Heroes (SPOILERS)

[MrHat]

I think it was the best episode so far this season.  I'm looking forward to "St. Joan", I think it'll be nice to see an actual costumed hero.

Powers aren't unique, so that could be someone else.

Also, can the Nightmare Man really read minds? Or is his power actually something different? It seemed to me much more like Candice's illusion power, which had me thinking "Why couldn't Candice read minds?"

[Evildrider]

I think it was the best episode so far this season.  I'm looking forward to "St. Joan", I think it'll be nice to see an actual costumed hero.

Powers aren't unique, so that could be someone else.

Also, can the Nightmare Man really read minds? Or is his power actually something different? It seemed to me much more like Candice's illusion power, which had me thinking "Why couldn't Candice read minds?"

Well Nightmare Man did say that Matt's power would grow.  I'm taking that to mean that they have similar powers.  Creating nightmares in someones mind would be farther down the telepathy range.  THey just showed that Matt can now use two way telepathy now, and the NM's ability to block his mind reading could also be part of NM's advanced mind powers.

[MrHat]

Then what was Candice's power?

[Mazakiel]

Candace had illusion/reality distortion.  She interfered with your senses to make you feel/see what she wanted.  Nightmare Man basically put Matt and Nathan into waking dream states by going into their mind directly.  And it is basically a highly developed extension of telepathy, ie, scanning and pulling images from their minds, and then using those to put them into a dream state.  He could have just as easily stuck Matt in a dream where he and his dad were getting along just fine.  Although, it seemed to me that Matt's nightmare was out of whack from the get-go compared to Nathan's.  The voice of the guard seemed very quiet/distorted at first. 

Basically, Candace can use her powers to affect many at once.  It's sort of like an external power.  Candace creates an illusion around herself, and anyone in the area or observing her sees that.  Nightmare Man's affect one mind at once.  Matt's the only one who saw the prison, and at first, Nathan's the only one who saw a destroyed New York.  It was a waking dream state though, which is why when it picked up, they started attacking each other, thinking the other person was the adversary from their dream.  It's only when Matt's power started kicking in that he saw through the dream, and was then able to break Nathan from his. 

Mama Petrilli's wounds were apparently self inflicted.  She was probably stuck in her own personal hell, just like the other two.  Kaito probably threw himself over the ledge, not realizing that whoever he saw wasn't even there for him to fight, but was just part of a waking dream Nightmare Man started up in his head.  And as the comic this week indicates, Nightmare Man can exert alot of control over whatever his victim is dreaming.  We're basically seeing what Matt is capable of, given time to develop his powers.  Which is pretty cool. 

[MrHat]

I kneel before your powers of comprehension.

Well done.

[Samwise]

If Nightmare Man was the one who "attacked" Nakamura and Petrelli, why did he have his very own Kensei-symbol death threat?  And seem so scared about it?

I think Candace had some level of mind-reading capability, at least insofar as being able to exploit other peoples' insecurities (she used it in the comic, and to present herself to Nikki as Jessica).  It didn't seem like she was able to just pull information from peoples' minds like Matt can, though.  For that matter, it doesn't seem like Nightmare Man can pull thoughts out of people's heads as well as Matt can, or he'd have known who Matt and Nathan were a lot faster.

[MrHat]

Ya, they need to clean it up a bit more imo.

The cop out would be to say Candace's illusion/distortion skill eventually gains full on mind reading and Parkman will eventually develop the reality bending thingy.

Because reality is just our perceptions of it.

[Chenghiz]

If Nightmare Man was the one who "attacked" Nakamura and Petrelli, why did he have his very own Kensei-symbol death threat?  And seem so scared about it?

His acting scared was probably fake, and he could easily have made that threat himself if he was making them for everyone else.

[MrHat]

Eh, I say he's going to die and was generally scared.

He's just a bad guy, or maybe he didn't want them to kill each other and knew Parkman would get out of the trance with enough time for Dad to escape.

[Samwise]

If Nightmare Man was the one who "attacked" Nakamura and Petrelli, why did he have his very own Kensei-symbol death threat?  And seem so scared about it?

