What if you could have one super power? What would you choose? Would it be flight? Super strength? Invisibility? I used to wish for “super metabolism,” but have settled upon “the ability to craft Mohinder better voice over dialogue.” Because Jesus H. Sylar those things are horrible. If Heroes were truly hoping to gain my trust back, they would do well to abstain from those from now on.

But that’s a petty shot at the show, I realize. What you want to know is how Volume III, entitled “Villains,” is faring so far. Well, to organize my thoughts, I took stock of the various characters and placed them into three categories: Heroes, Villians, and Pamchenckos. You remember the Pamchencko, right? The semi-legal, semi-lllegal skating move in the film The Cutting Edge? Their skating instructor called it a “grey area,” and that’s the space inhabited by the Pamchenckos.

Heroes

Hiro. This is why villainy always wins: heroes like this one keep mucking it up for the rest of us, allowing the villains to swoop in and easily thwart the day. It must be hard for thinking up ways in which Hiro can further screw up his father’s legacy, but hopefully now that he’s stuck in Level 5, he can reshape his ways and try to actually think things through as he works to get his father’s formula back.

Matt Parkman. Thank to the Spirit Walkman, Parkman’s about to see his fate unfold. Problem is, the previous future had him lined up for a new wife and child, and the Future Peter created version has him cradling the same woman, dead in his arms. At that point, all bets are off as to his allegiance and moral code. We’ve seen him be a Class A a-hole in every future scenario we’ve seen thus far, but if this season is about anything, it’s that such innate a-holery is not inevitable. (Try saying THAT ten times fast. Almost as hard as saying “Peter Petrelli in Poughkeepsie.)

Villains

Angela Petrelli. Ooooh, I’m loving this combination of Getrude, Lady MacBeth, and the chick from Basic Instinct all in one. It’s psychotic, it’s psychosexual, and it’s all groovy. She sold her part so well that I forgot how ridiculously stupid it is to consider that she gave Gabriel up for adoption. Like Mama P would EVER miss out on a chance to stick her bony fingers into her offspring’s fragile psyche from Day One. Noah knows all too well that she might be the most terrifying member of the Company. Hell, she fed her newfound son an assistant for lunch!

Meredith. Don’t trust this woman as far as I can throw her. Which, inside a superheated metal containment unit, isn’t very far. She’ll be the Sith Lord to her invincible padawan, essentially training an apprentice to enact the revenge she’s wanted for so very long. And she’ll do it the old-fashioned Sith way: by appealing to Claire’s anger and fear.

Pamchenckos

Sylar. I’m trying really, really hard to set aside that they are essentially chucking two years of Sylar history in trying to make he and Noah some form of Law and Order: Superheroes. (Instead of the “doink doink,” there’s a “BAM SPLAT!” or something.) I understand that Sylar could eventually be coerced into an activity such as the one we saw tonight, but couldn’t we get more than say, 30 seconds of cajoling before agreeing to do so? I know you don’t wanna sideline your best character for a few weeks, but if this bank robbery had gone down in Episode 6 or so, it might have made a touch more sense. As such, Sylar still killed Jesse, but then sullenly went back into his cell, a willingly caged animal. The show seems determined to present him as a Pamchencko, but come on: let him be deliciously eeeeevil!

Daphne. This season’s Elle, not so much morally bankrupt as generally inconsiderate. Her banter with Hiro/Ando feels like a bunch of sixth-graders who read too many comic books for me to truly treat her like a villain.

Claire. Anyone think she was going to a sleepover? Exactly.

Ando. Here’s the problem when you show the future, and it’s something Lost had to deal with in Season 4. Once you show where a character is going to go, it becomes somewhat of a narrative mathematical exercise in slowing placing the character into that final position. We KNOW Ando is going to go bad. We KNOW Hiro will inadvertently drive him away. And we KNOW both of those things now that Hiro’s shown us the future with superpowered Ando killing him. (Hopefully while saying, “I’m being awesome!” one last time.)

***

As for that future, it looks like the formula has something to do with this Dr. Zimmerman, who didn’t birth Tracy and Nikki so much as create them. Toss this in with the two halves of the formula, plus Mohinder’s injection, and you have a super-hero formula, ready to be mass-marketed. After Dr. Z successfully executed this formula, the two halves were split apart. And there’s your new future, post Future Peter’s interference: not one in which superheroes are persecuted, but a world overrun with the super-powered, causing endless war and destruction.

Your thoughts on tonight’s ep? Leave ‘em below!