OFFICIAL: Season 1 Heroes Discussion Thread!

[sleeper]

I thought the last episode was very interesting. So does HRG (short for horn rimmed glasses man) control blink? It sure does seem so. Is Blink a part of HRG? He sure can call him up at will. Can the cop control his mind reading or will it cause him to go crazy? What exactly did HRG do to the cop? It looks like we will see alot of the husband of Niki next week and how is he connected to all of this. What powers does the son have? It seems that Sylar is an independent wildcard in all of this, which makes it more interesting. Was the man, the cop shot at, Sylar? It seems it was.

It was good to see the brother of Flying man use his powers to answer some questions and also for Hiro and his friend to get back to their mission. And is the friendly neighbor of the Indian scientist working for HRG or Sylar?
I am enjoying this show very much and hope that it still poses more questions than it answers.

[Mreen]

The Smoking Man definitely controls Blink, Sylar is clearly an independent - but he must be one of the characters we've already seen or they never would have taken so much trouble to keep his face shadowed. Yes, Matt the cop shot him - but then he popped back up and ... well. He was wearing his killing outfit; the same one Isaac painted him in, in the half finished picture where he slays the cheerleader.

Mohinder - the geneticist from India - was another independent. He was hoping to find the genetic supermen his father predicted and validate him - but discovered his father had given too much information to Sylar, who was clearly mad. Clearly the Smoking Man/Men In Black were spying on him, hoping to use him to finish his father's task .. but I think we saw Sylar had the same idea. (if he isnt one and the same as the Smoking Man ... which he may well be ..or .. not )

okay ... what to say about this delightful ep .. I really enjoyed it and every fun twist (despite the little stalls ) so, lets start at the beginning (and just be glad I got out of doing those spoiler free reviews I used to do for Farscape! I kept the reviews so spoiler free that you could only follow what I was saying if watched the ep as you read it )


We start right where we ended - with Ninja Hero, and a message from the future! (Loved the title "Hiros" heh heh - summed up a bunch of fumbling starts, but glimmering on the horizon - something great!) and ...save the cheerleader, save the world ... what the ..I mean, we had a whole week of promos and marathons to get used that one, and it still sounds strange - Hiro tosses that off just before he walks off into the future?

Okay - now Mohinder was looking right at Peter when he froze, when he unfroze, it should have looked as if Peter teleported halfway down the subway (which technically, he sort of did) and I was thinking that would clue him in - but apparently mad ravings "Hero, where are you!" (I mean, Mohinder isnt going to know he meant Hiro) and “. . . cheerleader.” make a great cover for that sort of thing. Mohinder thinks Peter is completely unhinged, and makes a clean escape. (he thinks, anyway tho I saw the promos and Evil Waif isnt giving up that easy!)

Meanwhile Claire unintentionally rescues Nathan - overconfident Smoking Man lets go of one arm to answer Mummy's anxious call about their eldest project and pow soldier from Bosnia Nathan attacks and gets clear - still thinking they had it under control and then - tada!
We've been so waiting to see that scene since it was included in the promos so many weeks back. Usually its just about a second or less long, so you couldnt even tell if it was Peter or Nathan taking off - but it was still a beautiful scene to see, somebody finally escaping the Men in Black!

and then Ando and Hiro! Ando cursing and complaining and blaming and Hiro's reply "Oh, waffles! Yoo hoo!"
(they actually subtitled that into English even tho each word was the same I guess in case we thought he was saying something else that just sounded like 'waffles, Yoo hoo!' do in English by extreme coincidence. ..my hearing isn’t that great – I could have missed it <g>)

It did crack me up when Hiro warned Ando:
"We got beat up because we used my powers to cheat at gambling. That is the Dark Side"

And who should show up at those very words .. (or at least as Ando made his stomping exit) but Nathan! who learned all about sand burn the hard way. They were great together, which just shows that Hiro can bounce of any straight man and still be adorably funny.

Nathan clearly thought he was mad with the space-time bending, but on the other hand, decided he was the harmless, tourist mad that keeps you entertained on New York subways and between shows on the weekend. And he showed his personable, how I got elected side to him, and even plays good samaritan giving him a lift back. Tho I think part of it was, being caught out in public in his pajamas with a crazy t-shirt, it was greatly comforting to walk out next to someone who appeared crazier in any given comparison. Plus, the crazy Hiro was going to keep his secret. Part of the club. (was it Merry Marvel Marching Society?)
The new password is "Vote Petrelli!"

