Daddy Issues

That should have been the title of last night's Heroes episode. Everybody's got 'em, so let's start with the ones I don't care about (uh, this probably goes without saying, but don't read it if you haven't watched the episode):

Parkman: While it's kinda neat that he's developing more powers, I really don't believe him turning into his father. He's too meek and dumb to be legitimately evil. Plus, I'm still bugged by the "father and son sharing the same powers" thing. No other parent has passed their specific power onto their child, so this one feels like it was done to force a character development I'm not really interested in. Although, if Parkman DID turn into his father, I think he'd be more interesting.

Hiro: God, has he learned NOTHING? He already "broke time" once by hanging around in the past, and he's already tried and failed to prevent the deaths of people he loved by going back in time, so WHY the hell does he want to do it again? I just want to smack him. Maybe I'm just unsympathetic and don't want to watch Hiro coming to terms with his father's death and saying goodbye to him, but I felt like we didn't learn anything new AT ALL in this storyline, except confirming that Adam killed Hiro's father, which anyone with a brain could've already figured out. That bugged me, the scene on the roof when Hiro freezes time, and they're drawing it all out to be suspenseful, and I'm sitting there going, "It's ADAM. Of course it's Adam. Just show us his damn face so we can get back to the plot line I care about."

And on that note... love the compare and contrast with Bob/Elle and HRG/Claire. We always knew why HRG didn't turn Claire in to the Company, but it was great to see that in the flesh with Elle (plus, watching her electrocute herself in the bucket of water was awesome). I was a little uncertain about Elle at first (kept thinking of her as Veronica), but now I love her. She's a great psychotic character, and Kristen Bell is totally making me forget Veronica Mars. I liked the daughter swap, although I think HRG mishandled it a bit in letting Elle know the whole plan so that she was prepared to zap West (not that I minded) and thwart his and Claire's escape. But the girly glares were so worth it, and I can't wait for the inevitable chick fight next episode.

West was actually marginally less annoying this episode. I still thought he was a douche when he swooped HRG into the air (seriously, tell me your daughter loves me or I'll drop you??), but once they were working together and he was actually useful, I didn't mind so much. And no twins or Niki/Jessica/whatever the fuck she's calling herself these days, so my annoyance factor was actually really low, making this a superb episode. The only thing that would've made it better would have been more Peter/Adam and/or Nathan (probably in place of the Hiro stuff).

Oh, and Mohinder is dead to me. Period. You don't shoot my HRG. I don't care if they brought him back to life, I'm still pissed. Mohinder was stupid and annoying before, and now he's crossed the line. And, given all the daddy issues in this episode, I couldn't help thinking Mo's dad would be pretty disappointed in him. But back to HRG - I'm still not sure if it was Bob with Claire's blood or Adam that brought him back. I can't see why the Company would bring him back after being the ones to kill him, but I don't know how Adam would a) know who HRG was, or b) get all the way from Montreal to California that quickly.

I do like how everyone is sort of changing sides, and it's still not clear who the good guys are. I mean, Adam is working against the Company, which is evil and probably the cause of the virus, but he's also killing the ElderHeroes, which puts him in the morally gray column. Presumably, this will put Peter and Hiro on opposite sides, which is interesting, since they were two of the first characters to pair up... but it'd be MORE interesting if they'd actually seen each other at all in the past four months. Mohinder has obviously crossed over to the dark side, after being on HRG's team for a while, and Parkman seems poised to go independently evil while pursuing good (in investigating the ElderHeroes' murders), which I guess will also pit HIM against Adam and Peter eventually. Then, we've got Sylar, who's evil but fairly impotent, Niki, who's a loose cannon but incapacitated, Nathan, who's... what's Nathan doing again? And oh... are we ever going to hear from Micah and Monica again? No? Okay.