Quick Thoughts on "I Am Become Death"

Now that's was a pretty good episode. Much better than the second season. Already we have some pretty exciting developments. Peter travels to the future only to find a world full with people with abilities. When he finds Sylar, he discovers that Sylar is his brother. But Sylar has turned to "Gabriel" and reformed.

Gabriel tells Peter about the horrible nature of his power. It causes a terrible hunger for power. Not unlike a vampire's thirst for blood. We see a full demonstration of this hunger as he attacks the one person he truly loves, Peter. So what will become of Peter? Will he become as evil as Sylar? Somehow I doubt it. I'm sure Peter will somehow overcome this just from the inherent goodness he has thus far demonstrated.

And how about that ending? We knew of course that Adam would make it back, but how he made it back is pretty interesting. Angela essentially saved him. I think, at this point, she is the one doing the manipulation. I'm not so sure Adam really is the key to the whole thing. I just think that Angela wanted to save Adam for her own evil purposes.

Will add some more in depth analysis throughout the week after I get a chance to fully digest it.

Nobody Knows about Angela's Power?

By the way, anyone notice how others, even within the company, don't realize Angela has a power. Noah confirmed it as much when he told her, "You know how it works. One of us, one of them". Of course he was referring to her as one of "us" which would be normal. And one of "them" as those with powers. She further supports this by calling Sylar one of "them".

I wonder why Noah would assume she doesn't have any powers? She must be hiding her abilities on purpose. Is the belief that not all the original 12 founders had powers? I have always assumed the opposite, that all of the original 12 founders had powers. But now it appears that not all of the original 12 have powers.

So why do you think Angela Petrelli is hiding her powers, even from those within the company?

Sylar Rebooted

Not going to write a full write up of Episode 3 "One of Us, One of Them" quite yet. Maybe this weekend if I can get to it before the new episode.

Instead, I'm going to talk about something I find interesting, albeit flawed, that the writers seem to have done with Sylar. It appears that Sylar has actually been "rebooted". The Shanti Virus seems to have wiped out all the abilities Sylar acquired save two, his original ability of Intuitive Aptitude and his most powerful ability, Telekinesis.

I have mixed feelings about this. First, I'm happy they toned down Sylar a little bit. This is the list of powers he has lost (there may be more, but these are documented)

• Ability to Freeze things
  
• Ability to Melt things
• Perfect Memory
• Acute Hearing
• Precognition
• Radiation

When you add these to the list of powers he has gained since then, Sylar was starting to become a little bit too powerful. I was particularly concerned about him having perfect memory, radiation, and precognition. Radiation and precognition is obviously pretty powerful. Perfect memory however may be the biggest lost. This might seriously be one of the more underestimated abilities.

Now his abilities only include

• Telekinesis
• Rapid Healing and invulnerability
  
• Turning things to Gold
• Clairsentience
• Sound Manipulation

So I'm happy about the toning down of his powers. Hopefully he doesn't gain too many more as I think Telekinesis by itself is pretty powerful. You add this to the Invulnerability and Sound Manipulation, and the fact that he is now infinitely rich, and well Sylar is pretty dangerous.

So what do you think of this "reboot"?

The Butterly Effect

A very interesting episode.

We find out that Claire's powers are evolving. In addition to being able to heal, she doesn't feel any pain. You add this to the fact that we now know, thanks to Sylar, that she can never die and we see that Claire's powers are evolving. The future Peter reveals that Sylar was never meant to get Claire's power. This will undoubtedly have a profound effect on the course of events. The question becomes how can Claire not die? What makes her so special? Clearly her brain functions differently than the others with abilities. She has evolved past the point where she needs her body attached to her head in order to survive.

We get a very interesting look into Angela Petrelli's power. Much like Peter's vision of the explosion in the third season, these visions probably set the foundation of the season. In her vision we see several characters who have seemingly met their end. These include Hiro, Parkman, HRG, and Peter. We also see Knox "kill" Claire by ripping her head off her body. The scene then cuts to four villians, Knox, Tracy, Maury Parkman, and Adam Monroe. Suddenly, behind Angela Petrelli, appears Sylar. On the surface, it is hard to read too much into the dream. I'm not sure it reveals that much about anything at this point other than a possible bad ending for some of the more beloved heroes.

Nathan is offered a Senate seat by a familar face. He also seems to be imagining the prescense of Linderman. He has a conversation with Future Peter who reveals himself and tells Nathan of the bleak future. Nathan accepts the Senate seat. We then see Tracy confronted by a reporter claiming she is Niki Sanders. She of course denies this, and then we find out the truth. Tracy has completely different powers than Niki, she has the ability to freeze people.

Sylar attempts to get the powers of several villians in Level 5. He is shot by HRG, but heals himself. As Sylar attempts to cut Elle's head open and steal her powers, she releases an explosive discharge, knocking Sylar unconscious and setting free the villians of Level 5. Angela Petrelli comes in and takes charge of the Company. She "releases" Elle from the company. This will no doubt come back to have a serious impact. Angela then drops the bomb. She tells Sylar that she is his mother. Whether we are to take that literally or figuratively at this point remains to be seen.

