Overview:
Sylar locks down Primatech and traps Claire, Noah, Angela and Meredith inside. Before Claire can stab him in the head, Sylar pumps Meredith with adrenaline and triggers a pyro-overload that sends Primatech up in flames. Meanwhile, Ando gets the Force lightning, which acts as an amplifier to other abilities and enables Daphne to speedyzip through time. (Don’t ask. Long story short: she gets Hiro back to the present.) Finally, Peter gets back his empathic mimicry, Mohinder gets rid of his scales, Pinehearst explodes, and Nathan takes all information on the superpowered population to the president.
Review:
This time last year, we were mourning — or, as may be the case, celebrating — the deaths of Nathan and Niki.
It’s a lot harder to feel that way about Sylar’s death this season: partly because we know he’s on set while Volume Four’s shooting, partly because we know the show has half a dozen methods to bring anyone back from the dead, but mostly because we know the show loves Sylar so much that killing him off is even more unthinkable than killing off Nathan last season.
Which isn’t to say this volume-ender lacked impact, because in a lot of ways — especially when it comes to Nathan’s storyline — this one tops “Powerless.” The Saw rip-off is as heinous as the quasi-scientific rationale for Daphne becoming a time-traveler, but where it counts, this episode achieves what I’ve been hoping for all season: it signals real change. It’s plot-driven and rushed all the way — the way the whole volume has been — but the potential for characters to evolve is there. Primatech and Pinehearst have burned down, Hiro’s powerless while his sidekick goes from Muggle to Super, and Nathan has turned his back on Peter and ratted the specials out. Sylar’s fate might lack suspense, but everyone else’s — after an episode that turned the show’s format on its head — has become more uncertain than ever. Depending on your perspective, that’s either an ominous sign that the show has no idea where it’s going, or that it’s about to change its format and break out of the rut it’s been stuck in for much of the season.
Previously on HEROES: there was a whole lot we never got to see! I’m pretty sure we never saw Ando waving a 9th Wonders comic at Nerdeo’s Boss or Matt telling him they needed Nerdeo’s package to find their friend. I also can’t remember Mohinder explaining to Arthur how to combine The Catalyst with The Formula. Not a huge deal, but it’s mildly amusing when a recap provides you with footage you never saw before.
Sylar providing the voice-over was a great call. Appropriate in a volume predominantly about him, but also fitting given the biblical overtones in both the voice-over and Sylar’s arc throughout the volume.
The camera glides across the carpet at Helix Compound, and we’re blessed with an image that kills several birds with one stone:
Yes, that really is how the episode title is spelled, no matter how many times the show changed it. Yes, Arthur really does look dead, no matter how many fans insist that a bullet to the front of the head won’t kill anyone who regenerates. And, yes, Arthur’s blood really is red. Don’t go there, fanfic writers …
Nathan finds his brother and dead father and heaves a heavy sigh. Subtly acted, although it’s difficult to get a handle on what anyone’s feeling here. The way Nathan blurts out that Peter “did it,” I couldn’t really tell whether Nathan was relieved or grief-stricken, although I’m guessing that was the idea: the conflict of emotions is where the brother-versus-brother arc starts to become compelling.
Peter: “I tried. It was Sylar.”
Nathan: “Sylar, huh?”
You’d be forgiven for mishearing that as, “Sylar who?”, although with hindsight it’s easy to see why the show never bothered with a dramatic reveal to clue Nathan in to his new brother. Looking back, there was absolutely no point.
Surprisingly moving, even if you hated the way Arthur was written and played. The fact that Nathan’s the one to kneel down and covers his dad’s eyelids while Peter sits at a distance says a lot, particularly when Nathan was the one who idolized his father. As whimsical as Nathan’s character arc has been this season — from religious fervor to superpowered rescue effort to mass incarceration — it’s easy to buy how this moment steers his actions for the rest of the episode. When Nathan tells Peter that their father’s plan is now theirs, it’s as if he’s trying to convince himself that their father didn’t die in vain, and that he wasn’t a total lunatic.
Or not. Maybe Nathan really is just as crazy as Arthur was. The way Pasdar brings the fixated stare and the way he enunciates Nathan’s plan to [soft fairytale voice] “make the world a better place,” you could equally buy that this is less about honoring Arthur’s goals and more about becoming a deluded tyrant.
The staging throughout this sequence is superb: the way both brothers stand at the same time and the way they circle their father’s body is as engrossing as it is disturbing. There’s also something tragic about the way Nathan’s trying to defuse the tension between them …
… which boils down to Nathan trying to sway his brother to insanity, but which also sets up why Nathan will later feel justified for beating on his brother. The fact that Nathan offered a truce between them now — and that Peter spurned it — underscores why he’ll end up wondering if he even recognizes his brother anymore. Peter’s right to trick Nathan and knock him out, but he indirectly proves Nathan’s suspicions to be true: Nathan can’t trust anyone, even his own brother.
We cut to Primatech, where we’ve apparently missed dialogue along the lines of, “Hey, Dad, remember that blonde who showed up 16 years ago to nickname me ‘ClaireBear’? Yeah, that was me! Also? That Japanese dude took my Catalyst! Then Grandpa tossed him over a rooftop and told me to tell Grandma he’s ‘won!’” The absence of this scene isn’t as disappointing as the lack of anything to bridge Meredith’s split from The Company in the graphic novels and her sudden return to Primatech now. It’s easy enough to speculate that either Meredith decided to stay until the Level 5 villains were recaptured or that she decided to remain an agent and work separately from Noah. The point is there was no attempt to connect this storyline to the show’s other media. It’s not like viewers should need to know that Meredith and Noah disagreed over apprehending Metal-Arm Danny, but a line or two to maintain some semblance of continuity would have been cool.
Sylar goes supersonic from Fort Lee to Hartsdale, eluding the Haitian and killing off several Company security guards. It’s sad, but, on the bright side, at least we now know that Primatech really did have what passes for security.
The option for a facility-wide lockdown makes sense, although you have to wonder what good it would do against anyone like D.L., who could phase through the grates on the windows, or anyone like Peter, who could TK the grates right off the windows, or even someone like Metal-Arm Danny, who could probably bust his way through most restraints. You also have to wonder whether anyone on the show has heard of this movie, because the similarities are a little too close to be ignored.
The sad part is how, in spite of the appropriation, this story thread had the potential for much more really great drama. Sylar and Angela are the only two who end up revealing how they feel about what they’ve been through over the course of this volume. Sylar goes out of his way to prove that everyone he traps is a “monster” like him, but it’s hard to tell if Meredith, Noah or Claire are affected by anything they hear or witness. This was an opportunity to go back to Meredith’s guilt over blackmailing Claire’s father and abandoning her; it was an opportunity to follow through on Claire’s storyline last week and to show how Claire’s abandonment issues are outweighed by how much she loves and depends on her father; it was an opportunity to look at how Angela feels about Arthur’s death, and whether she accepts any responsibility for the present situation.
By the end of this episode, we’ve no real impression that anything between these characters has changed. Angela now knows that Claire has a killer streak in her, but the dynamic between Claire, Noah and Angela is more or less the same as it was at the start of the episode. Which doesn’t make any of this story thread unwatchable, but it seems like the concept was underdeveloped. The point of trapping several characters together is to watch them overcome their issues and work together, but more importantly to watch the dynamic between them develop. This was a chance to explore the questionable actions of some of the most compelling characters on the show, and the storyline was over before the show even scratched the surface.
Past Rooftop of Pigeonly Delight.
ElderPigeon! It wants Hiro to deliver a message! Tell the younglings that everything is going according to plan! The younglings are delighted.
Props to whoever came up with the CG street below. Most of our attention focuses on Hiro telling the pigeon how he screwed everything up — which we aren’t inclined to disagree with — but if you look past Hiro sobbing, there’s actually traffic moving in the shot below him.
Ando, Daphne and Matt visit the Apartment of Clairvoyance. Daphne wonders how history will change if Hiro dies in the past, earning an appalled look from Ando and Matt and reminding everyone else why Daphne is the single most awesome thing to come out of this volume.
Daphne observes that “they really cleaned this place up.” I find myself wondering whether “they” refers to Team Pinehearst after they recruited Mohinder or Team Primatech after they removed the numerous cocoons Mohinder made. I also still wonder whether any of those cocooned individuals survived, even though I know I shouldn’t.
Other things we shouldn’t ponder:
Daphne walks past an intriguing black-and-white painting of a fiery monster and some poor sap standing on a rock. Which I figured wasn’t supposed to pique our curiosity, but I couldn’t help wondering if there was some larger significance to it when we get a scene from a different angle on the set …
… and the painting has moved. Were the set decorators especially proud of this prop, or is this a hint that the Uluru storyline’s still getting thrown around in the writers’ room? You decide.
Daphne decides to go to the Helix Compound to find Mohinder. Matt’s all, “No! Absolutely not! Too dangerous!” And I just have to say once again how much I’ve loved the way Brea Grant played Daphne this volume, because that “I’ll-show-you-who’s-wearing-the-pants-in-this-relationship” smirk before she speedyzips away is priceless.
Helix Compound. Mohinder, left without anyone to talk to, tells his recorder that his infection has spread to his lungs. This causes mass panic among Sendhil fans, prompting them to wonder whether stuff like this constitutes an actual spoiler.
Peter shows up at the lab, and Mohinder rambles about what it means to be “special” and “powerful” and OH. MY. GOD. Is that it? So protecting Molly from Sylar and avenging Chandra’s murder and rescuing members of the superpowered population from a serial killer HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT? Whatever. Mohinder’s motive was boiled down to its simplest form 14 weeks ago, and I won’t rehash the same complaint.
Daphne speedyzips through the lab and swipes Mohinder’s vial so fast you hear canisters smashing. Small detail, but it’s very cool.
Flint and Knox show up to help Peter trash the lab; which is to say, they do more than stand around looking like glorified extras. Flint wanting “payback” was a nice nod to continuity, especially now that no one’s around to stop him from torching the guy who beat him into unconsciousness. Would Flint feel threatened by the idea of abilities for the masses? I can buy that Knox would be nervous: he relies on fear to empower him, and giving his enemies abilities would reduce the level of fear for him to feed off. But Flint? He wanted to be a Company agent. And he’s a dumbass.
Having been imbued with superstrength, Chad opts not to go on a Hulk-style rampage around Fort Lee, instead visiting his boss when “Ms Strauss” becomes concerned. He even still calls Nathan “sir.” Aw. It’s typical that the show makes me like a character …
… right before killing him off. And that sadness is compounded with the nausea-inducing neck-snapping-with-added-squelching sound effect.
