Heroes Turns the Corner

I'm back for now. Just wanted to write a few brief thoughts about Volume Four, Fugitives. I am not sure I will write on any regular basis, but I will write when the feeling moves me.

The first thing that strikes me is that the writers have taken a lot of my suggestions and it has gone a long way in improving the show. Here are some of the better things they have done.

• They have essentially leveled the playing field by toning down several of the Heroes' powers. I wrote before, that it was important they did not have all-powerful characters. Peter was a god. He could do almost anything yet he seemed almost powerless at times because his character was too stupid to fully exploit his powers. This became extremely frustrating. Hiro suffered from the same problems and they have corrected that by completely removing his powers.
  
• They have severely cut down on ancillary heroes. No more Micah, no more Monica, no Maury Parkman, no Arthur Petrelli. As I wrote when they killed Maury, they need to focus on the main characters. The Petrelli's, Claire, Hiro, Matt, and Sylar. Doing any more than that is just dilutive to the character development
• They are focusing a lot on their best character, Sylar. Too bad he is evil. But the more they dig into Sylar's past, the better his character becomes
• Claire isn't so useless, and I like the change.
• HRG continues to be a big question mark. Are we ever really going to understand this guy?
• Angela is fantastic. I hope they continue to develop her character more. She is cunning and has lots of depth.
• The pace is faster, which is better. Too much storytelling actually makes things drag. This is an action show, lets not forget that.
  

I do think that they swung the pendulum too far the other way when it comes to toning guys down. While Peter being as powerful as he was upset me, now he is too weak. I'm glad they took away the ability to time travel from Hiro, but now what? Hiro was the best character. Without a power, he is a lot less interesting.

So I hope they continue down this trend. Season two was bad. Season three was mediocre. So far, this volume is looking to be much better.

Quick Thoughts on "Dying of the Light"

Show starts out with the truth about Ando and Hiro. Like I had stated in the earlier post, there was no way that Hiro actually stabbed Ando. Hiro is clearly on the "good" side and has been from the beginning

It moves on to Arthur Petrelli killing Adam Monroe in a demonstration of his powers. Arthur Petrelli has the ability to "suck" powers out of others. This is pretty interesting development and gives us insight on why he is able to instill so much fear in others. I for one hope that this ability will have its limits. I hope his powers are similar to the Parasite. He is only able to temporarily absorb the powers of others. Otherwise, we will run into the same problem we have with Sylar and Peter, characters becoming much too powerful.

I'm happy that they are bringing another Pre-cog back. I tend to think this makes the show much more interesting. The scene with him and Hiro was hilarious. I have selfish reasons for wanting another Pre-cog back on the show. The paintings provide me clues on what is going to happen next, and gives me my material to write this blog. For example, we are treated to the picture of the four villians this season. Three of them are easily recognizable. They are Arthur, Knox, and Flint. The other one is not as easily identifiable, and I believe has not been introduced as of yet.

Peter the bad guy and Sylar the good guy? What is going on with the world? Here we see the crux of this season's plot. Who are the real villians in this story?

Of course the Peter development with his father was rather predictable. As my girlfriend often says, Peter doesn't deserve his power. He is rather naive if not outright stupid, and that isn't a good quality for someone has powerful as Peter. It seems now that he has lost all his powers. In my opinion, this is a good thing. Like I stated earlier in this post and in another one, I never liked Peter being as powerful as he was. It creates problems with storytelling that are difficult to reconcile.

Hiro Nakamura

Power - Chronokinesis. Hiro has the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum. This gives him the power to freeze time and to transport to any location instantly. Not only can he transport himself through physical space, but he cant transport himself through time. This ability seems limitless as he has traveled half-way across the world as well as through several centuries.

"Coolness" factor - 9/10. This is a rating of how "cool" it would be to actually possess this power. Hiro's ability to not only teleport himself instantly to any location and to stop time but to actually travel through time makes this power perhaps the coolest natural ability of any of the evolved humans. If used properly, this makes Hiro perhaps the most powerful evolved human second only to Peter.

