I have to say, this episode makes me so glad I have this opportunity to write this review.  It was filled with everything I love about Heroes: suspense, small moments of glee and big revelations.  That's  not to say that I though the episode wasn't without its faults, but rather, it was easy to forgive them; for me at least.

Since the show has so many intertwined and complicated plots, I'm going to do my best to extricate them on by one and quickly go over them individually.  This way I won't go mad trying to explain everything.  And at the end ... I'm going to go over the episode's biggest reveal.

First of all, lets's go back a few episodes.  In my last review, I ran out of room to discuss the events that revealed the identity of the Nightmare Man in Molly's dreams.  When Mohinder and Matt finally come across the undamaged photo with the previous generation's Heroes (including Angela Petrelli, Bob and Kaito Nakamura), Matt recognises his own father, a man who had abandoned him as a child.  And Molly recognises him as the Nightmare man who has been tormenting her in her sleep for the last few weeks.  When Matt asks Molly to locate him, she agrees, seeing how important it was to Matt.

NOTE: I just have to say how much I love the Parker-Surest-Walker family. Seriously, people, I am utterly smitten with them!

When Molly uses her power to locate Matt's father, he uses her power against her and traps her in her own mind.  Her body goes limp, yet Matt can hear her mental screams as she begs for him to help.  ANGST!  Matt, needing to help his little girl, goes off in search of his father with Nathan (whose own mother had been attacked by the Nightmare Man).  Unfortunately, Matt's father, using his abilities, eludes the two men.

Mohinder, powerless and desperate to help his little Molly, takes her to the Company and puts her in Bob's care.  Bob is the man with the Midas touch.  That's right; he can turn objects into gold by merely touching them.  No wonder where the Company gets all their funding.  In return for Bob's help, Mohinder agrees to do some work  for the Company.  His first assignment is apparently Monica Dawson, Micah Sanders' cousin. He tracks her abilities and lets her explore them in a more controlled environment. Her excitement at exploring her abilities is wonderful to watch!

Soon, Bob pulls Mohinder into his office and instructs Mohinder to use a vaccine the Company  has developed that inhibits, if not entirely removes, the extraordinary abilities of the Heroes.  Mohinder refuses and an argument breaks out between Mohinder and Bob.  Bob claims the target for such a vaccine would be people like Sylar who use their abilities for violence and destruction.  During their little argument, Mohinders spies a file folder with the name "Adam Munroe" on the tag.  He doesn't ask Bob about though. 

Fortunately  for Monica, Bob backs down and agrees to let her go, if only to keep Mohinder on the Company payroll (and Molly in the Company's grasp I suspect).  In the end, Bob agrees to return Monica to New Orleans and even leaves her with a job offer and an iPod loaded with fighting techniques and other such informational videos.

Also in this episode, we encounter the twins and Gabriel again as they slowly make their away to the Mexico/US border.  When we first see them again, Gabriel and Maya are in the front seats of the Nissan while Alejandro takes  a nap in the back seat.  It is soon obvious that Gabriel has a "thing" for Maya and he explains how he misses his abilities, as they made him feel special, unlike Maya who believes them to be a curse.  When Alejandro wakes up, he sense something is up between the two and gives Gabriel the evil eye.

It isn't long before the trio find their way to the border fence that now separates Mexico and the US, but they end up encountering border police.  Since Maya is driving, Gabriel encourages her to "just drive" but she soon panics causing her abilities to turn on.  When Alejandro reacher out to help her, Gabriel stops him and instructs Maya to let them all die so they can escape.  Surprisingly, she listens to Gabriel.  Unsurprisingly, this causes a rift between the twins.

Once they escape, Maya convinces Alejandro to revive Gabriel.  Alejandro tells his sister that the next time she listens to Gabriel,  he's going to let Gabriel die.  Once Maya, who has until now been the interpreter between Gabriel and Alejandro, is out of earshot Gabriel tells Alejandro that he plans on killing Alejandro and keeping Maya to himself.  Good times all around.

And now, we will take a quick trip to the past to check up on my dear Hiro.  Ando is using Nakamura resources to get the scrolls Hiro had hiding in the sword hilt repaired.  Personally, I think this is a poor use of Ando's character, but no one asked me.  I understand that Ando is a way of connecting Hiro's story in the past to the present and that this is a method of keeping Ando and Hiro connected as well, but it feels stilted to me.

