So if there wasn’t enough confusion already it seems as though Heroes is going to be adding more characters to the mix to hit up an already crowded screen that is Heroes. There have been many complaints from fans including myself that the show is going in far to many directions and this news may be even more discouraging for fans of Heroes. TVSquad is reporting that:

Two new characters will be introduced in order to flesh out Micah and Monica’s storylines: Officer Warren, who could become a love interest for Monica; and Knox, a bad guy.

Should be interesting to see how Heroes manages to bring all of these storylines together, being that right now everything is all over the place. Interesting rumor though, and could prove to bring even more twists to Heroes show.

So Heroes was the break out show last year, and many have wondered how it would fair in its sophomore season. Heroes started off the season with some solid ratings, it seemed a lot of people were interested in the show. Since the premiere of Season 2, the show has seen a steady decline in the ratings, which subsequently has shown through all of NBC’s Monday Night Shows. So here is what Media Life Magazine had to say about last nights ratings for Heroes:

BC’s three dramas have seen double-digit declines since then as well. “Chuck” is down 28 percent from its premiere, from a 3.6 to a 2.6 last night, while “Heroes” slipped to a season-low 5.0, though it was still the night’s top-rated show, just ahead of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” at 4.9.

But the declines may also signal lower viewership for the shows. Media buyers had pegged “Journeyman” as one of the season’s early casualties, saying it was too confusing. “Heroes” saw its 18-49 audience decline steadily at the end of last season, while comedy “Chuck,” though receiving excellent reviews, is competing with sitcom lineups on CBS and CW.

NBC took the lead at 9 p.m. with a 5.0 for “Heroes,” with ABC sliding to second with a 4.5 average for its last half hour of “Stars” and its first 30 minutes of “The Bachelor.” CBS was third with a 4.1 average for “Two and a Half Men” (4.4) and “Rules of Engagement” (3.8), Univision fourth with a 2.1 for “Destilando Amor,” Fox fifth with a 2.0 for “K-Ville” and CW sixth with a 1.3 average for “Girlfriends” (1.2) and “The Game” (1.4), which built on its lead-in for the second straight week.

Episode 3 is finally here of Season 2 and many questions need to be answered, mainly are we going to start see Heroes come together? We for the first time get to see Micah and Nikki for the first time in Season 2, it seems as though D.L. is dead, as we get to see his grave site. We are then pulled to Silar who is imagining he is on a deserted Maui beach. The beginning of Kindred started off strong, and brought in even more characters. I was worried that they would continue to bring more characters back making an even more expansive show.

We witness Claire who is by far the most shown character on the show who is talking with her new love interest who watched her cut her toe off. Later on we find that West finally shows Claire that he has the ability to fly and does a total Superman/Louis Lane sequence that was just not fitting, it felt just much to much like a rip off of Superman. We also get to see Ando who is back at work and notices that Hiro sent him a note from the past where we are transfered back into the life of Kensei and Hiro where Hiro is still hard at work trying to create Kensei’s legacy. We move back and forth throughout the first big part of the show, and get a lot of short bursts and it is hard to keep a flow for any of the characters.

Back to Peter again who needs to pull of a job for this Irish crew by stealing from a Sports Betting place where everything goes relatively smooth. Peter is starting to understand his abilities a bit more now. After the raid of the sports betting joint, one of the guys decides to go rogue and tries to take the money for himself but Peter get’s even more of his power back and takes him out with ease.

There is no doubt that this episode ends with another cliffhanger showing a picture Isaac painted that shows Claire’s dad being killed. There are so many plot lines in Kindred that I was left with the same problems as before, way to many storylines with very little advancement in the plot. One of these episodes is going to tie the hundreds of loose ends the show has, but Kindred is not that episode.

Last week I brought up the point in my review that I thought Heroes is going to far in terms of adding characters and plot lines. In fact here is what I said in my review of Lizards last Monday night:

In some ways there is probably to many characters in an episode, and at times I just want to see what’s going on with Hiro and Peter rather then a lot of the new characters. Is Heroes growing to fast? In my opinion it might be, but then again like last season it may just be growing bigger and bigger to do better things in the future.