The question you shouldn’t be asking here is what happened to Arthur. The trail of blood looks like it leads underneath Chad and out of the door, so presumably someone dragged him out between the moment Peter pwned Nathan and the moment Chad woke Nathan up. Whether it’s Peter, Chad or someone else who removed the body — and whether they took him to the Pinehearst morgue or somewhere completely different — is likely a point that the show will never address. As gaffes and plotholes go, it doesn’t stick out too prominently, but it does kind of hang there feeling as unresolved as it does amusing.
Daphne returns to the Apartment of Clairvoyance, and Matt warns Ando that The Formula won’t necessarily make him a time-traveler. Daphne points out that abilities are an extension of character, predicament and temperament, and although I’m not sure what that says about Maya, it strikes me as extremely cool that the show kept this dialogue in the episode. It underscores how Ando’s innate ability is to motivate and drive the people around him, and that role had been limited to Hiro for two-and-a-half seasons. By removing Hiro’s abilities and giving Ando the ability to ramp up everyone else’s, the show opens up enormous possibilities for the character. It sucks that one of the few non-superpowered characters now joins the rest of the special clan, but it also rocks that — for the first time since the first season — Ando seems to have a purpose beyond slapstick humor and listening to Hiro yammering.
Hiro climbs from the flagpole to the Past Rooftop of Pigeonly Delight, then finds Kid-Hiro mourning the loss of his mom. I would have advised Hiro to reassure his younger self by pointing out that he’ll be running around and waving his sword when they next meet at Mama Sulu’s funeral. Then it occurred to me that, with the timeline changed and Adult-Hiro posing as the family chef, Kid-Hiro really should recognize Adult-Hiro when he shows up at the funeral.
*HEADACHE!*
Midas Study. Claire tests the external phone line and the grate outside the window, and Angela settles into a comfy-looking couch in the middle of the room. Were the apples on the coffee table too much? Most of the biblical references and imagery work for me, but this seemed a little too obvious.
Angela describes Sylar as “a child starved for attention [who] throws a temper tantrum.” Which … kind of belittles the menace behind Sylar’s Saw homage, and makes me wonder whether the show was in fact aiming for parody with this story thread.
Sylar phones Claire while casually stepping over another anonymous security guard. I find it morbidly amusing that the body count keeps mounting while Angela dismisses Sylar’s actions as a “temper tantrum.” When Sylar gives Claire the option to kill Angela in exchange for everyone else’s freedom, Angela looks less disturbed than mildly entertained. Even when Sylar lists her main crimes — planning to nuke a city, attempting to murder her husband and lying to Sylar about his lineage — Angela’s expression is …
… completely inscrutable. Which was definitely the right call by Cristine Rose because it emphasizes how composed Angela remains under almost any circumstances. It also dovetails very nicely with her refusal to indulge Sylar’s “tantrum” when she knows he’s planning to kill them all anyway.
Sylar: “I could’ve been a nobody instead of the monster I became.”
Great delivery by Zach. You can hear the rage beneath the surface, and you can see Sylar staring into space while he imagines what could have been. It doesn’t completely explain why Sylar killed Elle, but it’s something, the implication being that Sylar doesn’t blame Elle for following orders and provoking him into becoming a killer, but rather for provoking him into becoming something he couldn’t change back from. It’s a subtle spin on the guy who last week rediscovered how much he enjoys ripping people’s heads open, but it also ties in with Sylar’s “nobody-ever-really-changes” speech before he killed Elle, and, perhaps more obliquely, with his attempt to go back to being “a nobody” back in the first season.
Noah and Meredith return to The Basement and release the remaining Level 5 inmates, who turn out to be Doyle, Metal-Arm Danny and Echo from the webisodes. For anyone who didn’t know Echo from the webisodes, he was just another nameless casualty here. For everyone who did recognize him and looked forward to seeing his story continue on the show, this was pretty heartbreaking. I know David H. Lawrence XVII said this scene was longer and that dialogue was cut, but this final cut left Kiko Ellsworth’s role close to non-existent. It’s limited to standing in the background in this scene and lying very still in the next. I can get over the lack of characterization and the fact that we didn’t even see Echo’s ability on the show, but the lack of any dialogue? Not a single line? If it was a question of crunching it all into 42 minutes, I think we can all agree that this finale was better suited for a two-parter than “The Eclipse” was. There’s very little in this episode that didn’t need to be here, and there was plenty in “The Eclipse” that could have been compressed in order for this storyline to unfold over two episodes.
Anyway, Noah and Meredith point guns at Doyle like they think that’ll be any use against him. I love how Beeman lowers the camera to just below Doyle’s shoulders …
… which ends up making these inmates even more intimidating and the guns even more useless.
The villains go their separate ways in a bid for their freedom, and Doyle stops to blow a kiss to Meredith. Cute detail, and very in character.
At the Apartment of Clairvoyance.
Ando: “Do I have abilities?”
Daphne: “So far, all we know is that you can pass out really well.”
Funny, and in a scene that marks a surprising change of pace and tone from the rest of the episode. It’s effectively this episode’s Leg-Up-To-The-Air-Vent: a scene that’s played for laughs and breaks up the intensity of the rest of the episode. The cool part is that, as with Sylar’s lie detector last week, it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the episode, it serves the characters, and it really is funny.
Matt: “Scrunch gently. You don’t wanna jump back to the Stone Age.”
Line of the night.
Too funny. I love the bewildered expression Daphne and Matt get when nothing happens, and how Ando feels like they’re crowding him and steps forward to test his ability with more privacy.
Meredith and Noah leave The Basement and decide it’s best to split up, earning them each a Dumb As Peter Award. Meredith comes across Metal-Arm Danny’s severed arm — complete with still-twitching fingers — before being flanked by Sylar and Doyle.
The showdown was effectively done, but it’s especially remarkable for the way we find ourselves rooting for Doyle even after the Russian roulette scene. Doyle points out that he’s as likely to kill Meredith as love her, but the fact that he cares enough to protect her — as twisted as his interpretation of caring might be — speaks for his character. Every aspect of the guy’s actions — and every nuance of Lawrence’s performance — are true to the spirit of the character. He’s creepy and psychotic, but he’s also disarmingly warm and protective when it comes to Meredith, to the point where he can show up to fend Sylar off. Even if you know he’ll slice a broken bottle top along her neck, you’re genuinely glad he’s there because he’s the lesser of two evils.
But then, Sylar’s the one who, once upon a time, kissed his mom on the forehead and put himself in danger to save his brother. Say what you like about this volume; it came up with some bizarre stuff for its villains and screwed around with our sympathy in the best way.
Sylar’s TK trumps Doyle’s puppeteering, gives Doyle a nosebleed and floors him. It does look like he’s back in the next volume, so it’s safe to say this didn’t kill him, and neither did all of Primatech collapsing over him.
Noah ends up back in The Basement and discovers …
Damn you, editors.
Goodbye, Echo! We wish we could have known anything about you from the show, as opposed to what we already knew from the webisodes and graphic novels. We hope to see you in many flashbacks and dream sequences in which you get a speaking part.
Sylar using a shot of adrenaline to boost Meredith’s pyrokinesis makes sense if we assume he knows about the connection between abilities and adrenal glands. Given the number of times he’s hacked open heads and acquired people’s abilities, I guess it’s possible. The more relevant question seems to involve the subtext behind Sylar wanting Noah to kill his adoptive daughter’s biological mother. There are several shots in this scene …
… that seem intended to emphasize how deeply Sylar and Noah understand one another. It could be that this was Sylar’s way of lashing out at Angela — forcing his pseudo-role model to kill his daughter’s mom and break her heart; or Sylar wanted Claire to hate Noah as much as Sylar hates Angela for lying to him; or he wanted Noah to feel as guilty about lying to Claire as he thinks Angela should feel for lying to him.
Or he’s just a “sick bastard” (< < Quote! I don’t need to censor it!) who enjoys playing mind games. You decide. Whichever it is, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sylar’s dialogue here — “You made me into who I am” — so closely resembles Nathan and Arthur’s “I made you” dialogue last week. Noah’s as much of a mentor and surrogate father to Sylar as Arthur ever was, and to engineer a situation where Noah’s trapped in a situation and forced to kill the way Sylar was seems like a twisted attempt to give the two of them even more in common.
Helix Compound. Nathan thwacks Knox and makes a dash for the door, and then:
Goodbye, Knox! You were a two-dimensional villain, but we loved you! You were portrayed with visceral menace by Jamie Hector, and we wish we could have gotten to know you better. We hope to see you in many flashbacks, dream sequences and alternate realities.
Tracy urges Nathan to get out of Pinehearst and deny having anything to do with it … which earns Tracy plus points for coming up with a smart plan, as well as for being as ice-cold as ever when she’s stroking Nathan’s neck and fingering his chest and charming the heck out of Nathan in order to manipulate him. Her charm’s even more commendable when you recall that she’s keeping it up with a pool of Papa Petrelli’s blood at her feet and a dead supersoldier lying in the doorw-
Wait a second, where is Chad’s body?
Seriously, folks: Nathan breezes out of the door and shows no sign of stepping over a body. Is there some kind of mystical corpse-remover at Pinehearst?
Apartment of Clairvoyance. Ando’s Force lightning manifests, and well done to the show’s visual effects department for distinguishing it from a straightforward red Ellectrobolt, because the sparks look chaotic and out-of-control, the way they would for anyone who’d recently discovered the ability. They also earn Matt and Daphne Dumb As Peter Awards after Ando repeatedly tells them he can’t control his ability and they continue touching him on the arm. I realize this was the only way for the storyline to move forward, but come on: when a guy’s emitting supersparks, it’s probably smarter if you DON’T TOUCH HIM!
Matt gets Ando-zapped and hears the thoughts of everyone in the city. I can’t help thinking that the effect could have been better — for a second longer, and with more voices — but it’s a very cool idea.
Then Ando zaps Daphne and sends her 20 seconds into the past … and Matt uses his recollection of high-school physics to apply Einstein’s Theory of Relativity … and posits that Daphne can use Ando’s ability to travel through time. And this is where I respond to everyone who ever told me that I couldn’t suspend disbelief for this show, because I’m going to let this slide without saying a single word … except to let you know that my BS Detector currently sounds like a World War II air raid siren.
Sulu Penthouse. Hiro and Kid-Hiro remove The Formula from Papa Sulu’s safe and are immediately caught by Papa Sulu. The Kensei sword in the apartment was a nice detail, but mostly I love that both Hiros instinctively obey their father when he tells Kid-Hiro to go to bed, and that the only reason Papa Sulu sends Kid-Hiro to bed is because he doesn’t want his son to see him hacking the chef to pieces.
