Well, the Irish accents were definitely better.

My initial reaction to “Lizards”, last night’s episode of Heroes, is that not a lot happened in any of the storylines, but I still felt like we got a better understanding of where everyone’s at and what they’re up against.

First off, Maya is the first Hero to come along who gives me the wiggins nearly as much as Sylar always did. As with Niki/Jessica, I have a hard time understanding how Maya’s particular genetic mutation translates to a superpower. As far as I can tell, she has an uncontrolled panic attack, black goo drips from her eyes, and everyone nearby dies.

At least her twin brother Alejandro is able to flip the off switch on her killer tears, which seemed to revive Nidia, who was helping them sneak into Mexico. She called them evil. Hard to argue with her.

Maya’s and Alejandro’s anguish as they travel north is compelling, especially as their struggles with Maya’s “abilities” are compounded by having to evade police and border control agents who don’t catch but shoot.

Dr. Suresh, meanwhile, is working for The Company now, and he’s sent on the trail of The Haitian, who is dying of the same disease that killed Suresh’s sister and nearly got Molly. It’s impressive how Mohinder can not not only speak French (or was it Creole?) and trade theological banter but also whip up on the spot a cure from his own blood for a virus that only two people in the world have ever had.

So The Haitian is back. Fans are pretty pumped about that, from what I’ve read. I see him as a pretty conflicted character. What made him work for The Company in the first place? At any rate, his near-death experience seems to have set him on the straight-and-narrow.

I was puzzled about what he did to Suresh at first. The way they cut to him back in New York (big shout out for Hartsdale, there), where Bob was reading him the riot act for his rookie foul-up was almost too clever. But it all goes back to the subterfuge HRG and he are scheming against The Company. That’s a dangerous game. It was interesting seeing The Haitian (Can we get this guy a name?) meet up with HRG (Or at least a cool acronym?) again. They were a dynamic duo on the dark side, so they should be pretty effective working for the good guys now.

Mohinder’s roommate, mindreader Matt Parkman, is moving up the NYPD ranks, charged with investigating Kaito Nakamura’s recent swan dive. His confrontation with Ma Petrelli in the interrogation room went from creepy (She had liaisons with Hiro’s dad. Eeewww.) to freaky, when she screamed at him to get out of her head.

She should have delayed the conversation a little longer, because as soon as they left her alone, an invisible force attacked her. So who’s invisible? Peter? Nope, he’s in Ireland. Is Claude back? Whoever it is, can’t say she didn’t have it coming. She admitted as much to herself with Parkman listening.

Now about those Irish accents. Peter is the luckiest amnesiac hostage ever. Aside from a nasty beatdown by the thugs who found him in that cargo box, he’s had it easy. The pretty lass whose big brother is the ringleader slinks in and cleans Peter’s wounds. Just as she’s advising him to spill the beans about the missing iPods, she notices there are no wounds beneath all that blood. Needless to say, Peter slowly rediscovers his powers. (I liked him better when he was earnest and still figuring out whether he had abilities.)

And sure enough those powers come in handy when the bad guy’s sister comes under attack from some rival thugs. But as all-powerful as Peter is, he for some reason can’t keep the bad guy from tossing the fancy box full of his life secrets into a fire. Hello, plot inconsistency. Nice to meet you.

And in Cali, Claire is adjusting to the normal life again. Aside from Hunter/West flying around outside her family room and besides her occasional compulsion to sever a digit with giant scissors, she’s doing well. Dad can take a job pushing paper (Is that a Dunder-Mifflin competitor?), but Claire can’t keep her ability to grow a new spleen at will secret. The show title makes more sense once Claire learns in biology that newts can regenerate. At least Hunter/West was impressed with her scientific curiosity.

So impressed he left a copy of of Daddy Suresh’s text on her driveway after she busted him peeping outside her window. Seriously, that book gets pretty circulation among the genetically altered.

What Claire’s car getting stolen has to do with anything isn’t clear to me. Did NBC’s deal with Nissan fall apart?

Finally, the cherry blossoms are blooming in feudal Japan. Hiro dons the mask of Takezo Kensei, who is snookered on sake, and puts on a show for the crooked samurais, earning the maiden’s love in the process. History is back on track. Even a samurai ambush can’t derail things once it’s clear Takezo is a Hero after all. The blood gurgling from his arrow-riddled chest was only slightly less nauseating than Claire’s toenail clipping mishap, by the way.

I don’t think even Doc Brown himself could make sense of the implications of Hiro’s meddling with the very legend he grew up learning. Question is, did Big Daddy Nakamura know that when he read the stories of Takezo Kensei to his son, that his son was actually Takezo Kensei?

Let the sorting out begin next week.