"Kick Ass" factor - 9/10. This is a rating of if two evolved humans were to get into a fight, and their powers were used to the utmost of their potential, who would win. Hiro's power to actually stop time would trump almost any other evolved human's power. He could simply stop time, walk up to them, and cut their head off. He could do even one better and go back in time and make sure that particular person was never born.

Weaknesses and Limitations - Hiro's greatest weakness is his own self doubt. Although he has one of the most powerful abilities of any evolved human, he is limited in his use of it by his own mental blocks. Throughout Season 1, we saw Hiro struggle to learn to control his power. On a few occasions he refused to travel through time for fear of not knowing where he would actually end up.

Hiro only seems to be able to teleport objects and people if he is actually touching them.

Thus far, there seems to be only three known serious limitations to Hiro's power. Like other evolved humans, Hiro's power will not work against the Haitian. The other limitation we have seen for Hiro is that he is unable to freeze Peter in time. This is probably an effect of Peter also being able to control the space-time continuum. The third limitation is that it takes serious concentration on Hiro's part to use his powers and he was prevented from using them by Adam Monroe by giving him Opium.

Nearest Famous Superhero -You know, there really isn't one. The closest you are going to get is a very geeky and weak Silver Surfer. Silver Surfer has the ability to manipulate time and space thanks to his power cosmic. Hiro is nowhere near that level, but then again, I've never known Silver Surfer to be able to completely and utterly stop time either. There really aren't too many famous superheros who come anywhere near Hiro's power level simply because his power is too great. There are many who can transport instantly anywhere but very few who have the mastery of time that our Hiro does.


How I see this Character evolving -Hiro is the heart and soul of the Heroes series. I do not think it would be a stretch to say he is perhaps most people favorite character. He has a lovable attitude and a nerdy quality that fans of this genre can really appreciate. He is equipped with one of the more powerful abilities and thus has the potential for some great storytelling.

I have stated in other post that I believe the writer's will take Hiro down a darker path. I have mixed feelings on this one as I really do love how full of life and spirit Hiro is. We have seen glimpses of what Hiro can become both as "Dark" Hiro and what he did to Adam Monroe at the end of Season two. Up until that point, I would say Hiro was the Compass that guided Heroes. His actions were always noble and with the best intentions.

As far as Power's go, I don't see how they can increase Hiro's power much more than they have.
He has been show to have almost limitless control over space and time. If anything, they will need to restrict his power going forward, as to not let him go back in time and fix anything he wants to fix.

Hiro's Revenge

When I saw what Hiro did to Adam, by trapping him in the coffin and burying him six-feet under, all I could say to myself was, "How medieval was that?" I didn't think Hiro had it in him.
This is a very interesting turning point for Hiro. Up until this point, Hiro was the happy-go-lucky-time-freezing geek we have grown to love. But something has now fundamentally changed with Hiro. The death of his father brought great sadness to him. The realization that it was Adam seemed to instill a deep sense of guilt that he did not stop him sooner.


This will probably be the start of this timelines "Dark Hiro". Remember what set off Hiro in that timeline, it was the death of Ando. As Peter said, "Your remember how he used to be. All full of hope and Optimism. It went away the day you died." I don't think Hiro will go that far down the road, he seems to have accepted the death of his father, but it still will lead to his being the more serious version of Hiro. I for one am excited about it. While I think the "geeky" Hiro is great, and I hope he always maintains some of that, I also am eager to see him develop his power and have the confidence and ability to control his powers.

What did you think of what Hiro did to Adam? Do you think its a sign of things to come?

Powerless

A little less of a recap than normal. I'm going to try and space out my blogging a little bit so that we have something to read each day. Overall, I was a little disappointed with this episode. Several things in the plot really bothered me, more on that during the rest of the week.