And then Nathan continued to be nice to Niki, whom he thought might be in on the kidnapping. And he asked after her, her goals and worries, and tried to offer solace - he is a shark, but he's a personable shark when he wants to be.

And she gives him info that he in turn uses against his future blackmailer - no slouch he, makes use of everyone he comes in contact with to come out smelling like rose.

Niki tho- how awful she felt when she saw that tape, shocked and.. well, shocked. She gets another clue as to what is going on, and not in a good way. I'm glad the promos claim it gets spelled out for her next week - she could use a break after this ep. And it appears she knows more about DL's murderous ways than she even let on to his mother and son, from the way she talked to the cop. Tho it seemed she was scattering misdirection, to get DL blamed if the bodies she just buried were found. (Maybe she still believes he might have been responsable, since she knew she couldnt rip a body in half)

In this ep, got to see Niki freaked out, upset with herself, as a worried mom, and showing compassion to Ando when he chose the worst moment to knock on her door (actually he came in without knocking, so maybe it wasnt such a bad thing 8 cops with guns were there to express how that is not a custom to follow in this country). She kept it simple and to the point, fantasy girl in computer, vs mom with a kid in real life. (Her character has actually become someone likable that we could all root for, in just the last two eps. ) Ando was ashamed and left respectfully, to go back to the less glamorous chore of helping Hiro save the world.

DL, is one creepy guy.
We never see more than glimpse of him - but thats all he needs to convince us of that.

Meanwhile - poor Matt. Do you realize every ep he's been in has ended up with him under arrest or knocked out and in pain? He discovers the wife that he thought wanted him to leave actually really does love him, set out to give her the kind of date that would make any woman in the audience wish her husband could read minds, and then is undone by coffee ice-cream and one good deed too many. I mean, this poor guy - I hope he ends up better in the next episode! (tho I expect that this blacking out will make everyone believe they know what happened to him during that missing day, covering for the Men In Black.) Or maybe that's his karma - to end every ep in trouble and keep on going despite it all. I mean, he may not be able to pass the detective test, but he clearly understands people in a way that isnt defined by his gift alone. He really just wants to help.

Claire confesses all - but clearly not the all Daddy Horn Rimmed Glasses was hoping for. Instead of the last step before taking her see Daddy's Day at Work, he becomes inspired to be a real dad again and take care of his little girl. Besides, the creep is interfering with his project - and he's not even a creep on the payroll! I guess he takes the underage thing seriously and it must be the only reason he let Brody live. He gave him a free pass to start life again, while enjoying the pain that psycho kid wouldnt remember. (tho I wonder if psychotics like Brody can be cured with amnesia. Lets pretend its not an issue, bcs this is television and its irrelevant to the story now)
Claire’s apology the rapist who killed her was somewhat astounding .. a do-over is what she offers, not realizing Daddy beat her to it in a big way. ***I guess they were afraid the audience would think her too callous or too easily turned to violence .. that we might not like her after she started killing people if she wasnt very sorry later. Somehow, I dont think there was person out there in TVland audience who didnt think she took the only option her character had to save the next girl in line, or the girl after that, or the girl after that.. and who knew how many other bodies would end up in the river after a fight? ***
But compassionate Claire it is .
Now, if she'll just stop being callous to the only guy who knows all and is trying to help her thru it ...

Peter and Isaac! At last! The two character who probably had the least chance of getting along (opposite of Mohinder and Peter) are the first two to hit it off and join forces to save the world! Hallelujah, we have a team! - it was great how Peter slid right past that ‘yeah, okay she was your girlfriend yesterday, but not today, so moving on’ - to his support and belief in what Isaac can do. He pulled out the pieces and could start constructing the story while Isaac was wallowing in the down time after the high, doubly depressed because none of the clues for the bombing were appearing the way he thought they would.

You could really feel for Isaac as he listed all the reasons for despair, staring at the chaos, how he tore his life apart, 'could have been clean'(in theory anyway, but lets not dash the dream) and lost Simone, and got nothing.

