If it felt like this week's installment of PoI was treading water, that's because it pretty much was. No further illumination of Reese or Finch's pasts (though Finch apparently has some experience in the investment trenches), and not much in the way of development for either character (correction: Reese apparently still likes girls). The main story arc advanced slightly by introducing what will likely be a semi-recurring character in Zoe Morgan (Paige Turco), and a little more light is shed on the mysterious "Elias." Though I can probably remove the quotes, because it looks like that is his actual name. How ordinary.

Not a bad episode, per se, but after the quality of the previous two weeks, "The Fix" felt like the series was starting to coast a little.

Let me just start by saying I wish it was as easy to clone a cell phone in real life as it is on the show. Though I'd probably just do it at stoplights and then text people around me, "Learn to drive, shithead!"

We jump right into the Number of the Week: Zoe Morgan, an extremely suspicious woman with a fondness for leather boots and paying phat cash for an apartment and a mysterious gun, which she returns to a police lieutenant. Turns out his nephew left his sidearm in a bathroom, and she got it back in exchange for his backing the department off an investigation into a city councilman.

"She's a fixer." Aw, Reese has a crush. Then again, who wouldn't? Morgan is quite a dish.

Carter is on the scene of the murder of a 71-year-old gangster named Vincent DeLuca, killed in the manner of a nearly 40-year-old murder charge he skated on: that of one Marlene...Elias, a name you'll recall from the evidence room theft a couple weeks ago. Actually, it's not just in the same manner, it's with the original murder weapon. Rad.

...so, wait a minute: the quote-unquote mysterious criminal mastermind who led a gang of disaffected military veterans into unknowingly doing his dirty work was actually using his real name all along? Bra-vo, Professor Moriarty.

Zoe's next job comes from a couple of execs for a pharmaceutical company called Virtanen who want to hush up a blogger with a recording of a possibly unsavory conversation between a woman and the company's...CFO? CAO? Some O named Lawson. The blogger, it turns out, is no danger to Morgan. Because as network TV has taught us, everybody on the Internet is a doughy slob whose own deathly pallor rivals the glow from their omnipresent monitor screen.

It's true, we're so pale. Anyway, this lack of threat manifestation has Reese on edge.

And hey, look, it's Dan "Nick Tortelli" Hedaya as Sullivan, the original detective on the Elias case. He tells Carter the charges against DeLuca were dropped by a corrupt DA, and that Marlene and a don named Moretti had an affair, resulting in a son, who ended up in the foster care system after Moretti (allegedly) sent DeLuca to kill her. I'm not much for fancy book criminology, but that sounds like a lead. The Elias subplot offers this week's best intrigue, only because it hasn't been fleshed out enough to be very predictable. Of course, Sullivan gets murdered by who we assume is Elias, and we kind of saw that coming, but still.

We also learn the woman involved in the affair with Lawson was another Number of the Week (pre-Reese), a Virtanen employee named Dana Miller who was about to blow the whistle on Virtanen's illegal alteration of clinical test records for their new migraine drug. Finch wasn't hooked up with Reese yet and couldn't prevent her murder. Lawson's father-in-law and Virtanen CEO Robert Keller was aware of this the whole time, and is eliminating all links to the audio recording.

Yeah, this isn't much of plot. Corporate scumbags willing to kill to cover their asses, it's The Fugitive (new wonder drug may be lethal) + The Peiican Brief + The Insider, only wrapped up in a handy CBS procedural framework. In between, we get stories of why Morgan does what she does. It's of some interest, but feels mostly like padding. Admittedly, Reese is fun to watch committing murder most foul. And Finch is capable of some fuckery as well (he shorted half a billion shares of Virtanen stock as revenge for Miller's death). Good for him.

So Morgan and Reese foil the bad guys, Finch makes a bunch of money, and the door is left wide open for Morgan to pop back up a couple times each season. And no Fusco. What's that about?

Next week: Veronica Mars's dad has really let himself go.