Heroes

[Nevermore]

Sylar's change makes a certain amount of sense, but I hate that they call it The Hunger!  The way it's described sounds more like a kind of OCD specific to 'I must know how things work'.  If you go waaay back to early in the first season before we ever actually meet him, there's an indication that at first he was struggling with this compulsion and didn't want to do what he was doing.  By the time we actually see him though, he doesn't seem to care anymore.

As for whether or not Future Peter is dead, Future Claire's comment could be taken either way I suppose.  It boils down to whether the writers want to be rid of him or not since they could justify it either way.

My only problem with the episode was how Gabriel started to pull all those old powers that he had supposedly lost out of his ass again.  Painting the future and the radiation powers were two that Sylar lost to that virus in season 2 and he'd never shown any indication that he'd regained anything other than his original power and the TK power.  Otherwise he should still have the freezing power, perfect memory and super hearing, just to name a few.  Also, whatever turned Sylar back into Gabriel also turned him into a giant wuss.  I can understand him not wanting to use his powers in general, but when his son was being threatened is a good time to open up that can of whoop ass.  Fear Guy should have been no problem at all for him to handle.

[Ookii]

I agree with you that Sylar should of been able to take out Mr. Fear with the quickness.  It's kind of silly that either Sylar or Peter would have trouble fighting any of the current cast without the Haitian present, they're just too powerful.  The writers seem to try and overcome this by making Peter a gigantic pussy who doesn't really want to fight, only to bust out all his powers 30 seconds later.  That way he gets beat up but still wins in the end.

When it comes down to it freezing time is the win button, they need to come up with more plausible scenarios as to why it isn't used every 5 seconds.

[Soln]

It's too complicated.  The back and forth time trope is not working. And I think going with the formula route is too midiclorine-like.

The show worked because it gradually revealed a conspiracy (history) that made the spine of the stories (like the X-files).  It feels now they are trying to solve too many unanswered questions too quickly that don’t leave open enough new stories to be revealed.  I fear the worst.

[Bunk]

Another thing to remember about Peter, is that he has to actualy "activate" his powers. If you remember back to the whole bit with him trying to learn to use them, he had to bring up the emotion he felt when he was around those powers. I've always seen it as he needs to activate them, so say he gets his arm cutoff, he activates his healing and it grows back. He gets shot in the head - well, then he's dead.

Of course that doesn't cover whether he couldn't activate the healing power before he got shot... Or when he blewup with Nathan, or...

[Abagadro]

This show is sliding from "mildly interesting yet flawed" to "steaming pile of shit" in a rapid fashion.

[voodoolily]

Well it's still full of hot people, so it has that going for it.

[schild]

They are hellbent on uglyfying everybody though.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I was thinking mohinder-snake but my coworker says mohinder-roach

[Nevermore]

Roach seems most likely.  He can start calling himself Gregor.

[voodoolily]

Too bad they killed Mr. Magnetism.

Did anyone else notice him in the family photo with Zimmerman and Traci/Nikki/Other One?

[voodoolily]

Roach seems most likely.  He can start calling himself Gregor.

lol I had a pet Madagascan cockroach named Gregor Samson in college.

[Tale]

I enjoyed the "future Sylar in an apron in the kitchen" scene, and I started to like future badass Claire. Both actors got to have fun.

[Mazakiel]

I don't think a head shot or decapitation would truly kill her. It will make it appear that she is dead but if the pieces are ever brought together or the object in her head is removed everything will grow back together and she will come alive again.

But Peter, being an empath, has her self-healing ability and  What's different this time?

Probably the Haitian being there.  If he dies with his powers off, he can't come back, I guess.  Which would also maybe explain the scar, he got cut with his powers off, and they won't heal anything that happened with his powers off.  I think present Peter still had the cuts on his chest from psycho Claire, and the Haitian was there, then, too.  Of course, that brings up the question of why they went after Sylar and Peter at the same time without him there, but that's just one issue among many any more. 


I'm hoping this stupid "I'm special!" thing of Claire's gets settled soon, it's pretty silly. 

[voodoolily]

Oh yeah, that's right. I remember realizing last night that that was why he was staying dead. 

