Quick Thoughts on "Angels and Monsters"

This episode further perpetuates a running theme that I have been following over the past year, Heroes characters walk a think gray line. The episode starts out with a monologue by Nathan who is trying to figure out if he is a hero or a villain. Much like everyone else, it isn't so black and white. Former heroes like Peter, Mohinder, and Hiro are on the wrong side of good and evil (although I'm not buying the Hiro thing quite yet. I'm sure we will discover not everything is as it seems when he stabs Ando) while the tradional villians of Angela and Sylar start lining up on the other side. HRG continues to walk the gray line, never clearly good or bad.

Under it all is a familiar theme. Things are being controlled by an unknown force. Like I stated in my last post, Arthur Petrelli is back. One thing is clear, people fear him. Maury Parkman fears him as does his wife, Angela. So is power, or his evil, must be truly something. More on that later. Also nice to see that my theory about Linderman being an illusion created by Maury Parkman was accurate. I knew that they wouldn't bring Linderman back to life, so the only logical conclusion was that he wasn't real.

Slowly but surely, we see the future as Parkman envisioned it and as Future Peter lived to be coming true. For some reason, Arthur Petrelli seems bent on giving powers to everyone. While I'm sure that future will never come to pass, the events leading up to it that would certainly be the basis for which this season's episodes will be based.

And can I say, I'm really think this puppet master character has some potential?

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?

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?

Four Months Ago

Now that's an episode. Lots of good things in this one.

We learn exactly what happened to Peter and to Nathan after the explosion. I'm glad they cleared up my question about how Nathan healed so quickly from his burns. I even like that they threw in a little line from Peter that he couldn't fly because it was taking all his will to just stop himself from exploding. Still think it's a little fishy, but it at least passes the plausibility test. One of the things i really liked about their story is the clear bond that these two have for each other. At times in season 1, you have to question how much Nathan really loves Peter. Throughout this season we have seen he really does. One of the things reveled was that Peter is able to "heal" himself into remembering the things the Haitian made him forget. That suggest that part of the Haitian's power really is to damage parts of the brain. Interesting.

Ma Patrelli shows some of her evil side, by convincing Nathan's wife that he was delusional. Not sure if her squeezing Heidi's arm was an indication of some sort of power that she has? Could it be a form of persuasion that she has?

We are introduced to the Adam Monroe of the present. But something is going on here. I'm not really convinced that Bob and Adam are actually opposing each other. If they are, it's really bad storytelling again. First off, from all indications, Linderman was running the company yet he was a disciple of Adam. Why would Linderman allow Adam to be imprisoned for thirty years? Further, they put Peter in their jail, yet they planned on controlling him by giving him pills? Really? The company is meticulous, but allowing the two evolved humans they would consider the most dangerous to just walk out because Peter didn't take some pills? And why on earth would they allow two prisoners to so easily communicate through their cells?

We find out how DL died. Kind of a bad way to go. I for one hope they keep DL dead. I've said it before, I don't like people coming back from the dead. It's a very weak plot element. Dead should be dead. It is too bad though. DL, for all his problems, really had a heroic attitude. Running into the fire to save the woman, true act of bravery, even with powers.

We find out the back story of Maya and Alejandro. These two still don't interest me too much. I'm still not 100% sure how they fit into this plot. Again, I think they were going to be key to the 2nd half of the season, but with it seeming very likely that there won't be a second half, I'm not sure how they will try and tie everything up with the three episodes they have left.

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.