Small notes

• Parkman meets up with a man with the same power of Isaac, a man who can paint the future. The scene with the turtle is hilarious.
• HRG brings Claire's mother back to protect the family
• Only Peter can see Linderman. I believe this is the work of Maury Parkman
• Mohinder is being Mohinder. That is, he is doing stupid things to endager us all. He gains powers from the serum he develops, but it has nasty side-effects.
  

Still nothing too profound has come along yet. Not too much insight into exactly where the season will be going, but exciting nevertheless. Your thoughts?

Season 3, Episode 1 - The Second Coming

Going a little bit backwards, since I missed the first week. So here is my review of Episode 1.

One of the first things that immediately jumps out to me is the question, who was Angela Petrelli talking to one the phone immediately after Nathan is shot? Clearly she wasn't talking to the attacker and she wasn't talking to anyone who planned the attack. Right now, the only explanation is that she knew the shooting was going to happen, and was talking to someone about why they didn't prevent the attack. I'm thinking she is the reason Nathan was able to heal. She knew about the upcoming attack, and made arrangements to be sure Nathan would survive. She even confirmed her knowledge of the attack at the end of the episode as she talked to Future Peter.

I'm not sure the person who Nakamura refers to as having "purity of blood, the "light" to safeguard against the darkness" is Claire. That is clearly the easy answer to go to. We have all seen what her blood is capable of. We also know she is "special" thanks to Sylar. But I have a hard time believing that the writers would make it that obvious. So far, not a big fan of the "formula" story arc. I'm sure the formula will become more important over time, but right now, it is particularly uninteresting to me compared to the rest of the action.

Mohinder continues to be my least favorite character. He makes mistake after mistake. I'm not sure if the writers are doing this on purpose to make a point about him or this is just being done by accident. He didn't kill Sylar when he could have (multiple times) and now he is essentially opening up Pandora's box. Who really thinks it is a good idea to give powers to everyone?

They finally shed a little bit of light on how Sylar gains his ability. They even made a joke about Sylar eating brains, which was a popular explanation among Heroes' fans. I am NOT a fan of Sylar getting healing abilities. It's not that I don't want the bad guy to get powerful. In fact, I think there needs to be a balance between good and evil in this show. But invulnerability should only be reserved to a special few. I wasn't a huge fan of Peter getting the power either. I didn't mind Claire and Adam having the ability because they were limited in their powers. But when you combine the defensive power of Claire with the offensive power of Peter and Sylar, it becomes a little much.

I don't think Linderman is real in this case. I totally think it is a figment of either Peter's imagination or that he is being manipulated by Maury Parkman. Nathan seems like a pawn. Someone who keeps getting used by those around him. I'm almost certain at this point that his mother is behind this manipulation, but thus far don't have any proof.

Overall, an OK way to start the season. Episode 2 coming soon.

What were your thoughts on the first episode of the new season?

Season 3, Episode 3 - First Thoughts

Interesting Episode. I'll dive into soon when I get a chance, but just wanted to put down some initial thoughts.

• I really like that they are given duplicate powers to people
• Mrs Petrelli as Sylar's Mother?
• The company engaged in a cloning program?
• Can Sylar really be a good guy?

Off the top of my head, I don't really think Sylar is a Petrelli, or at least not in the true sense. I somehow doubt that Angela Petrelli would just give up her son. The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that it is either not Arthur's son, in which case she was hiding Sylar, or he is one of the "cloned" children the company seems to have created, like Niki or Tracy...

I do think Sylar can walk the line of "good" guy for at least a while. First off, I've never thought Sylar is as evil as people make him out to be. There is no doubt he is power hungry. But for me he has never be truly evil because he doesn't kill indiscriminately. He doesn't kill innocent people. All his murders have been in direct attempts to obtain more power for himself. While certainly not "noble" it doesn't put Sylar in the category of crazy lunatic either. Besides, I always thought the creators would do this to the character. He is after all, Gabriel Gray. "Gray". Not Black, not White, but "Gray".

More thoughts tomorrow as I start disecting the first three episodes. Until then, what jumped out to you in the episode.

I'm Back for Season 3

OK, I, like Heroes, decided to take a break from this blog. Couldn't keep it up when there wasn't new material being developed.

Now that Heroes is back, I'll be starting to blog about it again. I didn't blog all of last week because I honestly couldn't watch it on Monday. Believe me, I was not happy about it but last week was not a good one at work.

I'll start this thing back up again. I'll be one week behind, but I'll catch up quickly. I'll do some analysis of Episode one and two at the beginning of the week and I'll catch up to episode 3 before the end of the week.

Just off the top it looks that Season 3 will be a significant improvement over Season 2. Already lots of action and lots of questions

• Why is Claire Special? Will Claire survive getting her head chopped off? Is Sylar really invincible now too?
• Who healed Nathan? Is he going crazy when he sees Linderman or is something else going on?
• Why is Ando going to betray Hiro?
• Mohinder, is he still as stupid as he was last season? Seems like it!
• Ma Petrelli, which side is she really on anyway?

I'll try to get to a few of these ASAP, but will probably wait till after episode 3 to dive in and see what they reveal.