Welcome Back, ‘Heroes’: The Vulture Guide

Millions of people who aren’t as smart as fans of Lost are eagerly awaiting tonight’s Heroes premiere, and we’re proud to count ourselves among them. We’ve got so many questions about season two! What is the story with blonde David Anders — Sark from Alias — being cast as samurai Takezo Kensei? Who will Kristen Bell, a.k.a. Veronica Mars, play in the new season? Will they take our advice and kill Claire? And which comic-book storylines will Tim Kring gank?

If you’re like us, you’re finding it hard — after a busy summer of baseball, Judd Apatow, and The Closer — to remember just what it was that happened at the end of the last season of Heroes. Thankfully, Vulture’s here to help you out; brush up on Heroes by brushing up on our past coverage.

What happened in those last couple of episodes again? Remind yourself with recaps of the penultimate episode and the season finale. (If you want to go back even further, here are the three previous episodes as well.) We checked in with the hive mind of the Internet to see what they thought of the season finale. (Spoiler! They thought it was weak!)

Then our thoughts turned to season two. Last spring, we obsessively combed through the finale to see what mysteries it set up for the new season. Just last week, we rejoiced at the announcement of the innocuous new face of evil on Heroes. And today, we’re chatting with fresh-faced new hero Dania Ramirez.

We’re excited! You know where you’ll find us tonight at nine: making dinner and putting our daughter to bed. But then later, at like 9:45, you know where you’ll find us: watching Heroes on DVR and skipping all the commercials. Sorry, NBC.