But once Peter got started, and then when Peter could see the painting - all that was forgotten. All Isaac wanted to do was know how Peter could see the painting, and how the two of them could save the girl, once they saw the horror that awaited her.

I'm kind of surprised that Isaac didnt make some comment about the whited out eyes - I would have been saying that, interrupting the process with 'Dude! Your eyes are whited out!" (and I dont even use the word 'Dude! ) but apparently Isaac's astonishment is the more self contained kind.

The artist had been slipping away a bit each ep, it seemed to me, and this finally turned him around and gave him some hope that was all going to work out after all. Now if he just survives the promos from next ep, which really could go either way, he'll be okay.

And then Peter, still on that roll from the first word from Hiro, realizes who is on the phone, and its payback time! …well okay, its Pay Forward time, but nobody’s got a movie trailer voice for that one. “I have a message for you.” Peter is actually getting everyone all together.

Okay, he’s not getting Mohinder in on it yet, but I think, looking at it, that Mohinder actually would have been a hindrance in that bit – I don’t think Isaac would have been willing to listen to Peter ramble with an audience there, who knew about Peter and Simone. And it was Mohinder’s day to play skeptic, so he would have been dragging the two of them back.

Maybe he’ll run into some of the heroes/Hiros at the airport as they rush to meet each other now, and start realizing the proof is wandering around beneath his nose…

If Evil Waif and Men In Black let him get as far as the airport, ..

(tune in next week!)

And yes, I edited it – left in the middle of and came back hours later and just hit the post button last night bcs it was way too late to carry on.

[sleeper]

Thanks for the hard work Mreen.

Here are the bad guys.

HRG
Blink
Sylar
Blackmailer of Nathan and Niki
the quarterback(he may be out from now on, a bad guy taking out a bad guy, don't you luv it)

Don't know exactly how these people fit in.

Claire's stepmom
Claire's Brother
FBI? agents
Nathan
Evil waif
Niki's husband
Niki's alter ego

Good guys

Niki
Niki's kid
Hiro and Ando
Matt (but is he going to be under the influenced of HRG?)
Claire
Peter and Isaac
Claire's nerdy friend.
Mohinder

Am i missing anyone?

[Mreen]

I like your list! Have to add at least one or two

The Geisha - agent of the bad guy Linderman blackmailer. So, she's a bad guy.

Simone! Good person - she stands in the way of the heroes and their goals,(right now) but that's because she is a good person, strong and firm in morals and character, and she just doesnt let people go off the deep end without raising red flags to their faces and trying to be as honest and clear with them as she can, about where she thinks all this is going.

Mom Petrelli - good person, as no nonsense as Simone, but without her strength. Her character and morals have been worn down and she has regrets about her choices. She depends on her sons to help her be strong enough to deal with her greif and change from loyal suffering wife to suddenly free widow, but she offers that same help to them if they need it. For sons, read Peter, but she'd never admit that.

The littler folk who keep on screen:

Niki's stripper friend (hey it took us a long while to learn Niki's name, we'll get her down later)- well meaning in a good way, but neutral in the only committed to helping a friend out in need, not likely to volunteer to save the world or risk her own life. (She's like - normal )

Nathan's political assistant -not sure if he should be on the chart, but he looks like a character that's here to stay - at least thru elections next week .. he's a neutral that's loyal to Nathan, but not above Nathan's faults in anyway.

Later in the list we'll have to find a place for Claire's brother, but he hasnt had the airtime yet to get on. Jackie, the cheerleader rival that is pretending to rescue people, has had the airtime, but I just dont feel she deserves a spot.

***
One note to anyone reading my posts - this would drive me crazy if someone else were to do the same thing (unless I happened to agree absolutely) is that I keep referring to Nathan as a shark. Nathan used the phase once, just once, and I know the writer of that script would be shaking his head and cursing at the way I reuse it every single post (even this one!) saying he had just been writing an expression, not trying to create canon! -but .. when describing his character, it takes a long while to say over and over that he is a greedy guy, selfish, not completely evil all the time - but all of his good deeds are impulses, and come down to things like 'not letting his brother commit suicide in front of him when he was right there to catch him' and 'tellng his brother that yes he made up the whole 'you're really crazy' bit as a ploy and by the way you can fly, to distract him from ruining Nathans political career with another jump' and oh, yes, behing nice to his mistress that he cheated on his wife with. (okay, it was a one night stand .. but ..)
His bad deeds are well thought out and planned in advance - destroying his brothers reputation and credibility in the most public way Nathan could while using it to make himself look good and even sacrificing, and then deliberately choosing the mob man who controlled his fathers life as the place to get money when his own advisors thought they could make a go of it without going there.