Sylar kidnaps Molly and Suresh. Why Sylar shows up to the apartment unarmed and unprepared is absolutely beyond me. He further acts like an idiot when he takes Sylar's blood. Sylar puts down the gun, and gives Mohinder access to his veins to draw blood. Gee, don't think Mohinder could have done something here. For someone as brilliant as Mohinder is in the lab, he sure acts dumb sometimes. As Mohinder diagnoses Sylar, Molly attempts to locate Alejandro. She fails of course, because he is dead.

The funniest scene in the season occurs as Nathan and Matt arrive at Odessa, Matt "riding' Nathan all the way from New York. Matt states. "Ok. We don't talk about that, ever again." Funniest line in Heroes ever.

Peter does indeed defeat Hiro, although Peter was a little more gullible and dumb than I would have believed. The one thing I liked about the battle was the fact that Hiro is now displaying a lot more control of his abilities than before, making pinpoint shifts in space. Peter too is displaying a lot more confidence in his abilities, which I think is a good thing. He is even able to resist the powers of Matt.

He and Adam successfully break into the vault containing the virus. They are met by Hiro, Matt, and Nathan. Peter becomes a lot more dark than I would like to see from his character as he looks prepared to kill Hiro. Peter is one of the good guys. If the writers plan on turning him bad, which is very possible, I think they are making a mistake. The beauty of Peter's character is that he is an Empath, he is able to feel and understand those around him. People like this are by their nature compassionate. This is why Peter entered the field of nursing. It makes perfect sense. To turn him bad now would just be for the sake of having an interesting plot twist, but would otherwise harm the character development overall.

In the end, Adam drops the vial containing the virus, just before he is teleported away by Hiro (more on this later). Then, just as predicted, Peter saves the world with a well placed bit of TK. Nathan calls a press conference where he is going to go public with his ability. Before he can, he is shot. (More on this later)

I was right on about Niki dying, it made the most sense to me even though I was sad to see her go. I was wrong about Elle dying. We see her character evolve a little bit. When we first met Elle, she was sadistic, glad to cause pain and feeling little remorse about murder. Her character turns a little bit showing a much softer side, and taking pride in the fact that she is able to help Mohinder. She is just a girl, a girl who loves her father and will do anything to gain his approval.

The story ends with a preview of Chapter three which will be titled "villans". All sorts of interesting things there if they dive deep into it. Sylar is seen injecting himself with the cure for the virus, and has now regained his much beloved TK ability. He is back, and perhaps more bloodthirsty than ever.

That's all for now. Will get into more detail about some of the events during this episode and the season over the next few post.

Quick thoughts before Final Episode

So what do you think is going to happen in the final episode. Here are things I think might happen.

1. They will "stop" the virus. But we will see a preview yet another, more serious threat on the horizon. It will turn out that the Shanti Virus will be stopped, much like Sylar was stopped, but that there really is another threat, like Peter being the real bomb.
   
2. Peter will team up with Hiro to stop Adam. I actually think Peter knows Adam is bad, even before he talks with Hiro
   
3. Elle will die, but she will die in order to save the world and maker her dad "trust her" again. This was hinted at when she and her Dad talked in the car.
   
4. Who is the second hero who will die? Don't have a real good guess here. Want to say it will be Niki, but would they really kill her off this early when I think there is so much they can do to develop this character. The only other person I can see is Maya, but I think they need her for what will be the next chapter of this story.

That's all I got for now. What do you think is going to happen?

See you after the final episode!

Peter Defeats Hiro?

We last leave Heroes with Hiro about to attack Peter with the Kensei sword. But what happens after that is a big mystery.

Here is what we know to be true from next weeks preview

1. Peter isn't going to die. He is seen talking to Adam right afterwards
2. Peter, Matt, and Nathan are standing at a Podium in front of the press

So I believe that Peter is indeed going to be able to "stop the virus". There is a scene where it appears the vial is falling and will smash on the floor, but Peter should be able to stop that with a little bit of well timed TK (then again, when has Peter ever shown the ability to control any of his abilities well?)

You don't have a press conference like they appear to be having for no reason. What exactly the reason is still perplexes me though. I doubt it is to talk about the virus, as I would imagine the company would want to keep that secret. Then again, Nathan did say, "No more secrets".

