LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

Tonight, last season’s hottest sci-fi drama, “Heroes,” returns to television screens and according to breakout star Masi Oka, fans and newcomers will find it easy to settle into year 2.

“You can be guaranteed to find a lot of your answers in the beginning of Season 2,” he said. “Season 2 is going to be a completely new set of stories and people who haven’t watched season 1, or even missed the DVD, can feel free to jump back in and join the ‘Heroes’ phenomenon.”

When last we left the gang, Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) had grabbed his exploding brother Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and like Superman, flew up into the sky. The rest of the gang, including Niki/Jessica (Ali Larter) and Micah (Noah Gray-Cabey), watched a flash of light erupt in the location the boys seemed to end up.

After suffering a sword blow from the hands of Hiro Nakamura (Oka), a blood trail leading to a sewer drain seemed to indicate Sylar (Zachary Quinto) survived. Meanwhile, following the explosion, Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) was being lifted into an ambulance thanks to bullets he fired at Sylar, being turned on him. As for Hiro Nakamura, his final Season 1 scene, saw him transplanted back in time, to 17th Century Japan.

Season 2 will find the regular cast interacting with many new “Heroes,” including former “Alias” baddie, David Anders, who plays Kensei. A legendary swordsman, which Hiro became obsessed with in Season 1, Kensei and his fan meet in 17th Century Japan.

“This is where Hiro meets his hero Kensei, and finds out that I’m actually an Anglo,” Anders explained. “So it’s the beginning of a beautiful, beautiful relationship, I think.”

As is typical with the Tim Kring-created drama, the actors don’t know much about what will unfold on “Heroes” until the show is put together and actually airs.

“As it’s revealed to the audience, it’s going to be revealed to me, I guess,” Anders laughed. “There’s a lot of secrets.”

One thing the British actor does know is that Kensei, character-wise, isn’t as affable as bright-eyed do-gooder, Hiro Nakamura.

“[Kensei’s] a bit of a lout, he’s a bit of a rake,” Anders said. “He likes to drink, likes to find himself a bar, doesn’t care about much. That’s all I know about this as far as [is] in the first script . . . He’s like a hooker with a heart of gold.”

While Japan always figured a part of “Heroes” Season 1, the drama expands to Latin America for year 2, meeting up with a new set of characters. Dania Ramirez and Shalim Ortiz play twins on a mission.

“I play Mya,” Ramirez noted. “You pick her up somewhere in Central America trying to make my way with my brother up to the US, to find, in my opinion, what I think is a cure for something that I have, which is this power. That [power] has put me in this predicament, which right now [means] I’m running from the law.”

“All I can say is that our brother-sister twin connection plays a role,” Ortiz said. “The fact that she means well, she doesn’t mean harm to other people, also plays an important role.”

And as for series regular, the scholar Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy), he will continue his quest toward figuring out the “Heroes.” In Season 2 though, he discovers a threat to their existence, that isn’t in the form of Sylar.

“Levitation, teleportation, tissue regeneration — these are no longer simply theories, I have seen them with my own eyes,” he recounted of his character Suresh. “Not only are these special individuals among us, they bear a curse — a virus, which strips them of their powers and leads to their eventual death . . . It’s a disease which threatens to irradicate them all.”

“Heroes” returns to NBC, Monday night at 9PM EST/PST, 8PM CST. Those who want a little more with their season premiere can log on to nbc.com/Heroes at that time for a live blog with creator Tim Kring and Jack Coleman (Claire’s dad, Mr. Bennet).

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