Heroes (SPOILERS)

[Lantyssa]

WTF is up w/ Illusion chick not being fat?

Yeah, I really expected there to be a completely different person laying there, one that is not attractive at all.  It would have gone along with her previous conversations anyway.

She really enjoys messing with people's heads...  See?  It worked.

Shaft being a fortune teller through dreams, etc. goes along with my theory of how the elder heros knew about the bomb before anyone.  Although, I did hear his comment on invisibility, so that one is touch and go.  Peter got that dreamwalking power from somebody, and the old man makes the most sense so far.  Especially now that we know he can see people dreamwalking and talk to them.  I suppose dreamwalking could come along with the whole empath power, but that hasn't been made perfectly clear yet.

We don't know what Mommy Dearest is capable of either.  Peter touching her arm in that episode could have been alluding to it (or just something to give those who want to analyze every action something to ponder).

[I see Xerapis touched on this.]

[Velorath]

OK. I'm stupid. What is HRG guys name being "Noah" supposed to mean?

Noah's Ark --> Saving all of God's (or whomever, depending on your point of view) creatures from the flood

Noah's "Ark" his plan for hiding of the Heroes from evil people.

That, and the writers have stated that they use a lot of Bible names in the series although they haven't really said if there's any larger meaning to that (Sylar's first name is Gabriel, for instance).

[Threash]

After rewatching the episode on the NBC site i just gotta ask... what the hell was wrong with the "shoot Peter in the head" plan?

[|3o3dha]

After rewatching the episode on the NBC site i just gotta ask... what the hell was wrong with the "shoot Peter in the head" plan?

Yeah, that bugged me too. Or what's wrong with taking peter out the same way as they stopped Ted in the HRG's house. I mean if you know someone will use the same power it might be handy to save some of that. Just in case.

[tazelbain]

Also, I really doubt Claire is strong enough to jump through a plate glass window.

[Merusk]

Also, I really doubt Claire is strong enough to jump through a plate glass window.

It takes less force than you'd think to go through large pieces of glass.  There was a Mythbusters on 'guy fooling around in office, goes through window on chair'.  Turns out to be true.

[CmdrSlack]

Also, I really doubt Claire is strong enough to jump through a plate glass window.

Clearly, you never had the opportunity to experience the leg strength of a cheerleader or a gymnast while in high school.  Sucks to be you, hoss.   

[Dren]

Plus I bet you can do a lot of things like busting through glass when you know you won't get hurt in the end.  Much of what we "hold back" on is due to our own sense of mortality.  Lose that, and you could be one dangerous mo-fo.

One thing that bothered me at first was this whole Jessica/Nicki is really strong thing.  I mean, I know you have the strength to pull a door knob off and break open stuff and people, but that stuff would still hurt your hand/skin/tissues.  Out of any of the heroes in the past that had hyper strength, I've thought the same thing.  I guess the comic-reality is that anyone that has the strong power also has tough skin and is very resilient.

I just don't want to have her getting "hurt" by some cut on glass or some other abrasion.  Even if I had the strength to pull that knob off, it would hurt the hell out of my hand to do it.

[Dren]

Also, I really doubt Claire is strong enough to jump through a plate glass window.

Clearly, you never had the opportunity to experience the leg strength of a cheerleader or a gymnast while in high school.  Sucks to be you, hoss.   

Kicked your ass real good, huh? 


Had to be said.

[CmdrSlack]

Also, I really doubt Claire is strong enough to jump through a plate glass window.

Clearly, you never had the opportunity to experience the leg strength of a cheerleader or a gymnast while in high school.  Sucks to be you, hoss.   

Kicked your ass real good, huh? 


Had to be said.

In a manner of speaking....

[schild]

Highschool Cheerleaders are awesome.

[SnakeCharmer]

After rewatching the episode on the NBC site i just gotta ask... what the hell was wrong with the "shoot Peter in the head" plan?

Further to that point, didn't the Invisible Man just deck him and knock his ass out when he started to lose it a bit earlier before?

[DarkSign]

Man, lots of good stuff in this thread: (sorry for the recap - more like highlights)

1) Claire's dad as "Noah" - love the symbolism

2) Illusion chick not fat? - man that had me too. I could have sworn she was talking about how bad she looked

3) Peter dead? -

• They've done too much work and have incorporated him into the future too much for him to be gone.
•   Here's my question...if Peter absorbs...and he was within distance of Sylar...couldnt he have absorbed all Sylar's powers?
  