But what happens between Peter and Hiro? Does Hiro convince Peter that Adam is evil, and thus they don't have to fight. Peter could only be pretending when he tells Adam "let's go destroy the virus". I doubt that though. Adam has a very funny look on his face. I have to believe that Peter at least told Adam about Hiro. I doubt Hiro was defeated, or at the very least there to be seen by Adam since they are in a very public place, and nobody seems to be alarmed that there is a dead body on the floor. That and they aren't going to kill of Hiro, I can guarantee you that one. (There are actually three people I think are absolutely safe for the time being. Peter, Claire, and Hiro. Too integral to the success of the show to get rid of these three any time soon)

So what do you think? How is the virus going to be stopped, and what are Hiro and Peter's role in all of it?

Truth and Consequences

Yes, my post are slowing down. Mainly due to the fact that I'm a little disheartened by the writer's strike, and the eventual abrupt end to my favorite show, but also because this is getting a little hard when it seems like I'm talking to myself. So if you have comments, please share :)

An OK episode. Most of the action happened at the end. Not a full recap, just the interesting parts.

Show starts out with Peter again seeing himself in the future, deserted, New York City. It appears to be one of his dream sequences again. They are going to have to explain this sooner rather than later, and I hope it's sooner since I hate things that drag out for extended periods of time without explanation. He teams up with Adam to find Victoria Pratt and "save the world". Peter finds and talks to her. In the end, he reads her mind to discover where the virus is, and she ends up being killed by Adam Monroe. Adam leaves his calling card, and they head off to Texas to go find it.

Bob returns Noah's "ashes" to the Bennet Family. Of course, these aren't real since we know that Noah was in fact saved by Mohinder and locked up by the Company. Claire wishes to forget and considers asking the Haitian to wipe her memory (which of course she could always recover as we know from Peter). She scatters the ashes and notices Elle watching her. She threatens to tell the world about her abilities. I'm not exactly sure how this gives her an advantage over the company, but for some reason Claire thinks it does.

Elle has a testy exchange with her father who chastises her and tells her that she has to regain his trust. I don't think this exchange bodes well for one of these two characters. Heroes hints that two heroes are going to die next week. My money is on Elle being one of those.

Sylar teaches Maya to "control" her power in an attempt to get rid of Alejandro. She succeeds and sends Alejandro away, believing she is doing the right thing for him. Alejandro, ever the good brother, refuses to leave and confronts Sylar. During the confrontation Alejandro is killed. This storyline is really starting to bore me as it has little relevance to the rest of the plot. I'm sure it will turn around in the 2nd half of the season, but for now, it is dragging on. It also really bothers me the trust Maya puts in a stranger over her brother, who clearly loves her. Come on now, is that at all realistic?

Hiro goes back to discover why Adam Monroe was locked up, and discovers that Adam attempted to release the virus that would cause total devastation. He travels to Odessa to find him, bringing along the Kensei sword. He freezes time, only to find an unfrozen Peter Petrelli. Despite being told that Adam murdered Kaito, Peter refuses to let Hiro have Adam. The show ends with Hiro charging Peter with the sword, Peter ready to fire an electric bolt at Hiro.

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.

Can Hiro Save his Dad?

Can Hiro make it back to save his Dad? Somehow I doubt it. One of the things we learned in Season 1 is that somethings are just meant to happen, and there is no way to prevent it. Heroes is a little inconsistent with this idea. They allowed Future Hiro to change his present, by ensuring that the bomb went off. Why "changing" this outcome is possible but not something like the death of Charlie is not.

Hiro states, when he comes back from trying to save Charlie, that there was nothing he could do.
No matter what he tried, she died. I think the same is going to be true for Hiro's father. In fact, I'm not even 100% sure he is going to try. I believe Hiro is going to discover that Adam Monroe is indeed his father's killer but he is going to stop short of actually preventing it. Hiro is seen in the above picture on top of the Deveaux Building. This appears to be on the outside patio. But below we see a figure in the corner, watching what is happening, but yet doing nothing about it.


