Last week, we left our Heroes (BBC Two, Wednesday, 10 December, 9pm) in the weird light of an eclipse with no powers. As such, the tension was cranked to medieval rack point. Normally, I’d catch the next part on BBC Three, but the repeat of Outnumbered is on… so I have a week where I furiously fret about what will happen in the weird alternate universe that Heroes resides in. So by the time The Eclipse Part Two came along I was like a strung out smack-head, chewing my nails in cold sweats, itching at my flesh wanting the next fix… and when it came, it didn’t disappoint.

Related: Click here to visit our Heroes section

What surprised me about last night’s show is just how brutal and gory it was. It seems that, without the powers and abilities, or Heroes’ thirst for vengeance or justice or whatever it is that makes them tick, leaves them as crass as us mortals. Of course, without the clean-edge of a fireball or mind-control, it gets a little bloodier. Very bloody in fact.

The Haitian was doing his thing (which is basically looking very handsome, saying very little and putting his hands on people’s heads wiping their memory) as usual, with the added bonus of going nuts in a way I haven’t seen since Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon, in that scene when he jumps on that guy and pulls a funny face. However, once again, as is par for the course, Sylar starred in the show-stopping scene. In a vicious hand-to-hand scrap with HRG, the two kicked the living crap out of each other before HRG slit his throat… there, direct, blood squirting in my eye. Gruesome and brilliant! Elsewhere, Claire had completely snuffed it with all her rib cage prised open on a hospital table. It was pretty vomit inducing… but great fun.

Of course, the thing that hung over the story was ‘What Will Happen When The Eclipse Passes?’ Everyone, I think, had pretty much guessed that our heroes and villains would get their powers back, which means Claire and been to death and back, while Sylar was clearly going to come back even more pissed off with the world. A super evil Sylar makes Heroes tick, so it’s good to have you back sunbeam.

However, despite the bludgeoning, the really neat twist in the story was how the whole of Heroes was panning out in a series of comics, being read by the characters themselves. It was super weird. Hiro reading about what Hiro does next. It’s like when someone films a TV screen, showing a TV, showing a TV… ad infinitum. However, at some point, the comics stopped and we’re back into half-truth and hearsay. The advent of these comic books was ace and neatly took us back to series one, as they were all drawn by Isaac Mendes!

So where we at? Sylar is hissing with evil, HRG is a power crazed protector again and the Petrelli’s are having internal conflict. We’ve come full circle, coiled like a spring, and now, some serious shit is about to go down… and if I don’t find out soon, I’m gonna explode! Brilliant telly that has me nailed to the seat.