I think that the initial shocks are about the same for Sandra and HRG, at least for me.

“…dude who could make teddy bears disappear”

Don’t you think he can make more than that disappear, say for example an entire carnival?

“… there’s plenty of mileage to be gotten out of Claire’s “You’re supposed to be Superman” speech in 3.21″

Wow, you’ve gone way beyond me in interpreting what Nathan means for Claire! It kinda makes sense, but I think she can see the big difference between the shining beacon of a father she may have fantasized about, and the real life self-proclaimed “shark”. I think for me it’ll be interesting to see if Claire’s reaction (if we ever see it) will ring true.

I was very skeptical that they would do to Samuel what they did to Arthur and Danko, this is giving them a lot of screen time, lots of menace, but not a whole lot of motivation. Despite the fact that Samuel’s motivation mirrors early-Sylar, at least it *is* a clear motivation.

I preferred the more enigmatic Samuel from past episodes where we weren’t positive of his intentions, now that he has revealed himself as more of a demonic and tyrannical villain, it is taking me some time to get used to it. It reminds me of “Revenge of the Sith”, I enjoyed Palpatine when he was the seemingly kindly Chancellor, and as he slowly revealed his villainy through clever manipulation and scheming. When he became Darth Sidious, he was extremely flamboyant and demonic, which took more getting used to. I feel that they did the same with Samuel. Samuel as the mystery man with a helping hand made him more magnetic, but his reveal as the monster beneath, or the wolf in sheep’s clothing, is taing some getting used to.

Either way, I think Knepper is brilliant. Excellent review as always Otto!

Heroes seems to tell only the origin part of their character’s story/journey… these are not “ordinary people with extraordinary abilities”, they are extraordinary people who ought to have moved beyond their ordinary origins by now.

We got to see Monica discover her powers, for example, but did not see her use them for the good of her society.

The message of the show seems to be that there are no heroes in real life; only villains and their ordinary victims.

As good as this show can be, it would be nice for a change if there was an explanation within the context of the show, and we didn’t have to go looking elsewhere for answers. Interesting as that can be, it’s also frustrating (if not poor writing). While I do read the online comics, I don’t get to see any webisodes until they’re DVD extras.

Regarding Sylar: Once Upon A Time In Texas gives him better and more meaningful character development than the whole of season 3. He’s definitely overused, which is a pity as if used sparingly we’d still be interested in him. Further to that, with Samuel’s backstory undermining his villainy, I’m kind of glad Arthur Petrelli’s backstory was so minimal.

And… if Damien turns out to be The Haitian’s other brother, I might have to throw something at the television.

“I thought Joseph was beloved by the entire carnival. shouldn’t they be screaming for Edgar’s blood instead of going back to eating pumpkin pie? Someone please tell me if I missed something here.”

No, you didn’t miss anything. I rewatched the scene just now to be sure, and there’s sort of a *mutter-whisper-mutter* thing going on at the table when Edgar identifies Samuel as the killer, but besides that not much of a reaction.

I wonder if this ties in with Matt’s point upthread about the connection between the show and the additional media. I mean, the GNs and the webisodes give a much better idea of the carnival folks having their own thoughts on Samuel, Joseph and the influx of new supers. That hasn’t translated to the on-screen story, which is why we’re left wondering why there’s apparently no reaction whatsoever to the reveal that Edgar killed their former leader.

I’m not sure what the solution would be, though. Would it be realistic to expect a dozen carnival members to be fleshed out as characters? If TPTBs had written more scenes for Damien and Arnold and a few others and shown their reaction to this news, would that have made this moment more effective? Or at least more believable? It would have established why Edgar felt he’d been driven out of the carnival by Samuel’s manipulation, but it would have also established that not everyone was convinced that Edgar killed Joseph, and in turn that they’re not all blindly obedient sheep who’ll believe whatever they’re told.

Otto, I’m starting to think you might be right. The only problem so far with this, is that it has killed a lot of excitement and suspense in certain stories and eps. First, it was “Tabula Rasa”- an ep that you gave a 4.5 (4 for me, personally), but which could have easily gotten a perfect 5 (from both of us, probably) if the show had used Sylathan to really explore the carnival and given us a reason to care about people like Damien and Arnold. Maybe done a better job of showing how the carnival works together as one cohesive unit. Then we have “Thanksgiving”, where Samuel framing Edgar for Joseph’s death had almost no emotional impact, because we’re lead to believe that no one there has their own opinions and just follow Samuel blindly. You mean to tell me there aren’t people at the carnival who suspected Samuel of killing Joseph in the first place? You know, i might have even actually been able to buy that IF they had shown us the expressions on the Carnies’ faces. Instead, we’re left with the impression that the Carnies are all mindless sheep who hear a bunch of quick words from Samuel about Edgar killing Joseph, calling Edgar a traitor, and then… “good riddance to the man whom I just told you killed my brother.” WHAT?! I thought Joseph was beloved by the entire carnival. shouldn’t they be screaming for Edgar’s blood instead of going back to eating pumpkin pie? Someone please tell me if I missed something here.

