First off, I'll have to send a friend of mine an I-told-you-so e-mail about Niki/Tracy's character. I predicted last week that the whole Tracy Strauss story line was a weak and super-lame move by the Heroes writers to ditch the dead-end Niki story line without getting rid of actress Ali Larter ... or actually being creative and doing something real with Niki. And since we now know that Niki is dead, it seems like my prediction may be coming true unless they do something super inventive to bring her back to life somehow and tie her story to Tracy's ... if not, this story line will lose me completely. Kinda already has.

But the most irksome albeit slightly more watchable part of last night's ep was Sylar's teaming up with Noah Bennet. Why, writers, why? Granted, the pairing made for some humorous moments, but I absolutely cringed when Sylar argued with Noah about wanting to help at the bank robbery. Again, the writers better be building up to some mind-boggling twist, because I don't know how long I can stand good-citizen Sylar. At least he returned to form briefly by slaying that one dude in the end, but the previews for next week's ep, where Sylar's in the kitchen cooking better be a dream sequence.

Funny thing is, the story line I'm enjoying the most -- Hiro and Ando, in their interactions with Ms. Speed Racer Daphne -- seems to be the one that's annoying most of the Heroes fans I know. I do wish their tale would move along already, though -- enough with the "Hiro has the document then loses it to Daphne" stuff. And come on, scribes, you had the entire writers' strike to come up with a gourmet dish -- quit serving us cat food!