A serialized drama that's a genuine quadruple threat: Great writing, great acting, great directing, and it's not on Fox.
If any of you ever wondered what one of the X-Men films would have been like if they'd adapted "Days of Future Past," last night's episode answers that. Spoilers below...
As has often been the case ever since the show's "title character," Hiro, was introduced, Hiro serves as the moral center for the series. But in this outing, the world has gone dark, bleak and immoral, and whether Hiro's transformation is a reflection of that or, in some small way, the cause, is open to debate. For all the chilling moments that we witness in this episode set five years hence, the one that got me most was this: Confronted with armed opposition and a means of simply walking past them via freezing time, Hiro and Peter instead choose to take them on directly, slicing and dicing their way through the hopelessly overmatched guards because they "haven't had a good fight in a while."
Frankly, I'd been a little dubious about taking a future digression at such a late date in the story arc, but I needn't have worried. Essential information was passed along, and the Christmas Carol-ish second chance presented Ando and Hiro ("I will save you, New York!") was especially uplifting given the overall grimness of the preceding hour. Plus I was, frankly, torqued with myself that I didn't see the reveal with Nathan coming. It's the best kind of blindsiding: The reveal that on the one hand was shocking, but on the other was natural and made perfect sense given the set up. That throwdown between Peter and his "brother" toward the end looked so kickin' that I'm almost sorry that future will (hopefully) never happen, 'cause I'd love to see how it would have played out.
At the end we're asked who will stop Sylar. Personally, I'm betting Ando. I mean, yeah, there's the illustration that shows Hiro doing it, but Sylar absorbed Isaac's abilities; for all we know, Sylar himself did the drawing as a means of luring in Hiro with a false prophecy. Having the non-powered sidekick take down the main villain...I kind of like that notion.
My one concern is the announcement of the introduction of a new character: Molly, with a formidable power all her own. If she plays heavily into the resolution, I won't be thrilled by that. Introducing some young girl into an alternate-world storyline as a deus ex machina...that trick never works.
PAD
Posted by Peter David at May 1, 2007 08:32 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingLoved the ep!
For the record, though, Molly has already been introduced. She was the little girl that Parkman found hidden from Sylar way back in the second episode (and that Sylar was trying to get to again the first time we saw him).
It's possible I'm overthinking it, but after last night's episode I'm convinced that this future WILL come to pass.
Firstly, Future Hiro's entire plan hinged on "saving the cheeleader, saving the world," on the assumption that saving Claire from Sylar would prevent Sylar from getting her power, and allow Hiro to kill him before he detonated.
Unfortunately, even in this future timeline, Sylar did NOT kill Claire or take her power...she was alive and well, hidden away in Texas (well, until the end of the episode). Not only that, but all the evidence we as viewers have indicates that it's Peter, not Sylar, who destroys New York.
Add to that the fact that Future Mohinder remembers Future Hiro's visit to Peter on that subway, and I can only conclude that in this future timeline Hiro's plan failed miserably, and is destined to do so again.
It was a great episode, but I wasn't quite certain as to what future it was. It seemed to be the "current" future that has also had the impact of saving the cheerleader, but not yet "saving the world". I had thought that it might have been one where Sylar had been the exploding man, but it wasn't. All the different possible timelines can make your mind spin. What changes did Hiro's jumping in time produce? Was it a battle between Peter and Sylar that had Peter explode, but Nathan was able to make it seem that Sylar exploded? It appears that Hiro definitely has the story wrong, but we just won't know until later. Last episode, Isaac implied that he put how to defeat Sylar in his comic or his sketch book.
Neil
One thing neither Hiro knows is that Peter, not Sylar, blows up New York.
YAATAAAA!
Love the show! Loved the episode!
I will say that while Future Hiro's timeline changed from Sylar being the one to blow up NY to Peter being the one to blow up NY, something else has now changed -- our Hiro and Ando have seen the future (though hopefully it won't be) while Furture Hiro hadn't.
I too was wondering if Molly knew stuff...
"For the record, though, Molly has already been introduced. She was the little girl that Parkman found hidden from Sylar way back in the second episode (and that Sylar was trying to get to again the first time we saw him)."
I don't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Between a plot detail from last year when I was still trying to get all the characters down, and the announcer saying a "new hero" was being introduced, I just figured she was debuting next week.
