By TrinityVixen – Between Bennet having been turned into a Company man by having his wife and unborn kid unceremoniously ‘fridged and his having originally hit on Sandra because Eric Roberts ordered him to, I’m not only not excited, I’m rocking in a corner, near unto tears. All so that Claire can find a reason not to trust her dad again. LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU, HEROES.

By TrinityVixen – As with Vanessa’s story, there’s a moment where Claire recognizes that Sylar is a freakbag and tells him what is and is not ever going to happen for him. Then she pours her heart out to him (albeit unknowing) and doesn’t punish him for using her, for stealing her confidence and abusing her body. In fact, things are better than ever now that she can be Gretchen’s girlfriend. The fact that this development unites two sexist clichés—making women gay for ratings and the meme that abuse is good for you—is a new low for this show.

By TrinityVixen – Somebody obviously told the Heroes crew that this episode would be paired with the first of the new Chuck episodes—one ending with a cliffhanger, no less! They, wisely, if unfortunately for those of us watching this show, decided not to make “Close to You” at all essential to the overall story. Instead, we caught up with the least popular, least interesting characters and watched them run around and be silly or angsty as appropriate.

By TrinityVixen – Hulu, however useful it may be, is not your friends when you watch this show. Not only does it minimize the commercials, thus diminishing the advertising time (during which you might wrap your brain around the latest in bizarre developments) but it also doesn’t say exactly which of a two-part episode came first. I ended up watching the second hour first. Then again, it’s probably Heroes’ fault that I didn’t even notice I’d watched the episode out of order.

By TrinityVixen – For all that I waxed poetic about Nathan Petrelli’s last death, I confess I’ve nothing much to say about this most recent one. It wasn’t even Nathan dying, for one thing. It was “Nathan” wuss-ing out, claiming he was too tired to fight to control of Sylar’s body. How ungrateful can a guy be?

By TrinityVixen – Okay, so there is some limit to Robert Knepper’s skills: he can’t read the hyperbolic opening monologue convincingly. To be fair, not even the unparalleled Patrick Stewart, with his dulcet British inflections, could possibly make any of this drivel easier to stomach. At least it’s not Mohinder talking about “science.” Samuel muses on identity, the search for truth, good versus evil—you know, the little things. He also name-drops the episode title. Color me surprised that “Tabula Rasa” hadn’t come up during one of the many do-overs of the last two volumes.

By TrinityVixen – What is up with Samuel’s ability? He is very definitely an earth-mover, but there’s also this inking ability. Is it related to his ground-shaking? If so, this would be perhaps the most deviously clever translation of an ability ever—giving him the power to move materials from the soil even if they end up in another medium (in this case, ink). I wouldn’t have guessed that, five volumes in, Heroes had that level of creativity left in it.