AFAIC, I hope everything from Vol 4 on just 'forgets' what happened during Season 3.
Funny that is what people said this season about Season 2. So if we forget Season 2 and Season 3, we are left with 1 good season out of 3....methinks if we Forget another season, show is dead.
I really did not like this episode. It felt flat. It highlighted what are to me the three problems of the show:
1) inconsistent Characterzation and execution. I loved Nathan in Season 1 but it seems clear to me he should have died in the Peter blast. Ambitious, intelligent, some what self centered, the chosen boy by his patrician family, and very much trying to make his own name, and loving of his brother.
Season 2 he was a whinny meatloaf, and now he resents Peter. Brother vs Brother is a good idea, but the character execution has been horr-i-ble.
Surresh is so laugh able it is a joke. Good thing about this season is we learned why Adam was locked in a cell.....apparently super healing makes you super annoying.....Claire has to go. The show has demonstrated the hardway that "Defensive "powers Healing, Flight....just are not that useful.
2) The scope and progression of the powers moves at the speed of plot. One of the things I liked about Season 2 is we saw that powers and their applications improved w/ experimentation. Matt became more than a mind reader, but also able to implant thoughts. At the early part one had to wonder, was their a limited set of powers, with different expressions being the result of different skill level....or not having learned that application. Alas no.....w/ the show in constant "save our ass, save our jobs" mode...any systematic explanation is gone....which the geek in me laments.
3) No plan. The great shows on TV have to have very well thought out multi year plans. Network shows are competing against Basic and Subscription Cable shows which the very best are willing to break the rules and have very tight scripting. Lost and Alias for the first 3 years are Network shows that compare favourably to shows like True Blood, 6 feet under, and The Shield.
It is well publicizied that "regulars" where not intended originally. The show has lost the confindence. It was a great low level adventure, that is now stumbling in the mid levels.