                     
4) Nathan dead?  Why couldnt he simply throw his brother into the air and speed away before the explosion? I dont think he's dead

5) Sylar dead? If I turn off the part of my brain that says "they always bring people back" I'd say yeah he's dead. But it's only at 89%

6) Anticlimactic? - I have to say that I thought there wasnt enough action in the end to really have punch, but it wasnt a Seinfeld where it totally blew. Scale of 1 - 10 I give the episode a 7.6 with 5 being (worth waking up out of a deep sleep to watch)

Im definitely buying the DVDs. Great show.

[Furiously]

My wife and I usually watch the show on Friday on the NBC.com website.

Watching it in HD, just blew me away.

[Samwise]

Bennet's first name should have been Holden IMO.  But Noah is good too.

I'm hoping that Sylar got dragged into the sewer (preferably by The Really Bad Boogeyman) instead of mysteriously resurrecting and crawling away under his own power.  But it's tough to say.  I suppose there could be worse things than him coming back and being all demented and scarred and revenge-obsessed.

BTW, you can preorder the DVD set off Amazon for $40 right now (as opposed to paying $60 retail).  Pretty reasonable for 23 episodes plus extras.

[Furiously]

SAVE THE CHEERLEADER???

And what is up with the HD-DVD version being like $30 more for heroes?

[Dren]

You know, one thing is still bothering me about Sylar.  I still haven't figured out how he, as Peter put it, hides in plain sight.  He doesn't have invisibility, so what does he do?  He seems to be able to not be there one minute and then be there the next.  He did it when Bennett went into his cell before his escape.  He did it when Peter went in to the room with Mohinder stuck to the ceiling.  He did it just after Peter said he hides in plain sight and they were in the middle of a huge court area with 3 people standing there and nobody saw him sneak up on them.

My thought is that he can either turned into a liquid or some other form that you don't notice normally.  He can then reform almost instantly to make it look like he came out of nowhere.  That would explain his ability to hide in plain sight AND to have escaped at the end of the episode.

I suppose one could draw a huge line over the gap that he's somehow using the ability he got from the guy that could "melt" everything.  They never did play up what good that power would ever do for you other than allowing you to get  into bank safes or something.

Sylar's alive, I have no doubt.  They wouldn't have shown that scene and many of the comments made off camera suggest he is back for the next season.  I'm still pissed they didn't have anybody think to go check to make sure he was dead or throw a couple bullets into his head.  Seriously.  They all know how dangerous and hard to kill he is and how many people have died due to him.  One sword in the gut and they all forget about him?  Bleh, sloppy writing for Sylar once more.

[Lantyssa]

We don't know all the powers he has eaten.  He has so many he kind of uses them on a whim (or when the writers remember about them -- unfortunately they didn't get the waitress' eidetic memory).

I was screaming at Hiro to take Sylar's head when he was twirling the sword around after stabbing him...

[CmdrSlack]

I was screaming at Hiro to take Sylar's head when he was twirling the sword around after stabbing him...

No doubt.  It's like he spent all this time training with Sulu and then didn't go for the fatality.  I know it's a network show and all, but after watching Jack Bauer chew through someone's neck, I can't think that it's too over the top for a network show that comes on at 9pm EST.

[Mandrel]

Highschool Cheerleaders are awesome.

"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

[NowhereMan]

I'm guessing Sylar's going to end up with the new big bad, the whole thing about finding others who are like us certainly seemed to have an element of that. I doubt Peter's dead just because without him Sylar becomes nigh unstoppable and the new bad guy doubly so.

I also disagree on Shaft also being an empath, the line about invisibility sounded to me more like wishful thinking.

[CmdrSlack]

I'm guessing Sylar's going to end up with the new big bad, the whole thing about finding others who are like us certainly seemed to have an element of that. I doubt Peter's dead just because without him Sylar becomes nigh unstoppable and the new bad guy doubly so.

I also disagree on Shaft also being an empath, the line about invisibility sounded to me more like wishful thinking.

My guess is that he's one bad.....*watch yo' mouth!*.....just talkin' 'bout Shaft!

[Trippy]

I'm guessing Sylar's going to end up with the new big bad, the whole thing about finding others who are like us certainly seemed to have an element of that. I doubt Peter's dead just because without him Sylar becomes nigh unstoppable and the new bad guy doubly so.

Didn't what's her name (sorry I only watch the show sporadically) say that Peter couldn't die thanks to Claire?

[NowhereMan]

Yeah Peter not dying seems pretty likely based on the grounds that he can regen and because Ted never seemed to have any problem with nuking himself. I was just making the point that if Sylar is still out there you kind of need Peter to counter him. It's either that or the writers let the other heroes suddenly start managing a lot better against him, which doesn't make too much sense based on what we've seen of anyone trying to take him on.

[Samwise]

Nikki was doing pretty well.  Sylar apparently isn't immune to being pummeled about the head.

