Heroes, Oh God, it's not getting better. Now that I know I can accept this and move forward.

Oh Heroes. It almost hurts me to see you keep trying to so hard to fix yourself, yet continue to have the same fundamental problems year after year. The theme of this chapter is "Redemption", so I'm assuming that this show is about to be redeemed from stupid characters, labryinthine plots and unnecessary cast additions, right? Oh. Not exactly.

We begin with a voiceover. Of freaking course. It's not Mohinder droning on about crap no one cares about though, it's a new guy we have never seen before, talking to some carnies while he buries someone. It's all very sad I am sure. Then he uses his awesome power of...dirt control? Or something, to bury the casket. Cool I guess.

Aaand now that's over, and we are watching Claire move in totally alone to college. Real nice Sandra and HRG! Real nice. So Claire, in case you were wondering, just wants to have a normal life! I don't know if you've heard that maybe one thousand times before or not, but the show just wanted to reiterate that. Unfortunately for her, there are a few things keeping from the "normal life" of her dreams, such as:

-She's an invincible superhero with a superhero family and hero hunter/helper morally ambiguous father.

-She's wearing horrible 80's inspired fashions including but not limited to some kind of "Canadian Tuxedo" ensemble. (Jeans and a denim shirt. Knotted at the waist. WHY?!)

-She has an insane roommate who promptly offs herself after annoying the crap out of her (and us) for an hour.

-She has some kind of creepy, murder groupie, goth, black wide leg pants wearing friend who probably has a nefarious origin. (Knowing this show)

-She sucks at Algebra. No one can lead a normal life unless they understand Algebra kids.

So bummer for Claire. Turns out she is probably going to have to continue to be invulnerable and have a not so normal life. At least I hope. Otherwise this is going to be a boring show.

Still not leading a normal life? HRG, Noah, Claire's dad. We all know and love him, and he's pretty much back to his "people with abilities" chasing ways. But NOW, he is going to help them instead of caging them like animals! This time he'll aided by Tracy, who I guess is done murdering people for revenge now that someone else murdered Danko and she felt curiously all upset about it.
Also, are they going to do it? There was some weird chemistry going on with them in that last scene. Sexy chemistry? Or is that just how Ali Larter acts with everyone?

Oh yeah Danko's dead, thank goodness. They didn't really let me relish it at all, which probably just proves that the writers of Heroes are better people than I am. Some Carny guy killed him for a compass. He seemed to have some kind of super speed/ knife throwing skills.

You know who else just wants a normal life? Peter. So to acheive that end he is using Mohinder's super strength and agility (and later Carny guy's speed) to save people as an EMT. He is not interacting with his insane family (probably a good move) OR anyone else for that matter (probably a bad move) and his very nice EMT partner keeps trying to get him to hang out, but it's a no go. I don't really know why he seems to disappointed whenever Peter declines to chill with him, because Peter does not seem to be a very fun dude, let me tell you. HRG gave him a lecture about not living a lonely life and end up with your kids away at school and your wife's phone being answered by some dude, but at this rate, there is no way Peter is getting a wife and kids. He says crap like "Hi. I'm here to save you." Ugh.
He helped HRG get the compass (briefly, the Carnies got it) and we all know he'll be back, non-normal lifing it up in no time.

'Nathan' feels weird. Like not himself. Like maybe he might be someone else, or something. HMMMMM. Could that someone else be some kind of all-powerful serial killer maybe? Also, why did Angela et. all not plan for the fact that Sylar's powers are going to manifest for 'Nathan'? Every single person who has powers has had them manifest physically when they were not conciously trying to use them, including Angela and Nathan. Dumb. I am not sure if you have noticed, but the characters on this show are dumb.

Also dumb? Matt Parkman's entire storyline. Shocker, I know. He has quit mind reading cold turkey and is acting as though he was addicted to it. He's even in an incredibly poorly run addiction recovery group for it! (When he starts acting all weird, the guy leading the group is all "Okay, let's move on..." Nice dude.) And, he's jealous of the water guy. Yes, Matt Parkman is so insecure that is jealous of the guy who delivers water to his house because he is kind of friendly. Oh man I hate this guy so much. One more thing, Sylar is in his brain or something, and he keeps seeing him everywhere. I guess that is just an excuse to make sure Zachary Quinto is in every episode.

And then, of course, there's Hiro. I want to like him, but, man he really is a childlike idiot. At first he and Ando are trying to start some Ghostbuster's-like "Hire a Hero" thing, but then it is revealed that he is dying (From some unknown thing. Nosebleeds is my guess. Nosebleeds are one of the leading killers of TV characters in the nation. Someone should start a charity.) So then he goes back in time, meets the head Carny guy who tells him he can change little things without changing everything, and makes is so his sister and Ando are in love in the present. Good for Ando.
I am sure this new 'mission' (this fricken dude has to have a mission, doesn't he?) of going back in time to fix the small mistakes in his life before he dies will have no terrible consequences...oh I can't even say it. Of course it will.

So these Carnies aren't exactly fleshed out yet, but we have the aformentioned quick with knives dude(Irish, I think) , we have Lydia (hot, I think) who gets tattoos of people magically and then knows stuff about them, an old guy who can send people back in time and seems to be dying, and Samuel the seeming leader who moved the dirt in the first scene (telekinesis?) but in the rest of the episode seems to have some kind of magical ink pen that can make faces of people on Lydia's back AND make hands that strangle people into doing his bidding. (He did say he was sorry afterwards.) So onto Lydia's back he tattooted the faces of the Heroes that he wants now that he has met and influence Hiro. Peter, Claire and Sylar. Unsuprisingly, they don't want Matt Parkman.

Next week: I don't really know. They showed previews of the whole season. Crazy stuff!!