PAD
When the flashback episode aired, I thought it would be a letdown. Flashbacks usually just fill in details. It's nice to see how things got to where they are, but they don't advance the plot. That one advanced the plot in addition to doing stuff like showing us Nikki's dad, and it was great.
This was the same way. Usually when a sci-fi show accidentally jumps into a horrible future, they try to fix the future before going back home. Even though they're going to try and prevent that future from ever happening, they still want to help out, just in case.
Instead, this episode showed as that as bad as we think the future is going to be if our heroes fail, it will actually be worse. It also raised Sylar's threat level. He's extremely menacing, but once we started getting into New York blowing up and the shadowy organisations, he stopped seeming like the big threat. Now it's pretty clear that Sylar is as bad as anything out there, and stopping him is just as important as stopping the explosion.
Very good episode.
Isn't Molly the name of the incredibly strong little girl from BKV's (and now Joss Whedon's) "Runaways"?
Last night's "Heroes" was an absolute nerd-gasm. Maybe the best episode of the season so far. I cannot wait for the remaining three episodes.
Isaac drew the panel of Hiro killing Sylar. The scene is depicted in an issue of the comicbook 9th Wonders, and last week Isaac gave the courier the pages for what he says is the last issue. Second, Isaac told Sylar he'd "showed them how to kill you." (or words to that effect). We can therefore conclude that the key panel comes from that self-same issue. Third, when Sylar painted the future with his new found abilities last week, his style was different than Isaac's.
So, unless we believe that A) Sylar somehow absorbed Isaac's memories, along with his powers (and we've seen no indication he can do this), and knew about the comic; B), retrieved the specific page depicting his death; C) re-drew it in Isaac's style; and D) replaced it without anyone being aware of the substitution, it's doubtful the depiction of Hiro killing Sylar is misdirection. At least not misdirection on Sylar's part. It's possible, I suppose, that Hiro running him through with his sword is just the beginning of the battle, and that Ando will deliver the killing blow.
Or perhaps Ando will do what Brenda Wyatt did in Highlander. Whack Sylar over the head when he has the upper hand, distracting him long enough for Hiro to regain the advantage.
Time will tell.
Good episode, though. But Claire made one critical error. If she wanted a foolproof disguise, she should have worn glasses.
Rick
Well, Hiro thinks that he needs to kill Sylar, but Sylar didn't blow up in New York, Peter did. I'm wondering if either Hiro will have to kill Peter, which would be very difficult, or if he will have to decide whether or not to kill Peter or Sylar at a key moment. I'm just hoping that Sylar doesn't kill Hiro at the end, because Sylar + Hiro's powers would be nuts. It wouldn't surprise me too much if Hiro had to sacrifice himself to keep this from happening, just like Eden did.
I think Molly will be a way of bringing Parkman into the heroic finale.
I twigged the big reveal from last week’s episode preview when they showed Nathan crowing about being “the most special person in the world”. Nathan advising Mohinder that he knew “how things work” was another subtle hint. I really appreciate that the creators are playing fair with the audience.
Big question is when did the switch happen. Pre- or post-bomb?
I too loved last night's episode. However, rather than thinking of "Day's of Future Past", the thought that kept running through my mind was Star Trek's mirror universe. While I'm hoping that that future does not happen, I do hope that Hiro goes back a few more times and we get to see it again, a la Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and their frequent jaunts into the mirror universe.
I have to agree with Mr. David. I, too, will be disappointed if this Molly girl comes in as a deus ex machina. If she is the little girl that Parkman found back in Episode 2(!) that hasn't been seen or heard of since, she might as well be brand new.
The actor that plays Nathan did a wonderful job of keeping me in the dark about where Sylar really was. When he was revealed, I was sitting there thinking "Oh, of course! I'm an idiot for not seeing that!" The perfect revelation that you didn't see coming but makes perfect sense once it's revealed. I had a brief moment wondering why Parkman didn't spot him from his thoughts years ago, but...It's Sylar. He could have stolen some weird power along the way that would stop that. To be perfectly honest, I thought that all the present-time characters had been wrong and that Sylar really had been the Bomb until Peter admitted his guilt.
I also liked the subtle way that all the characters seemed so much more at ease and practiced in their abilities, especially Peter. When he recues Hiro, he is so entirely economicaly and matter-of-fact about the process.