It seems as though I am not the only one that has this thought, and the question was asked to TVGuide by some fans of Heroes and here was there response:

Far be it from me to defend a show that most of its fans seem ready and willing to accept, no matter its inconsistencies and unevenness and the way it skitters all over the map most weeks. But “slow”? Hardly. Scattered, yes. Confusing, but of course. When hasn’t Heroes been a complete jumble? (Maybe the “Company Man” episode, still a series high point.) But I agree that the last thing Heroes would seem to need is to add more chaos to the mix when it can’t even service many of the characters it has already established. I guess that’s part of the show’s “charm.” Time/space continuum issues and logic aside, I have enjoyed the Hiro/Kensei storyline in ancient Japan quite a bit, although I really got excited when Kensei was struck by all those arrows. How daring. Until he suddenly healed and it wasn’t. Once again, it looks like Heroes is making up rules about characters and their powers whenever it’s convenient. And people (and Emmy panels) prefer this show to Lost? Whatever. Still, Hiro is fun. And his dad is dead! For good, it appears. Hmm. Also liking the Claire-and-family storyline about trying to keep her powers under wraps in a new high school, while the flying stalker classmate looks on. HRG working at the copy store is a riot, part of the season’s trend of trapping characters (like Chuck of Chuck, and Sam and pals of Reaper) in dead-end jobs with merciless supervisors. But once again, it is absolutely a fair criticism of Heroes that it has overstacked the deck with an abundance characters of unequal interest (can’t really say I’ve been missing Niki or Micah, who appear to be back this week). This isn’t so much an embarrassment of riches as it is a puzzlement. But again, what else is new?

With the addition of so many characters, and the much less enthusiastic beginning to the second season I think it is wildly accepted that things need to start coming together for Heroes. We still want to see Peter, Nathan, Nikki and Peter. Sometimes I just want to say if its not broke, don’t fix it, and with Heroes they may just be going to far. Only time will tell.

I am not a Nielsen scholar, and will never claim to be, however there has been a lot of controversy and discussion over the changes to the ratings system and how everything is playing out. Whether it is being counted as a PVR recording, or counting double for a show airing the same episode twice, there have been some big changes to how we view the ratings and NBC is doing there best to take advantage of it. Here is what the Hollywood Reporter has to say about Heroes and it’s double showing last week:

ABC and NBC tied for the win last week in the key adults 18-49 demographic. Added viewers from two plays of “Heroes” boosted NBC to a tie in the ratings, with a slight numerical lead for ABC.

Thanks to a rule change this season by Nielsen Media Research, NBC was able to add viewers from a Saturday replay of “Heroes” while throwing out a low-rated primetime hour. While the other networks cried foul, “Heroes” jumped to 17 million viewers and a 7.3 rating/17 share in the adults 18-49 for the Monday broadcast, a significant change from last week’s preliminary estimate of 14.1 million viewers and a 6.5/17.

That gave NBC a boost of about two-tenths of a rating point for the week, enough to equal ABC’s 3.9 rating. Without the little extra from “Heroes,” ABC would have won outright. It also was the first time in more than 10 years that ABC had won the first week of the TV season in viewership; CBS came in second.

It wasn’t clear whether “Heroes” would be the first and last show to be able to take advantage of the rule change, which Nielsen instituted at the beginning of the season to be able to give networks credit for ever-changing viewing patterns. Nielsen scheduled meetings this week to discuss the change, and some in the broadcast industry predicted that the rule probably wouldn’t stand the way it is currently written. Nielsen said Tuesday that it is looking at the situation.

I should write this post with the disclaimer that if you want to be surprised by what is to come from Heroes and don’t want to know, then don’t read this post. Although these spoilers aren’t 100% confirmed, most of what I find over at TVSquad is usually pretty credible and almost always comes true. So with that sort of introduction let me give you a few of the latest spoilers for Heroes for Season 2 which comes from TVSquad.com:

• Upcoming episodes will explore Nathan’s “monster face.” We will learn more about Niki/Jessica’s powers. Bob, who is part of the “original 12,” can do more than turn things into gold. He is an integral part of The Company and his connections to everyone will soon be revealed. Before the end of the current volume, we will have seen all member of the original 12. Down the road, fans will learn what are Mr. Nakamura’s powers (and yes, “are” is a key word here). Episode 2.05 will offer some backstory on Matt; it will mostly answer why he is divorced, what happened to his child, etc. Primatech will resurface. [Source: Comic Book Resources]
• Future Hiro will make another appearance. He will also appear in episode 13, which is said to be another future episode. [Source: SpoilerTV]

I know NBC has put a lot of money and media effort to push Heroes forward through its second season hoping that the show would catch fire again this season. Heroes has done a great job for NBC and has continued to do so this year, although not as strong as some had predicted. Here is what Media Life Magazine had to say about last nights ratings:

At 9 p.m. ABC and NBC tied for the lead at 5.6, ABC for its second half of “Stars” and NBC for “Heroes.” CBS was third with a 4.3 average for “Two and a Half Men” (4.6) and “Rules of Engagement” (3.9), Fox fourth with a 2.0 for “K-Ville,” Univision fifth with a 1.9 for “Destilando Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.3 average for “Girlfriends” (1.2) and “The Game” (1.4).

