Previously: Sylar wakes up, Hiro comes face to face with his father, Niki went to jail, Peter teams up with the Invisible Man, and Claire finds her mother — who also has powers!

Story Recap for “Distractions”

Claude and Peter: This week’s episode of “Heroes” opens with the invisible Claude trying to teach Peter, a power “sponge,” how to control his abilities. Peter mimics Claude’s invisibility while near him, but once Claude leaves Peter with a woman’s purse and runs off, Peter quickly reappears to the public.

When we next see the pair, Claude criticizes Peter for his close relationships to friends and family, explaining those connections are holding him back in his quest for control. Peter disagrees, so Claude decides they should check in on his love interest Simone.

Niki/Jessica: Meanwhile, in therapy, a doctor tries to bring Niki’s evil side, Jessica, out with the hope of merging the split personalities. Jessica shows up and breaks out of her chains. When Niki wakes up, her therapist is unconscious with several taser marks on her back, courtesy of Jessica.

Later, Niki is set free when it turns out a Death Row inmate has confessed to all the murders she committed. Linderman’s lawyer tells her to go home, but Niki doesn’t want to. And when she gets home, Jessica is clearly in control.

Isaac Mendez and Simone: Simone visits a cleaned-up Isaac; sees a new painting of New York, post-nuclear fallout; and then asks for help finding Peter. Isaac is convinced Peter will blow up the city, but promises to help Simone after showing he still has feelings for her. Isaac keeps painting, producing a taxi cab and another picture not shown to the audience.

Later, Simone returns to see that the mystery picture shows her and Isaac on the rooftop at sundown. When she finds him there, Isaac asks what hope there is since he keeps seeing New York destroyed, and as they hug, it is revealed that Peter and Claude have been watching the whole time. Peter is not happy, but has little time to complain as Claude throws him off the roof, telling him to fly.

Peter does not fly, lands hard on the roof of a taxi cab, and a piece of metal pierces his chest! He manages to stand and begins to heal, thanks to the powers he absorbed from Claire. Peter realizes that to access the absorbed powers of other heroes, he has to remember them and how they made him feel rather than cut them out, as Claude suggested.

Hiro: In an unnecessary side story, Hiro’s father makes promises of promoting him to Executive Vice President if he returns to Japan, but Hiro plans to continue on his mission and take Isaac’s painting to the mysterious Mr. Linderman, but his father destroys it. His sister tries to convince him to come home to save the family company. Not wanting to take over, he makes horrible suggestions about the company’s future only to have his sister refute them and show off why she should take over, leaving Hiro to continue on his mission.

The Bennets: The real drama of the episode comes with Claire and her family. Claire convinces her stepmother to let her skip school to “do research,” but really she is off with her best friend, Zach, to find her real mom. Claire and Zach show up at her mom’s trailer park. Claire and her mom talk about their past until Claire, determined to find out if she is alone, cuts herself to show off her healing powers. Her mom responds by showing off her pyrokinetic powers — think Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. As Claire leaves, she hopes to find some information about her father, but her mom says that it’s a story for another day.

And while Claire has been running around to find out what her real parents are like, her adopted parents have a run-in with the series’ premier super-villain, Sylar, who shows up in disguise at the Bennet residence. After sweet-talking the mom, he manages to get a dinner invitation. But when Claire doesn’t come home, Sylar uses telekinesis to slap Mrs. Bennet around until Mr. Bennet and the Haitian bust in and shoot Sylar into the wall. Sylar runs out the back door, with HRG (Mr. Bennet) sending the Haitian after him screaming, “Find him! He dies!” Unsuccessful, the Haitian returns and wipes Mrs. Bennet’s memory.

The Big Reveal: Claire’s real mother makes a phone call to Claire’s biological father, none other than Peter’s brother, the flying congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli!

Review: Well, the big focus this week was connections. The big reveal at the end of the episode alone showed how all of the show’s characters are connected to one another in ways that neither they nor the audience fully understand yet. And it is no surprise that the best parts of this episode were ones that dealt with drawing these characters closer together.

Peter and Nathan now are part of Claire’s growing biological family, and the attack by Sylar showed how the villain is entering the lives of the majority of the cast’s lives. Meanwhile, Isaac, Peter, Claude and Simone all crossed paths, and Peter discovered that only by remembering other heroes and how he felt about them could he access their abilities.

On the other hand, the weakest parts of the story were the ones that focused on isolated characters. Hiro’s story in this episode seemed meaningless, a minor detour on his mission to get a samurai sword from the unseen Mr. Linderman. And Niki/Jessica’s story, while dramatic at points, simply took her back to where she was before the show went on hiatus a few weeks ago. Why did she even go to jail if she got released a few episodes later? While I understand the need for character development, these characters appeared to be moving somewhere exciting, but that momentum gets lost this week.

The good outweighs the bad this week, however, as “Heroes” continues to improve both in acting and writing. And how cool was it to see Peter fall off the top of a really tall building and walk it off? That just does not happen on other shows!

Grade: B+

Next week: Claire’s biological parents have a talk while Niki/Jessica teams up with telepathic police officer Matt Parkman, who also gets thrown off a very tall building! Mohinder comes face to face with Sylar!

- Stalked by Wilson Garrett