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So it looks as if Sylar really did survive - but how? And which of our Heroes is he targeting next? (Take a closer look) This shot shows the line-up at the start of the new season - and the stars and the makers hint at what we can expect.
If your eye went to Sylar (Zachary Quinto) first, then it surely went next to Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) and his brother Peter (Milo Ventimiglia). We last saw them flying off into the sky - and apparently exploding.
Without revealing how they survived, Adrian Pasdar told Radio Times that things have changed a great deal in this new series: "I think it was courageous and noble to take another angle and not just to repeat the ideas of season one."
But the core of the show is very much the same, according to creator Tim Kring. "I really do believe that the show has tapped into the zeitgeist of how we all feel living in a troubled world," he says. "The storytelling is archetypal, almost mythological. These tales of good versus evil, of the ordinary being chosen for extraordinary adventure, push deep buttons in all of us."
The very last thing we saw in series one was everybody's favourite time-travelling geek, Hiro, marooned in 17th-century Japan, and star Masi Oka reveals that he won't be getting back to the present day any time soon. "Season two begins with two parallel timelines, one starting four months after the explosion and the other - mainly Hiro's storyline - starting 400 years in the past. And we'll see how they affect each other."
We are also going to meet new heroes and some villains - including Kristen Bell, rightly acclaimed for Veronica Mars. "We're introducing a couple of great new characters and storylines," says Kring. "One I really like is based on the journey that so many people take as they attempt to enter the US illegally."
But Heroes's second run - also known as Volume Two: Generations - is not without its critics. RT's Alison Graham says the first episodes are slow and while the show does pick up, it takes time. In America, criticism fell on the sheer number of characters this time around: "Kill the characters, save the series" was the witty refrain.
And, surprisingly, the long gap in production caused by the US writers' strike may have proved the answer. "We're certainly taking advantage, coming back, of having had time off to regroup," says Pasdar. "But I think when people look back at this show in its entirety years from now, it'll all make perfect sense."
Heroes is on BBC2 on Thursdays at 9:00pm, followed by Heroes Unmasked. The next episode is screened at 10:30pm on BBC3.
Credits: Adam Smith and William Gallagher
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Now take a look at our full Heroes guide.
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