His acting scared was probably fake, and he could easily have made that threat himself if he was making them for everyone else.

He didn't strike me as being that clever or that good of an actor.  Either to prepare his own fake death threat or to pretend to be scared.  I'm pretty sure he'll be dead by the end of the next episode.

My current pet peeve: Matt was able to wake Nathan from the nightmare.  Why did it not IMMEDIATELY occur to him that he could try the same thing with Molly?

[Mazakiel]

If the symbol on his picture were meant for him, why would he also have Bob's picture?  As Matt said, he was putting on a con.  As to why he hasn't said anything about helping Molly.....as I recall, their section ended with Nathan going "What did you do?" and Matt replying along the lines of "Fuck if I know."  They didn't give him time to think on it before they cut away.  Hopefully in the next episode it hits him that he could do the same for Molly. 

As to Candace....the things she did in the comics hardly required mind reading to think up.  Jock has asshole dad?  Popular girl fears getting hideous looks?  Those are pretty basic things.  As to Niki/Jessica....she was working for Linderman, and was in direct contact with him.  Chances are Candace had a full run down on what was up with Schizogirl, as Linderman had been following her and her family a good while, and was exploiting her split personality to his benefit.  Also, while her power and Nightmare Man's power may seem alot alike at the moment, keep in mind that she hadn't had her power all that long, so all that she can do with it is a basic level of its potential.  Nightmare Man's actions in the episode are what he's capable of doing after 30-40 years of honing his powers.  Someone with Candace's power could do some really crazy shit given that much time to develop. 

Just because there are similar uses of the powers does not mean the powers are identical.  Sylar can use his telekinesis to make himself fly/hover at low speeds, as we've seen in the first season.  That doesn't mean that Nathan has telekinesis too since he can fly.  Something like the telekinesis has a larger scope of what one can do with it.  The flying is a more focused and specialized power that can be mimicked by the telekinesis.  Same with Candace/Nightmare Man.  There's a large variety of what one can accomplish with a developed ability of telepathy.  The reality distortion is a more specialized power that just happens to be mimicked by what a very well developed telepath can do. 

[Chenghiz]

their section ended with Nathan going "What did you do?" and Matt replying along the lines of "Fuck if I know."

I hate it when they use that line. What is he going to do, explain in detail which nerves fired or whatever? The only logical answer is "I don't know..." Oooh, mysterious!

[Muggi]

One thing that irked me..

When Mohinder shows up in New orleans at the end of the episode, how exactly did he know er...the flipping-burgers chick had a power?

Did I miss something?

The Company sent him there for an assignment.  Given the number of people they've abducted who didn't even know they had powers yet, it stands to reason that the Company has some as yet unrevealed means of finding these sorts of things out.

Yeah, that's a reasonable explanation.

[HaemishM]

Candace had illusion/reality distortion.  She interfered with your senses to make you feel/see what she wanted.  Nightmare Man basically put Matt and Nathan into waking dream states by going into their mind directly.  And it is basically a highly developed extension of telepathy, ie, scanning and pulling images from their minds, and then using those to put them into a dream state.  He could have just as easily stuck Matt in a dream where he and his dad were getting along just fine.  Although, it seemed to me that Matt's nightmare was out of whack from the get-go compared to Nathan's.  The voice of the guard seemed very quiet/distorted at first. 

It wasn't really out of whack. Matt's big fear was that he'd turn into a criminal who deserted his family, just like his dad. So in the nightmare, Matt was not only thrown in prison as a criminal, but he was shown to have abandoned his kid. I think it fit his fears perfectly.

As for the Nightmare Man being a good actor, I think he was. He played it very small-time, confused criminal when Matt and Nathan came in, but that smile after he'd locked the two up in the Nightmare was pure calculation. Not only was it good acting on the part of the character, it was great acting on the part of the actor. I'm still not sure he's the one who killed Sulu, though.

[Jain Zar]

My only problem with the episode was that it reminded me Veronica Mars was cancelled. 

[Abagadro]

Wow, they really covered a lot of ground in that episode. I practically got whiplash. Strange that they had basically four episodes where very little happened and then decided to jam all of the plot development, display wild character swings and introduce the main McGuffin for the season into a single episode.

