Bennett does not have Claire’s powers. In the immediately previous episode, it was established that a person with the power of cellular regeneration (like Claire) is able to cure the injuries of others through blood transfusion. Nathan Petrelli’s horrible burns following his carrying his brother while Peter was in nuclear meltdown faded away completely within half a minute of Adam’s blood entering his bloodstream.

Bob took Claire’s blood in this epsiode before he delivered her to Bennett … and it seems he’s decided to use it to heal Bennett. And since Claire can come back from even fatal injuries, it seems the blood does the same for her father.

Mohinder shooting him was weak (why the eye, for Ghu’s sake??). That said, I think what may have revolted him so much as to pull the trigger in the first place was the fact that Bennett was going to gun down a man in blood while he was cradling his own (albeit sadistic, psychopathic) daughter. I can’t help but consider this in light of the fact that Mohinder’s difficult relationship with his father stems from the early death of his sister Shanti. What place does the father and daughter relationship hold in Mohinder’s world view?

I don’t know that I buy Parkman becoming just like his dad because he forced Angela to reveal her secret. There’s people out there trying to destroy the world, and this woman may be a key to it.

As to Adam, I suspect he’s killing the “older” generation to prevent them from doing anything to stop him, rather than as revenge per se. What’s 30 years to an immortal? He was surprisingly sanguine about it all in the previous episode (in which we see him imprisoned next to Peter Petrelli for several months, slowly convincing him that they need to make a breakout and “save the world”).

His actions would be better understood from his promise to Hiro in their final confrontation in the past: that he would take and destroy everything Hiro ever loved. He killed Hiro’s dad as the first of his victims, and I’m pretty sure he’s setting out to destroy the world because it’s Hiro’s world. I wouldn’t be surprised if the virus is really his idea — Hiro valued heroes above all other things. So, get rid of all the heroes.

There are still a lot of problems with this show though. You’re right on about the character being congenitally stupid, which means the writers are being supremely lazy — ‘Oh, well, he sure was dumb when he did that’ is the cheapest way to push the plot around, especially when it’s done serially (as on this show).

Mohinder Suresh is clearly a powered hero, gifted with naivete above the bounds of normal men. He basically believes the last person who speaks with him. As others pointed out, his turn from working with Bennett to destroy the company to agreeing to kill him involved little more than Bob showing him a picture of a guy that Bennet murdered (a former member of the company — think you missed that episode too).

It doesn’t make sense, and it’s annoying. This show could be so much better. I can only hope that the third volume (whenever it airs) puts the ship back on course.

I love a show where something that happened in episode three will pay off in an interesting way in episode six. JOURNEYMAN is doing that very well.

Another show that is handling complexity well is LIFE.

But HEROES — oh God. I really hate the fact that everyone we meet will ultimately turn out to have a power, and that the world seems totally unaware of these people. I just don’t buy it. I’ll take Wild Cards where the people are integrated into the society. Perhaps not comfortably, but they are present and people are aware of them. This is a conspiracy dating back decades, and nobody has twigged to them. My “oh come on” alarm has been sounding for a long time now.

A lot of the new shows that are successors to the X-Files–Buffy style of sf/f adventure series seem to have this problem with structure and character motivation. Lost does the same thing you describe with Heroes, which is why I stopped watching it. I trace the problem back to what I call the DC syndrome. Back in the early ’60s every great DC comic idea (”Batman’s Identity Revealed!” “See Lois Finally Marry Superman!”) turned out to be a dream or a fraud. So I stopped reading DC and turned to the Marvel Age of comics instead.

If only there was a Marvel Age to turn to now.