Back up a second. This is a timeloop, right? The Formula was always ripped in half by Hiro. It wasn’t an intentional effort on Papa Sulu or Angela’s part to keep the two halves separate. If that’s true, then Hiro was destined to always go back in time, become The Catalyst, lose The Catalyst, break into Papa Sulu’s safe and rip The Formula in half. If that’s true, then Hiro was destined to always be The Catalyst instead of Claire, unless there was some original timeline we’ve never seen in which the Formula plans were complete and in which Claire really did become The Catalyst before Hiro showed up to usurp it from Mama Sulu. But if that’s the case, substantial portions of this volume could never have happened, which means Arthur would never have retrieved both parts of The Formula and Hiro would never have needed to go back in time in the first pl-
Oh, never mind. Somehow it makes sense.
Daphne speedyzips Ando and Hiro forward 16 years.
Aww.
Hiro: “Nemesis, you have a chance to make up for your past, and for me to make up mine.”
With that last part, I hope Hiro means opening up Papa Sulu’s safe, and that he’s learned not to act on his boredom. If he’d kept the safe locked, most of this disaster wouldn’t have happened.
Calling Daphne “nemesis” for the billionth time wasn’t as annoying as it used to be: it’s cool that it’s now more of a nickname, and that it serves as a reminder of how far the character’s come since she was introduced.
Daphne speedyzips Hiro to the Helix Compound. Tracy ices Arthur’s safe, removes the two halves of The Formula, calls Hiro “Pikachu,” and then …
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. And we were worried that this Hiro wouldn’t be as proactive as the 10-year-old one.
Daphne’s reaction pretty much sums it up, but I want to praise whoever came up with Hiro pausing to bow to Tracy before he decks her, because THAT? … makes all the difference in the world.
We cut to Mohinder’s lab, which Peter and Flint are still trashing. How long have they been at this? I wonder if they’ll still be smashing vials and tipping over shelves when I finish this review.
Mohinder gets doused in The Formula after Peter and Flint tip a vat on its side. He loses the peeling flesh, but does that mean he lost his strength and wall-crawling? I can’t see why getting soaked in a power-imbuing formula would remove his powers, but this episode wraps up the whole powers-for-all storyline, so it would make sense for Mohinder’s powers to end with it. There were several intentionally open-ended story threads in this episode, but I’m not sure this was supposed to be one of them.
After several eons of vandalism, Flint decides he’s ready to set fire to the lab. Nathan shows up to club Flint over the head, and then proceeds to start beating on his brother. And the look on his face …
… is of a guy who no longer recognizes his brother.
And this, right here — Nathan brutally beating Peter while discordant strings tell you this is an Overwrought Moment — is where you either buy into the episode’s brilliance or write the whole thing off as garbage. This is inarguably asking viewers to take an enormous leap. I bought into it, but that’s mostly because I bought into the idea that all of Nathan’s experiences led up to it: his parents used him as a lab rat, his father tried to have him killed, his wife left him and got a restraining order to keep him from their kids, his new girlfriend went behind his back and conspired with his father, his future-brother shot him, and his present-brother pointed a gun at him, told him he was crazy and knocked him out.
It’s hard to ask viewers to buy into the transformation Nathan underwent in less than four episodes, but the rationale for turning on Peter — when he and everyone else had already turned on Nathan — is there. It wasn’t established in dialogue, and maybe it should have been, but when Nathan tells Peter that he broke his heart, Nathan’s admitting that Peter was the one person he was counting on to not betray him; and when Peter does, the only thing Nathan’s left with is his own sense of right and wrong.
Flint regains consciousness and torches the lab, and Nathan … just stands there. Which I’m tempted to award a Dumb As Peter, but at this point I wonder whether Nathan even knew where he’d go or whether he cared if he lived or died. The way it’s depicted, Nathan comes across as a broken man who’s got very little left besides a warped set of principles and the conviction that he’s doing the right thing.
Peter finds a vial of The Formula intact, injects himself, and apparently gets back his absorption ability, immediately soaking up Nathan’s flight and pulling Nathan out of Pinehearst before it explodes. So, presumably, Peter now has the option to either visit every super he ever knew (and who’s still alive) with the aim to re-absorb the abilities he used to have … Or Peter (and for that, read the show’s writers) will be a little smarter about which supers he comes into contact with, and this time he won’t end up with an armada of abilities that can only be controlled by amnesia, body-swapping or power-sucking.
We go from one Overwrought Moment to another as we cut to Angela and Sylar AND ABOUT FIVE BILLION TICKING CLOCKS at the Midas Study. Seriously, the clocks in this scene are deafening.
Angela: “So, you killed Arthur.”
Sylar: “I certainly did.”
Angela: “Then you saved the world. I was right about you all along. You are a hero.”
Great dialogue. As with pretty much all of Angela’s dialogue, it sounds crazy on paper but ends up sounding reasonable when Cristine delivers it. The staging and camera also do a lot of the work: Sylar forcing Angela into the chair and dragging her across the office reinforces how he’s overpowered her …
… and the way Sylar’s a hair’s width away from Angela brings out how much the dynamic between them has changed since Angela first visited Sylar in his cell.
Sylar asks Angela if she’s really his mother, she tells him she’s not, and the clocks freeze. If this isn’t the first time a show used ticking clocks as an expression of a character’s emotional disposition, it’s got to be the most awesome.
Sylar replies that, for a moment, he wishes Angela was his mother, and Angela’s expression when she hears this …
… absolutely kills me. I wish we’d seen more of this throughout the episode, but in a way, getting little doses of it like this gives it even more impact.
Angela skips the BS and admits that she wanted Sylar to be everything that Peter and Nathan weren’t: a destructive unethical Company drone who’d willingly become a tool and wouldn’t balk at the idea of taking out a few million innocent individuals every now and then. Angela’s admission that she’s “a monster too” is in character, tying in very elegantly with her admission to Matt back in “Cautionary Tales” that the ElderSupers “mortgaged [their] souls” for the sake of their children. It’s also a brief but illuminating window into the way Angela feels about her life and her actions — the underlying idea being that she knows she’s doing good but that it comes at the cost of her soul and any sense of inner peace.
Sylar: “Is there any good in this world? Tell me something — anything. Just make me believe that you’re not the same as me…”
The dialogue alone doesn’t do it justice, because Zach — like Cristine — nails this scene. In spite of the about-turn the character underwent over the course of 13 episodes, Zach sells it. You can buy that Sylar wants to believe in something to counter his own evil.
The revelation that Angela knows who Sylar’s biological parents are kills the suspense behind Sylar’s death. You can see the show’s love affair with Sylar saving him a mile off, but it’s also that there’s no way the show would drop in a line about Sylar’s parents and then make the revelation a moot point by killing the character off.
But let’s pretend, if only for a moment:
Claire sneaks up on Sylar, and …
Goodbye, Sylar! You were a magnificent villain! You were complex and entertaining and terrifying, and even though a lot of us think you should have died a lot sooner, we’re sorry to see you go. We hope to see you in many flashbacks and dream seq-
Oh, why bother? Nice try, Heroes. You’re not fooling anyone.
Noah somehow overrides the lockdown, lifting the grates over the windows and flooding the Midas Study with light and highlighting …
… just how daaaaaaaaark Claire’s become after not-killing Sylar, and …
… just how traumatized Angela is after watching her granddaughter stab a killer with a shard of glass after months of pretending to love him like her own son.
Claire rediscovers her heart in time to say goodbye to Meredith.
Claire: “I love you, Mom.”
There’s not enough aww to capture how beautifully that scene was done. It was poignant and well-delivered and captured everything that was special about the relationship between these two.
Goodbye, Meredith! We’ll miss you! You were fun and unpredictable and incredibly gorgeous, and you were a great role model for Claire. We hope to see you in many flashba-… Ah, you know the rest.
Damn. I really liked her. I guess it’s possible she survived becoming a human fireball, but all of Primatech collapsing over her? I wouldn’t put it past this show, but I’d be surprised.
Peter lands Nathan in a clearing outside Pinehearst.
Nathan: “Why’d you save me? Why’d you do it?”
Peter: “Because you’re my brother.”
And again, the aww is off the charts, not least because Peter’s expression here …
… is one of a guy who’s appealing to his brother the same way that his brother appealed to him an hour earlier.
The look from that brother now …
… is one of a guy who doesn’t know who he’s looking back at anymore. Nicely played by Pasdar, because that look underscores how the whole relationship between Nathan and Peter has disintegrated.
Primatech burns. Shenkar wails. V.O. Mohinder … uh, v.o.’s. And Tracy pulls up in a sports car to save Mohinder from having to hitchhike back to Chandra’s Crib.
Try not to be too proud of yourself, Hiro. Most of this is your fault.
Usutu lives!
… Or not. It might just be a specter of Matt’s spirit walk. I guess an apparition of the turtle would have undermined the profound nature of this closing montage. Usutu inexplicably appearing in New York is admittedly much more effective.
We zoom into Claire’s eye — because you know this show will be all about her from now on — and thus ends a volume that’s been at times incoherent and exasperating, but at times also entertaining and thought-provoking.
4 out of 5
Aaaaaaaaaand we’re off. Nathan meets the president, and he turns out to be …
PRESIDENT WORF?!?
Well done, Heroes! Picard couldn’t be prouder! Prophet-Sisko sends his congratulations! Kahless finds it an honorable vocation! Alexander and the House of Mogh say “Kapla”! Jadzia’s Trill spots are glowing! Troi senses your confiden-
OK, I’m done here.
Nathan hands Worf a dossier containing everything he knows about — among others — Tracy, Micah, Mohinder, Matt and Hiro. Nathan wants to round them all up and lock them in a secure facility, but I’m guessing Worf’s going to take a bat’leth and slice open their necks before ripping out their intestines and returning to Qo’noS to celebr-
OK, now I’m really done here.
Nathan pauses to look as photogenically conflicted as Pasdar can make him. He should: his storyline was the crux of this finale, and, at least from the look of it, the springboard for the central storyline in Volume Four. It’s also a big part of what helped the show to finally move beyond the rut it’s been stuck in for most of Volume Three. With Primatech NY and Pinehearst gone, the superpowered society exposed and two of the ElderSuper offspring at one another’s throats, the status quo has been dismantled. It’ll be close to impossible for the show to fall back on the story conventions it followed before this finale, meaning the only direction the show can now go is forward. This preview was detailed — more so than either of the previous volumes’ — which is a hopeful sign that the show has a very specific idea about where it wants to go, and — perhaps more importantly — a specific plan about how it wants to get there.
