I must confess, I was purty darn excited to see this week’s episode, “Four Months Ago…” Traditionally speaking, when Heroes goes for an episode detailing a specific period in time, whether in be well in the past or well in the future, they tend to hit it out of the park. While this iteration marked a high point in this second season of the show, I must confess to liking last week’s episode a little more. Why? We didn’t really learn much in the way of new things this week, and I’m pretty shocked by that.

Did we learn specifics we couldn’t possibly have known? Absolutely, and some of them were gems, no doubt about it. But too often, things clicked along as expected, and maybe that’s simply a function of the show doing its job last week in providing hints, coupled with me guessing right for the first time in ages, but I didn’t get that rush of “oooooh, snap!” that I usually get from these type of episodes. And yes, I say, “Oooooh, snap!” out loud a lot around the apartment. Just how the Boob Tube Dude rolls.

On with this week’s review, in a new format: “What We Thought Happened” and “What Actually Happened”, focusing on the storylines featured in tonight’s episode.

Memory, All Alone with Petrelli

What We Thought Happened

When we first saw Peter this year, he was handcuffed inside a shipping freight, looking all half naked and sweaty and making a million Gilmore Girls fans suddenly hit puberty. Given his memory loss, the presence of the Haitian’s necklace, and the newfound ability to shoot lightning from his fingertips, we assumed he’d had his memory erased in order to forget nearly nuking the city, as well as prevent anyone looking for him to find him.

Slowly but surely, his memories return, leading him to Montreal where he meets Adam Monroe, aka the Original Samurai Gangster, Takezo Kensei. Given what we learned in last week’s episode, it was a logical assumption to think Adam had duped Peter to enable both to escape the Company’s stronghold and enact Adam’s plan to “save the world”. Given that we know Linderman was a disciple of Adam’s, one could assume this saving the world business will have affects Peter wouldn’t enjoy if he learned them.

What Actually Happened

Well, the Adam stuff happened pretty much as I anticipated, although why on earth they would ever put Adam next to the world’s most powerful man just blows my freakin’ mind. That’s a Mohinder-level of dumb right there. Put them anywhere but adjacent rooms through which Adam could smooth-talk his way into Peter’s psyche. Ugh.

As to how Peter got there: well, this was six shades of freakin’ awesome. Seeing Peter and Nathan fly through the air, see Nathan’s skin peel off like Wolverine in “X3”, watching Nathan’s limp body fall, and then seeing Peter swoop in and save him made the rescue of Claude in Season 1 seem limp by comparison. (And that for me was a Top 5 moment in Season 1.) Just mind-blowingly awesome. Watching Bob and Elle work Peter’s guilt made all the sense in the world, and having Adam heal Nathan to earn Peter’s trust made character sense, but also helped explain just how fast Nathan healed. Excellent on all fronts. I’m a bit dubious if simply “coming out” as a hero thirty years ago justified his imprisonment, so hopefully we’ll learn exactly what got him locked up in the late 70’s.

As for Elle: it was a 50/50 shot when she first mentioned “Daddy” as to whom she was speaking, between Adam and Bob, but once the note in Montreal was found, it could have been no one else. That being said, her backstory was good and gave ample reason to why she has been working in the Company for 16 years. Doesn’t explain how the Company gave Kristen Bell breasts that big, but maybe they can answer that before the end of this volume.

(And did the show finally reveal Mama P’s power? Persuasion, but only if she touches your blazer? Discuss.)

Get Down With the Sickness

What We Thought Happened

The Shanti virus only appeared twice, in Mohinder’s older sister and in Molly Walker. Mohinder used public speaking events to talk up the virus in order to attract the attention of the Company, infiltrate its ranks, and take them down from within, using Noah Bennet as outside support. After starting his work with the Company, Bob alerted Mohinder to another victim of the virus: the Haitian Sensation, sick and dying in his home country.

The cause of this contraction was unknown, but once Mohinder used his own blood to cure him, the Haitian mindwiped him, rejoined Bennet, and has been working on him ever since. Meanwhile, Mohinder learns that Bob has altered the Shanti virus (using Mohinder’s blood) in order to suppress powers. Mohinder refuses to inject Monica Dawson with a mutated strain, at which point he learns of an “Adam Monroe” for whom the strain was created.

