I am starting to wonder if this show is going to spin out of control and if the writers are on something.   Only a couple of episodes ago, I reassured myself that things were OK and perhaps things were not as bad as they seemed.   But looking at the recent story twists and developments, I am really starting to wonder if one of my favourite shows is heading for the downward spiral and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

In the last episode, we finally found out that Lindemann was in fact NOT Lindemann (GASP! Now there's a shock!) and the "ghost" was in fact Parkman's father who was doing one of his mind control tricks on everyone.   He in turn was doing the bidding of his master who we discovered at the end of the last episode was Mr Petrelli Senior, whom we all thought was dead, but actually he has been in a hospital bed all this time, looking pretty crap.   In the last episode, he succeeded in putting his wife into a coma (nothing like an emotional reunion is there?) and he is now obviously the head of the Pinehearst corporation which sounds all cute and cuddly but Pinehearst is just a front for bad guys doing bad things to people.

Just when I thought we had finally got rid of Ando, the useless squib in the whole series, it turns out he's not actually dead after all!   Through time travel, it turns out that Hiro did his squeezy eye thingy, stopped time, went back in time, replaced the sword with another one, grabs fake blood packets, then goes to the bar where Adam Munro had taken them earlier.  He tells Ando about the whole stabbing thing that's going to happen later so he has the fake blood under his shirt.   So when he stabs Ando, he only stabs the fake blood bags.  Ando does his best impersonation of getting stabbed dead and falls to the floor.  So when the bad guys are gone, Ando gets up again.   Damn and here's me thinking the Heroes producers were finally starting to trim down the cast members!

I'm getting really irritated though with Sylar suddenly becoming "good" and discovering "Mom".   I'm not sure what to make about the sudden switch to Peter being the evil one and Sylar being Goody Two-Shoes.   I think I preferred it the other way around.   They spend two seasons building up Sylar as the evil one, the one to be scared of and suddenly we have to accept him as the nice guy?    I'm not sure if I want to accept that.

The scene that REALLY annoyed me in this episode was the Puppetmaster scene, specifically the fact that the mother came along.   She is one cast member I wish the producers would really get rid of (unless she has a super-power she would finally hurry up and reveal).   This whole thing of them being tied up around the table, being forced to hold the gun and shoot one another in Russian Roulette was tiring and what's even more tiring is Claire's indecision over whether she wants to be good or bad.    It's like Luke Skywalker not being able to decide whether to cross over to the Dark Side or not.  I mean, come on, hurry up and decide!   Oh and while you're at it, someone shut up Daddy!    If I hear him do his Bryan Adams "everything I do, I do it for you!" one more time, I think I'm about to develop my own superpower and wipe him off the face of the planet.

I was however really shocked when the Heroes producers finally DID kill off one of the Heroes.   Adam Munro went to Pinehearst as per instructed and when he met Petrelli senior, he shook his hand.    But it was no ordinary handshake.   Suddenly all of Munro's powers went into Petrelli, Munro suddenly aged 400 years and crumbled into dust.   Goodbye blondie!    Don't worry ladies.   If it's eye candy you're looking for on Heroes, there's still Nathan Petrelli to look at.   Or cute adorable Hiro if your tastes go that way.

Talking of Hiro, I have to admit, he was the one saving grace of this episode.   This whole "how do you catch a pre-cog if he knows you're coming?" thing was absolutely hilarious.   Sneaking up on the guy twice, getting whacked on the back of the head twice (and seeing it in paintings first!).    But finally succeeding "when you use your head and just walk up to him".  Ah-hah, OK.

Parkman and his turtle....well I don't know what to say there.   He's getting more and more dopey as each episode goes on.  First, if Peter flashed him suddenly into the desert, how did he get back into the US without a passport?   Second, how did he get the turtle back into the US?   Is it so easy to bring foreign animals into the US?    If you were a US immigration officer and someone sunburnt and bruised and battered like him turned up with a turtle, would you just let him through?   I doubt it!

The ending though was interesting.   Peter goes storming into Pinehearst and suddenly comes face-to-face with his father.   Papa wants a hug, Peter gives him one, Papa sucks all of Peter's power out of him.   Result?   Peter is a normal person now.   No powers whatsoever.   Papa is the all-powerful one now.   A bit like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars!

Don't worry Peter - I hear Burger King's hiring.