As to how the the Dark Future played out to get them there: I'm guessing the Peter used Candice's power to impersonate Sylar so that the Heroes would kill him and keep him from blowing. Hiro stabbed him, but Peter regenerated copying Sylar's stolen Cheerverine powers. He goes Boom and the survivors blame Sylar. At some point Sylar eats Candice and Nathan and away we go...
Sylar seems to have gotten his durability from eating a cockroach...eating Claire is just icing.
And I think Molly's a trap, not a foe. That eating her brain will prove fatal for some reason, or at least mess Sylar up in some significant way (i.e. her power is like the damping aspect of the Haitian's, and would make Sylar damp himself long enough to be killed).
I enjoyed the episode, but I was a little bothered by Claire's survival and Peter's scar. If Peter had met and saved her, he'd have her powers and probably wouldn't scar up from whatever injury he received. If he didn't meet/save her, then she'd be dead (and Sylar would already have her powers) and Peter wouldn't have had the ability which allowed him to survive Hiro's attack.
Peter's scar is a physical manifestation of his guilt. He won't let it go away.
If he didn't meet/save her, then she'd be dead (and Sylar would already have her powers) and Peter wouldn't have had the ability which allowed him to survive Hiro's attack.
But he could have picked it up from Sylar.
I must be the only one who though that the picture could have been interpreted as Hiro offing Peter? All us stubbly white guys look alike in comic books, right?
Molly is the little girl from the beginning of the season that Sylar was after. He killed her parents with his freeze power and telekinesis and stole whatever powers they had.
She is just now being introduced because her powers are just now surfacing...
I find it interesting, I don't think she will be the cause of the finale, but I do believe she will be a factor.
Besides, how can Sylar die, he was signed for season 2, unless its all flashbacks...
Awesome episode!
This is indeed a mirror universe, because in it both Peter and Hiro somehow are manly. :D
I almost want it to happen, just because of that.
The Sylar reveal got me by surprise too.
And there were lots of theories about how Niki would be married to Nathan in the future, and the First Lady, but she is Peter's girlfriend instead. Caught me by surprise too.
Bennet is a good guy and Parkman is a bad guy, but Mohinder is still as indecisive as ever, until the last moment.
Another great thing. Hiro and Ando's relationship has always been light-hearted and comedic, but now it turned poignant.
I'm pretty sure that the pic is of Hiro killing Sylar. Future Hiro's plan to change his past hinges on two key events: Preventing Sylar from gaining Claire's power and then Hiro killing him. Since Present Hiro hasn't yet done phase two of the plan, the dark future was still in play. Now, Present Hiro is sure what he has to do, the only questions are will it actually prevent the destruction of NYC and how?
The obvious scnenario is the Sylar attempts to take Ted's power and this leads to Peter encounting one or both of them and absorbing the power himself, losing control, and blowing up. Perhaps Peter tries to stop Sylar from eating Ted's brain, but arrives too late and absorbs the power from Sylar. If that's the case, then the key point is to kill Sylar before he takes Ted's power.
The other important thing is, to prevent Peter from ever encountering Ted. Better yet, just staying the hell away from Manhattan on that day. I'm guessing that Peter will have to sacrifice himself somehow. The recurring theme in Peter's story has been his desire to make a real difference, to do something of great importance. Sacrificing his life to save the world would be ultimate expression of that. Plus, it would prevent him from becoming the deus ex machina for next season.
I didn't think the timeline issue was that confusing. The failure to kill Sylar created the future we witnessed last night. The Hiro of the future realized this, but had no way to act on it until he encountered his past self. He gave the information to his past self and prompted him to return to our present, when that information could actually be of use. It's a "predestination paradox."
As far as Sylar's role in the destruction of New York, for all we know Sylar might've been the one who triggered Peter's blow-up in the alternate timeline. Or maybe he'd already acquired the shapeshifting power and impersonated Peter while doing the deed.
I was kind a pissed that they turned Nathan into such a complete dick, and was relieved when it turned out to be Sylar. And as PAD already said, it was the best kind of twist -- one that was surprising yet completely consistent with all that's been established. I'm also glad that Mohinder redeemed himself in the end, as I like him. I wonder about Parkman, though. Was Sylar controlling him? I missed a few of the early eps, so I guess I can't say with certainty if this is out-of-character for him, but it sure seems that way to me.