Here’s hoping it turns out that way. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for reading, enjoy the vacation, and we’ll see you in the spring.
“And this is where I respond to everyone who ever told me that I couldn’t suspend disbelief for this show, because I’m going to let this slide without saying a single word …”
Bravo, Otto! This quote (and your last two superb and basically well-balanced reviews) has renewed my faith in your superior reviewingness. I look forward to both more Show and more Otto in February. In the mean time, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a specific well wish to whatever I may have missed.
Love your thougths on Peter and Nathan.
This was an opportunity to go back to Meredith’s guilt over blackmailing Claire’s father and abandoning her; it was an opportunity to follow through on Claire’s storyline last week and to show how Claire’s abandonment issues are outweighed by how much she loves and depends on her father; it was an opportunity to look at how Angela feels about Arthur’s death, and whether she accepts any responsibility for the present situation.
By the end of this episode, we’ve no real impression that anything between these characters has changed. Angela now knows that Claire has a killer streak in her, but the dynamic between Claire, Noah and Angela is more or less the same as it was at the start of the episode. Which doesn’t make any of this story thread unwatchable, but it seems like the concept was underdeveloped. The point of trapping several characters together is to watch them overcome their issues and work together, but more importantly to watch the dynamic between them develop. This was a chance to explore the questionable actions of some of the most compelling characters on the show, and the storyline was over before the show even scratched the surface.
Took the words out of my mouth and the main failing of the show - no character development and there is tons of opportunity, its frustration.
is likely a point that the show will never address. As gaffes and plotholes go, it doesn’t stick out too prominently, but it does kind of hang there feeling as unresolved as it does amusing.
Or more like we can’t pay Robert to lie there for days on end.
… completely inscrutable. Which was definitely the right call by Cristine Rose because it emphasizes how composed Angela remains under almost any circumstances. It also dovetails very nicely with her refusal to indulge Sylar’s “tantrum” when she knows he’s planning to kill them all anyway.
It just shows you how many times she has been in this kind of situation - experience goes a long way - she knows not to indulge him.
Wait a second, where is Chad’s body?
Seriously, folks: Nathan breezes out of the door and shows no sign of stepping over a body. Is there some kind of mystical corpse-remover at Pinehearst?
Hilarious! I didn’t even notice, that one I can’t explain.
Daphne’s reaction pretty much sums it up, but I want to praise whoever came up with Hiro pausing to bow to Tracy before he decks her, because THAT? … makes all the difference in the world.
Masi is such a creative actor I wouldn’t be surprised if that was him.
And this, right here — Nathan brutally beating Peter while discordant strings tell you this is an Overwrought Moment — is where you either buy into the episode’s brilliance or write the whole thing off as garbage. This is inarguably asking viewers to take an enormous leap. I bought into it, but that’s mostly because I bought into the idea that all of Nathan’s experiences led up to it: his parents used him as a lab rat, his father tried to have him killed, his wife left him and got a restraining order to keep him from their kids, his new girlfriend went behind his back and conspired with his father, his future-brother shot him, and his present-brother pointed a gun at him, told him he was crazy and knocked him out.
It’s hard to ask viewers to buy into the transformation Nathan underwent in less than four episodes, but the rationale for turning on Peter — when he and everyone else had already turned on Nathan — is there. It wasn’t established in dialogue, and maybe it should have been, but when Nathan tells Peter that he broke his heart, Nathan’s admitting that Peter was the one person he was counting on to not betray him; and when Peter does, the only thing Nathan’s left with is his own sense of right and wrong.
So well said, its unfortunately it was too quick and small for most people, but its everything leading up to this. And it’s in Pasdar’s acting - Nathan is so angry at the world, Peter and his mother.
Great dialogue. As with pretty much all of Angela’s dialogue, it sounds crazy on paper but ends up sounding reasonable when Cristine delivers it
She made that character and what you said is why I adore her - she made Angela a 3-d woman.
Angela’s admission that she’s “a monster too” is in character, tying in very elegantly with her admission to Matt back in “Cautionary Tales” that the ElderSupers “mortgaged [their] souls” for the sake of their children. It’s also a brief but illuminating window into the way Angela feels about her life and her actions — the underlying idea being that she knows she’s doing good but that it comes at the cost of her soul and any sense of inner peace.
And why I find her so compelling. Technically a hero is person who puts aside their own feelings - their own life for others, right? In a sick way she is a Hero. And the idea that she is willing to lose her soul and all sense of inner peace is almost beautiful in a tragic way. Oh, and don’t forget she told Claire she had many regrets and why she didn’t want Claire to live her life.
Nathan pauses to look as photogenically conflicted as Pasdar can make him.
I’m very much looking forward to the way Pasdar plays his storyline in vol 4 and that is the reason. Nathan is only doing what his parents did on a larger scale and he thinks he can do it better. What Nathan needs to learn is his parents also started out with good intentions. I believe Angela thinks her secrets save the world and her family - but all it does is kill them. If you do not talk to your children they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes you did. I think it will all get out of control and out of hand and Nathan will look at what he did and his mistake - but it will be too late. It will be sad and Pasdar will be amazing.
Matt apparently paid about as little attention in high school science class as the show’s writers did. The theory of relativity says that if you move faster than light, you continue moving forwards in time, just at a slower pace than everyone else. From the perspective of the unaffected observer, you have merely aged less than you should have.
There’s also the small matter that moving at the speed of light is impossible, as it would cause your molecules to disband. It also requires a power source of such magnitude that, if present, would destroy NYC far more effectively than Exploding Peter (that would be great retcon fanfiction…”it wasn’t Peter, it was Daphne via Ando!”). Of course, in this world, superpowers don’t rely on physics.
I appreciated your being a sport, Otto, and refusing to elaborate on the violent undulations of your BS detector. I, however, could not resist. I lack your restraint.
I appreciate your reviews, as always, Otto.
Live long and prosper.
Now I’m done here.
Spring? What do you mean spring? Isn’t that like March or April? The show is scheduled to return February 2, which is the end of Winter.
Oh Otto, loved the review especially how you really laid it all out about what Nathan has been through and how he ended up where he did. It really underscores how heartbreaking it is. Their brotherly bond is one of the things I’ve always loved about the show. It is very sad to see it end, but I sure hope they reconcile at some point.
As for Flint wanting to destroy the formula, I can buy it. Sure he’s dumb, but he knew his powers made him special and he wouldn’t want that to end.
As for the body moving, I’d say Chad moved Arthur’s body before waking up Nathan. As for Chad’s, I’d say maybe Tracy?
And is it just me or was the blood that the episode title was in shaped like a gun?
Otto, enjoy the time off. I can hardly wait until February 2 and then your wonderful, entertaining review following a few days later.
Great review.
Me? I just want to focus on the excellent symmetry. Heroes is great at bookending within a volume, so that we can see the characters really come full-circle. Examples:
- Daphne and Hiro go from enemies to partners.
- Claire is involved in another hostage situation with Sylar, but this time she gives him the head slicing.
- Peter once again aims a pistol at Nathan, but this time we know that Peter is in the right.
- Mohinder’s bug-ness is eliminated by the formula. This one is a little trite, but it’s a good sign at least:
Great review as always…..
I agree what you said about the blood and the dead body disappearing… i didn’t notice that before…
Btw, when did Sylar knew that Meredith is Claire’s biological mother? They only met at this episode, right? Or maybe i miss the scene?
About Tracy, didn’t she felt so guilty by accidentally killing the reporter? and now she killed Knox so easily…
Flint maybe dumb, but i would like him to get back with his Meredith and know about Claire…
Btw about the formula, i’m confused, Peter get his ability back or just get fly from the formula. They don’t explained it…
(Correct me if i’m wrong)
At the end of the volume, it open up a lot more storyline…
Tracy and Mohinder together to do whatever their planning, maybe finding Barbara (It’ll be great to see Ali Larter playing multiple character again)…
Micah back in the show for volume 4…
I hope they bring back Molly too, she will do a great role for volume 4, and she can cause a lot of mess if she was captured (hope not)…
I read somewhere that they will bring back blonde female hero, to the show (not Elle), so i’m guessing they will bring back Meredith…
Re: Daphne travelling back in time… I don’t get the problem with it. The Flash can time-travel using a ‘cosmic treadmill’ style logic.
This episode likely won’t air here (Australia) until mid-January… which gives me more time to download all the graphic novels I only recently found out about. Because otherwise Echo will be nothing more than a red-shirt to me when this episode does get here. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, they’ll put the webisodes on the season 3 DVD set as extras.
Oh, and regarding your BS Detector… you are aware, aren’t you, that the Detect Plot Hole ability causes only blindness and insanity in the Heroes universe?
Ando has always been the hero who helps other heroes, so having a power that helps other powers makes great sense. I hope we get to see Ando supercharging some of the heroes we haven’t seen enough of. Like Molly, Micah, and Monica.
“Is there any good in this world? Tell me something — anything. Just make me believe that you’re not the same as me…”
Fantastic dialogue, I agree, but what about the thing Sylar says at the beginning about proving that we are all monsters “exactly like him”?
I really, really enjoy Zach’s performance in this episode. Yeah, we’ve seen how manipulative he can be in the previous two seasons, but he’s either trying to gain more powers or fighting for his survival. There’s always been a reason. But now? He deliberately goes and shuts down Primatech, just to mess with the characters’ minds. Very similar to Jigsaw and Joker, yes, but the character is played phenomenally. The shot where Sylar suddenly turns around and TK-holds Angela scares the bejeesus out of me.
Anyway, thanks for the superb review, Otto. I’ll definitely come back for more!
I think vol.4 should be called the Extinction Agenda.
Steve, thank you, I’m glad you liked this one. Happy holidays to you too.
ThePandoraRose, thank you. I (sadly) agree: there were missed opportunities in this volume to get beneath the characters’ skins. It looks like the next volume will be much more character-based, so let’s hope.
I agree about Hiro’s bow to Tracy being an improv. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the emerging pattern seems to be that Masi always comes up with this stuff when Beeman directs. For whatever reason, Beeman seems to get the best performances out of him.
“Technically a hero is person who puts aside their own feelings - their own life for others, right? In a sick way [Angela] is a Hero.”
I would have disagreed before this volume, but I’m on the fence now. From what we’ve seen of Angela in this volume — her backstory with Arthur, her prophetic dreams, the decisions she’s been forced to make — I think she’s starting to look a lot like HRG: kind of an ends-justify-the-means anti-hero. Her intentions are ultimately good, but her methods vilify her.
“Oh, and don’t forget she told Claire she had many regrets and why she didn’t want Claire to live her life.”