Why would Hiro allow the death to happen? Not certain. I can't think of any scenario where he would actually allow that to happen. The nearest thing I can come up with is that his father actually asked Hiro to let him die, so Hiro stands by silently when it does happen. If that is the case, his death must serve a purpose.

The Line

An interesting episode overall. For a recap you can go here. My thoughts are below.

For one thing, glad my theory of what was going to happen between Kensei and Hiro was right. I'm still not 100% sure that Kensei has gone over the edge and can't return, but it sure isn't looking too good right now. While I agree with Kensei that it was a back-stabbing move on Hiro's part, handing everybody over to the enemy isn't the answer. I still think Kensei is going to have to make an appearance in modern times. Heroes would not have a story line disjunct from the main thread. Remember, everything is connected, and there is little doubt that the Kensei story is going to have an impact on the current plot. I think Hiro, to preserve the timeline, is going to have to complete the Kensei story himself. He is going to be the one who "sacrifices his heart" for the princess when he leaves this time, to return to his own. Remember, he pronounced to his father in Landslide, "To save what is most important, to cut out my own heart." Perhaps this is an allusion to what he will have to do.

The two other interesting things that happened were the discovery of the remaining paintings. In it you clearly see a couple of events happening. Mohinder is firing a gun. Perhaps he is the man who kills Mr. Bennet in the final picture. You see Peter with a kind of ghostly look on his face. You see a blonde woman trapped in what looks to be a large metal container. You see hiro and Takezo in a sword fight. And you see a vial, no doubt holding the virus that is going to wipe out the world.

Which brings us to the end scene. Peter makes it to Montreal, and discovers a note left to him from an Adam. We were introduced to the name "Adam Monroe" earlier when Mohinder saw Bob holding a folder with that name. Rumors have it Adam is one of the twelve. It may be that Adam is the "killer" of the twelve, but that would mean the killer is a good guy. He clearly has worked with Peter in the past (probably in the missing 4 months) and Peter is a known good guy, so I doubt he would knowingly help a "bad guy". As he embraces, Caitlan, he unknowingly uses Hiro's power to transport to the future and finds himself in a deserted Time Square. He picks up a piece of litter, to discover it is an evacuation notice for June 14, 2008.


My theory is that they did indeed mutate the virus, and it has reached the general population like Mohinder has feared. That is what is in the vial depicted in Isaac's painting.

Heroes - Never Black and White

One of the things I really love about the characters in Heroes is that things are rarely, if ever, black and white. In most things, you clearly know who is good or evil. Superman is good. Lex Luthor is bad. The bad guy is easy to identify.

Not so in Heroes. Take any of the characters, there are many many levels to each of them. The most obvious character to demonstrate this is Jessica/Niki. The dual personality is constantly fighting between good and evil. But not all characters are so obvious. Even the the most evil character, Sylar, has shown his humanity in The Hard Part. If events had only transpired in a slightly different way, we may be talking about Sylar the hero, rather than Sylar the bad-ass murderer.

I thought about this even as I wrote that Takezo Kensei is a bad guy. In reality, I know he isn't truly evil. I know that him knocking out Hiro could very well be interpreted in many different ways. I thought about it as I wrote about Matt and Maury Parkman. Clearly Matt struggles with the demons that he has inherited from his father. Demons that were on display when we see Dark Matt Parkman in the future. The Matt we know is the epitome of courageousness and heroism, but it only took a few critical events to turn him to the lackey of Sylar and against his own kind.

Takezo takes out Hiro: confirmed.

In my previous post, Takezo Kensei - Bad Guy?, I offered as evidence, a picture showing someone walking over Hiro, who might have been Takezo Kensei.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, I saw a glimpse of a scene during next week's preview which looked like Kensei hitting someone from behind. Here is a picture that confirms my theory.



What is going to cause this change in Takezo? Is it going to be a dispute of Yaeko? Maybe just Kensei obviously self-serving nature taking over? Perhaps this is a ruse, and not actually as bad as it looks? I guess we will find out next week.