[Venkman]

Here's some things I remembered today:

Which future are we supposed to be worried about? The destruction-of-Tokyo Hiro jumped a year into the future to see (when Ando killed him) or the destruction-of-Costa-Verde city the Peters jumped four years into.

Also, future Peter was trying to paint this picture of a future where everythings gone horribly wrong in a nuke-of-NYC sorta way. However, when he arrives with past Peter, you see a bunch of people going about their business as if all is normal, except they can fly and run fast and whatnot. And his brother the President isn't some lameduck stupid guy but rather seems to know what's going on. So what's the deal there? Is the future fine with people having powers but the story is that future Peter doesn't like it? Are we being set up with past Peter seeing himself become the enemy in the future that everyone's scared of? And why? Because he's no longer special and yet yearns to be because he's got Sylar's power?

Finally, the part I actually didn't like at all: why the hell does he need Sylar's power anyway. He can just queue up any power he wants, including the flying ability he tried to swipe from future Nathan. wtf?

[Samwise]

I think the two futures are the same.  In Hiro's future, Ando had super powers, right?  That's completely compatible with the future that Peter saw.

As for why Peter needs Sylar's power: because Peter can use any power he's come in contact with, but he seldom understands them, and he's usually not very good at using them (except when it becomes important to the plot, of course, but let's ignore that for now).  Sylar seems to understand the powers he's absorbed better than their original owners did, and can therefore use them more effectively.

[Mazakiel]

Future Peter was freaked because of the scenes from further in the future he'd painted.  Sylar saw the same thing, hence him helping Peter gain his power.  Nathan and many others don't see any danger in powers becoming widespread.  It's not those single events, but what they all lead up to, warfare or mass violence with all sorts of powers instead of guns or bombs.  Like nuclear holocaust, but where everyone's the nuke. 

Apparently, the reason he needs Sylar's ability isn't that it lets you take on more powers, but that it grants you an understanding of how things work, not just with powers, but people and events too, I suppose.  They haven't explicitly said though, I don't think.  They've always tried to show Sylar as being able to push people's buttons and manipulate them.  Peter wanting to slice open Nathan wasn't for his power, but was triggered off of him wanting to know Nathan's intentions.  What made him tick.  Just another expression of this 'Hunger' thing they've decided to go all out on.  It wasn't enough to try to read his mind, he needed to study it. 

To switch gears a bit, one thing I find interesting, though it's questionable if they'll ever address it in a decent manner, is that while aspects of the future have been changed by all the time travelling, the fundamentals remain the same.  The future is fucked.  Someone losing control of a power precipitates action by the government that will have dire results.  Peter is an outlaw, etc.  If anything, though, the future gets more and more fucked every time someone decides to change it by mucking about with the past.  We've gone from a dystopian future where things were definitely sucky but the majority of people were relatively safe, to the world actually getting wiped out. 

[Slyfeind]

I agree with you that Sylar should of been able to take out Mr. Fear with the quickness.  It's kind of silly that either Sylar or Peter would have trouble fighting any of the current cast without the Haitian present, they're just too powerful.  The writers seem to try and overcome this by making Peter a gigantic pussy who doesn't really want to fight, only to bust out all his powers 30 seconds later.  That way he gets beat up but still wins in the end.

If I was Peter, honestly this is what I'd do. Peter's a freaking god. He can afford to try to talk to people before utterly decimating them.

The crazy time travel is getting to me too, but with so many time travelers running around, I think it's inevitable. I've pretty much resigned Heroes to a "Time Travel" story now.

[CmdrSlack]

The only reason I can think of why Sylar didn't just start whupping up on the Fear guy and Claire et al was because future Sylar/Gabriel seems to be kind of like a twelve-stepper. He's finally on the road to recovery for his hunger or whatever. Starting to whip out the various and sundry powers he'd collected (uh hello, magnetism) perhaps would have been like an alcoholic having "just one beer" at a cookout.

[voodoolily]

He didn't want the little boy to see him use his powers, was his main impetus as far as I could tell.

Who's the mama? I put my money on Elle.

