I have a real problem with letting my expectations grow so high that they are eventually unattainable.  The past seven weeks served to fuel that fire tremendously, and I thought that, once again, I would be let down.  Fortunately, I was wrong.

Now, I wouldn’t say that .07% was the best episode of Heroes, but it was definitely a worthy return.  The cooperative escape with Bennet, Parkman, and Ted was a high point.  Watching the bomb man discover a new aspect of his power was really interesting, and an idea that I hadn’t thought about before.  I wonder what other aspects of their respective powers our heroes will discover.

The Peter/Sylar showdown reminded me of the Gandalf/Saruman showdown in Lord of the Rings, especially when Peter threw Sylar across the room.  Sylar gloating about having to try out the invisible trick before sending the shards of glass into Peter’s skull made me laugh evilly.  Man, I hate to love and love to hate Sylar.

The entire Linderman/Petrelli exchange was fantastic, too.  I can’t quite get a feel for what Nathan’s motives will be in the future.  We saw at the end of the episode a newspaper clipping from the future that said that he was a help during the dark times…so will he just use the bombs as an excuse to draw more political power, yet still come across as a ‘warm’ leader?  We’ll find out more about that next week.

So, has Candace developed her power to the point where everything around her doesn’t shake like crazy when she changes, or is the show making that change?  I noticed in the “previously on…” part last night, when they showed her shifting in the bathroom from Parasite, she was the only thing that changed, while I specifically remember everything shaking like crazy when she changed in that scene.  Anyway, I’m not sure that I’m crazy about someone having that kind of power in the show, since it always adds that sense of paranoia that the person that’s on screen is not really said person.  But I guess that’s the point.

Poor, poor Isaac.  Dude was pinned down by his own brushes, the very thing that had allowed him to express his power.  I’m sure there’s symoblism there somewhere.  I loved how the moments of his death were intercut with the paintings depicting that very event.  I will truly miss seeing new additions to Isaac’s art portfolio, since I love that style.  But Sylar’s nightmare versions of the paintings was an extremely cool twist.

The only thing I didn’t care for was the way Linderman’s power was handled.  With the release of that information more than a week old for us, I was really expecting to see more done with it than just the healing of a (conveniently) dead flower.  I would have loved to have seen Nathan refusing to join Linderman, then, when he finds Peter is dead, he takes him to Linderman and tells him he will go along with the plan if he will heal his brother.  Kind of the Palpatine/Anakin relationship, I guess.  But maybe something like that is still down the road.

So, great episode.  No ‘Company Man’, but definitely a worthy return.  I can’t wait for next week, though.  It has potential to go straight to the top of everyone’s favorite list.