Heroes: Takei Time

Yeah, it's finally here. George Takei on Heroes. And he has… no dialogue. Why even bring George Takei on if you don't plan on making use of his mellifluous voice? Sigh. Next week, I suppose.

Hiro and Ando are kidnapped by some shadowy guys in a van, one of whom speaks Japanese, and it's all very mysterious and tense unless you know that George Takei is guest starring as Hiro's dad, in which case you know that they're taking them to him. But no time with Hiro and Ando is ever wasted, and, in fact, there's a very sweet moment when Hiro comes back for Ando, explaining, "This is how we roll." Aw, I love these guys.

Nathan and Mohinder have a plan to fix Peter (so he doesn't, you know, explode), but Peter's decided he can beat it with a little coaching from Christopher Eccleston (calling himself Claude, as in Claude Rains). Turns out Claude has taught others in the past, but to hear him talk about it, you'd think that all his pupils died in some horrible teaching-related explosion. But Claude proves himself to be the mentor I'd hoped, giving Peter just enough crap and showing just enough of that caddish Eccleston charm to make him my favorite new character. Long may he snark.

As for the other characters, Micah rips off an ATM (Hey, kid, who do you think you are, John Connor? Because that's Zach), Matt's life sucks and then he gets a baby, Claire tracks down her pyrokinetic, non-dead birth mom, and Sylar breaks out. And Niki meets with a psychiatrist to try to get rid of/integrate Jessica, which only leads me to believe that either Niki or Jessica is going to be the one who dies during sweeps. It's sneaky enough, killing a character without actually getting rid of the actor, that it seems extremely plausible. If I were a producer, that's what I'd do.