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?

Claire Bennet

Power - Claire has the power of rapid cell regeneration. This means that she can instantly heal almost any injury. She has healed from burns, broken bones, cuts, and has even regrown limbs. Her blood has healing properties, and if injected into another person, can give them the power to heal as well (how long this effect last is undetermined).

As demonstrated by Adam Monroe, who also has this power, Claire will not age.

Weaknesses and Limitations - There seems to be no limit to how much Claire can heal save one, any injury to the part of the brain that gives her this ability seems to negate the power.

Having her head chopped off will do it. An object impaling the section will as well. However, it has been shown that if the object is removed, Claire will eventually heal.

Claire does feel pain, and has stated so, but I'm led to believe that the amount of pain she feels is less than normal people. You wouldn't just voluntarily jump off buildings and chop limbs off for the heck of it, even if you knew you would survive.

"Coolness" factor - 4/10. I actually do not think this power is all that great. The ability to heal quickly is certainly a nice power to have, but stacked up against the other, it isn't anything great. I lowered the ranking even further because I would not want to live forever. Seeing those you live grow old and die would soon become too much for me.

The ability to heal others though is truly "cool" so this power is saved somewhat by this fact.

"Kick Ass" factor - 6/10. Why only a 6? Claire can essentially not die. thus making her very hard to defeat. However, she has no offensive abilities. Therefore, characters with strong offensive abilities could essentially kill Claire by exploiting her weakness. Hiro can just freeze time, walk up to her, and cut her head off. So could pretty much any regular human so long as he knew of the weakness. Claire has by far the strongest defensive ability, so this pushes her up slightly from average.

Nearest Famous Superhero - Wolverine. This is the superhero best known for his "healing factor" Claire actually seems to have an even more enhanced form though as she seems to heal from serious injury even faster and Wolverine is aging.

How I see this Character evolving - I don't see Claire's power evolving all that much. Since it works without thought, she doesn't have the problems that most characters have with needing the confidence to use her abilities. Since she can heal from almost anything and do it quickly, so not much room for growth there.

As a character, Claire obviously has some growing up to do. Claire truly has a pure heart, and almost always has the best of intentions. However, her youth comes through a lot in her decisions, and she has to learn some lessons about life. She is the only original main character in high school, and as such, I see the writer's exploring the problems that not only come with having a power, but dealing with it as one grows into adulthood.

Bringing Back the Dead

There is one thing I hope Heroes doesn't make a habit of. In this week's episode, they seemingly brought back Noah Bennet from the dead by giving him some of Claire's blood. This can lead to all sorts of weak storytelling elements because people can be killed off and brought back whenever the writers feel like it because all it takes is some of Claire's (or Adam's) blood, and poof, everything is OK.

Dead should be dead. Period. It should be one of the very hard and fast rules of any good storyteller, if someone is confirmed dead, they can not be brought back to life. Thus far, Heroes has done OK with this. Linderman, Simone, Isaac, Charlie, all dead and as far as we know still dead. They sometimes play around a little bit, but as soon as someone is killed off, they stay dead.

The only thing that can save this story is that if we somehow find out that Mr. Bennet was not actually dead, only "near-dead". Even if they do this, it will only partially save the storyline.

Cautionary Tale

Getting pretty good at some of this prediction stuff huh? I correctly called that Hiro would actually allow his father to die. We of course find out who the killer was, and it was, as many of us suspected, Adam Monroe. Hiro allows his father to die, because it must happen. It is not the place of Heroes to play god, and preventing Kaito's death would be akin to playing God. Ironically, I got the picture wrong, as the person in the photo was in fact Ando, and not Hiro, but I still reached the correct conclusion.

This is direct contrast to what is going on with Parkman, who is slowly gaining control of his powers. I like this storyline a lot. I've stated it before, it frustrates me to no end when shows drag on the development of it's characters. Parkman has potentially one of the best powers in the show. Telepathy is not a trivial power. Professor X has shown just how powerful telepathy can really be. The show is portraying the path that Parkman is going down as the same as his father, and said as much as he forced Angela Petrelli to reveal the name of the missing twelve, Victoria Pratt.

Noah attempts to save his family, and joins forces with Wes to rescue Claire. While being held captive, they take Claire's blood, informing her that it has the ability to so many people. Noah captures Elle, and exchanges her for Claire. He is subsequently shot by Mohinder, right in the eye, right as the painting showed it.

By the way, Mohinder has not "flipped" to being a bad guy for killing Bennet. He did this very deliberately, with full knowledge that he would be able to bring back Noah. This must be true for the following reasons

• Mohinder is one of the good guys.
  