I don't think we know whether it's Peter or Sylar...or maybe even Nuke...that ends up being the bomb. Sure, Peter's dream/vision indicates that it's him. Then again, was that a manifestation of Issac's power, or just Peter's guilt/fear playing out? After all, Peter isn't the only power sponge, albeit the only one able to leave his donors lives intact.
But as of episode 17...where we're currently at...Sylar is starting to show some signs that all those powers aren't fitting so nicely. He's just absorbed superhearing Dale, and maybe he's just adjusting to his new power. Then again, maybe he's reaching his breaking point.
Something mentioned in that episode by Claude is that maybe Peter is the genetic top of the hero chain. In which case, maybe Sylar is his opposite?
I wonder about Parkman, though. Was Sylar controlling him? I missed a few of the early eps, so I guess I can't say with certainty if this is out-of-character for him, but it sure seems that way to me.
If Sylar was threatening Parkman's family in any way, it'd be well within character.
What, no mention of the WATCHMENesque plot as revealed in the previous episode? (Linderman and Ozymandias are quite comparable too!) I just found it interesting given that Tim Kring has said in the past that he wasn't a comic book reader. I suppose it proves the theory of ideaspace, heh.
I wonder about Parkman, though. Was Sylar controlling him? I missed a few of the early eps, so I guess I can't say with certainty if this is out-of-character for him, but it sure seems that way to me.
I don't think there was any sort of mind control involved.
The impression I got was that being forcibly separated from his family and unable to ever meet his son and wife again was what made Parkman bitter and dark, and fueled his anger of the rebellious superhumans that caused people to be afraid of them all, and making it so that his wife and child had to go into deep hiding, because his young son is a superhuman.
Another great episode!
Do we know how Peter got that scar? It doesn't look like Sylar's doing so much as something left by a sword blade. Hmmm...
Last night was the greatest Heroes so far. But there is one easy way to kill Sylar, they could just have the guy who cancels powers by him, and Hiro could slice and dice with his sword. For this not to be the solution, they would need to say why he wouldn't effect Sylar. But, at last, a future episode, that carries forward the present day storyline...classic storytelling. It really had the feel of a motion picture.
I almost fell asleep during the first episode of this series. Not surprised to hear that it's as boring as it was 8 months ago.
> Hiro thinks that he needs to kill Sylar, but Sylar didn't blow up in New York, Peter did.
And they may have misinterpreted the bit about saving the world as meaning they have to stop New York from going ka-boom. A lunatic such as Sylar winding up in the oval office can do a lot more damage than just one city getting blown up. So the prophecy might refer to stopping Sylar's ascension to power.
>Preventing Sylar from gaining Claire's power and then Hiro killing him.
The phrase is, I believe, "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Not "Save the cheearleader and you save the world." One is not necessarily dependent on the other. Even if Sylar gets Cheerverine's healing ability, it won't save him from getting his head chopped off. Something Hiro (trained in a form of kendo) could well do with one chop of that formidable blade. Let's see Sylar heal THAT!
>Or maybe he'd already acquired the shapeshifting power?
Let's hope not as it would mean the [drool] Mystique clone would be gone either way.
Such a great episode! This is definitly one that I'm going to have to watch again and again. From beginning to end, it was all really shocking. The characters had changed so much and it so cool seeing more of future Hiro and seeing future Milo and future "Nathan" for the first time. Also liked seeing future Claire and future HRG man.
I was extremly suprised by the Slyar/Nathan revealation, but it completly made sense. No wonder he was so evil and so intent on killing the other Heroes. WHEW.
The end was really exciting too. I liked what we saw of the Peter/Sylar showdown and Mohander redeeming himself was cool too.
Oh and the previews for upcoming episodes looked awesome. As great an episode as this was, I doubt we've seen the very best of Heroes yet! CAN'T WAIT!!!
DF2506
If Sylar was threatening Parkman's family in any way, it'd be well within character.
Bennet did pass information on to Parkman about his family and told him that he "did right by them". I think it was implied that his family went into hiding, but maybe Parkman felt that as long as he cooperated with the government, they'd leave them alone.
What, no mention of the WATCHMENesque plot as revealed in the previous episode? (Linderman and Ozymandias are quite comparable too!) I just found it interesting given that Tim Kring has said in the past that he wasn't a comic book reader. I suppose it proves the theory of ideaspace, heh.