[Reg]

I want to know how he got possession of Mister Muggles! Claire's mom would never have given him up willingly.

[CmdrSlack]

He didn't want the little boy to see him use his powers, was his main impetus as far as I could tell.

Who's the mama? I put my money on Elle.

That could be goofy. Like they decided, "Hey let's take these two mentally unstable super-people, and pair them up while they get better! And for added fun, we'll use the guy who ate Elle's dad's brain killed Elle's dad/took his power as the groom!"

I know the company is not always doing the smartest shit, but fuck.


As to not wanting the kid to see, I'd agree as I feel that fits in with my twelve-stepper Gabriel concept.

[tazelbain]

Peter keeps moving closer to godhood.  With Sylar's abiltity, Peter he could learn to use everyone's powers better than them much faster.  He could speed around use Molly's power to locate every known superpowered individual and learn their power.  Probably figure how to use more than one power at once with Sylar's ability.  With some good planning I bet he can get the Haitians powers as well. Basically unstoppable.

[CmdrSlack]

I just wonder how this "hunger" thing will play out. If Peter needs to cut open skulls to learn how powers work, then he can't take powers. If somehow, his empath ability + Sylar/Gabriel's ability means that he learns the powers, but doesn't necessarily have to hack the heads off little girls and put them on his wall, then I'd say, yeah, he's on a god/demi-god path.

My guess is that we'll see the writers use the internal struggle with the hunger and his ability to see how all of the butterfly effect shit works to drive the rest of the season.

EDIT -- I haven't really figured out the re-introduction of Adam stuff yet.

[voodoolily]

With some good planning I bet he can get the Haitians powers as well. Basically unstoppable.

Evidently, all he'd have to do is hit the Haitian over the head with something. That poor dude gets knocked upside the head like three times in the last episode.

[Venkman]

Future Peter was freaked because of the scenes from further in the future he'd painted. 

Apparently, the reason he needs Sylar's ability isn't that it lets you take on more powers, but that it grants you an understanding of how things work, not just with powers, but people and events too, I suppose. 

Both good insights and makes a lot of sense.

I have nothing more to add.

The most recent graphic novels weren't bad though.

[Morfiend]

Man, this show has really gone down hill IMO. The writing is fucking horrible. I am giving it a few more EPs to get better and then I am done if it doesnt improve.

[Samprimary]

My god. I love watching you people try desperately to make sense of this train wreck of a show. You're definitely doing a better job than I can. I just start hurting inside and stop trying to make everything logically consistent.

Heroes is now essentially the worst possible combination of tropes that television has ever seen: It is a soap opera with temporal paradoxes.

soap opera with temporal paradoxes.

[voodoolily]

soap opera with temporal paradoxes.

...uh, so?

[stray]

fangirl alert 

[Samprimary]

soap opera with temporal paradoxes.

...uh, so?

So nothing makes sense and the characters are written into so many holes that the only escape is to write it so at least half the characters are dumb as bricks and communicate with each other poorly and make irrational decisions.

Now, the more powerful a character's capacity to create plot holes, the more exponentially likely they are going to be continually crippled by happenstance, suffer amnesia, get stuck in other people's bodies, thrown through time, or knocked unconscious repeatedly, or otherwise just act like a tard.

[Tale]

Maybe they should combine trainwrecks. Michael Schofield helps Peter Petrelli escape from the future.

[Velorath]

soap opera with temporal paradoxes.

So is Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.

[voodoolily]

So nothing makes sense and the characters are written into so many holes that the only escape is to write it so at least half the characters are dumb as bricks and communicate with each other poorly and make irrational decisions.

Now, the more powerful a character's capacity to create plot holes, the more exponentially likely they are going to be continually crippled by happenstance, suffer amnesia, get stuck in other people's bodies, thrown through time, or knocked unconscious repeatedly, or otherwise just act like a tard.

Most of it makes sense to me. Why does everything have to be watertight? It's fiction, and it's television, for fuck's sake.

We need a nerdrage emoticon.

[Venkman]

Jeezus, you people are like scourged MMO players. I won't go bitch about your nigh unenjoyable grindy-ass grind if you don't come piss in my pond, mmkay?