Heroes was perking up last week, but this week there was a slow slide into the melodrama blahs - punctuated by completely random religious moments. Spoilers ahead.

OK look, if you liked Monday's episode then riddle me this: Why would Nathan swoop in and rescue Claire, then take her to Mexico, only to earn money for their hotel room by challenging some frat boys to a shot-drinking contest? Obviously the writers realize that we're dying for an excuse to drink during Heroes, but creating an actual drinking game in the show is not the way. Seriously, THIS is Nathan's way of showing he can be as cool as Claire's (good) adoptive dad HRG? Telling her that he earned money in the army by drinking lots of shots, and then passing out?


Luckily it turns out that one of Claire's many "tissue regenerating" powers allows her to stay completely sober while drinking over 22 shots because - as she explains later - her liver is regenerating. What? Honestly I would rather watch her liver regenerate like 1000 times over if it meant I could skip her whole pep talk with Nathan where she whines that he's "supposed to be Superman" and therefore he should go to Washington and make everything better. And then he drunkenly admits that he sucks and has been a lame father.

Actually, why can't he sober up and go to Washington and make everything better? He's been running the whole mutant roundup thing, and all he has to do is work more on shutting it down. Nobody will believe the psycho Hunter about Nathan flying anyway. Have I missed some subtle political point here that explains why Nathan is no longer a powerful politician and instead is some dude in a hot suit and even hotter sunglasses drinking shots with frat boys in Mexico?


Try not to think about that, Newitz - just focus on the Sylar. Oops, I'm talking to myself. Heroes does that to me after a while, especially when I'm watching Sylar eat his own brain! Yes, that was a truly awesome development and certainly worth slogging through the confusing Jesus stuff (more on that in a minute). Here's what happened. After some lollygagging, the Hunter finally decides to hook up with Sylar and go mutant hunting together. HRG has given Hunter a pep talk about how you can "use" the mutants and Sylar keeps leaving the Hunter all kinds of dead people as presents and finally Hunter caves and makes out with Spock. I mean, Sylar! I mean, crap! They don't really even make out!

But what they do is team up to hunt a shapeshifter at a club where the shifter is using his powers to mack on chicks while wearing the Hunter's pasty face. Then the shifter takes Sylar's face so he's a lot hotter. Then the real Sylar and the real Hunter trick the shifter into leaving the club and the Hunter shoots him - but leaves him alive for Sylar to eat. So there's literally a Sylar-on-Sylar brain eating scene! You should see the sexy looks that Sylar shoots over to the Hunter when he finds out what a pal his mutant-killing buddy is. Now they are truly a team, and Sylar can morph into anything as long as he sort of groans and makes faces.

As the new boyfriends drive away, Hunter says, "If we succeed, you'll be the only one." And Sylar does his Spock eyebrow and is like, "Yeah and we can have tons of sex." I mean, he says something like "Yeah totally that's the plan." Anyway, now it seems like Sylar's raison d'etre might be to eat every mutant in the world, with Hunter's help. But it's hard to say because Sylar is pretty sneaky and never really has sex with anybody except Electric Elle and that was last season.

Now for Jesus. If you thought Nathan's whining about how he never was a good father to Claire was bad, wait 'til you get a load of Mama Petrelli's "you must hate me" guilt trip. Yup, she even lays it on Peter in a church where she goes to calm down and get some sleep so she can start using her prophesy powers. Remember, Peter rescued her from Hunter's guys and they're on the run. So after she yammers at Peter for minutes on end about how she was a bad mom and even God can't forgive her, Peter is like, "I don't totally hate you, please just drink some tea and go to sleep." Poor Peter - he may have superpowers, but nobody can withstand the Total Guilt Momslaught.


That's probably why Peter goes and lights a bunch of candles and stares up at a painted Jesus thingie and talks for way too long about how Jesus should be helping him out and where is Jesus. Hello, you are in a scientific universe full of mutants, Peter! This is not a Jesus-based story. Jesus is busy on other shows that have angels and devils and crap like that. Anyway Peter doesn't know this, and so he prays for a really long time and then he and Mama hide in a confessional while HRG and the shock troops search the church for them. Mama confesses that she had to become an evil manipulator to save the world and she's guilting so hard that HRG finds them - but pretends he hasn't. You can tell from Peter's face that he thinks Jesus has intervened.

And maybe he has! At the end of the episode, Mama Petrelli finally falls asleep and has a vision of an angel or maybe just a stained glass window. Either way, she says they have to get the Petrelli family together again and go to visit her mysterious sister. I hope it's a Twisted Sister. Because I really want somebody to have the superpower of yelling WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT every time the plot veers away from Sylar or Rebel.