Totally. I thought that factored a lot into the look she gave Claire after Sylar took the shard of glass to the head. I think it’s fair to say that Claire has experienced all of the “madness” that Angela was trying to shield her from. Based on the clip the show released of their scene in 3.14, it seems like Angela’s going to take it upon herself to recreate a “normal” adolescence for Claire. In a way, do you think Angela’s trying to give Claire the sheltered life she wishes she could have had herself?
“Nathan is only doing what his parents did on a larger scale and he thinks he can do it better.”
I dunno about this. I get what you’re trying to say, but I think there are big differences. The Company was striving to bring people with abilities together — to unify them and harness their capacity for good (although the word “good” is of course relative). Nathan seemed to be more interested in using evolutionary advantages as a weapon, even if his goal was pretty much the same. So, I kind of agree with your point, but it strikes me that The Company’s focus was more on the group and the people, whereas Nathan’s focus was more on what he could achieve with lots of special abilities at his disposal.
“If you do not talk to your children they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes you did.”
I wondered about this too: why, when Peter was so determined to prove he could fly, Angela didn’t just say, “Well, yeah, you can.” Dramatic necessity, I guess.
“I think it will all get out of control and out of hand and Nathan will look at what he did and his mistake - but it will be too late.”
And THAT’S exactly what I’m hoping will be awesome about this next volume: that it’ll be impossible to turn the clock back and undo everything the way lots of stuff was undone at the end of this volume. This storyline basically forces the show to change and deal with the ramifications.
Brandon — well done for calling the show on the BS!
I thought Ian’s point upthread was very interesting: why do we pounce on this and never have any issues with Hiro teleporting or Nathan flying? Could it be that trying to apply real-life physics to sci-fi/fantasy concepts underlines how hokey they are? It’s as if steering clear of an explanation would make the premise more believable. In which case, the lesson seems to be, “Don’t try to give any concept any kind of logical framework — not unless it really DOES make sense.”
Susan: yes, by spring, I do of course mean February 2nd.
I’m with you on the Petrelli brothers’ dynamic being a staple part of the show. That’s why I applaud the show for shaking it up. It’s like they’re challenging themselves to uproot core elements of their show to see if they can make the drama even more compelling.
“And is it just me or was the blood that the episode title was in shaped like a gun?”
That I didn’t notice — great catch. One detail along similar lines that jumped out at me was the wound on Flint’s face resembling the S-helix. That was also cool.
Ian, great point about the symmetry in the volume. I caught a lot of the same ones, but with Mohinder’s, it struck me as very fitting that Ando ended up injecting himself at Mohinder’s apartment, and that he ended up with an ability without side-effects when his motives were selfless. It kind of goes back to a point KellyH made about the lack of hope in this volume; the message here seems to be that good intentions and courage sometimes are rewarded.
Jimmy, thank you. Great call on Sylar not knowing that Meredith and Claire were related. I can’t remember how he might: anyone got anything? I guess he might have found out through Noah or Angela early on in the season. Elle or Arthur might have known as well.
On Molly and Micah returning: word.
Myrystyr, I recommend the graphic novels. Some are better than others, but there’s a lot of great stuff in there about how Arthur and Linderman became friends, what happened to Hana Gitelman after she disappeared in Season One, how Meredith and Flint grew up and how Thompson had a son who was also a Company agent … The only sucky part — as I’ve mentioned now and then — is when the storylines on the show don’t jive with the storylines in the GNs.
“I hope we get to see Ando supercharging some of the heroes we haven’t seen enough of.”
I’d also be really curious to see what would happen if Ando zapped Peter or Sylar.
Jonathan,
“… what about the thing Sylar says at the beginning about proving that we are all monsters ‘exactly like him’?”
Yeah, I wondered the same thing. Any thoughts? The speculation I’m leaning towards is that Sylar secretly hoped Angela would prove him wrong: that, even if she wasn’t a symbol of hope and virtue herself, she’d kindle a spark inside him to offset his darkness. It seemed like an indication that even if Sylar’s now back to the murderous rampage routine, he’s as self-aware as he was throughout this volume.
ThePandoraRose, thank you. I (sadly) agree: there were missed opportunities in this volume to get beneath the characters’ skins. It looks like the next volume will be much more character-based, so let’s hope.
I hope. If it turns into Prison Break it may break my heart. The characters are why I watch the show and the missed stuf pains me if they never had a reason to go there, but they did.
I agree about Hiro’s bow to Tracy being an improv. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the emerging pattern seems to be that Masi always comes up with this stuff when Beeman directs. For whatever reason, Beeman seems to get the best performances out of him.
Great example of good directing - bringing those kinds of things out in a character.
I would have disagreed before this volume, but I’m on the fence now. From what we’ve seen of Angela in this volume — her backstory with Arthur, her prophetic dreams, the decisions she’s been forced to make — I think she’s starting to look a lot like HRG: kind of an ends-justify-the-means anti-hero. Her intentions are ultimately good, but her methods vilify her.
I feel like this volume has backed up everything I thought about Angela, as an HRG type character - it all feels very organic based on the small shards of clues they set out in two seasons. Glad you agree. And Grey suits Cristine and the series in a long run much better and highly entertaining.
Totally. I thought that factored a lot into the look she gave Claire after Sylar took the shard of glass to the head.
Wow, that’s so beautiful. I didn’t even think of it that way and it’s so true, so true. I wondered since the start of the season if it wasn’t just the idea of a normal life, but that Angela had seen future Claire in her dreams.
I think it’s fair to say that Claire has experienced all of the “madness” that Angela was trying to shield her from. Based on the clip the show released of their scene in 3.14, it seems like Angela’s going to take it upon herself to recreate a “normal” adolescence for Claire.
Totally. It fits into almost what the Haitian said to Noah, “Someone higher up in your daughters life,” and Angela’s answer to Noah’s, “I’m her family,” - meaning Angela saying “No, I am . You’re the person we gave her to.” Now I believe now Angela respects Noah and knows how he helped give Claire a normal life as much as he could - that he has protected her, but when it comes down to it Claire is her blood and she will guide the girl. If that makes sense. She sent her away to have a normal life and it was disrupted and so that scene just seems like a continuation of it all. Along with Angela pretty much getting Claire into the best school because of her clout and money. Angela seems to see an elite education as a gift SHE is giving to Claire and something she deserves as her blood - and really her only female heir - it makes sense she has an investment in her to such a degree.
In a way, do you think Angela’s trying to give Claire the sheltered life she wishes she could have had herself?
I hate to use the world sheltered, but yes. Angela tells Claire she wants to give Claire what she never had: choice. The maturity to understand her actions - to not have to live the Company life - a life the madness brings. I love how in .07 percent Angela says “you deserve better,” it fits into all we’re saying. I think Angela knew all of this before she got all her bad memories back - via Linderman, but it was just solidified. It would seem before her memories we’re restored she was fine with Peter being apart of that life, but after - not so much. If you look back at the police station scene in the pilot you can see it now as a woman not calling just saying her son is not his own man, but saying it because she does care (I always thought she did, but ya know) The world is cruel and if you don’t put yourself first Nathan will do to you what the world and your father did to me. Angela I believe was crushed by life and I’ll get more into that with something else you brought up later.
Its like the Haitian says “What they will do to you NOT even you will recover from.” and “Your getting the benefit of my experience.” (Angela) For sure Angela is trying as hard as she can that Claire doesn’t become HER. And now that I think about the college scene again I am reminded that odds are Angela was married very young (to have Nathan AND be played by Ms. Rose), a woman of her generation - and with her power a dreamer odds are - who was thrown into the hard world with out experience, with out a college education - relaying on her husband and his world and there was no escape.
I dunno about this. I get what you’re trying to say, but I think there are big differences. The Company was striving to bring people with abilities together — to unify them and harness their capacity for good (although the word “good” is of course relative). Nathan seemed to be more interested in using evolutionary advantages as a weapon, even if his goal was pretty much the same. So, I kind of agree with your point, but it strikes me that The Company’s focus was more on the group and the people, whereas Nathan’s focus was more on what he could achieve with lots of special abilities at his disposal.
Oh, yes… no I didn’t mean THAT plan. You are correct. I mean what seems to be Nathan’s new plan ’round up people who dangerous.” Stephan Caulfield is the best example - and how I think Nathan see’s Peter etc. Although honestly he is also terribly angry and bitter and much like Arthur it is fueling him… anyway. Stephan meant well, but his power made him dangerous to others… like his neighbor.
I wondered about this too: why, when Peter was so determined to prove he could fly, Angela didn’t just say, “Well, yeah, you can.” Dramatic necessity, I guess.
Yes, I know, it’s hard and it was before much of Angela’s history was developed by the writers, but I see this as a big Angela mistake. I think she believes her secrets save her family, but in the end it kills it. It would seem know that Angela DID think Peter would be a great man and I wonder if when he manifested - much like any right of passage in societies - his parents may have come out and brought him into the fold. However after Linderman restored her memories (and I believe she had ALL her memories restored, ever bad one coming back in one swoop and it changed her) I think she felt (and maybe the new plan using Nathan too) she didn’t want him in that life anymore - after all she saw what ultimate power did to Arthur - he lost his soul. If Peter had listened to Angela and never went looking for his destiny he may have never met another special, so to speak. If an empath doesn’t meet a special we’re they ever an empath at all. And for all we knew she dreamed him dead at homecoming. Whatever it was I think Angela thought better he thinks he’s crazy than his dead, literally or figuratively. Not to mention we don’t know when it dawned on her Future Peter was creating all her bad dreams - she changes who he becomes she’s changed history. I however don’t think she thought Peter was the bomb. if that we’re true than the plan would be to let him go after his destiny. Stopping him and trying to keep him home would have stopped him from becoming the bomb and so forth.
And THAT’S exactly what I’m hoping will be awesome about this next volume: that it’ll be impossible to turn the clock back and undo everything the way lots of stuff was undone at the end of this volume. This storyline basically forces the show to change and deal with the ramifications.
and for the first time I’m going “how are they going to get out of this.” I also think it shows you what can happen from the get go - we have seen Nathan’s decent into what happened to his parents. It’s harder for people sometimes to see it going back wards - meaning after having ideas about Angela and Linderman - and here (Which I have never seen) we are seeing it in order. I hope this will lead to 70’s flashbacks. And as much as I want Peter and Nathan to not BE SO at odds (I like it when they love and fight) it’s an amazing idea that is loaded with potential, if they play it right. Their one ace in the hole is Pasdar’s acting and the incoming Mr. Fuller.. so maybe two.
