Claire: "If you can't feel anything, do you still have a soul?"

Geez. Dark much?

So Bob is toast and Angela Petrelli is now running the Company. I always liked the jovially despicable Bob, but I can't say I'm unhappy about this new development. The Petrellis are the core of the show, and Angela is a more complex (and scarier) character than Bob as well as the mother and grandmother to my favorite characters. I'm certainly up for some extreme family conflict.

There was so much death in this episode that for a moment, I thought we were going to lose Elle, and that would have really turned me off. We also saw Angela's vision of many future deaths: Peter, Claire, Noah, Hiro, and Matt, pretty much all of our main characters, killed by Niki/Tracy, Adam Monroe, Morey Parkman, new villain Knox, and possibly Sylar. It was odd to see Niki in that group. Except that it might not be Niki at all, since she had a whole different power as well as another name. (Psychotic break? Evil twin?) And all of this happened because Future Peter told Claire not to come to Odessa when Nathan died? (Which, of course, is the Butterfly Effect.)

And now we have a gang of supervillains on the loose, killing innocent bystanders in particularly ugly ways. Fortunately, Peter is with them. But unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be as effective as he was in Cork last season. Does Peter still have his own powers, or does he just have Jesse's sound whatever it is? The latter, I think. This can't be good.

After her unfortunate bout of brain surgery, Claire can feel no pain. I guess it could be worse. What if she felt no pain but couldn't regenerate? On the other hand, what about pleasure? I was also disappointed that HRG wouldn't partner up with his own daughter. He can't keep Claire at home forever. Maybe Claire's bio-mom will help Claire, somehow. She doesn't seem like the "keep Claire at home forever" type.

Mohinder has a serious problem, too. I get the feeling he should have done just a bit more research before clinical trials. I was definitely getting Jeff Goldblum vibes long before he started having skin problems. Have you noticed that they rarely let Sendhil Ramamurthy look good for long? If it's not terminal stubble or a big bandage on his nose, it's something worse. I wonder if the producers think he's just too pretty for television.

So this was a great (dark, but great) episode right up until the end, when the train went right off the rails. Sylar is a Petrelli? Peter and Nathan's brother? Come onnnnn. Of course, we have heard more than once that the Company has, or had, a breeding program. And Sylar did grow up in New York... okay, maybe I can swallow this. But it's certainly not going down very easily.

Character bits:

-- Peter and Claire's relationship in these two episodes felt oddly romantic, not at all as if they were uncle and niece. I wonder how I could be getting an impression like that? It's a mystery.

-- Elle has officially morphed into a sympathetic character. Last season, she was frying people. This season, Sylar victimizes her and Bob and Angela reject her, and we all go "awww." That's Kristen Bell's superpower: tugging on our heartstrings.

-- Dan is officially finding Maya less annoying now. I still don't like her, though, and I was kind of making a bleah face during the love scenes. She's the least interesting character in the cast. Why didn't they add Kristen Bell to the cast, instead? Did they reach their blonde quota?

-- Poor Matt. Scorpions, rattlesnakes, vultures, talking turtles. That was really funny.

-- Speedywoman is Daphne Millbrook, a thief who lives in Paris. Was that the same street address that Peter and Adam went to in Montreal last season, Rue St. Jacques?

-- Bruce Boxleitner's character now has a name: Malden. And apparently, he's governor of New York. And "Niki", aka Tracy Strauss, is his assistant and girlfriend? And he wants to use Nathan for his own nefarious purposes. Okay.

-- Nathan is gonna be a senator. Just a hop, skip and a jump to the presidency these days.

-- I was right about Linderman; he's not really there. Or is he?

Bits and pieces:

-- The "butterfly effect" of time travel is, of course, from the classic sci-fi story.

-- Future Peter was doing Future Hiro's "string theory." Why is Peter so much sexier with a scar?

-- William Katt played the reporter that Niki/Tracy froze. He was the actor who played the lead in the old series, "The Greatest American Hero."

-- There was a brief Veronica Mars Kristen Bell/Francis Capra reunion. I think it was like, five seconds.

Quotes:

Tracy: "Do you think that you know me?"
Nathan: "The word 'biblically' comes to mind."
Now that's the Nathan I like.

Hiro: "We need to set a trap. That's what Batman always does with Catwoman."

Spirit Walk Guy: "You come from America. Do you know Britney Spears?"

Matt: "Your cell. I got to use your cell. I got to call home."
Spirit Walk Guy: "No service here. Should have gone with Sprint."
That was hilarious. If it was product placement, I loved it.

Let's give the premiere two-parter a high three out of four stars,

Billie Doux
Billie Doux's Review Site