Well, Jeph Loeb is one of the producers of the show and I doubt anyone would believe him if he said he'd never read the Watchmen. It looks like, though, that Linderman's plan to unite the world in tragedy is destined to fail, since from the glimpse we got, people are more divided than ever.
Well, Jeph Loeb is one of the producers of the show and I doubt anyone would believe him if he said he'd never read the Watchmen. It looks like, though, that Linderman's plan to unite the world in tragedy is destined to fail, since from the glimpse we got, people are more divided than ever.
Yes. Tim Kring is not a comic book fan, but several of the staff writers are. The Watchmen influences were admited in the weekly interview for Comic Book Resources.
"Yes. Tim Kring is not a comic book fan, but several of the staff writers are. The Watchmen influences were admited in the weekly interview for Comic Book Resources."
Meanwhile Watchmen admitted to its own debt to the Outer Limits episode, "The Architects of Fear." A plot summary, courtesy of Wikipedia:
"Although no specific era is indicated within the story, the plot revolves around a Cold War setting in which a nuclear holocaust appears to be imminent. In an attempt to stave off a confrontation between military superpowers through uniting the world against a common enemy, a group of scientists decide to physically transform one of their own members into an alien being and stage a fake invasion of Earth."
Ain't nothing new under the sun (including that sentence.)
PAD
In Peter's vision, weren't both Isaac and Simone there in New York just as he starts to go nuclear? If that's not accurate, how do we know the part about Peter blowing up is?
And about Sylar's potential healing ability (i.e. Claire's power), didn't Parkman (or someone) shoot him several times in an early episode just to have him stand back up and get away?
William - I don't remember seeing any blood. They may have shot AT him and missed. Shot him, but non-fatally. Shot AT him but his telekinetic force field stopped the rounds from reaching him.
And that's just off the top of my head while reading your comment. So he need not have Cheerverine's healing power to have pulled it off.
Or, oh-oh ... just occured to me. Maybe Peter was 'dead' just long enough after falling in Dallas (or wherever the stadium was) for Sylar to grab the healing ability through him? ;-)
In Peter's vision, weren't both Isaac and Simone there in New York just as he starts to go nuclear?
Parkman was also shown in uniform, even though he's now under suspension. I'm not sure how much of that vision was colored by Peter's view of the world at that time.
On the other hand, maybe Peter or Hiro goes back in time and saves Simone and Isaac.
It looked to me as if Isaac produced two different versions of the same page, and the second page was what Hiro gave ando when he died
Well, word on the street (and wikipedia) is that Simone was super-powered and her power may enable her to return (it is comfirmed she'll be filmed again, but that could be a flashback) A rumor further off suggests we might see her father again.
The creators have suggested that their is a strong family connection among the heroes, that they marry each other and have lil hero babies. (Which raises interesting possibilities for Matt and Nathan's wives.) In fact, that Sylar only took Molly's dad's brain might have been his mistake, as we was only going off a list. Everyone else who's shacked up with a Hero was one themselves. (Any bets on Sylar's mother?)
The familial factor sounds like it will play a large part of next season, subtitled "Generations"
As for the ealier question of "Pre- or post-bomb?" for Sylar's replacement: It was definately post-bomb: "You're brother had betrayed his kind long before I ever took his place." I mean the 'normal' timeline is only like a week before the election and the bomb's the very next day.
I wonder if that taking of brains is really necessary (in which case my comment about Sylar and Peter at the stadium would be moot) or whether it's something he does just because he's a sadistic so-and-such?
This was the first episode of "Heroes" I caught and I thank PAD for getting me interested in it.
Firstly, Future Hiro's entire plan hinged on "saving the cheeleader, saving the world," on the assumption that saving Claire from Sylar would prevent Sylar from getting her power, and allow Hiro to kill him before he detonated.
Unfortunately, even in this future timeline, Sylar did NOT kill Claire or take her power...she was alive and well, hidden away in Texas (well, until the end of the episode). Not only that, but all the evidence we as viewers have indicates that it's Peter, not Sylar, who destroys New York.
Add to that the fact that Future Mohinder remembers Future Hiro's visit to Peter on that subway, and I can only conclude that in this future timeline Hiro's plan failed miserably, and is destined to do so again.
