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?

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.

War Buddies- Part 7

First off, sorry for the rather long delay. As I've said in some of my comments, it was a combination of new job, moving, and lack of new episodes. It has made it hard to keep up with a consistent posting schedule. Things have settled down personally so posting should be back a little more regularly.

In this post, I look at this weeks hero comic. I've not posted much about the different comics, but ironically, it is the source of some of the better information regarding the series. Heroes does an OK job of making sure that you can follow the series without knowing anything about the comic.

This week continued a story the left several months ago, the story of Linderman and Arthur Petrelli. We see Linderman back from the war still haunted by the horrific scenes he bore witness to. A mysterious woman approaches him and arranges to meet later. Now who accepts something like this? Granted she is hot, but if some random woman came up to you and just invited you to the middle of nowhere, do you follow her?

Anyway, he eventually demonstrates his power to her only to find out that she has been hunting him down to steal his powers. This leads to three interesting things

• The girl had the power to "steal" others powers. It looks like she needed to have physical contact for her power to work. However, she could have been using her power to incapacitate Linderman and then acquire his power Sylar-like.
• Decades before Mohinder's father's discovered how to locate specials, someone else is hunting down people with abilities. How this is happening is the interesting question. Could it be someone else has the power to located those with abilities?
  
• Who is this "She" that the stealer refers to? If Arthur wasn't on the list, I would love to accuse Angela Petrelli.
  

The last point is pretty interesting. Is there a mastermind behind a plot to acquire more powers?

Nathan - How Did He Heal?

During the previews for next week, we caught a glimpse of a man who was severely burned, and it appears to be Nathan. Throughout the season, we have seen Nathan look into the mirror only to see himself severely burnt. Up until now, I believed that he was more or less seeing things, much like Niki sees Jessica in the mirror. This alter-ego was formed from the guilt he felt because of what happened to Peter. Now I'm not so sure.

This picture would seem to indicate that Nathan did indeed suffer from serious burns from flying Peter into the atmosphere. (On a side note, did it bother anyone else that there was no need for Nathan to do that? Peter can fly too after all.) Now this leads me to the following two conclusions

1. Nathan was somehow miraculously healed. No way someone with seemingly third degree burns heals to look normal after four months (if ever). That means an evolved human with healing powers must have healed Nathan. As Linderman is dead (I hope the writers somehow don't bring him back to life. It's a cheap story telling technique), there must be someone else with this power.
   
2. Nathan is indeed burnt, but somehow other's don't see him that way. We have no indication from anyone that Nathan is burnt. Everyone treats him normally as if he is fine, so it is unlikely that we, the viewer, are somehow the ones who are being fooled. Perhaps there is an illusion going on in the minds of everyone else. As this seems to follow Nathan around everwhere, I think this is somewhat unlikely. Then again, we never did get to know the full scope of Candice's power. After all, In the future, Sylar is able to trick Billions of people that he is Nathan, and this power seemed to have no limitations.
   

I don't see a lot of other ways out for the writers. Perhaps this has to do with the "dark secret in the Petrelli Family" referred to by Angela Petrelli in next weeks preview. I guess we will find out soon exactly what happened.

Another thing about Nathan did cross my mind. He won the election. What the heck happened to his seat in Congress? Nathan is obviously not going to Congress every week, so what is going on with his seat? I hope this question is answered in next week's episode. It looks to be a good one.