Days of Our Lives continues with Hiro's spirit walk, then Arthur grabbing him by the head.

The whole background stories thing was a nice change of pace, for the most part. I thought the Petrelli's history was quite consistant and believable, except I expected Linderman to have a bit more backbone when talking with Arthur. The part with Meredith was ok, not much more information, and we find that two more characters are related, with the same ability no less! So now we have the Parkmans and these two with the same powers within their bloodlines(NANJO).

The storyline with Elle, Noah, and Gabriel on the other hand was total BS IMHO. What are they doing to this guy? I was reminded of the South Park episode where Lucas and Spielburg were raping Indiana Jones, which I didn't agree with but I saw some parallels with Sylar's character. From what I understood, Elle didn't do much field work because she was always zapping people and very unreliable. Here she seemed to be doing just fine. It was good to see Gabe show some remorse after his first kill, but was this before or after he saw Dr. Suresh again? Why couldn't he tell Elle was 'special' as well? Why couldn't the person they 'feed' to Sylar have an ability that better explains things that happened in the first season such as agility, tracking skills, or shadow manipulation? Aside from initially showing remorse, I don't see Mr. Grey/Petrelli doing any of those things up until that skater guy came in.

I thought Elle was a little too empathic towards Sylar. In the second season we were led to believe that she had a history of instability and sadism. This did not seem to be the same woman who killed the irish guy in the pub and says to her father it was just some guy. I think it would have been better to use a different character.

I had hoped Trevor's character would have been ice manipulation or some power that we actually saw Sylar use.

I forgot about the guy Elle fried in Ireland, and I totally agree with you about her Triggins. It was only what, seven months between what she was doing here and when she went looking for Peter in Ireland? I can see why a woman was needed, so use that woman who had the power of persuasion, and killed herself so Sylar couldn't get that power, or the one who used mirages(Candice?). Have these writers actually watched the episodes that have come before the ones they're writing now?

I had orignally thought Gabriel got his ice manipulation from Molly's father, who was frozen at his own dinner table with the top of his head off and brain missing. I suppose to test this new ability Sylar could've frozen him afterward, also considering they guy's wife was merely pinned to the wall with silverware, but it would make more sense if he already had that ability beforehand. So in other words, Sylar stealing this ability from Trevor is completely pausible, and would've been the only piece of consistancy from that entire storyline.

Me: I had orignally thought Gabriel got his ice manipulation from Molly's father, who was frozen at his own dinner table with the top of his head off and brain missing.
According to wikipedia this is exactly where he got his freezing ability, but this was never said onscreen so it must be a guess. That doesn't really make sense if he was actually looking for Molly and the feds were hot on his trail would he really take the time to do his brain thing then use that ability on the guy he got it from?

Which brings me to another question, if all Sylar does to the brains is feel around them with his finger-tips how do his entire hands and much of his forearms get so bloody? In the first volume/season it's understandable because he actually removed the brain and did something with it, which has yet to be explained, but there are several instances where he didn't do that and he's practically dripping with blood.