Season 1 of Heroes was such a mixed bag.

It started off really slow, but it was still entertaining because it was mutants and superheroes and... well... it had the promise of getting better as time went on.

And it did get better. The pace sped up a little bit.

And then suddenly it got really entertaining. "Company Man" is pretty clearly the best episode of season 1 in my book, and "Five Years Gone" was the second best.

Even still, it was always good for the mindless entertainment. Like Danny Phantom, to use a random example. Heroes just isn't that great of a show, and the writing is pretty horrible, but hey... that's not why I watch the show.

And then the finale came, and the final episodes were pretty laughably bad, but again, it was still entertaining, and that's all that matters.

So how did tonight's episode turn out? Pretty good for a Heroes episode. It was like your average season 1 episode, where it wasn't AS slow as the very earliest ones or AS bad as the finale, and it wasn't anywhere nearly as entertaining as "Company Man," but then, what is? It just kind of... Was.

Mohinder - Why exactly mutants aren't at all believable when so many of them are displaying their powers in very public places is beyond me, but, whatever. That's one of those things you weren't meant to think about. There's really only three things of note:

(1) The Company man turning the spoon into gold was pretty cool.
(2) The pyramids visible in the distance? Also cool.
(3) The reveal that Bennet is working with Mohinder? Typical Heroes, and it does have me intrigued to see what will become of that storyarc.

Noah and Claire - All very typical stuff for these characters. They're still my favorite characters, though nothing spectacular happened... but then, it was all supposed to be unspectacular, culminating in the Dinner Conversation of Boredom at the end... all right before they not-that-unsurprisingly pull the rug out from under you and Noah is revealed to be in league with Mohinder to take down the Company. (And Claire is revealed to be talking with Nathan about Peter).

Meanwhile, West, Claire's weirdo stalker is LAME. (Hi Hunter! Decided you didn't want to work for Ryan after Jan quit?)

But on the plus side, Claire shares with Nathan on the phone that she's concerned about Peter? Peter/Claire is still like the only couple on the show that has chemistry, man.

Other than that I'm ignoring the very contrived writing in this part (especially the HUNTER/CLAIRE, the OH NO'S CLAIRE WILL DO A BACK FLIP, the LET'S TALK ABOUT DARWIN IN CHEMISTRY CLASS, and the NOAH GOING POSTAL ON HIS BOSS) in favor of just enjoying the fact that it was all entertaining to look at!

Uh, but yeah, I can't resist commenting on one of those... the NOAH GOING POSTAL ON HIS BOSS thing reminds me of the fact that Jack Coleman spoke long before season 2 that the first episode would show that he had not been "defanged," that he wasn't this ultra-nice guy like you might think after the finale. ONCE AGAIN CHARACTERS ARE STEAMROLLED BY THE POWER OF PLOT.

Matt Parkman and Molly - Molly is adorable at all times, and I approve of her being on screen more often. And uhm, my favorite part of the entire episode was when the teacher (or whoever she was) showed Matt the drawings Molly had been making. VERY CREEPY. VERY CREEPY EYES AND EVERYTHING. This new villain had better not end up being LAME, but his set-up in this episode was SUPERB.

I WANT MORE CREEPY MOLLY DRAWINGS IN THE FUTURE, OK, HEROES? PLZ?

Hiro and Kensei - Lame. But you still can't help but loving Hiro. And the countryside was beautiful, and stopping the arrows was still nifty even if we've seen time-stops before.

Ando and Mr. Nakamura - This was a mixture of DELIGHTFULLY CREEPY and RETARDED WRITING with a dash of LAME ENDING ACTION (what the heck, Heroes? You STILL haven't hired anyone that knows anything about action?).

I'll focus on the DELIGHTFULLY CREEPY part: juxtaposed with the previous "Molly's drawing" scene, the "black spot" style death notice was great. "Generations" is supposed to focus on this earlier generation of heroes, so, it makes sense that we'd see more of him. Since Ando is now a fuller cast member and is powerless, I'd have to guess that he'll be keeping track of the Nakamura part of that earlier generation.

Maya and her brother - Didn't have any impact. But I liked the jungle. I always like jungles. The existence of the jungle was one of my favorite parts of the episode.

Nathan and Mrs. Petrelli - I need to see more of this new beardy Nathan before I can comment further... but what the heck was up with that reflection in the glass? Ah well... that's something we're meant to wonder about.

And Mrs. Petrelli was psycho as usual.

Peter - Peter is ALIVE. We are SUPPOSED TO BE SHOCKED? But uh... in IRELAND? WELL, uhm. I guess with his amnesia he'll be wandering around for a while.