[Phildo]

Nikki was doing pretty well.  Sylar apparently isn't immune to being pummeled about the head.

He just hasn't gotten around to decapitating anyone with a spider sense yet.

[Alluvian]

Why does everyone (including peter) seem to think there is something special about the spot at the base of peter's neck?  The only reason that spot took out both claire and peter for longer periods of time was because the weapon in both cases got lodged in place preventing the healing power from reconnecting the spinal cord.


All shooting him in the base of the skull would do is MAYBE knock him out for a few seconds.  So shooting him in the base of the head would in theory knock him down long enough for him to 'defuse', since he seems to have to be conscious to use that power.  I don't get how in ANY way flying him into space is a better solution.  Now 1 person dies instead of nobody?  Oh, and there is still possible fallout issues depending on how high he was...  I found that part stupid, but I did like the storytelling with the Nathan sideswitch.  So from a story standpoint maybe they just dropped logic for the 2 brothers save the world event?

[CmdrSlack]

Oh, and there is still possible fallout issues depending on how high he was

There is no indication that when Ted destroyed HRG's house that there was resulting fallout.  He didn't fully explode, but should have been glowy enough to leave some radation behind if that was teh case...

[NowhereMan]

See I really think this is a minor point to nitpick. The big one is that, per invsible man, Peter can be shut down with a fucking punch to the head. And he fucking knows this. Seriously since knocking him unconscious shuts him down why the fuck didn't he get someone to pistol whip him the second he gets glowy?

[Velorath]

CBR has a two-part interview with Tim Kring.


On changes made to the Pilot:

CBR:  Shows grow organically over time and that's certainly been the case with "Heroes." HRG went from being a guest star to a regular and critical character in the series. Mohinder de-aged and became the original character's son. Can you give us a peak behind the curtain of things that might have been if - and excuse me for borrowing a phrase from the writers room - if Tim Kring-Prime hadn't made the decisions he did?

TK:  Well, the most obvious would be the advent of this terrorist story that was woven into the original pilot. The bomb that ultimately goes off or is prevented from going off in New York was actually attached to a terrorist story and at the heart of that terrorist story was a very sympathetic character, a middle-eastern engineer. A young, very brilliant engineer who had become disillusioned and disenfranchised and finds himself involved with a terrorist cell and is basically the architect of the bomb. That character could actually generate and emit a tremendous amount of radioactivity through his hands. That character became Ted on our show once we moved away from the terrorist story. The terrorist story was actually shot and beautifully finished, but it never saw the light of day. It didn't make it past the screenings at the network. That entire storyline would have been an extremely different story. In retrospect, I am fairly relieved it went away. Now, at the time, I had to replace it with a story that I didn't know what it would be, I had to come up with entirely new stuff after having already worked it out, but in time I came to be relieved that I wouldn't be living with a terrorist story every day of my life. You take a lot of this stuff home with you every night and I'm glad not to be taking that home.

CBR:  Especially in today's day and age.

TK:  Exactly and my whole thing was I thought it would be a relevant story and a relevant story to deal with some of the complexities of the issue by having a character who you felt very ambivalent about because you understood him and felt for him. It was built into a redemption story. He would have been the one who helped stop this from happening. Again, it was part of the theme to try and depict people from different parts of the world in positive ways. That's the one thing I can definitely point to.

CBR:  And that sequence will end up on the DVD collection?

TK:  Yes, it'll be in the uncut 72 minute pilot, what they're calling the "Tim Kring Cut." And it actually is the reason why Greg Grunberg's character, Matt Parkman, wasn't introduced in the pilot because his character was actually attached to that story. So, when we cut that story out we had to cut his story as well and find an entirely new way to introduce him, which I don't feel was done nearly as elegantly as I would have liked. We backed into some really complicated stuff to introduce Greg's character.

On Volume 2/Season 2:

As you saw, we called season one volume one and it just happened to be 23 episodes long. Volume two began in the last two minutes of Monday night's episode, but in no way has to be an entire season and it won't be. The idea now is to tell volume two in a much shorter amount of time so that we are not dragging so much story behind us 20 episodes into the show. This also allows for the barrier of entry into the show to be lowered so that people can join along the way. There have been certain serialized shows that I have not watched from the beginning and when I tuned in three years in, there was a kind of aggressive denial of my entry into the show. You're ten minutes into it and you're like, "Wow, these people don't want me to watch their show!" [laughs] Everything about the show told me I wasn't allowed in there because I didn't know enough. I really am very aware of that. I want the barrier of entry to be low enough for new viewers to come in. So, what we're doing is wrapping these stories up in shorter arcs so that you can hop on the train as a new viewer along the way. A serialized show has a natural attrition, I think. People are interested in the beginning and you're naturally going to loose people along the way, so if you don't make it so that there are stops along your travels where people can hop on the train, I think you're really doing a disservice to the show.