See how long that took? Or I can just write : he's a shark - and everybody gets that! It's the perfect short hand for the character - and he even has the jawline thing going to make it fit that much more smoothly. So, Nathan The Shark. I should just call him that from now on, his Mob Name, now that he is officially owned by Linderman. (who is discovering Nathan bites back - with a smile )
***

On with the list making!

Nathan's wife .. I dont know. Her absence is suspicious in that battered wife kind of way, but Nathan speaks of being happy with her (to Niki, the one person he'd have no cause to lie about that with) and the few comments - do any of you get the impression she's some sort of soldier away on a tour? Or something like that. (Its either that or she's tragically shut up in a nut house or hospital, and I'm leaning against that currently)

[sleeper]

I agree with you about the Nathan the shark. He has the ablility to do great evil or great good. But what will he do? It seems that he will do what makes him the most money and fame, which is too bad. You can't help but like the guy, he is charming. But now he knows about HRG and Blink, so what to do about them? You would think that he has enough connections to find out about them. Or does he think they were a part of Linderman's and The Geisha's group? One would think that he would be smarter than that. But hey, he has an election to win. It's just like when Hiro told him that about the future of NY, he wasn't worried about that, he was just wondering if Hiro knew that he won the election. Very selfish person Nathan is. So it looks like he might turn out to be a bad guy. Too bad, the good guys could use him.

Now as far as Niki's alter ego, it looks like she is just looking out for Niki and her son. If something is endangering them, she is the one to take out the trash. So if this thing that happens to NY endangers them, will she do the right thing? And is her husband also a missing link to save them all?

[Mreen]

well - I think we can assume DL is pretty evil unless told otherwise - she seemed terrified of him in the last ep .... she may have been glad to get him out of her life and away from her son at last.

[sleeper]

Here are a few more questions that are buzzing around in my head.

Does Sylar's shadow do the killing or does he use the force like Darth Vader?
Is the evil waif...Sylar? Or is she working for HRG?
And what is the exterminator's part in all of this?(the person that was caught bugging the computer...hmmm a little irony from the writers?)
How is HRG connected with Sylar...if at all?
Is HRG wanting to control Claire and if he can't, will he kill her?
Where is HRG if Sylar does what he is predicted to do?
How does the FBI, or secret govt. organization fit into all of this?
Will The Shark ever realize that he is called to a higher purpose than winning an election?

Questions, questions, too many questions......I just luv it.

[Mreen]

Sylar, from what we've seen, likes to be creative when he kills. He seems to have a favorite, levitating people to a high spot and then pinning them there with a few dozen knives and sharp objects. Telekinesis (or The Force, if you wish ) but he can also apparently freeze people on the spot - which makes the brain quite the tasty cold dish, I guess. Because of the variety of methods, most of the FBI isnt willing to accept his work as the acts of one man, except the blonde that looks a bit like Matt's wife. How the FBI fits in, is that she wants Matt to work with them.

I think Sylar eats the brain to absorb the power of the victim, and then uses that trait in his next killing to test it out. If it seems grand and scary enough. Peter's pic - last week I thought maybe it was the subway, shadows and light coming thru, but this week we see it a lot better, and he's facing Sylar and those are a couple dozen of sharp objects coming to impale him. Guess that explains the scar!
As for his shadow - I think its just a shadow, being very dramatic in the lighting and all, typical comic book style.

HRG, whether he is Sylar or not, is the key man of the Men in Black. All we know about them for now is that they arent a government cult, but an independent one. With lots of money. They kidnap anyone with abilities and then... throw them back? Surrender them to Sylar? No one quite knows what they are up to, but we can tell its nasty. The exterminator clearly works for him, and the Evil Waif appearing just outside the apartment (where else would a good lookout be?) was a little too coincidental to be real. Clearly she works for the same organization and the introduction was a bit of a set up.

