Adam / Kensei / whatever his name is this week

Wow.  4MA was the first episode where I really totally got invested in Adam.  I’m sure part of my problem with this season is that, being involved with the online fandom, I read a lot of spoilers and that eliminates the OMG!!! surprise factor when watching.  The big Adam reveal that people squeed over made me go “Whatever, I heard about this weeks ago.”  But I'm having a change of heart about Kensei/Adam now.

I initially was irritated by the way he swung so freaking quickly from drunken opportunist to hero.  But now, he seems to have established a pattern of sudden emotional swings, and I’m kind of liking that feeling of unpredictability.  I’m totally up in the air as to whether Adam really wants to make things better…wants to completely destroy humanity…or is just being an opportunist again and trying to get more power.  I suspect he saved Nathan, not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he knew that would be one more way to wrap emotional Peter around his finger.     

I'm still bugged over the Kensei storyline, though.  I am hardly an expert on Japanese history, but I do seem to recall reading that non-Japanese were...not particularly appreciated at that period in Japanese history.  As in, stay-out-of-our-business-or-we'll-feed-you-soup-made-of-your-own-entrails not-appreciated.  And yet an Englishman careened openly through the countryside, and no one protested or even blinked?  Huh.  Also, did NBC have to pay royalties to the writers of The Last Samurai over this [boring] storyline?  Just asking.

I'm not even going into the stupid love story/triangle.  Just...no.  Don't care.  Especially since the swordsmith's daughter couldn't even tell the difference between Japanese eyes and English eyes.  When she oh-so-dramatically held her hand over Hiro's lower face, like she was just now realizing he had impersonated Kensei, I laughed.  Kensei, you're better off without her!
 
However, I’m now getting interested in Adam’s present-day plotting, especially since…  Well, which future would you rather face: a scared life under Dictator Sylar, where at least as long as you’re alive there’s a chance of one day getting free…or the virus-ridden death of yourself, your entire family, everyone you know and love, maybe even the extinction of the entire human race?  I was excited to hear that 93% of the population was dead, because Linderman spoke so confidently that the explosion needed to happen, that I wanted there to be bad consequences caused by averting it.  And I’m hoping that whatever Adam is doing to “save the world”, it’s similar: I want it to be an HRG-style morally grey choice, something where Peter initially gets on his high horse and proclaims it to be immoral until Adam somberly tells him it’s the only way to stop the virus.
 
So, good job, show, for getting me excited about something for the first time since episode 2-04!

Other opinions:
Adam Monroe / Takezo Kensei  (warming up)
Elle (die die die)
Peter Petrelli (nicer than you'd expect from me)