[CadetUmfer]

Good ep, gonna have to watch that one again sober.

Thought I'd share our impromptu Heroic Heroes Drinking Game:
Any time a power is used: 1 second
Any time we travel forward or backward in time: 1 second
Any time "the company" is mentioned: 2 seconds
We see "the symbol": 1 second the first time, 2 the second time, etc
New power is introduced: 5 seconds
Cheezy Katrina reference: 7 seconds

[Riggswolfe]

That one did have alot of development and it looks like next week will have more. I think the developments with Kenzei and Hiro support a theory of mine but I won't mention it, just in case.

Who is the Adam from that note to Peter? Has he been seen before or is this another new character?

And when Suresh was about to meet his new partner I was almost positive it would be lightning girl. When it was shown to be Nikki my first thought was "I bet that's actually Jessica."

[HaemishM]

Nikki seemed brainwashed.

The Maya/Sylar/Alejandro story is still not connecting with me. Maybe it's because Maya and her brother annoy the shit out of me. And was that Candace's power that Peter was using, or Nightmare Man's? Or did he just travel forward in time like the previews for next episode made it appear?

Claire's story I want to like, but the whole high school Heathers cheerleader thing isn't tickling my fancy. I want Flying Boy to be a good guy, but I'm not sure he will be.

[Hutch]

Wow, they really covered a lot of ground in that episode. I practically got whiplash. Strange that they had basically four episodes where very little happened and then decided to jam all of the plot development, display wild character swings and introduce the main McGuffin for the season into a single episode.

Next week is the start of November sweeps. They needed to pick up the pace a bit.

[Riggswolfe]

The Maya/Sylar/Alejandro story is still not connecting with me. Maybe it's because Maya and her brother annoy the shit out of me. And was that Candace's power that Peter was using, or Nightmare Man's? Or did he just travel forward in time like the previews for next episode made it appear?

It connected with me the moment Sylar said he was going to kill both of them. Maybe Dexter is bad for me but I'm rooting for a serial killer here. That or it could just be that brother and sister are simply that annoying. Actually, if Sylar is smart he'll kill the brother somehow, and keep Maya under his control to start a team of super villains. I also think Peter travelled forward in time and saw the effects of that virus getting loose. Which is kind of disappointing because that "we have to change things so this bad future doesn't happen" plot device has already been used in season 1.

Claire's story I want to like, but the whole high school Heathers cheerleader thing isn't tickling my fancy. I want Flying Boy to be a good guy, but I'm not sure he will be.

I'm leaning towards the boy not exactly being nice and I think a plot we'll be seeing is him trying to corrupt Claire and tell her she is more special than ordinary humans. They may even try a sort of reverse Xmen racism angle.

[Nevermore]

Nikki seemed brainwashed.

The Maya/Sylar/Alejandro story is still not connecting with me. Maybe it's because Maya and her brother annoy the shit out of me. And was that Candace's power that Peter was using, or Nightmare Man's? Or did he just travel forward in time like the previews for next episode made it appear?

My first impression was it was Jessica as well.  She seemed to have that annoying Jessica smirk.  Peter I think went forward in time using Hiro's power.  Yeah it's a retread of last season's plot device but then so are the paintings.  What's interesting is something Suresh said about the disease Bob is manipulating possibly mutating and crossing over to infect normal humans.  The plague might not be Maya at all but something caused either intentionally or inadvertently by the Company.  Also, after really humanizing Noah the last half of last season, he certainly took a big u-turn back into Right Bastard.

[tazelbain]

I think Peter is using Charles Deveaux's power.  Some sort of vision walker ability.

[Nevermore]

By the way, is it just me or did you just know that Sark would end up betraying Hiro?  It's like in Last Action Hero when that kid Danny sees F. Murray Abraham and immediately knows he's a bad guy because he killed Mozart.

[Venkman]

My two gripes were a) that they're setting up Sylar to be the bad guy again; and, b) the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Again. By Sylar again. This time presumably from Maya's virus powers.