In either case, while in Feudal Japan, Hiro has finally convinced Kensei that he is, indeed, the fabled Hero of Japan.  Kensei has also fallen in love with Yaeko, just as the stories had told, and he as agreed to rescue her father.  Following the illustrated maps Kensei and Hiro had obtained, they were able to find Yaeko's father, a great swordsmith.  They soon learn that they are all in great danger because even though guns had been banned from Japan at the time, White Beard had forced Yaeko's father to make him enough guns to supply a battalion of soldiers.  Then, during the rescue mission, something goes wrong and they are discovered.  One of White Beard's men shoots at Yaeko and Hiro with a gun and Hiro, desperate to save Yaeko, with whom he as fallen in love, grabs Yaeko and transports them both to safety.

Well, Yaeko isn't stupid and she soon realises that it was Hiro that had saved her originally.  It was actually Hiro that she had initially fallen in love, not Kensei whom she had believed all this time.  Her and Hiro share a brief kiss despite Hiro's initial hesitation. Hiro describes it in the scrolls to Ando as "the kiss that fractured time" as Kensei witnesses the kiss.  Kesnei feels understandably betrayed, and confronts Hiro.  He tells Hiro that he "cut him deeper  than any blade ever could" and promptly turns them all in to White Beard.

That that is where we leave Hiro ... and the first part of the review.  And to make use of a phrase both familiar and reviled by all Heroes fans: to be continued ...

And I shall continue on with Claire ...

Claire and West have gotten closer over the progression of this early part of the is season; they're relationship going from antagonism to full on puppy-love romance with a bit of Superman fantasy playing thrown in.  (Come on, who didn't immediately think Superman and Lois Lane taking that first flight together?)    With the revelation that a man with Horn-Rimmed Glasses (HRG anyone?) had kidnapped West some time ago and left him with a two pronged scar on his shoulder and no memory of how it happened, Claire begins the slippery slope of not trusting her father.  Which is sort of understandable; how can you trust someone who makes a life of lying, even if it is for your own protection?

The resulting mistrust gives West the opportunity to convince Claire to take advantage of their powers and pull a prank on the head cheerleader, Debbie.

Claire gets a drunken Debbie alone and West, dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, flies up behind Claire and attacks.  He carries Claire into the sky and drops her onto a set of steps, appearing to kill her.  Debbie, being a normal human being and considerably intoxicated, freaks out and calls the police.  When the police arrive, they find no evidence of the horrifying event Debbie had described to them.  And just to pound those nails into the coffin of Debbie's social standing, Claire shows up and refutes Debbie's seemingly insane story.

OK, I cannot even begin to express how big of a problem I have with this.  Seriously, Claire has gone from saving the world to punking cheerleaders.  Now there's a practical use for her powers.  Oh yes, that makes complete sense  You can't see it, but I'm rolling my  eyes.

This brings us to a familiar character: HRG.  And I'm going to take another moment to express my love for this character.  This show has a habit of taking characters, and, with a single reveal, turn them into characters I just adore. For most of season one, I could not stand HRG, and now, he is one of my favourite characters.

HRG's latest mission takes him and the Haitian to the Ukraine.  There they corner a man who knows the location of the missing paintings done by the late Isaac Mendez.  It is soon revealed that the man not only works for the Company, but was once HRG's mentor as well.  HRG threatens the man with the removal of the man's memories of his family (and even carries out the threat with the help of the Haitian) if he does not tell them the location of the missing paintings.

At the last moment, the man tells them where the paintings are stored, but not before asking HRG to return to the Company and making a threat of his own: if he goes after the paintings, HRG will be putting his family danger from the Company.  HRG responds with "I know" and shoots the Ukrainian in the head.  I tell you, I totally didn't see that one coming.  I mean I should have, seeing as HRG has done it before in the season finale where he shot Eric Roberts' character.  Crazy.

Now let's go to Ireland. In previous episodes this season we find Peter in a cargo box in Ireland with no memory of who he is and what he can do.  He, of course, eventually finds out and it is revealed to the audience that he as a few extra powers we hadn't known him to possess before.  He also meets an attractive brunette named Caitlin who runs a pub with her brother.  It was her brother who discovered him in said cargo box.  Peter and Caitlin, fall for each other.  (Can you blame her?  He walks around shirtless at times!).  Unfortunately, the Irish accents are fairly forced and painful to hear.  I felt like I was being subjected to his particular storyline rather than being interested.

