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We enter the story four months after Peter’s dramatic explosion above the city at the end of Volume One. With limited interruption, Volume Two introduces us to heroes with lives changed by the hunt of the evil Company, new heroes who can’t control their abilities, and a sinister, yet unseen evil tracking the old school heroes like Mama Petrelli and Daddy Nakamora.

Hiro’s father and Ando await news of Hiro, who teleported out of the city and into 1671 Japan at the end of Volume One. Hiro’s father receives a death threat in his newspaper – a curving red slash over his photograph. He tells Ando he will be dead in 24 hours.

Nathan is a drunk and has driven away his wife and children. His mother is pissed that he didn’t fulfill his destiny to take over the world for the group of elitist heroes (including Hiro’s father and Simone’s now dead father). As she leaves, Mama Petrelli finds a photograph of herself with a curved red slash over it. The Death Mark.

She meets up with Hiro’s father at Isaac’s old apartment balcony. They argue. We learn there are nine left in their inner circle, and it is one of those nine that is knocking off the others. Papa Nakamora sends Ando off to get a sword. But before Ando can get it to him, The Killer throws him off the building.

Who is the new evil one? We don’t know. Yet. But Molly does.

Molly is the little girl Mohinder was trying to save at the end of Volume One. She suffered the plague that killed Mo’s sister all those years ago. She’s living with Parkman – now a detective who passed the exam by using his ability to pick people’s thoughts out of their head. She’s having nightmares and draws pictures of eyes of the Death Mark between them. She refuses to talk to Parkman about it, but he pulls her thoughts out of a nightmare, which ends with the creepy man saying, “I can see you.”

Mohinder gives speeches across the globe, trying to get people to believe in the heroes and the genetic disease that kills them before they can reach their potential to save the world. Of course, most think he’s a crackpot. But one man says he believes. He offers Mo some big bucks to find heroes, help them manage their abilities (or exterminate those who are like Sylar) and cash for Mo’s research for a cure. Doc takes the offer. He calls up Claire’s father and says The Company has taken the bait. The men are well on their way to taking down the Evil Empire.

Hiro finds himself on a battlefield in Japan. He stops time when some primitive arrows nearly kill him – and he rescues his textbook hero, Takezo Kensei, an Englishman who is a greedy drunk rather than the hero that Hiro has built up in his mind. But that rescue changes the future, and now Hiro must find a way to change it back. Otherwise, who knows what the future will hold. (I think this was the best part of the show. Think about it. What could Hiro’s “mistakes” do to the future? Did his actions lead to the Death Mark? If he changes time, will he save his father and the other elitist heroes? This line has incredible potential.)

Claire and family have settled into California. They must pretend to be people they are not. Claire can’t reveal her powers – or try out for cheerleading – and Dad must put up with a punk-ass manager at a paper store (what wonder irony). Dad finally gets enough and shows some moves to the manager, but Claire backs off of showing up some snotty cheerleaders at the school, heading her father’s warning that it only takes one slip up for The Company to find them. I thought it was odd that her mother survived Volume One, where she was overtaken by an evil shapeshifter, and that she still has Mr. Muggles and enters him into dog contests. Hello. If anything gives them away, that would be it.

Interesting tidbit: Claire is a teen and she’s got hormones. She runs into a cute guy named West. He’s her lab partner and watches her in gym class. They have a cute, flirty relationship. It’s the only “real” about Claire’s life. West sees right through her, but he doesn’t say anything just yet.

Claire calls real dad Nathan at the end of her crappy day, just to talk. Pretending to be something she’s not is really getting to her. I get the feeling Nathan might know a little more than he’s telling anyone. He hangs up on Claire, who doesn’t notices new flirt West flying outside her bedroom window. (That’s right. Flying. Like Daddy Petrelli. At first I wondered if he was Peter reincarnated. And later, I wondered why Claire didn’t pick up on his powers via telepathy. Remember, she’s an absorber. She got Parkman’s ability last season. Does she not open herself up to figure out this “new” world? She’s a teen. Wouldn’t she want to know as much as possible so she could wade through the terrors of high school?)

Throughout the episode, we think that Peter is dead. But in true Heroes form, a clean-cut Peter shows up at the very end, chained to the inside of a shipping crate. (I almost didn’t recognize him.) He’s discovered by some men who are robbing it. He says he doesn’t know his name.

Introduced in this episode are Maya and Alejandro, who are escaping from Honduras to America to find Mohinder to get cured. We aren’t certain of Maya’s power, but when she is threatened or frightened, she kills. With quite a lot of blood. She’s terrified of what she is and wants to be cured. I hope they don’t linger in Honduras; they need to quickly find the others and see just how useful Maya can be when fighting Company overlords.

Next week, the chapter continues, hopefully with some updates about Nikki, Peter and other heroes, and some insight into the new hero’s powers. This was a good start to Volume Two, and offers a lot of hope and intrigue in the new season.

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