Nathan Healed - Again

OK, one thing that continues to bother me about this season that they still have not answered is, how did Nathan heal. This is actually the second time he miraculously healed. This time he came back from the dead.

I probably won't be satisfied with any story the writers decide to tell. First off, they brought back Nathan from the dead. The doctor declared him dead. Doctors don't do that casually. So the writers decided that something can bring him back. I've written it before, and I'll write it again, dead should be dead. Bringing characters back from the dead is just bad storytelling that should be left to Soap Operas. God only knows what will happen if Heroes starts becoming a Soap Opera.

So if I can get past this, they somehow have to come up with another story. Here are the things we know.

• It wasn't Linderman. He is dead and appears to still be dead, thank god.
  
• It wasn't Peter. He was as surprised as anyone that Nathan sprang back to life.
• There was nobody else in the close proximity. We have, as of yet, not seen anyone with the ability to heal someone from distance.
  

I've heard theories that perhaps Arthur Petrelli has some power that could in fact save Nathan from a distance. I find this difficult to believe as I think Arthur Petrelli wants Nathan dead. In fact, I'm pretty sure in this weeks episode, we will find out that Arthur was indeed behind the car crash that that injured Nathan's wife in Season 1 (BTW, where the hell is Nathan's family?)

The only somewhat plausible explanation I can come up with is that Nathan actually has a healing power like Claires. Think about it, it makes some sense. It is believed that Nathan had no powers. This is why his parents injected him with the formula. But it may very well be the case that he just never manifested these powers yet. It took a near death event to awaken these powers. Now I find this very hard to believe given the events of last season when he was burnt to a crisp, but I can at least buy it.

It would even fit into the story somewhat because it would explain Claire's powers. It makes sense that Powers, being part of a genetic code, should be inherited. We even see this now as Peter and Gabriel actually have similar powers to Arthur. All three can in effect, take multiple powers.

So that's all I got on this one. Not sure how or even if the writers are going to address this gaping hole in their story telling.

Why Nathan Being Dead is a Bad Idea

I hate people who nit-pick at a show to death, but this last episode has some real problems with it and I'm going to talk about those over the next few days. The writers, while perhaps having a compelling story overall, are just missing or ignoring crucial details and it's causing for rather frustrating developments.

The most frustrating is the shooting of Nathan. This is not because I want them to keep Nathan on the show. If they feel like killing him off to further the overall story, fine. But absolutely nothing good can come out of Nathan's death because it presents two very big problems for the show.

1. If Nathan is indeed dead, than Peter is an idiot. All he has to do is use his blood and viola, Nathan is healed.
2. If Peter does save Nathan, now we have a problem with storytelling. I mentioned it in my post about bringing back the dead. Allowing a plot element like this is going to mean that death is meaningless.

Neither scenario is good for the show, but one must be true. What are your thoughts on Nathan's Death? What do you think about the storytelling? Are you having problems with some of the details the writers seem to not be thinking about?

Update: One alternative is that the shot to the chest are not fatal, but that would be a problem too. Would the company really send an inept assassin, someone would couldn't place to shots to the chest that would kill somebody? That would be almost as lame as the other two.

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.

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.

Fight or Flight

Rather than do a recap of the episode, which you can get in a lot of different places, I thought I would just give my random thoughts on the episodes. If I think something deserves a more in depth analysis, I will do it sometime in the week.

Kristen Bell's new character, Elle, seems interesting. Her electrical power is similar to Peter's new found power which probably means Peter has encountered her. Many have guessed that Peter's power was a different form of the power he acquired from Ted, but that doesn't quite make sense in light of Elle. Peter's power much more closely resembles her. This can only be explained if he somehow met her before. Perhaps sometime in the four months missing in his life.

Maury Parkman being evil, even after being seemingly innocent, did not come as a shock. He is clearly a "bad guy", but I'm not so sure he is the bad guy. His body type just doesn't match that of Kaito's killer. It has been suggested by some, that he perhaps caused it to be an "illusion" to Kaito, but I don't think so. It just doesn't quite fit.

I still stand by my previous post. Takezo is about to go bad. Something is going to happen when they attack Whitebeard's army. I believe I caught a glimpse of Takezo hitting a man from behind, most likely Hiro, in the preview. If I can get a screen capture of it, I will post it up.

Why is Mohinder showing up at Monica's door? She doesn't seem to be in any danger, so it seems odd that the Company would just send him there to do anything about her. Perhaps if he was in the same capacity as HRG was before he left, but he isn't. So it seems unlikely that the company would just send Mohinder to bring Monica in.