I think Hiro becomes Kensei, which is why he stopped writing to Ando. The painting where he's fighting the current Kensei/Sark sorta hints at a showdown, but I highly doubt Hiro dies. There'd have been some leak about him leaving the show by now. He's on the short list of main characters.

My guess Peter and the girl actually jumped forward in time a year. This is going by the preview of next week where they're seen getting the crap kicked outta them by agents of yet-another-post-apocolyptic shadowy organization, again ala last seasons 5 years gone episode.

And I'm curious about Claire's boyfriend. He seems a bit too calculating to just be helping out the newbie. My guess is he convinces Claire her Dad's evil or something, allowing for that bullet-through-sunglasses thing. Motivation unknown, and true death unknown.

My current pet peeve: Matt was able to wake Nathan from the nightmare.  Why did it not IMMEDIATELY occur to him that he could try the same thing with Molly?

He was stuck in the same nightmare as Nathan, and could read the mind of the guard hitting him enough so to recognize it was the latter. No word on whether he can barrel his way into someone else's nightmare, Dennis Quaid style. Maybe. :)

[Riggswolfe]

My two gripes were a) that they're setting up Sylar to be the bad guy again; and, b) the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Again. By Sylar again. This time presumably from Maya's virus powers.

I don't think it has anything to do with Maya or Sylar. I think it has to do with what Suresh warned the company about. "It could mutate and cross over to affect normal humans too!" referring to that virus that is affecting mutants. Hence why it has been a subplot so far this season.

[Venkman]

Oh, yea, maybe. I'd been assuming the Maya virus and the one that was affecting the Haitien were two different virii entirely.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Oh, yea, maybe. I'd been assuming the Maya virus and the one that was affecting the Haitien were two different virii entirely.

Actually the pravailing theory in my circle at work is that the company does indeed try and cancel maya's power but instead it mutates her localized death goo eyes  into something widespread and catastrophic.

[Velorath]

Possibly due to a potential writers' strike or a drop-off in ratings. it looks like NBC might have decided not to proceed with Heroes: Origins.

[Mandrel]

Possibly due to a potential writers' strike or a drop-off in ratings. it looks like NBC might have decided not to proceed with Heroes: Origins.

Great.  The number of reality programs already on the air is annoying enough, and this writers strike may mean more of them for us.

[HaemishM]

Possibly due to a potential writers' strike or a drop-off in ratings. it looks like NBC might have decided not to proceed with Heroes: Origins.

GOBSMACKING THUNDERCUNTS.

[Venkman]

GOBSMACKING THUNDERCUNTS.

Even the article linked above talked about one of the other reasons:

However, it is also possible that NBC, now under the creative direction of Ben Silverman, may have seen its enthusiasm diminish for an expansion of the "Heroes" franchise given a pronounced ratings drop-off in recent weeks for the flagship series.

Given the number of episodes it took before I started to like this season, and how pretty forgiving I can be, I'm not surprised by the ratings drop-off. How many of us felt like this had the risk of going BSG before it started getting good again?

[tazelbain]

"We are unable to milk the franchise as we'd like because, apparently, these ungrateful bastards viewers want actual content."

[Rasix]

There's at least 3 horrible plot lines this year:

Claire (she is show death, emo high school shit that no one cares about)
Hispanic death twins 
Obligatory Katrina plot line.  (BIG SIGH)
Bad accent gang (Thank you, Veronica Mars)

Not enough Peter, big bad, Hiro and Veronica Mars.  More time travel and yet another alternate future episode (although the one last year fucking rocked)?   Uggh.

This season is watchable, but outside of a few plot lines it's just as bad as the first part of last season's Lost.  Yah, it might say something about us as a people that we demand plot development, but TV writers and actors don't exactly shine when things are stuck in neutral.

[Ookii]

Now that's what I'm talking about, that was a fucking awesome episode of heroes.  No filler there, all good stuff.

I hope they leave out all the minor characters until the end so they can tie the story together without boring us all to tears.  This might actually happen sooner than we think because of that pesky writer's guild strike.  I heard on the Heroes podcast that if they strike persists for too long they will take the episode before the hiatus and just turn it into the season finale.  It would definitely suck for them to end the season half way, but it looks like that'll happen the way things are going.