• Mohinder is just not a killer, and the way he killed Bennet was pretty cold blooded
• Noah spared Mohinder's life. Very doubtful he would return the favor by shooting him in the eye.

I think it's very fishy by the way he let Mohinder go in the first place. Either Bennet is being very sloppy, or those two are up to something. By the way, did anyone really think Bennet was dead when he was shot? I knew events would play out as they happened, because I knew A) Isaac's painting would come true. B) It would not end exactly as the painting would make it seem C) they wouldn't kill Bennet.

Only two left! Bummer about the strike, Heroes was finally taking shape.

Out of Time - Review

Good episode from Heroes. We learned quite a bit in this episode, and many of the scenes from the series of eight paintings were revealed. We found out that the blond was indeed Niki, trying to come after Bob and of course we discovered exactly why Peter was shown next to a bio-hazard sign.

Although it has yet to occur, we do know that it is indeed Mohinder with the gun and why he has a broken nose. The big mystery now is who is he shooting and why? Could it be Noah? Is Noah really going to die?

Some other things were confirmed. I'm glad I hit the nail on the head about Adam Monroe actually being Takezo Kensei. I wonder if my reasoning was sound though? Interesting to see if the writers ever confirm my theory about him being named "Adam" for the reasons I mention. I now also got confirmation about my theories that Kensei was bad. I actually was pretty accurate with my reasoning that Hiro was indeed Kensei and how the dragon story would eventually unfold. I have to pat myself on the back one more time for my correct assumption that Kensei would indeed be immortal.

One of the things that did happen was that things are a little more polarizing at this point. In my post about Heroes never being black or white, I mention how difficult it is to really know who is good or evil. I don't see how Adam Monroe can be anything but the bad guy at this point. His motives are clear. He wants revenge on Hiro for what Hiro did. If that is indeed the case, that means the company is lining up on the side of "good" for now. One flaw I think the writers are making at this point is that it is very hard to root for or against anybody right now because it is ambiguous at best who you should be rooting for. In this genre, it is important for fans to know who we should be pulling for. At this point, confusion reigns. Those that the fans have grown to love, Hiro, Perter, and Claire, all seem to be heading down a path where they are clearly aiding the wrong side. It will be interesting how the writers try to get these stories back on track.

The other major developments are of course that Matt is gaining control of his powers a little more. I hope they continue to go down this path for all the heroes. One of the most frustrating things is to watch these people with extraordinary gifts unable to use them. I'm still pretty pissed at Smallville that Clark for some reason can't fly yet. It's getting ridiculous.

I believe we also learn why Noah is in trouble. Claire, and her rebelliousness, is going to be the downfall of Mr. Bennet. Not sure exactly how it is going to happen yet, but I'm pretty positive that the whole Wes-Claire story is going to what ends up "killing" Noah. I put killing in quotes because I still don't believe that Heroes will kill off Noah, he is too popular and is easily one of the better actors on the show. His character is fantastic and extremely complex. Makes for interesting story telling.

The Eight Pictures

The season seems to be revolving around the eight pictures that Isaac completed before his death. Up until this past episode, we have only been able to see the first one, depicting Kaito's death, the last one, showing a dead Mr. Bennet along with Claire and an unknown man.

Mr Bennet, along with the Haitian, has traveled to the Ukraine, to uncover the other six paintings. After disposing of his former partner, Mr. Bennet goes to a warehouse and unboxes the remaining paintings. A collage of them are below.

1. Kaito's Death
2. Claire and Wes' trick on Debbie
3. A vial, possibly the deadly virus
4. A blond woman, possibly Niki, trapped.
5. A man, perhaps peter, with eyes glazed over, and a biohazard sign in the corner.
6. Hiro and Takezo engaged in a sword fight
7. Mohinder, with a broken nose and a fired gun
8. Mr. Bennet, shot through the eye, with Claire and a mysterious man in the background.

Not sure how this is all going to play out. The first two scenes have already happened. One of the things I'm interested in is how all these disparate scenes are going to come together in the end. Why is Claire's trick so important? What is Hiro and Takezo going to do with all these present day happenings? Is Mr Bennet actually dead, and if so, who killed him? Did Mohinder fire the gun that shot Mr. Bennet

The main plot this season is definitely around some sort of bio-hazard being unleashed on the general human population. At this point, I'm not sure if it is because of the Shanti serum that Mohinder is developing, the powers that Maya has shown, or maybe a combination of both. Somehow, these eight paintings are going to lead up to the events that Peter has now teleported to.

Don't have any deep insights yet. If I do, I'll post some more.