"Heroes" - half-season finale

Overall, I was happy with the episode in that they resolved a number of things. There were some questions that I would have preferred they answer, but I have to remember that this wasn't a season finale, so it really wasn't that much more than a regular episode. It just gained more significance because there are no more episodes coming until after the writers' strike ends.

Maya - I didn't mind her in the beginning and was ready to see where they were going to go with her character, but they pretty much didn't go anywhere. She was entirely too gullible when it came to Sylar and as much as she had relied on her brother, she pretty much just stopped listening to him as soon as her infatuation with Sylar took hold. OK, so she finally found out about Sylar. I would have preferred it to be a bit more clandestine as opposed to just having Sylar holding a gun to Mohinder. And given my indifference to her, I didn't care that much when Sylar shot her. It only mattered to me because Molly witnessed it. So, I wasn't all that pleased when she was brought back to life. I would actually have preferred that Alejandro had been left to live (at least she found out that he's dead), but since he really only had a negative power to hers (it appeared that he could bring people back to life that she had killed, but there was no hint that he could bring just anyone back to life), and she doesn't need him to stop her killing power anymore, there wasn't that much that could be done with him, though I think he was the more interesting character. What Maya needs to learn is to focus her power, so that it doesn't affect everyone in her vicinity, just who she aims her power at. That would make her a major adversary indeed.

Adam/Peter/Hiro - That was the triangle where the demon (Adam) and the angel (Hiro) are basically fighting for the sole of the innocent (Peter). Adam has fed Peter enough lines to get Peter to believe him, but Peter still has his old attachment to Hiro. But nothing can get through to Peter because Peter saw Adam heal Nathan - so the only one who *can* get through to Peter is Nathan himself. Adam's been using Peter as a weapon to get into the holding facility, and it's only Nathan who can help Peter see what's really going on. Peter manages to catch the vial of the deadly virus strain that Adam drops and destroys it for good.

Elle - Her story is at least getting a little more interesting, but I think they either need to make her a better hero or a better villain. At the moment, she's waffling between the two. She seemed fallen when she was dressed down by her father, but then she went to Noah for more information, and Noah told her that her father was willing to push her beyond her limit to test her powers. However, that didn't seem to affect her devotion to her father, nor did finding that her file was completely empty. In the end, it's to win back his approval that prompts her to step in when she sees Sylar in the lab with Mohinder. I expect we'll find out more about her story later.

Niki - I was surprised when she didn't know that Micah had the power to control electronics. Thinking back on it, his father knew, but we never saw Micah telling Niki. I think I figured that during the time that passed when we didn't see them, Micah would have told her or it would have come out in conversation or something. I wasn't entirely happy with the storyline about DL's medal and Micah going back for it and Monica helping. It seemed a bit contrived and out of nowhere and served really to just kill Niki. At least, I presume that Niki is dead. Nothing suggests she would have been able to survive the blast. While I'm kind of sad to see her go, I don't think her character was really going anywhere, and they didn't seem to know what to do with her. I never really understood what her power was. Being a split personality isn't a power. Maybe it was just her super-strength, but that wasn't really all that clear. We'll have to see what the fallout is because now, Micah is an orphan.

Noah - Not really sure what the deal is with him. Obviously, Bob agreed to let Mohinder save him. But why? What purpose does he serve? Eventually, he was used to control Claire, to stop her from exposing her power, but it didn't seem like Bob had that in his mind to begin with. And Noah traded in staying with and helping the company for a normal life for his family, but I'm not sure that's really going to work. One weird thing about the scene between Noah and Bob in Noah's cell - what was with the weird camera angles? At one point, it's like the camera(man) was lying on the floor shooting straight up at them, making Bob even taller, and then right after that, the camera(man) is hanging from the ceiling, looking down on both Bob and Noah.

Adam and Hiro - We knew this showdown had to happen. Adam likens himself to God at the time of Noah's ark (which is an interesting connection since Noah, Claire's father, has basically built an ark just for his own family to save them from the company while the rest of the people are being subjected to what the company will rain down on them), where God decided to start over by destroying everything and everyone with a flood, and Hiro is appalled by Adam's god-complex, probably moreso as he's just learned from his father that sometimes, things just have to happen and you have to not try to change them. I did think it was a serious plot problem, though, when they were in the vault together and Hiro can't really figure out how to stop Adam. Why doesn't he just stop time like he did last time, take the sword and whoosh, Adam is dead? It didn't work last time only because Peter intervened, but Peter wasn't there this time to stop him. Of course, that wasn't the resolution the story was supposed to take, but it seemed like a sloppy bit of writing to me. And in the end, Hiro imprisons Adam in a grave, burying him alive for all of eternity. I wonder, though - OK, so Adam can regenerate, but presumably, he's like a human in that he needs to eat. If he's not able to eat, does his body degenerate over time and will he eventually die? Or even without nourishment, will he still be able to live? If he does live forever, one would expect that he could eventually be set free. Sure, he's in a graveyard, but 100, 200, 300 or more years later, who's to say that ground won't be dug up, and Adam set free with it?

Nathan - I'm not entirely sure I understand why Nathan decided to go public with his power. But obviously, it wasn't something the company wanted to let happen. When Nathan was first shot, and I saw the figure of the man walking away, I thought it was Sylar. But we see later that it wasn't. The husband figured out it was Noah, which seems to be the case since Angela's scene later shows that she knew it was going to happen and that she allowed it, and since Noah is a company man, he had to protect the company. I just didn't think the figure of the man looked like him.

Sylar - So we find out that he has the same virus strain as Niki, which means the company injected him. That means that at the beginning, it was the company who saved him and was taking care of him, but it still doesn't explain how he became his human body again. It also doesn't explain why the company brought him back to life. OK, so they injected him with the virus to take away his powers, but with as evil as he was, why even have him live? But, like all good villains, he does regain his powers, and you know he's going to wreak havoc again. You have to figure he's going to go gunning for Maya, as he's going to want her power. Since the title of the chapter that starts with Sylar regaining his powers is "Villains", we can probably expect his rise and to see what other opposition comes along.