Heroes “Strange Attractor” tried to give us a little bit of horror, a little bit of Sylar and a little more insight into the Carnival. It succeeded in two of those areas.

First, the little bit of horror. The Sorority sisters kidnap Claire, Gretchen and two others and drop them off a slaughter house. Call it the Halloween version of Rush Week and as with any good horror story, we have a super-natural threat, or rather an invisible girl who tries to knock off Gretchen. The thing is, a) it wasn’t scary, and b) Claire is figuring things out so fast it lacks punch. Yeah, it is probably more realistic. She’s lived the life and Noah is a great teacher, but at the same time, it’s lacking in punch. The only interesting things is how it ended. The invisible girl’s secret is exposed to the four girls and so is Claire.

Then we have a bit of Sylar. Since season one, I have called Parkman, the guy who can’t do anything right. Naturally, when he tried to turn Sylar into Nathan, he blows it by putting the madman in his mind. Then, tonight, he actually thought he could outsmart the killer. Now, Sylar is in control of the mindreader’s body and Matt’s the disembodied “spirit”. This is actually the scary part, predictable, but scary. Hey, the show actually got a little excitement in it.

Finally, we learn more about the Carnival. To explain this, I need to touch on last week’s episode. We were introduced to a young man who has the power of life and death; a power which he can barely control and accidentally kills his parents. This lands him in jail with Noah and Tracy trying to get him out. Noah’s plan was for him to live nearby and to give him a new identity.

Then the Ink Man shows up. He shows Tracy another option; to come to live among the Carnval. No more hiding; a place to be who they are. In other words, a home. When they fail to save the boy, Tracy heads to the Carnival, because of all things, she is looking for a place to belong.

But Noah has no such place. The boy’s death pushes him towards something, but what we don’t know. What we do know is that his fate will collide with Carnival and Claire.

Right now, I don’t actually care about the Carnival. Yeah, I’m curious, but it’s not the strongest storyline going on. The Sylar storyline, specifically with Parkman is probably the most intense, because is there anything more scary than someone using your body, your reputation to hurt others?

The second storyline that has my interest pecked is Hiro. Last week, Hiro got the idea, that if he is going to fix all his wrongs, he has to go back in time and save Charlie. She was the love of his life, well, before season two. Then Sylar killed her. Changing this would be so wild.

In some ways this is good; the overarching storyline doesn’t work, if the smaller pieces are weak. But I just don’t know if the overarching storyline is working on its own. But as I remember season one; we didn’t know where the show was going until deep in the second half of the season.

I just wish i had the confidence to believe they were going to pull it off.