We then learned in last week’s episode that the mutated strain did suppress Niki’s ability, but also was now uncurable, making her Patient Zero in a possible future in which 93% of the world’s population would die thanks to Bob’s desire to make Adam mortal. Fun!

What Actually Happened

Well, as expected the timing of the mutated strain coincided with Adam’s escape. If last year’s question was “How Do You Stop An Exploding Man?”, this year’s question could be, “How Do You Kill An Immortal Sark?” As shown, they can lock him up and throw away the key: they just can’t kill him. But take away the healing power in his blood, and boom, done and done. (Why chopping off his head won’t work defies logic, since I thought all power in Heroes comes from the brain, but hey, I’m asking too many questions I guess.)

I think we also now know how the Haitian ended up sick with the Shanti virus. After Molly Walker contracted the virus, the Company called Mohinder in to investigate the cause in order to find Sylar. One can assume that a light went off in Bob’s head at this time, showing how the Shanti virus could cut off powers. Work possibly began immediately on mass-producing the virus for study and implementation. We can also safely assume after tonight that as punishment for letting Peter escape, they used him as a guinea pig and sent his powerless ass home. Only when he started getting sick did they call in Mohinder to figure out what was going wrong, hoping Mohinder could isolate the illness in order to make progress in stopping Adam from enacting his plan.

But here’s what we didn’t know: something about Adam’s incarceration ties into the initial attempts to shut down powers. The dialogue was a bit cryptic, but both Bob and Adam talk about events thirty years ago: the time of the initial study of something similar to the Shanti virus and the time Adam got locked up by the Company. I don’t know if this is shoddy writing or purposeful vagueness, but we’re supposed to draw some conclusion about the two being interconnected somehow. Perhaps the group took a vote, and opted to simply lock Adam up versus pursue a scientific way, stopping theresearch. Only with Adam’s escape did Plan B take affect.

(And here’s something else to ponder: Sylar clearly was knocked up the Shanti virus: is he doomed to die, or is being around the Wonder Twins somehow countering the virus, keeping it in check to non-lethal levels?)

Gone Daddy Gone

What We Thought Happened

DL died like a punk in Kirby Plaza, while all the Caucasians laughed and sang and pointed and laughed as his dead body. OK, maybe not, but it did seem weird than only DL would have died. Niki then goes to work for the very Company that once held her hostage, and many like me cried “bull”.

What Really Happened

He survived! The Company paid for DL’s hospital bills in order to lure Niki in to be a test subject for the Shanti virus. Bob has a list of “dangerous” people with powers, a dangerous moral slope to be traversing, and has placed Niki high on his list. Then again, she’s eviscerated like a dozen people so far on the show, so I guess we can’t quibble too much here.

Turns out DL met his fate thanks to a third personality of Niki, named Gina, a wild-child who once left home as a teenager to go to Los Angeles. Niki was given some pills by the Company as a home remedy, but those left her weary and tired and feeling like I do first thing in the morning before I’ve had my Dunkin Donuts. She goes off the pills, hops on the Gina Express, and hot-tails it to LA. When DL takes her from a dance floor, he learns that it’s not cool to cock-block a denizen of the City of Angels, and gets a bullet to the chest for his troubles.

This, finally, gives a decent explanation for why Niki would re-up with the Company, since she fears now that Micah could wind up dead at any moment thanks to her split personalities. Course, now she’ll be dead by her own hands, so, irony there, I suppose.

Don’t Cry For Me, Sister Maya (The Truth Is You’ll Kill The Whole Village)

What We Thought Happened

Maya killed a ton of people with her Black Tears of Fury, Alejandro figured out how to stop her, and they made a run for the border.

What Actually Happened

Um, that’s exactly what happened. Kinda neat to have her wipe out an entire wedding on her first attempt, but I still preferred Ben Linus wiping out the Dharma Initiative with the help of Richard Alpert and Company. Just a personal preference.

***

Anyways, what did you think? Any big surprises? Anything that seemed blindingly obvious? And what exactly is Adam’s plan that has everyone in the Company so scared?