volume. And there have to be more of them that have of a sinister bent than just Sylar. Up the ante and make this show "Must See TV" again, NBC. I know you can do it! I'll be there for "Volume Three" in 2008, or 9, or you know, whenever.