So welcome to our review of the second episode of Heroes, entitled Lizards. I should let you know that our review will contain a ton of spoilers, so read at your own risk. Ok well let’s get into the review.

Last week we got an introduction to Season 2, and that is really what it was, a catchup session with all of the Heroes. The show starts off with Peter who was found by some iPod thief’s who found Peter in the container that was supposed to contain iPods. But of course Peter has no idea how he got there. We then go to Claire and her family which discusses her laying low, something that she has been against since she was told to do so. Then we went over to the death of Hiro’s father where Parkman is investigating the death. And finally we are left with Hiro, who is still in early Japan where he is trying to get Kensei to become a hero, but instead he takes it into his own hands.

The show continues with more insight into our new hero Maya who is still moving throughout Mexico to find answers about her abilities. Peter is now handcuffed and helped by the Sister of the man who wanted to steal the iPods. Claire decides not to go unnoticed and speaks up in a big way in science class on the subject of the ability to heal yourself like Lizards, hint the name of the episode!

We meet up with Suresh who is now in Haiti, and surprisingly we meet up with the Hatian who we haven’t seen in quite a long time. Suresh states that the only cure that is his very own blood. The show really picks up after this portion with two big sequences. First off Hiro is still working on keeping Kensei’s legacy intact so he takes Kensei’s gear and pretends to be him, while taking out a whole group of enemies. Then we switch to Peter who is still tied up and manages to finally focus he powers to take off the ropes that held him to the chair and two other Irish men with really a simple flick of his wrist.

Suresh actually manages to cure The Haitian, however in the process the Hatian erases Suresh’s memory so he doesn’t even remember being in Haiti. The show turns toward Maya who is still on the move and she is taken away from her brother which has her kill a mutual friend. For the first time we saw Maya actually kill, her eyes turned completely black with black tears. It seems as though Maya doesn’t have this problem with her brother is around, rather if he is not she kills whoever is nearby. We learn soon after that Maya’s brother is able to compliment her powers by healing and stopping her powers.

The show really starts picking up now, we see Mrs. Petrelli being questioned by Parkman who reads her mind when she says that someone wants revenge, and admits to having relations with Hiro’s dad at one point a long time before. She is alone in a confined room when she is attacked and both Parkman and her son Nathan come to save her. She is not killed but is given a picture of herself with the Kensei logo on it, which she also admitted to be her husbands logo for his law company.

The conclusion of the show has Peter being teased with a box, it is a box that contains his identity something he has to work for in order to get it back. Claire decides to cut off her toe to see what would happen and it grows back, however her new boyfriend from school sees her doing it through the window.

This episode was a much stronger episode, although I have to say that it still hasn’t packed an overly strong punch. In some ways there is probably to many characters in an episode, and at times I just want to see what’s going on with Hiro and Peter rather then a lot of the new characters. Is Heroes growing to fast? In my opinion it might be, but then again like last season it may just be growing bigger and bigger to do better things in the future. Lizards was a good episode, but not one of the best.

So you just can’t wait for tonights episode of Heroes? Wanting to know why Peter is in a crate in the middle of no where all alone? Well tonight I am sure we will receive more answers on Peter, and it sounds like we also will learn more about one of the shows newest Heroes, Maya played by Dania Ramirez who we witnessed use her powers to take out quite a few people in the season premiere. Here is a snippet of the interview with TVGuide:

TVGuide.com: I saw the season premiere, but help me out here: What exactly is Maya’s power?
Ramirez: You’ll find out in Episode 2.

TVGuide.com: What, she like kills people by making them bleed through their eyes?
Ramirez: Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. It’s more about how Maya feels too much. If you put her in a situation where she’s feeling fear or feeling vulnerable… well, you don’t want to make her upset, basically. In Episode 2, you’ll see how I do it. In Episode 1, you only saw the effect, the aftermath, of me having [used my power]. It was more about understanding that this is something that she can’t control. She’s essentially a good person but something has happened to her. As the episodes go along, you will see how it all happens and the importance of my brother.

So it sounds like we will be finding out a lot more on Maya today in Episode 2. For the full interview with Dania Ramirez head on over to TVGuide.com! Also make sure to check back here this evening for a full review of the second episode of Season 2.