On Origins:

Right now it's six episodes, they are stand alone episodes that have a kind of, for lack of a better way of describing it, a Rod Serling quality to them. A cautionary or morality tale about various people around the globe who are discovering these abilities and it allows us to tell a million different kinds of stories. Some of them will tie-in with "Heroes," although if you don't know what "Heroes" is you can enjoy the show without it. If you do watch "Heroes," then those tie-ins will be really fun to watch. Yes, it's our concern as well that we are stretching too far and we are very sensitive to that. One of the hallmarks of the people I work with, and I include myself in that group, is we've very conscientious about the brand and trying not to harm it and trying not to diminish or take away anything from the mother ship of "Heroes" because everything is sort of begat from there. So, the second this feels like it's doing any sort of damage, we'll cut our losses.

One of the great things about "Origins" to me is there are so many actors we've heard from who are fans of the show, people with big careers, which is always flattering to find these people you really admire are huge fans of the show. Well, now we're in a position where we can say, well, we know you're a movie star and you have numerous projects you're working on, but how would you like to work on a single episode and be involved in the show? So, it is a way to get some of these very interesting people to come and do an episode of the show. Of course, some of the caliber of people we're talking about are not going to or may not want to be in a weekly series, but they'll come and do one episode, which could be really cool. I mean really, really cool. So, this idea of voting them on the show might be a good idea in theory, you can vote them on all you want, but they're going to do what they want to do. That, to me, is one of the ideas that could make "Origins" really fun.

I'm really glad that they didn't go with the terroist storyline.  Even if they intended on making it a different kind of story by making the terrorist a sympathetic character, I'm pretty much sick of people using terrorists in stories because they're "relevant".  It's also nice to hear that Volume 2 won't take up the entire season.  I agree that 22 episodes is too long of a build-up for one story and it's hard to get a satisfying payoff.  A lot of the later seaons of Buffy had the same problem.  I was expecting Origins to be a little more than six episodes, but I guess it's better than nothing. 

Also, the second part of The Death of Hana Gitelman is up on the website now (and her death is pretty much what I was expecting).

[Venkman]

I agree on the lack of terrorist thing. The way the Five Years Later episode handled that allegory is good enough for me.

He's just not a good villian, and surveys and audience testing will probably determine his fate more than anything else

Just a word on the "testing" bit. I hope to heck they don't bother. This show doesn't seem based on what people have been found to want, but more on a combined talent that knows how to give people what they didn't realize they wanted. Shows start to suck when the internal creative group changes to a set of lesser skilled insecure folks who look to process everything through consumer validation. You can always tell when a show does that.

Why would he do that when noone but the Heroes and Villians knew what was going to happen (NY going boom)?

If he is dead, then he went out that way because it was the right thing to do. Not the public-approved one. Not the pollster one. But the right one, showing his true human side, his true "hero" side.

2) Illusion chick not fat? - man that had me too. I could have sworn she was talking about how bad she looked

Two thoughts on this recurring comment:

• Could she have the power to create permanent illusions, either in someone's mind or anything that affects her general look on the world?
  
• Was she faking being knocked out because she knew Nikki would just kick her ass all over the place based on the power of that punch?

[Venkman]

Ok, just watched Episode 5 (Hiros) again. Never saw this one in its entirety, and wanted to confirm something to ask this: how is it Nathan could fly away from Bennett and the Haitian when nobody else can use their powers around the latter?

[CmdrSlack]

Ok, just watched Episode 5 (Hiros) again. Never saw this one in its entirety, and wanted to confirm something to ask this: how is it Nathan could fly away from Bennett and the Haitian when nobody else can use their powers around the latter?

His dress shoes are the Italian leather eqivalent of Iron Man's boots?

[Samwise]

I don't think there's really a great rationale for that, honestly, but if I had to make one up, I'd say that Bennet and the Haitian either didn't know that Nathan's power was flight, or they didn't think that he himself knew it and would be able to use it to escape.  The Haitian's power-blocking thing is presumably something that he can switch on and off, so maybe he just had it switched off right then because he didn't think it'd be necessary, and by the time he reacted Nathan was already way out of range.

[Velorath]

Ok, just watched Episode 5 (Hiros) again. Never saw this one in its entirety, and wanted to confirm something to ask this: how is it Nathan could fly away from Bennett and the Haitian when nobody else can use their powers around the latter?

Maybe the Haitian let him go under orders from Nathan's mother.  He'd just have to explain to Bennett later on that he let his guard down.