Also, regarding Samuel’s “transformation” into the Carnival’s enigmatic leader: it really isn’t such a stretch when you go back and watch the season so far. After doing this several times (Lost Syndrome) what i’ve pieced together is that Samuel, being Joseph’s brother was the Carnival’s natural choice for the new leader (it is the Sullivan Bros. Carnival after all). Samuel used his silver tongue to sway the Carnival’s inhabitants into helping him expand his “family”. To them (and us) he seemed confident and capable. But there are tell-tale signs that, through it all, Samuel has been completely winging almost everything: “Spinning plates”, as HRG would say, with only a vague notion that surrounding himself with supers will somehow make him more powerful. “Ink” is perfect evidence of this. He goes out into town to try and manipulate Peter into helping him gather the Supers, but it completely backfires, and Peter’s inherent nobility forces up Samuel’s guilt and grief over killing Joseph. I also firmly believe that he does want to help the Supers live free of the Non-Supers. even though it definitely wasn’t the best ep of the season, the ending to “Strange Attractors” seems to have cemented the fact that Samuel has always hated the Non-Supers for their judgement and treatment of what they don’t understand. I hope I’m right about that, cuz if it turns out that Samuel doesn’t care about the Super community, it’ll totally undermine one of the best scenes this season. the hatred on Samuel’s face when he brought down that precinct had to be real. There was no one around to fake it for. To sum it all up, the impression I got was that samuel used his skills in manipulation to sway the carnival into following him with no plan other than to gather supers, find out what was on the film from coyote sands, and eventually overthrow the Non-Super community. Again if i missed anything, feel free to let me know, but after re-watching the season so far, I can easily buy Samuel’s “transformation” simply because there was no transformation. He’s just putting on one hell of a performance.

“I thought the “shocked” part was just that he hadn’t told anybody, whereas Doug had already been with Sandra for a while.”

But nobody (the characters or us) seems to be shocked that Sandra has hooked up with Doug. Besides that initial moment when HRG called her in 4.02, everyone has pretty much accepted it. I’m not sure whether that’s because Doug’s a nerd or because Sandra’s such a peripheral character at this point that it almost makes no difference, but I can’t see HRG ever getting past the stage where he has to qualify Lauren’s presence with, “No, she’s not a date — she’s Lauren!“, and that’s what I find curious: that we apply a different standard to Sandra because she’s considered the “wronged” party, and that we’re more inclined to judge HRG, in spite of the screen time devoted to his lonely nights eating cereal. Shouldn’t we be happier for HRG than we are for Sandra, given how unhappy we know he’s been? That was the part I found interesting.

“… would Becky and Edgar then be the only killers besides Samuel? Does that make sense? And the rest just like to dress up in funky clothes?”

I’d say Damien probably has plenty of skeletons in his closet — I’d love to see his backstory developed. It sounds like Spider-Caleb will end up getting more attention, which is also cool. But the fire-breathing family and the dude who could make teddy bears disappear? I can’t picture those carnival members being assigned to kill off bank clerks.

“I never saw Claire really connecting with Nathan emotionally. Did they even spend any real time together besides getting drunk in Mexico? Sure he’s her biological dad, but he might as well be a distant uncle on an emotional level. Not really expecting his death to have any earth-shattering repercussions on her and her character trajectory.”

I tend to agree, but then there’s plenty of mileage to be gotten out of Claire’s “You’re supposed to be Superman” speech in 3.21. Nathan may not have called Claire every night or flown over to help her with homework or taken her to the movies, but he might still have had a big influence on her in terms of what he represented to her. He’s proof of how a super can adjust to their ability and get on with their lives; how you can learn to live with what you can do, conceal it and become a public figure with a family. That’s not necessarily what Claire wants, but it’s the alternative to joining the carnival or becoming a hermit, and I think that’s an alternative that would (or should) have appealed to Claire. If Nathan hadn’t been pulled into the Kirby Plaza drama… and the Shanti Virus drama… and the Future-Peter-shooting-him drama… and the people-with-abilities-are-blatantly-dangerous-to-society drama… he probably would have accepted his ability and gotten on with his life. That strikes me as exactly what Claire wants to do with her ability and her life.

LeeAnna, I don’t think you’re giving Aunt Virginia enough credit. You mention how Mama Coolidge was always a pillar of support for Emma while she was grieving for Christopher, but Sylar doesn’t appear to have blamed himself for Papa Gray’s departure (and he didn’t even know about the adoption until relatively recently), AND we’ve seen how much Virginia doted on Gabriel. So, I’m tempted to argue that there’s a parallel between Mama Coolidge and Aunt Virginia (more than you suggest), but that there’s less of a parallel between the two grieving offspring (Emma has a reason to grieve, Gabriel less so, in my view). Virginia was kind of batty and overbearing and domineering, but I think you could point to their reunion in 1.21 (and, to a lesser extent, Sylar’s reunion with Not!Virginia in 3.24) and argue that Virginia would have offered Gabriel the support he needed if he’d wanted it.

“For her it was guilt, for him it was because he felt disconnected from everyone.”

I wonder why that was, though. It can’t simply be because Gabriel’s adoptive father walked out on him or because he found it hard to meet people. We’ve seen in 3.08 that Gabriel would have had no trouble making friends; even though Elle had a hidden agenda, Gabriel demonstrated that he could be funny and sensitive. Even when he’s flirting with Lynette in Matt’s body in 4.09, I think there’s evidence that Sylar can be charming when he wants to be. So it’s not as if Gabriel or Sylar are condemned to being social misfits. They’re both good-looking, intelligent, witty and perceptive people. AND we know from episodes like 3.03 that Sylar is capable of being an agent and making a positive difference if he wants to. So, perhaps part of the tragedy is (1) that Gabriel did have the support he needed — and could have gotten it from the people around him if he’d tried — but rejected it; and (2) that both Gabriel and Sylar have the capacity to use their gifts (superpowered or not) to make a difference, and that they’ve rejected them in favor of becoming a social outcast (in the first instance) and a psychokiller (in the second).

Pas,

“Would Sylar having people supporting be enough to change him?”

I saw this as one of the central questions in Volume Three. Whether it was well executed and whether it was explored as much as it should have been is another issue, but I think it’s part of the logic behind Sylar killing Elle; he was admitting to himself that he was “damaged goods,” and that no amount of support was going to change him.