I have to say, I would’ve given this episode a 5 out of 5 but you make an excellent argument for your case, as usual!
Though, one complaint: how do you NOT have a screencap of Tracy’s face after Hiro punches her? Seriously! That scene was priceless! All three actors - Masi Oka, Brea Grant, and Ali Larter- totally sold that scene and made it the funniest thing in the episode for me. Hiro’s awkward manners get followed up by Tracy literally being FLOORED that somebody stood up to her and knocked her off her high horse (as if getting fired by Nathan wasn’t enough).
It was genius.
Though, now I’m curious as to what will become of the Nathan/Tracy relationship since, as we saw in the future episode, she was his First Lady. And the only major element that for sure has changed about that future we saw was that Sylar almost certainly won’t have a kid anymore.
Anyway, excellent review. Hilarious and terribly insightful, as usual.
Thanks for the recommendation on the graphic novels! From the ones I have read, they do seem like a good expansion/exploration of the Heroes universe.
I was watching some episodes again of The Molly Walker Show (aka season 2) yesterday, and it made me realise:
Matt has gone through the entirety of season 3 without asking Mohinder about where his adopted daughter is!!!
I’m hoping Janice slaps him real hard when she returns. Niki super-strength hard.
Otto, I hope you see this in time to respond. I’m sorry I didn’t comment on the 3×12 review–way too much going on in “real life” right now. Anyhow…so much to say, I’ve got to be selective.
I think EVERYONE has missed something very elegant about the way volume 3 ended (more specifically, the way volume 4 begins). Remember that forgotten scene where future-Claire tries to shoot future-Peter, but doesn’t succeed, and future-Peter goes back in time to shoot Nathan? WHAT WAS THE ALTERNATE FUTURE THEN?? Bingo. A world where supers are hunted. Then, in episode 4, we get the alternate future where Nathan is involved with creating supers and bestowing abilities. That future now obviously does note play out. Future-Peter’s butterflies are astounding. But this turn of Nathan’s in going to Pres. Worf? This….brings the entire volume in an entire gift-wrapped circle. We may not be back where we started from in the present, but we sure are in the future–do you see what I’m saying? This ties that opening scene up in a long-forgotten “supers-are-hunted” alternate future with a nice symmetrical bow. Sure, it raises the inevitability card, but it also gives me hope. Changing the future won’t necessarily make it better, and it won’t necessarily make it worse. Both alt-futures were bad, but destiny, it appears, chose between them. For some reason, I find that very elegant. How many people remember that the first scene of this volume was about an alt-future where supers are hunted and rounded up like lab rats? And in EITHER future, Nathan is pivotal.
As for whether Tracy will end up as first lady? Well, that’s in the “invalid” alt-future now.
And on the subject of alt-futures, it looks like they’re opening the door up to pick up some loose threads. While Micah and Monica probably shouldn’t be back as regulars, recurring scenes with them wouldn’t be awful, so they don’t dangle. There are other reasons to hope to. God help me (I know!) but I still hope that the show’s root timeline will catch up to where Peter left Caitlin. Has anybody found any sort of leaks about Katie Carr shooting anything for “Heroes?” I got the impression that Kring, Coleite, Pokaski and others were made WELL aware of fan annoyance with the character’s fate being left unknown, and I can’t imagine they won’t do something–anything, even if the character is offscreen–about that.
Couple of questions. Why doesn’t Arthur revive when the Haitian leaves? Wouldn’t be the same as Claire and Sylar reviving when the ecclipse ends? Too complicated and a question you’re not supposed to ask, I guess. Secondly, how the HELL did Tracy and Mohinder get out of Pinehearst Inferno. Especially after Tracy was pwned by Hiro? Again, guess we’re not supposed to ask…
Sylar–you just have to sigh. Kring has man-love for the character that he just can’t let go. What I’d love is for Fuller to somehow manage a coup and step in as show director. Then he can bring Lee Pace in as a guest star playing a character with the ability to bring people back to life without the benefit of magik blood or time travel and Anna Friel as yet another of “Heroes’” resurrected characters and Chi McBride as one of Nathan’s mercenary non-super operatives and Kristin Chenoweth–damn, she signed with David E. Kelley yesterday so forget that, and maybe we find out that Vivian Charles broke with her sister, married a watchmaker named Grey, changed her name and started collecting snow globes and…oh, never mind, I’m still in mourning!!
I think a lot of the missing dialogue could be read between the lines. If HRG recognized Claire in the past, then it follows without too much of a leap that Kaito figured out who the chef was eventually–sometime before Hiro grew up. Kaito may be into inevitability, which is why his posthumous video somehow knew Hiro would open the safe…oh, dear God, it is headache-inducing, but I’m inclined to roll with it.
Hope you see see this post, Otto. Other than the show’s persistent love affair with Sylar and my total inability to get past the Caitlin-dangling, I’m pretty inclined to trust the writers these days.
Aye Kelly - I said to people back when 304 was getting panned that the ep was foreshadowing… and mostly people ignored it. But look at where we are:
We’ve got Daphne and Matt together… Ando has an ability… Peter and Nathan are at war… Claire’s a killer… Sylar can emotionally connect to people. This show is one of the best on TV for symmetry.
Sorry about the numerous misspellings and typos in the previous post (”ecclipse” was particularly embarrassing). Anyway, Otto, just FYI on the spelling of “dual/duel.” If it is in fact “dual,” than your URL for this review should reflect that. Right now it’s “duel.” Changing it would probably be a headache with links and backlinks, though.
To KellyH: apparently, there’s great speculation that Tracy was never supposed to get out of Pinehearst or that she actually supposed to die at some point in 3.13 “Dual.” This is simply based on the fact that she had three or four short scenes and one of them was a mysteriously placed pick up of Mohinder that really makes the viewer feel like something’s missing - like it was a scene that was filmed and added in at the last minute. This theory is also based on the fact that Kristin Dos Santos (E!Online) said that the writers changed their mind about killing one of the blondes and are giving her a second chance…Perhaps it was Tracy?
Ryan - very possibly. But it could also be that the scene with Mohinder was actually Barbara, and they merely cut out some dialogue. So Tracy would die, and they’d intro Barbara.
In saying that, I’m glad Tracy is still around. Larter’s done well with the character, and there’s a fair bit of character beats left.
Great review.:)
Otto,
Once again, an excellent review. I couldn’t have said it better myself. It was certainly nice to end a volume that made me extremely happy and frustrated at the same time, on a reasonably good note. I had only one minor issue with Sylar this episode and it was that line where he says he could have been a nobody. Maybe I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that being a nobody was Sylar’s worst nithmare, that he killed other supers so he could be the most special person in the world. Perhaps with all he’s been through this season, this need to be special is no longer a factor. I guess that’s what the whole “hunger” plotline was about?
Anywho, I also saw on a spoilersite that the writers said that Hiro and Claire did indeed change a few things when they went back in time, much like Future Peter did. Im wondering if they’ll keep this promise, but i could be interesting. It would seem to me that quite a few things could have gotten messed up. I enjoyed Kaito attacking “Chef” Hiro with the kensei sword as much as you, but didn’t Hiro spend most of season 1 trting to steal that sword from Linderman, not Kaito. Did Kaito give the sword to Linderman? Did Linderman steal it from Kaito? I gather that the 2 of them were probably on different sides during the ElderSuper schism. It’s a very small plot detail that really doesnt matter. But it piqued my curiosity. I wonder if Hiro realized that the sword that “restored his powers” was a decoration in his house when he was 10.
I really enjoy your reviews, they’re the only ones that matter. Is there any chance you’ll do a review for the entire volume?
I love your reviews.
I even sometimes feel like you make up for things left unexplained. As an exemple why Sylar killed Elle, like you said it might have been implied but I would have missed it if I didn’t read your review(I almost felt a “who cares” when I saw Claire’s reaction to “what you’re dad and Elle did to me).
I guess you’re explaination is better to the nearly none given by the show (same with CBR sometimes, it just feels like they wanna please fans sometimes).
Looking forward for next volume, who I think (and hope) will be, as you said a change and also a come back to what (part of) made the success of the serie with more character based plot.
I guess we’ll just wait to see what’s coming
Bravo, well done!
I have never seen a webisode and I don’t kep up with the graphic novels, so I was completely clueless about Echo. Didn’t know he had a name. In fact, when his corpse was shown, the camera stayed on him just long enough for me to realize it wasn’t a nameless security guard, and just short enough for me to think “Huh? Was that Knox?”
Otherwise, loved the episode and loved your review. Just lay off the Worf references for the rest of Chapter four and we’ll get along just fine.
Merry Christmas.
~Gord
Kristin is very much wrong most of the time. But I think the reprieve was Daphne. Brea has said her episodes are far beyond the small amount she was first signed for.
I have a quick question. Does anyone else have a problem getting the reviews from Herosite? I check regularly, but mine didn’t come up until the morning of the 22d, whereas I see that it was originally posted, and people have been commenting on it, since the 19th. Odd.
Anyway, Otto, that was a TERRIFIC review. I had almost exactly the same take as you regarding Nathan. I think he just snapped. I realize that he’s supposed to be the stronger of the brothers, but I’ve never seen him that way. Rather, he seems to be the opposite, always doing what is expected of him, trying to make mom and dad proud, never discovering his own individuality or ethos. After everything that’s happened to him, he just went quietly bazonkers. This is not the same guy who saved Pete and got fried in the nuclear fires. He burnt ALL his bridges in this one.
Or did he? I didn’t see any folders on Claire, Peter, Angela or even Meredith. Is he protecting his family? Or is he protecting himself from guuilt by association? I’m really looking forward to finding out.
MANY kudos to Adrian Pasdar for this episode. I thought there were several moments when he was practically channelling Arthur. Creepy. Chilling. Disturbing. Yay!
Very excited by about the new volume. I know it will be dark, but I do hope it doesn’t get TOO “Days of Future Past” with us.
Honestly, when the subtitle ‘End of Volume Three’ came onscreen I let out a sigh… but not a negative one in any way.
This Volume was fast paced, full of gaping plot holes, and inexplicably contrived character arcs… but dammnit it was fun! Not one Monday passed between September 22nd and December 15th without the thrill of a fun ‘Heroes’ episode… whether it was poorly written or not.
I DO hope that Volume 4 brings us the quiet character building arcs of Volume 1, but with a new edge. As you stated Otto, all the conventions that the show has become accustomed to (making the Company the villains behind it all, using time travel as the central plot device to explain the mission) are now long gone.
The tagline for Vol. 4 says it all ‘…they’ll need each other’… this already gives an emotional edge to the next Volume. The villains are US now… the normal people are the ones to fear… Kind of an ‘X-Men United’ feel, but an appropriate turn that the show needs.
