Last week's awesome episode was a lot to live up to. And, well, this one didn't. Mostly because half of the storylines featured snore generators Matt and Mohinder. But we did have some great moments. Let's dig in.

-JESSICA! I love me an evil woman who can kick my ass. Just turns my crank. And Ali Larter is doing a great job playing what has turned out to be a pretty difficult part. Evil twins are done all the time on daytime soaps, so she's not exactly reinventing the wheel here. But she's able to signal exactly which half of her character she's currently embodying through body language, voice intonation, even static facial expressions. I think she's just terrific. I expected the Jessica-working-for-Linderman thing to take a while to get started, but we jump right into the action as she's assigned to whack Linderman's sleazy lawyer. Trouble is, Matt --- now a bodyguard --- has been hired to protect the slug. Matt and Jessica throw down and, sadly, Jessica fails to kill him. She tries her best, throwing his ass out a fairly high window. But the lucky bastard lives. Boo. I am tired of boring Matt and never want to see his lying, awful cow of a wife again. I was really jonesing for some hero blood.

�-We did get some death, though, just not a hero we knew. Mohinder has finally embraced his father's work and is trying to contact all the people on The List who he suspects may have powers. He gets a call back from some dude, whom he goes to visit. Trouble is, Sylar must have seen the list at some point too (or...maybe Papa Suresh isn't as dead as we thought, and is working with Sylar) and he shows up first. The new guy can take solid objects and turn them into liquid. I was watching with friends and there was some discussion about exactly what he can do --- is he just melting things, or are we talking molecular destabilization? My guess is the latter; the melting power is kind of silly and a little redundant given the existance of Hot Mama. Anyway, Sylar eats some brains, get the powers, and when�Mohinder comes for a visit, pretends to be the guy he just killed. The two team up to go track down people from The List. Pairing him up with Sylar might be the only thing that could make Mohinder even remotely interesting, so I applaud the decision. I would clap even louder if Sylar ate his brain.

-Speaking of Sylar, I have a prediction: I was discussing with my friend how Sylar's powers work. His ability is to understand how things work. So I suspect he eats the brains so that he can have access to the neurochemicals that allow the various heroes to do what they do. That means that Sylar must be creating all of these chemicals in his body at once, and that's a LOT for one body to manage. I bet he's going to end up burning out his body extremely fast (for any X-Men fans out there, think Proteus). That makes his quest for Claire's powers more crucial for him, and also gives him a weakness he desperately needs. Otherwise he's practically unstoppable. Anyway, just a guess.

-Claire's storyline continues to be the most compelling on the show (Nikki/Jessica being� No. 2), and watching her�face as she eavesdropped on Hot Mama and her Fly Daddy talking about how essentially neither wants anything to do with her was absolutely heartbreaking. Hayden is such a good little actress! (And that hair! I don't care if it's extensions!) Hot Mama is a stone-cold mother, and I love her. I'm not sure how I feel about Nathan as the dad --- they did a very poor job explaining how the two of them initially connected --- but Claire hurling a rock at his limo seems like a perfectly sensible reaction to me. And why do I suspect that camera phone shot will somehow end up in Peter's hands...

-Hiro. Needs. To. Get. Going. He's a great character, but I'm totally over these stupid side quests and stop-offs. This episode he makes it to Las Vegas only to have Ando draft him into helping a showgirl named Hope. She needs help getting her bag back from her abusive boyfriend, and Ando is only too happy to help. Ando needs to get laid, badly. Hiro spends the episodes whining until he overhears�Hope telling someone on the phone how she played them for patsies. He confronts her and sister knocks him out cold. (Is she super-strong? Interesting possibility; suggests that more than one person can have the same power, since that's Jessica's deal.) Meanwhile his Sancho Panza gets the bag but sacrifices by having to look at a naked Bill Fagerbakke from "Coach." *Shudder* In the end he goes off with Hope�and Hiro is stuck in the closet. That's not a euphamism. I don't think.

Next week "someone flies, someone dies." NBC needs to lay off those stupid teaser slogans. That one's pretty lame. I'm putting money on Isaac being the hero that bites it at the hands (er, teeth) of Sylar. Maybe that will give him Pantene Pro-Beautiful hair along with the ability to�see the future?