I was thinking the same things. I didn't read to the bottom of the thread because I was too eager to add this comment, so I don't know if somebody else has said what I'm about to say, but here it is regardless:
Even if they don't prevent the disaster caused by Peter, if they can get Sylar out of the picture then the future will be changed. Sylar being dead means he doesn't get to replace Nathan, he doesn't get to become President. Part of what makes this future so bad is how the government has turned out, so if Sylar is kept out of the Oval Office then things are bound to turn out better, if not perfectly.
It was definately post-bomb: "You're brother had betrayed his kind long before I ever took his place."
Peter didn't believe him, though. I know I'm unfamiliar with the characters, but could Sylar be lying about that?
The creators have suggested that their is a strong family connection among the heroes, that they marry each other and have lil hero babies.
I think that's been clear from day one. You have the Petrelli clan: Nathan, Peter, Claire, and Claire's biological mother. And then we have D. L., Niki/Jessica, and Micah. It's been implied that Matthew's unborn son is also a hero, so that also raises possibilities for Nathan's two sons as well as Hiro's father and sister and Mother Petrelli.
Time will tell, I guess.
I wonder about Papa Petrelli too, Ever since those webcomics (with his connections to Linderman) I'm less inclined to believe in either the heart attack OR suicide explanation of his death. If he's even dead at all...
The creators have suggested that their is a strong family connection among the heroes, that they marry each other and have lil hero babies. . . . Everyone else who's shacked up with a Hero was one themselves. (Any bets on Sylar's mother?)
I was wondering that myself. My two predictions for next week are that Sylar’s mom is a Hero herself and that she is the one who inculcated into Sylar the idea that he’s “special”.
Which leads to the obvious question: What will Sylar do if his mom has a power?
Or, oh-oh ... just occured to me. Maybe Peter was 'dead' just long enough after falling in Dallas (or wherever the stadium was) for Sylar to grab the healing ability through him? ;-)
The series has been (thankfully) vague about the actual mechanics of how Sylar steals powers from other heroes, but it's strongly implied that he needs to remove their brains to take them. How he uses those brains to graft their powers onto his DNA...I don't want to think about. Since Peter still has his brain (or as much a one as he ever had), I think we can assume that Sylar didn't get anything from him. Of course, if he had taken Peter's brain, he wouldn't have needed to continue being a seriel killer to expand his abilities. He could just take on any power from meeting someone...not that I think that he'd stop the killing if he had Peter's power. I think that Sylar is a classic seriel killer and that the pleasure he gets from repeating his power/brain-taking ritual is too great for him to give up. He might rationalize it by saying that there being someone with the same powers made him less "special," or might not even bother but I find it hard to believe that he'd stop. I'm actually surprised that he wanted to exterminate the remaining Specials. There his chosen victim-type. He'd never get his kicks from de-braining a normal person.
I meant to write "THEY'RE his chose victim-type.
I hate it when I make that stupid typo. IT'S/its just way TOO/to/two annoying.
I was watching this with friends and commented how it would be a cool twist if Sylar had gained shape-changing abilities and was pretending to be... I was so close here... Peter! He had been scarred at some point and his abilities can't repair that, thus the scar on Mr. Indestructible. I had this all laid out and five minutes later we all screamed in laughter at the same time with the Nathan/Sylar reveal! It was so perfectly hilarious!
And things seem to be running exactly as the future shows they do. People think Claire is dead, and Hiro had to go back to stop it, but that's exactly what happened, and Claire has been alive in this continuity as well!
So far, the only, ONLY thing Hiro has managed to change about the past at all (that I can remember, admittedly, so feel free to dispute this) is the photo of the waitress on her Birthday. That's it.
Fantastic show, amazing cast, excellant writers.
Denis.
One more thing about Molly. She was mentioned in this episode. Future Hiro asks "people he brought to him... DL, Candice, Molly Walker." So, in the future Molly was quite powerful and we might see next episode just what her power is.
Neil
Clarification about the above: This is the scene where Future Hiro and Ando are asking Bennet for help to free Hiro after Peter had turned them down.
Neil
Quote:
"Posted by: Barry at May 1, 2007 01:15 PM
I almost fell asleep during the first episode of this series. Not surprised to hear that it's as boring as it was 8 months ago."
Wow. Way to troll there dude. Everyone else on this page has made insightful comments, or just commetned on the episode in hand. If you don't like the show, that's fine. Go complain about it on your own blog. People here seem to be making a great effort to be constructive and polite with each other. We don't need you. I don't like Lost, but I don't troll posts about it to complain. It's my opinion, and people discussing the show aren't interested in how I feel about it.