I very much look foward to John Glover’s turn as the real father of our favorite head slicing super villain Sylar. And Bryan Fuller’s return to the show make a deep impression.
Your reviews have been brilliant Otto! Enjoy the Holiday break, and hope to be reading your first review come the week after Vol. 4 episode 1 ‘Clear and Present Danger’.
To KellyH:
Why doesn’t Arthur revive when the Haitian leaves? Wouldn’t be the same as Claire and Sylar reviving when the ecclipse ends? Too complicated and a question you’re not supposed to ask, I guess.
I think the bullet became lodged in Arthur’s brain, which would deactivate all of his abilities (including Adam’s healing ability) unless/until the bullet is removed. It is the same concept with the glass shard lodged in Sylar’s brain. (also in Season 1, the branch that was lodged in Claire’s brain and the glass shard in Peter’s brain).
Regarding Claire’s and Sylar’s “deaths” during the eclipse, there was nothing lodged in their brains so they recovered instantly when the eclipse ended.
Assuming that Arthur’s body burned while the bullet was still in his brain, he’s gone and he’s not coming back. Or, even if his body didn’t burn, if it naturally decomposes while the bullet is in his brain, he’s also gone. It’s also a lot harder to remove a bullet from a brain than a tree branch or a glass shard.
Same thing COULD happen with Sylar, if they really wanted to kill him off. However, knowing the show, they’re probably going to revive him with one of the following:
1) the glass shard falls out
2) the glass shard is knocked out by a piece of falling debris
3) somebody in Primatech removes the glass shard
4) somebody in Primatech takes Sylar’s body to someplace else, and then removes the glass shard
If Peter did get back the mimic ability, and not just flying, wouldnt he have also absorbed both suresh’s and flint’s abilities?
Korey - it depends. Peter wanted to save Nathan, so perhaps he just absorbed that ability. Maybe this time Peter will only be able to access abilities he actually needs when he needs them, rather than being super powerful all the time.
John - I concur. There’s been issues for me with Volume III, but even the worst ep (308) delivered one tremendous scene.
Happy New Year, everyone! My apologies for the delayed response, but thank you for all the feedback.
ThePandoraRose, awesome post. Couple of thoughts:
“I think [Angela] … didn’t want [Peter] in that life anymore - after all she saw what ultimate power did to Arthur.”
I agree — that’s probably the most likely explanation. Do you think Angela even realized Peter was going to become an empath, though?
One other possibility that came to mind is that Angela and Arthur might have given up on Peter’s potential as a special: we know Arthur was disappointed in Peter’s hesitation and lack of resolve, and there’s the scene in 1.23 between Angela and Charles when Angela dismisses the idea of Peter being the one to lead them. Angela might have figured that, even if Peter did end up manifesting an ability, he’d be too weak-minded and indecisive to know what to do with it. So, perhaps, she decided it was best — for everyone — if he never discovered his ability at all.
Ryan,
“One complaint: how do you NOT have a screencap of Tracy’s face after Hiro punches her? Seriously!”
Heh. Point taken, and I agree, Tracy’s expression was as amusing as Daphne’s.
“Now I’m curious as to what will become of the Nathan/Tracy relationship since, as we saw in the future episode, she was his First Lady.”
I can easily see Tracy manipulating her way back into Nathan’s life, but another really cool theory out there is that it’ll be Barbara who ends up becoming the First Lady.
Myrystyr,
“Matt has gone through the entirety of season 3 without asking Mohinder about where his adopted daughter is!!!”
Good point, although in Matt’s defense, it’s not like he and Mohinder have talked all that much, and it’s not like Matt’s had much chance to ask Mohinder where Molly is. Could it be that Mohinder called Matt before he sent Molly away, or that he at least texted or left a message on Matt’s cell phone before sending her away? I agree, though: it would’ve been cool to see Matt and Mohinder making that decision together.
KellyH, I love the “alt-future” theory. I’m wondering if the whole carved-in-stone predestination angle goes all the way back to “FYG”: it probably wouldn’t be called the Linderman Act now, but I can see Nathan getting the same bill passed and Sylar’s assertion that Nathan “turned on his own kind” turning out to have some truth to it.
“Why doesn’t Arthur revive when the Haitian leaves?”
I could definitely go with Jason’s theory upthread, although (without meaning to get into the morbid specifics) it looked to me like the bullet went clean through his head. My take on it was that — as per Future-Peter’s death in 3.04 — if you’re a regenerator who’s shot while the Haitian’s around, you’re dead. The rule seems to be that if the Haitian’s around when the gunshot wound occurs, there’s no retro-regeneration the way there is with a shard of glass or a tree root — or even with a bullet while outright powerless the way Claire was in 3.11. For whatever reason, if the Haitian nullifies your ability when the bullet hits you, there’s no regenerating from it later.
“Secondly, how the HELL did Tracy and Mohinder get out of Pinehearst Inferno.”
Tracy was dazed after Hiro punched her, but she was still conscious, so it’s not too hard to imagine her escaping. Mohinder’s as resilient as a cockroach, so I’m guessing he was just really lucky. He did have a few cuts and bruises when Tracy found him, so I guess that’s something.
Dude, that Heroes/PD crossover pitch is awesome. You should write a fanfic for it.
“Otto, just FYI on the spelling of ‘dual/duel.’ If it is in fact ‘dual,’ than your URL for this review should reflect that. Right now it’s ‘duel.’”
Hah! Great catch. Mea culpa.
Drew, I’m with you on Sylar’s “special/nobody” about-turn. It needed more attention, and it’s another reason why this volume-ender should have been a two-parter. My take on it was that Sylar’s “Petrelli days” screwed him up, at least to the point where he’s capable of at least some twisted form of empathy and remorse. Perhaps it’s not so much a case of Sylar’s quest to be special becoming a non-issue; perhaps it’s more that there are now two sides to him (heh — a duality, get it? Sorry…), and one of those sides realizes the horrors he’s responsible for. Maybe that ties in with the whole “Is there any good in this world?” plea he made to Angela in the Primatech office.
Kensei’s sword: I’m guessing it’s one of your two theories, but most likely the second — Linderman stole the sword from Kaito. As one of Adam’s most devout disciples, he probably thought he was more entitled to protect it.
Daniel,
“I really enjoy your reviews, they’re the only ones that matter. Is there any chance you’ll do a review for the entire volume?”
Thanks, man. I’m not planning to do a volume review, mostly because of what we’re doing in comments threads like this one — putting the episode into a broader context — but I really like the idea.
Pascal, thank you.
Gord, thank you, as always.
“I have never seen a webisode and I don’t kep up with the graphic novels, so I was completely clueless about Echo.”
Probably best to keep it that way. It’s less exasperating.
“Just lay off the Worf references for the rest of Chapter four and we’ll get along just fine. :)”
Hah! I make no promises.
Kevin,
“Does anyone else have a problem getting the reviews from Herosite? I check regularly, but mine didn’t come up until the morning of the 22d, whereas I see that it was originally posted, and people have been commenting on it, since the 19th. Odd.”
The main page update is sometimes a few days behind the day the review is published. It’s rare for the delay to be more than a day, but it happens, and I’m sorry for that; it’s unfortunately out of my control. If you wanted to check out a review sooner, I recommend visiting THIS PAGE on the Thursday evening after an episode airs. They’re usually published by then.
“I didn’t see any folders on Claire, Peter, Angela or even Meredith. Is he protecting his family? Or is he protecting himself from guuilt by association?”
I’m thinking it’s the first of those two, although [MINOR SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH] based on clips of 3.14, it looks like Claire and Peter both end up getting apprehended. It could also be that Nathan’s wary about incriminating himself and making his sons targets in the process.
Korey, great point about Peter absorbing Flint and Mohinder’s abilities. I’d be curious to find out how quickly an empath can absorb another ability — I guess it depends on the ability — but also how many abilities an empath can absorb at the same time. Peter only had a few seconds to absorb Nathan’s flight and get them both out of Pinehearst; could it be that his absorption was “maxed out” and too busy to absorb any more abilities?
You said, “So, presumably, Peter now has the option to either visit every super he ever knew (and who’s still alive) with the aim to re-absorb the abilities he used to have … Or Peter (and for that, read the show’s writers) will be a little smarter about which supers he comes into contact with, and this time he won’t end up with an armada of abilities that can only be controlled by amnesia, body-swapping or power-sucking.”
It’s possible that Peter will have all his old powers back, because Claude taught him how to recall them from memory. He never lost his memory, just his ability to turn memories into powers.
Even if Daphne hadn’t come to save him, Hiro could have still gotten back home. Al he had to do was wait for his mom’s funeral, go talk to his slightly younger self, and ask for a ride home.
Otto, thanks for the input, My only problem with him being overloaded or only to take one at a time, is that in the finally episode of season 1, even when he couldnt control the nuclear power he still absorbed but Niki and D.L.’s abilities. When he was around Parkman, Claire and Ted, He already had Parkman and Claires ability so getting Teds wasnt a big deal. Then in the bank heist, He basically got flint’s and The Banshee wannabes ability, so wouldnt he have also got Knoxes as well.
ThePandoraRose, awesome post. Couple of thoughts:
Well, back at ya. As I detox into the spoiler free zone your intelligence toward the show will get me through it all.
I agree — that’s probably the most likely explanation. Do you think Angela even realized Peter was going to become an empath, though?
Ya, know good point. I keep having to remember that with Sylar no longer a Petrelli handing down the gene for a power base may not be true - although it still seems very likely. That Matt could have been like Candice as much as he could have had his father’s ability verbatim. I like to think she did - with her ability - she really did think he would be a great man. All the reasons I think once she saw the reality of the world that she saw he was no longer up to being that man… at least not yet, but more on that below.
One other possibility that came to mind is that Angela and Arthur might have given up on Peter’s potential as a special: we know Arthur was disappointed in Peter’s hesitation and lack of resolve, and there’s the scene in 1.23 between Angela and Charles when Angela dismisses the idea of Peter being the one to lead them. Angela might have figured that, even if Peter did end up manifesting an ability, he’d be too weak-minded and indecisive to know what to do with it. So, perhaps, she decided it was best — for everyone — if he never discovered his ability at all.
