Wow, were there a lot of “oh, shit” moments on last night’s episode, or what? Man, and to think that I’d originally planned to begin this entry by complaining about the fact that the show began with a bit more filler than usual. (Well, not really filler, I guess, but they showed more clips from previous episodes than usual to set up the scenes; in addition to the normal “previously on ‘Heroes'” montage, they replayed that scene with Radioactive Man and Internet Girl from a few weeks ago, as well as replaying Hiro’s “I come in peace” gag from last week) By the end of the proceedings, however, virtually everyone had managed to score a major dramatic scene. Okay, sure, we never saw Nikica, D.L., or Micah at all…and, yet, the proceedings in no way suffered. To my mind, it’s a testament to the fact that, despite last week’s shootout with Matt, their stories tend to be pretty self-contained…though I’m guessing that’ll change very, very soon, when Nikica embarks on her assignment to take out Nathan.

So what were the big moments…?

* Claire’s mom collapses on the kitchen floor in a pool of milk, resulting in our favorite cheerleader giving her dad a royal reaming for his apparent insensitivity…which, in turn, results in one of those rare moments where we actually feel sorry for H.R.G..

* Peter gets all unexpected on Doctor Invisible by stopping his staff in mid-strike, pleasing Doc to no end. Later, as the good Doctor begins a lecture on Darwinian theory, the pair of them get attacked by H.R.G. and Brother Voodoo…and Peter shoots into the air like a fucking rocket. It’s official: the Battle Royale between Peter and Sylar is gonna be a knock-down drag-out. I couldn’t help but notice that H.R.G. looked less angry than legitimately pleased and impressed when Peter flew into the sky with Doctor Invisible…though it was particularly interesting that, in the wake of learning that his wife was unconscious, H.R.G.’s response was to say that Claude (a.k.a. Doctor Invisible) would have to wait, making no mention of Peter. If there’d been earlier reference to H.R.G. even knowing of Claude’s existence, I guess I missed it…but the Doctor’s smackdown of Peter makes it evident that there’s a history between he and H.R.G.’s “people.”

* Simone’s dead. Ho. Lee. Shit. I didn’t see that coming. But what I wonder is, did she go public about Nathan and Peter before her untimely demise…?

* Moments after receiving the advice that when “you take on a partner, all you get is their blood on your hands,” Hiro watches Ando get shot. The next thing you know, Hiro has dissolved his partnership with Ando and is on a bus – driven by Stan Lee, no less – continuing his mission all by his lonesome. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that Ando won’t choose to follow along behind Hiro, however…

* After a discussion with Janice about the hot jewels goes awry, Matt teams up with Radioactive Man and Internet Girl to invade H.R.G.’s house for some answers. (‘Bout time!) Surely that’s not going to go well…and, even worse, I’m anticipating that while all this is going on, if you listened closely, you could hear this…

Janice: Narc, narc!
The Cops: Who’s there?
Janice: Janice Parkman, with some info about my husband that I think you’ll find interesting.

* And speaking of listening closely…well, first, let’s have a moment of silence for Dale. Are we done? Great. Okay, so aside from the fact that Mohinder’s talk of possibly being able to block some of the heroes’ powers reminded me a bit of the plot of “X3,” it looks like Sylar finally has a power that he doesn’t have the hang of, one that’s proving to be more of a hindrance than a strength.

Awesome episode. Can’t wait ’til next week.