After some time in Ireland, a young woman named Elle, who has the ability to shoot blue electricity from her hands, played by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame, is sent to find and kill Peter.  What happens instead is she kills Caitlin's brother while Peter is hiding out in Caitlin's loft.  Later, Elle climbs into her car and calls someone she refers to as "Dad" and informs him that she has not yet found Peter. 

In the mean time at Caitlin's loft, Peter finds that she paints as a hobby and Peter's dormant ability to paint the future bubbles to the surface.  The result is a painting of Peter and Caitlin in front of a building in Montreal, Canada.  Or, at least thats the conclusion they come to after seeing street signs in French.  This the point in the episode where I rolled my  eyes so hard I nearly fell off my chair.  I mean, seriously, there aren't any other cities in the world where street signs are in French? I would have thought of Paris, or any other city in France for that matter, before I came to the conclusion of Montreal especially since there were no Canadian flags in the picture.  But maybe that's just me.

Peter and Caitlin determine that it means they must go to Montreal to find out what secrets are there, and they hope it will lead to Peter's past.  When they arrive in Montreal, they find a lot of old furniture in storage and no one around.  But then Peter spies a piece of paper with Peter's name on it taped to a mirror.  On the back of the paper is a note written by the mysterious Adam Munroe, whose name was on the file in Bob's office.  The note said that the Company could not be trusted.  My guess is that Peter met Adam some time during that missing four months.

Peter goes on to say that he wishes he could remember what happened in his past, which leads me to believe that his emo hair was, in fact, no the source of his emo abilities as I had first thought.

Peter and Caitlin then embrace and part only to find themselves in New York City, which is abandoned.  According to a city-wide evacuation order they find, it is June 2008, and the city is abandoned.  How intriguing! 

An that is the conclusion of this week's review.

Or is it?

I want to go over the eight paintings discovered by HRG and the Haitian.  HRG and the Haitian located the eight paintings and we get a look at all of them, some of them already known to us and others are new.

1. The first painting is one we've already seen, as it is the one of that depicts Kait Nakamura's alleged death.  I say alleged because this is, after all, Heroes.
2. The second painting is of Claire lying mangled on a wide cement staircase.  Based on the angle of her body, it appears to be a painting of her prank on Debbie, so it's pretty safe to assume that this is what the painting is portraying.  But then gain, one can never assume anything with this show.
3. The third painting is a hand holding a vial.   Because of the skin colour, we know it isn't Mohinder, so it may possibly be Bob's hand.  Or someone else altogether.  I'm guessing this has something to do with the vaccine Bob was pressuring Mohinder to use on Monica
4. The fourth painting is of a blond pounding on what looks to be a door.  Seeing as there are at least three attractive blonds on the show, we have to guess the identity of this person.  Personally, my money is on Elle.
5. The fifth painting shows a man with what looks to be a scar over his left eye.  There is a bio-hazard sign next to him.  The sign is backward suggesting we are looking at the man through a window.  I'm wondering if this may be a version of future!Peter from Five Years Gone.
6. The sixth painting depicts a battle between Kensei and Hiro.  I can't really say that this one surprised me as I felt it was going to end this way between the two since Hiro fell in love with Yaeko.  I wonder, though, if maybe Hiro is the 'dragon' in the stories of Kensei.
7. The seventh painting is of Mohinder with a bandaged nose and wielding a just-fired gun.  It gives no clues as to whom or what he was shooting at.
8. The eight painting is the one depicting HRG's eventual death, with Claire and a shadowy figure kissing in the background.  His death is shown as a gunshot through the left lens of his glasses.  This painting made me immediately think of the seventh painting.  What if it is Mohinder who will kill HRG and not Claire?  What if this is a red herring?  What if the person isn't kissing Claire, but rather holding her back or comforting her?  Oh the possibilities.

I'm very curious to see what effect these paintings will have on HRG and the Haitian, if it will alter their perception of certain people, and how they react to them in future episodes. 

Well, that's it for this week!  Hopefully, next week won't be so painfully long.