Oh, ABSOLUTELY! And its a little on what I was meaning before (it’s that fine line that can be both and or go both ways)I think for all the reasons she loved him - his heart - and what in her optimist she saw him being a great man - is what in the cold hard reality of her healed memories made her see him as weak. The scene in Out of Time makes me think that she knows Peter still has that in him, but for Angela it’s fish or cut bate. Either you can get the job done now… or not… the future is at hand. In the web episode Angela goes on about people who waste their potential. There is also the idea of… when did Angela find out all the bad futures she saw Peter caused, or maybe it was always Nathan? Angela also never seems to refer to Future Peter as her son - he is no longer the boy she loves - Future Peter killed him, in a way, but I digress. I think its what you said and what I said - it’s all connected. And I think it all changed in Angela’s head when Linderman healed her memories and everything came back - it scared her emotional and turned her into the woman who tries to teach Peter the ways of the cruel world in the police station.
On another note I do wonder if she fears for Peter and Claire the future of Adam Monroe (There is a lot of evidence to suggest if she saw Future Peter, she saw Future Claire). Once Adam was revealed it made me up Angela at Peter’s bedside (coma) and her talk with Claire into another perspective. Did she fear what being immortal can do to one, over time - once she’s long gone. Peter just by himself could be so dangerous. And I did always feel that Angela telling Peter he was crazy was her way of keeping him off the trail - of going toward his full potential. If an empath never meets another special, was he ever an empath at all? Not to mention she had to know that a melt down could kill him - I do believe she feared for his life at his bed side. Again, I digress. Angela see’s her lies as protection, but of course they aren’t. If she kept Peter to herself he might never become the monster Arthur became, or disenchanted like Adam. What is so story book about Heroes to me as all our Heroes are at their cores - Broken hearts. Arthur, not so much on screen, but the writers told Robert is one weakness is Angela. Which shows that as much as Arthur is pushed on revenege it’s not as much as for Angela trying to kill him, but because she choose Nathan over him. After all… a man like that can respect the poisoning.. I half joke there.
Okay, I’ve lost my train of thought… your turn.
Thom Stark, I agree, Peter getting back all his abilities is very much an option.
If the show wanted to curb Peter’s omnipotence, though, this seemed like a smart way to do it. Do you think Peter’s recollection of the people he absorbed abilities from would be enough to restore those abilities? Remembering those people activates the abilities, but wouldn’t Peter still need to absorb the abilities in order for them to be available? I guess it depends on how extensive Arthur’s power-sucking whammy was, but I’d be surprised if his system could “remember” the abilities it absorbed before they were removed. That’s just a theory, though.
Scott,
“…Hiro could have still gotten back home. Al he had to do was wait for his mom’s funeral, go talk to his slightly younger self, and ask for a ride home.”
Heh, sure, but do you think the younger Hiro’s ability would have manifested yet? I’m guessing Hiro wouldn’t have been able use his abilities until sometime around the eclipse in 1.01 — even with the older Hiro “coaching” him — so Present-Hiro still would have had a long wait ahead of him.
Korey, yeah, Kirby Plaza occurred to me too. The thing that struck me as different was the length of time Peter had to absorb all those abilities. He had, what, about a minute at Kirby Plaza, and less than 10 seconds at Pinehearst? Something like that. Maybe the absorption ability had more time to work its way through the selection, so to speak. I’m mostly leaning towards that theory because it explains why Peter never (at least as far as we know) absorbed Micah or Molly’s abilities. His absorption whammy was like, “Superstrength? Check. Phasing? Check. Technopathy and Super-GPS? Ch- … Oh, crap — going nuclear!”
ThePandoraRose,
“I keep having to remember that with Sylar no longer a Petrelli handing down the gene for a power base may not be true - although it still seems very likely.”
I’d like to think so. Somehow, that makes the family saga more epic.
“I like to think [Angela] did - with her ability - she really did think [Peter] would be a great man.”
Yeah, although I’d be interested to see a moment on the show when Angela qualifies “great man” as “a man who doesn’t necessarily have special abilities.” Looking at that “you were always my favorite” scene in 1.02 or the “I’ve always wanted a nurse in the family” scene in 1.10, I’d say Angela adored Peter before he ever manifested abilities. I wonder how much of that comes from her feeling sorry for him or wanting to protect him because he was too absent-minded to protect himself; but perhaps, in a way, it would have been a relief to Angela if Peter had never discovered his abilities. Like you say, it ensured that Peter would never become his father.
I also wonder if the Sylar nightmare really did happen, and whether — between that and Arthur turning into a lunatic — Angela decided that superpowers were more trouble than they were worth. Maybe she decided Peter could be a “great man” without any abilities, and maybe that’s why she never revealed to either son what their family could do.
“Angela also never seems to refer to Future Peter as her son - he is no longer the boy she loves - Future Peter killed him, in a way…”
Yes, although I’m wondering whether that goes both ways, and whether Future-Peter might have blamed Angela for the way he and everything else turned out. I don’t think Future-Peter’s contempt towards Angela in 3.01 and 3.02 was purely about the formula; I got the impression that there was a throwdown between them sometime in the next four years, and that Peter basically decided to take a stand and make things happen instead of watching them happen (the way Angela does). That’s probably where his sense of superiority started, and where his definition of a “great man” began to take shape.
“(There is a lot of evidence to suggest if she saw Future Peter, she saw Future Claire)”
Very interesting point. I hadn’t thought of that. It would explain why Angela’s trying so hard to steer Claire’s life in 3.14.
Otto, that’s not what I meant.
In season 2, after Hiro returned from Ancient Japan, he found out his father was killed. After that, he went back to just before his dad was killed. He then popped both of them back to the time of his mom’s funeral.
All he had to do was wait for their conversation to end (so as not to further disrupt time too much) and ask himself for help before he pops back to the present.
He wouldn’t have had long to wait at all since his mom just died.
Ah, OK, now I see what you mean, Scott: the “Our Father”-era Hiro could have approached the “Cautionary Tales”-era Hiro at Ishi’s funeral and asked him to bring him forward in time. Very clever! It would’ve meant there’d be three versions of Hiro at Ishi’s funeral if you count Kid-Hiro, which is kinda (morbidly) funny, but that’s a terrific theory. I love it.
I wonder if the “CT”-Hiro would have brought the “OF”-Hiro all the way to the present-present, or stopped at his present sometime around the end of Volume Two. I guess the “OF”-Hiro could have helped to take down Adam. He could have also warned his slightly younger self that a madman wanted the piece of paper in the safe.
Maybe the absorption ability had more time to work its way through the selection, so to speak. I’m mostly leaning towards that theory because it explains why Peter never (at least as far as we know) absorbed Micah or Molly’s abilities.
The writers in Behind the Eclipse said Peter had absorbed all the abilities in Kirby Plaza, which would include Molly and Micah.
As for his present situation, I’d say he’s a clean slate, having to start over again and re-absorb the powers. The problem with that is he won’t be getting invisibility anytime soon … at least not from Claude.
Of course not having invisibility makes it harder for him to be on the run in Volume 4, if he is in fact one of the fugitives.
Further evidence he needs to re-absorb the abilities is that he didn’t seem to be healing. Of course, he hasn’t had much time to try and remember, so it could go either way.
Either way, I’m sad that he never used Eden’s ability.
Another thought, maybe he could get back the abilities he actually used and the ones he was never aware of are gone for good.
Happy (late) new year to all
Too bad that you’re not planning to do a “volume” review, but the single episode reviews are already great (can’t say how much time you spend on them ^^) so I don’t know if you could that much in a global review :).
I’m looking forward to see where volume 4 goes. “Change” seems to be the thing most of people expect so I guess it’s just wait and see for now
I too think that Peter will start over with the power collection. Maybe that is a way to avoid super-powered Peter, that is only slowed down by how he uses his powers. I just wonder what will happen when (if) he meets Sylar again. Will he only absorb TK (we never really saw Peter use other powers he could have got from Sylar) or everything? Dunno what to think about it.
Since the volume focused a lot on Sylar, am I the only one who think we saw “not enough” (too many “good/bad” flip flops) and “too much” of him at the same time ? What I liked about him as a villain in season 1 was that we didn’t see him all the time (maybe could have got old). At least, the character got over the “power farming” (I personnaly think that TK and regeneration makes him powerful enough but maybe it’s just me) and I hope his arc in next volume is worth it. I’d also love to see what happen if he bumps into Peter/Hiro or even Matt. They know that based on circonstances, he could not have been as evil as he is (at least Peter and Hiro do, and maybe Matt if his spirit walk didn’t consist in watching from his future self sight).
On a side not, did someone find ironic the way Angela and Arthur acted with Sylar ? Seems like they both were just manipulating him, but “good” Angela “fed” him, while A”bad” rthur tried to “teach” him empathy. Maybe the not-so-Petrelli wasn’t planned then but it feels kinda funny. We could say that they act differently towards Peter and Nathan and the volume was about good/bad duality but still ^^
I don’t know if you’ll read this, Otto, but is there a chance that with the new volume you can put a reset to the Dumb as awards and give Peter a chance to restart? what if there’s a chance for a Dumb as Hiro, Dumb as Nathan ir Dumb as Claire awards? what do you think? I’m certainly hoping a reset.
Why didn’t HRG just knock Meredith unconcious with his gun or get her to run her hands under the taps in the sink in the room? I don’t think she needn’t have got that bad.
Yeah, I was thinking something like that the other day…
Daphne: hey look, you have messages!
Matt: H’mm, one from Mohinder…
*plays message*
Mohinder: Matt? Sylar was here. I’ve sent Molly to my mother’s, in India, for her protection. I’m going to be very busy in the lab, with this new special I met, for some time. Oh, and I bought fresh bagels. *click*
Daphne: …who’s Molly?
Matt: Our daughter. Well, my adopted daughter - she’s living with us in the future.
Daphne: the future you say you saw. Whatever!
Hi
Newbie Here
I was just thinking,
I think that peter will have to start again with regainning his powers, the reason i say this is that the writers might not wanna use the whole time travel route for now at least because of the NBC description states about hiro helping ando with his superpowers. If peter can just remember the powers then he can still affectively time travel therefore now taking the show in the direction everyone is talking about, anyway just a thought and it might have already been mentioned!
Hi there. Concerning the recap issue, I’m glad to have finally found someone who actually made the same observation, i.e. the recapped scenes being different in the actual episode. If you rewatch the Arthur/Catalyst part in “Our Father”, you will notice that the “missing” lines from Arthur and Mohinder are nevertheless set up: During the hands-on approach, Arthur looks at Mohinder several times as if awaiting instruction. Here the lines from the recap would actually make sense.
Having pointed that out, I wonder if anyone knows something more about that issue. Is there a “Behind the Eclipse” or something featuring a statement regarding this change from the creators? How will this be handled on the DVD release, since they did correct a few mistakes in the first season disc set? I am not aware of another show where a similar episode/recap difference happened.