(Can Mohinder really have fallen for the whole 'Papa Suresh' thing? I still have trouble believing that. For all his whirlwind of conviction, he's always acted with extremely good judgment when confronted with the Men In Black, swooping information and evidence out from under their noses without getting into a fight - wont bandy words with the Smoking Man, or play games about who they both are, but gets himself out of the cab and out of range immediately, etc etc - and didnt he take pics to back up his words just before the whole of Sylar's apartment was emptied out? Wasnt that a precaution bcs he knew the Evil Waif would be sending out signals to somebody as soon as she could?)

Sylar is using the same techniques as Men In Black to hunt all these heroes down - surely he is one of them, using them unbeknownst, to get their targets out from under them and feed his hunger...

Who knows what Daddy Horn Rims will do to Claire - all we know is that her time is running out, he barely can keep himself leashed around her, a step from adding her to the mix of victims he feeds to Blink... (has he fed her to Blink, a little bit, when she was young? Is that why she doesnt remember her birth parents?)

lots of lovely questions ... perfect for people like me who love to speculate like mad.

[Mreen]

It occurred to me, belatedly, that we had heard Sylar's voice in episode 2. If Sylar was really a character we were already watching, all I had to do was go back and listen.. so I did.

I'll keep it oblique, tho anyone can do the same as I did.
In a way I was relieved when I recognized it, because there was all this sly foreshadowing of another character being Sylar and I was really worried it would be him.Tho ... my hearing isnt perfect anyway, and it could be the character with all the lines that would hint to us later that he was Sylar.


There's still the question - if Sylar is absorbing or seems to already have all the other powers at some level - does that mean Sylar is like Niki's absorbed twin/personlity/mirror person (whatever she is, she moves indepentantly in mirrors even if Niki is no longer in the room) and so Sylar's host may be unaware of Sylar's other activities?

If Sylar's host is already fairly evil, just how bad does their evil twin get?

(I think we were expected to recoginize the voice and thats why the 3rd ep had that promo 'evil has a face' - I just wonder if there is more to it than that)

[sleeper]

Maybe they have to save Claire from Sylar to keep him from absorbing her powers and becoming undestructable. Hmmm, a Sylar that can't be killed. Unless you stab a tree branch in his head.

[Mreen]

Well, he's already been shot in the chest and popped back up in a few seconds, so its like he's partly got that power already. Maybe when he absorbs the source, the power gets exponentially stronger?

*random thought to ponder*
The other thought about Nathan's wife is she is dying of tragic disease .. but then why would Nathan (The Shark) be so happy in his marriage? Must be something else....

[sleeper]

Sylar also has the power to manipulate people, so is he behind HRG? I really don't think so, but you wonder if he has anybody else we know under his control.

Its obvious that whatever secret formula that Mohinder's father used to find the (dare I say Mutants?) people with special powers, is being used by Sylar and HRG. So why can't Mohinder figure it out...is it because of evil waif standing in the way? or is it because he doesn't truly believe in his dad's work and he is just messing with it out of respect to his dad? He was close to going all out for it when he was trying to convince the Shark that he was in danger, but he realized that he was acting like another NY kook. Peter hasn't been very good at convincing Mohinder, maybe he can do better this week.

[sleeper]

*random thought to ponder*
The other thought about Nathan's wife is she is dying of tragic disease .. but then why would Nathan (The Shark) be so happy in his marriage? Must be something else....

Also, what info is the Shark and Peter's mom withholding. She has to know more than she is letting on. Does she have a power also?

[Mreen]

Hmm- I thought they were just withholding the depression bit - but maybe Peter doesnt know his daddy was a mafia man? Nah, Peter was right there when Nathan was complaining to their mother about her stealing something 'with the history in our family??' or something along those lines.

Was rewatching the TV pilot this weekend, and realized that Peter walks in as Nathan is on the phone with Mr Linderman the mob boss, arranging a meeting with him. Very laid out and clear plot connections, cant think how I missed that connection to Niki's story ... except, well, her story was definately the least interesting in the beginning. Too much the character doomed in a horror film/14yr old boy bait. Definately improved the last few eps.

[Mreen]

wow