I must be alone in thinking this was yet another weak return. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't horrible, but left me feeling a little bit bland.
Peter - "I got my job back." Problem is that he never was an EMT. He was a nurse. So how he got his job "back" is a mystery. The fight with him and the knife guy was cool, but let's face it. Peter got his power, not his skill in knife fighting. So I think knife-guy should have sliced him up a bit more. Nice to see Ray Park actually have a speaking role
Samuel - I read that he was supposed to be an earth mover, as well. So the whole ink thing was not fully explained. Perhaps a mystery to be answered at a later date. Let's hope so.
Compass - whatever it is, it only seems to "work" for those with abilities. We saw it work for Samuel and Peter, but not for Noah. Perhaps used to point those with abilities toward "home?"
Gretchen - I agree that she probably has a power. Not necessarily evil, but perhaps a little mentally disturbed. The one hint I got was when she said, "It's like I'm getting better as I go." Obsessed with death and with some kind of ability, she wants to get as close to someone linked to a gruesome death as possible.
Sylar - those parts were good, but I still say they need to give Sylar a break for a while.
Hiro - It will be interesting to see how the Samuel-induced "noble purpose" will pan out and how it will benefit Samuel. This story arc is really the only reason I'll keep watching for now.
Also, did I miss something? Is the Haitian around somewhere? I'm assuming that's how Noah got Danko to forget who Tracy was.
I guess overall, it was not one of those episodes that had me on the edge of my seat by the end of either hour and, honestly, that's what Heroes needs right now. It needs to grab peoples' attention again and plodding story lines just aren't gonna cut it.
At the beginning of Fugitives (the second half of season 3) last year, Peter was working as a paramedic.
And yes, the Haitian did make an appearance, you pretty much guessed how it went down.
I'm a little bit sad that they killed off Danko so quickly, he was a relatively important part of last volume and they left him pretty open ended which made me think that there was the possibilty that he could be back as an important character, only to quickly kill him.
I agree that they need to get rid of Sylar. I did think that the scenes with Matt and Sylar were very good though.
Also really interested in this whole tattoo power thing, definitely one of the cooler and more unique powers that they've had on the show.
I like Samuel, he seems like an interesting guy, and his terrakenesis is a pretty neat power.
Conspicuously absent was Mohinder, though I don't really care because his storyline was pretty much going in circles, so it wont' matter to me if he doesn't come back.
I kind of agree with what you said about it not being exciting enough, and I agree with you to an extent. There were a couple of good fight scenes, but there was a lot of fluff as well. If the whole season is like this episode, yeah, I'll be disappointed. But what they did that they haven't really been able to do since season 1 was kind of lay out the arcs for the season. The whole mystery of the compass, as well as Samuel and his whole crew and whatever they're up to.
I was thinking to myself that there wasn't enough action and excitement as well, but you've got to remember the season 3 premiere. That was nothing but shooting, time traveling, and craziness, and that was definitely not well received and layed out the groundwork for a hot mess of a season.
I don't think that the season premiere was terribly exciting, but I had pretty low expectations after last year's disaster. So I'm optimistic that there's definitely potential for some good stuff to happen.
Topic: 4x01 - Orientation / 4x02 - Jump, Push, Fall