Somewhere in the middle of tonight’s penultimate episode of the “Villains” volume, the show accidentally stumbled upon the very idea that should have been at the core of the entire volume: why does one person deserve power? That’s a deep, meaningful question, one just below the surface of nearly every character’s origin story and yet never truly addressed until Nathan sat down with pre-Super Soldier Marine Dude tonight. And I have a feeling Heroes didn’t even know the powerful well it had tapped.

In essence, this combo of Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers spoke of the innate need not not merely be all he can be, but all that, a bag of chip, and a few CC’s of Catalyst Cocktail. His reasoning is that of nearly every archetypical hero, and even the majority of the best villains: he wants to help humanity. He reckons that an ability might have stopped the RPG that wiped out his unit in the Middle East. And maybe, just maybe, that’s true. But watching him throw a bolted chair into a concrete walls inside of Pinehurst Laboratories, one can’t help but think he’s eventually cause a deathtoll tens, if not hundreds, time that before all is said and done.

It’s the old adage: be careful what you wish for. It’s a slippery and quick slope from wanting to save your friends to suddenly engaging in citywide warfare with former allies. Just look at Ando: he wants some serum to save Hiro, stuck back in time thanks to another bout of ass-hattery in which he causes the senseless and useless death of his mother. We KNOW the outcome if Ando gets this power: Hiro dies at his hand. And yet, even with this knowledge, Ando still thinks that he can avert that outcome.

What one might see as simple fate, I see as the inevitability of the human condition. And maybe Heroes thinks of it in these terms as well, but it’s hard to take this show’s version of inevitability seriously when they’ve changed either the past or the future like eleven times already. The same show that used to tell us Isaac couldn’t psychically see past the NYC bomb, but now wants us to believe could see into an alternate past after two alternate futures. Aaaaand look, I’ve gone cross-eyed again.

Point is this: Ando and the Marine are far from “villains” before these powers. And what constitutes villainy in this storyline? Well, lethargy, actually. While the powers of those we’ve followed were bestowed by reasons neither we nor they fully understand (AND IT WASN’T THE ECLIPSE, I HOPE WE CAN PUT THAT TO BED FINALLY), they nevertheless had to come to grips with abilties placed upon them, versus desired. What happens in a world in which super speed is just an injection away? When telepathy is something you can obtain during your lunch hour? You get a host of people looking for shortcuts past the hard work of everyday life. And that’s when the world gets split in two.

The show’s current idea of the ultimate hero is Peter Petrelli who, not coincidentally, has no powers at all. Whether a fluke or design, his innate moral compass has only strengthened in his quote unquote “powerless” state. Watching Future Peter pull down the Jenga puzzle of Fate over and over again with the best interests at heart might have wised Present Peter to embrace a life without every power imaginable. He’s certainly better than Sylar, who mercifully is NOT a Petrelli but instead a patsy.

Kudos to that storyline resolving, and Kudos to the return of Season 1 Sylar! Sweet Jeebus, everything inside the Human Lie Detector’s office was gold. When that was occurring, I swear to God it felt like a different show. A much better show. A Sylar-centric black comedy is something I want on my television like, tomorrow. Is it wrong for a root for a serial killer to wipe out a series of office drones? If so, I don’t wanna be right.

So Arthur’s out, the catalyst is contained within one vat of blood, and said vat is in the vicinity of Mohinder. I’m waiting for Spider-Boy to dunk his face in it, bobbing-for-apples style, and ruin the whole batch with his inherent stupidity. Then again, Nathan and Tracy seem gosh darn happy to be working with the guy who only a few weeks ago knocked them unconscious and tried to wrap them inside one of his webs of crappiness. So maybe there’s some gas in the Pinehurst vents that makes everyone stupid. If so, God help us all: half the world will be power-laden morons. A world of Flints: here we come!

Not a bad episode, but here’s hoping the upcoming finale fares better than the last one that featured Sylar as the show’s heavy. Looks like Peter/Nathan might be THE showdown, with Sylar as the Joker-esqeue wildcard, but knowing this show, watch Maya return as the deus ex suckina and make me stab myself with a tuning fork.