Get a life, get a girlfriend, or, Barry, if that's causing you trouble, you can always use your other hand. I'm sure neither care if you "cheat" on them.
Usually on a well known blog you just get idiots like yourself filling the comments section. Thankfully, that's not the case here. The community on this blog is awesome. Any time I've been interested in rerading the comments on a post they've been smart and intelligent.
Denis.
As to Peter's scar, I wonder if he maybe receives a wound while in the presense of the Haitian, leaving him unable to fully heal before the scar forms?
Mmmm... maybe I was the only one to catch it or maybe it wasn’t there but I could’ve sworn that when future Hiro was lying on the ground dying, he was well aware that this was the moment of his death and he had the comic book with him that foretold of the moment.
I also don’t think it’s a question of Hiro going back in time and killing Sylar, I think it’s a matter of Hiro going back and killing (or attempting to kill) Peter which could explain the scar on Peter’s face.
Hiro tries stopping Peter before he can explode and Peter carries the mark as a reminder of the curse his powers are. Save the cheerleader - save the world could only be a way for Peter to meet and absorb Claire’s power and grow well accustomed to them before his final showdown with Sylar in the future. Although Sylar has absorbed Claire’s powers at the end of the episode, they are still very new to him at that moment in time perhaps giving Peter the upper hand?
We are all supposing the season will end with the explosion or the resolution of that single plot thread and while the producers have said they will wrap up the season, it may be they don’t get to that plot point.
Besides, how can Sylar die, he was signed for season 2, unless its all flashbacks...
Given that Mary Alice kicked it on the first episode of Desperate Housewives and is still around as a character, you never know...
Denis, does it count as trolling, if it was sarcasm...?
I think Future Hiro really changed the fact that Sylar killed Claire in his past, otherwise FH wouldn't have remembered Sylar regenerating... (Again, unless, as has been posited on this board, Peter was posing as Sylar at the time (explains regeneration ability and the sword-scar (really deep, maybe inflicted when time was stopped, and thus regeneration wasn't working (but I like the Haitian proximity explanation better)))where was I? oh yeah, one more parathesis... )
The real question is, if Sylar ate Peter's brain, would he only gain the mimic ability or all the abilities Peter can access?
Okay guys just a slight explanation of things from what I've gathered.
Timeline one:
This is the original timeline:
Sylar kills Claire. Gets her regenarative powers. Kills Ted. Nukes New York.
Timeline two:
This is the timeline created by Future Hiro going back in time saying "Save the Cheerleader. Save the world."
Sylar doesn't kill Claire. And somehow Peter dupes Ted's powers and nukes New York instead of Sylar.
When we see Future Hiro meeting present Hiro it loosk like he just got back from telling pete to save the cheerleader. He tells his reasons. It's pretty obvious that Future Hiro still has his memories of the timeline one. Weather this meanst hat over time he would get new memories of the timeline two or never get them at all we'll never know.
But it was obvious he was still working with the timeline one's events. So obviously since he was working with those set of memories he didn't know that his time travel changed the past and made Peter nuke New York.
Wow. Way to troll there dude. Everyone else on this page has made insightful comments, or just commetned on the episode in hand. If you don't like the show, that's fine. Go complain about it on your own blog.
For the record, I totally disagree with Barry's comments. I love Heroes, it's my favorite TV show, it's potentially my favorite TV show of all time, but...
If you're gonna get angry whenever someone dismissively puts down something you like, you're gonna stay angry all the time, my friend. Nothing is sacred in the Internet. Whatever it is that you like, you can bet there will always be people who hate it and are eager to tell the world how much they hate it and why the object of their hatred stinks.
I know. One of the reasons why I take long absences from message boards and stuff. My hide isn't thick enough, and I tire of all the negativity and the see-how-smart-I-am-for-not-enjoying-something attitude that is so prevalent these days.
But you either get used to it, or you'll spend more and more time arguing with people, to no avail.
It's the Haitian. He gets close enough to Sylar that he can't do anything. Then Hiro runs him through.
That's my theory.
I enjoyed this HEROES episode. (Incidentally, does anyone know what the title was? My TV's info listed it as "String Theory" but the credits showed "Five Years Later. Personally, I like the former title.)
I think this episode *proves* that Hiro will be able to change time and prevent the explosion. Even if the show's creators considered opting to have the explosion and season 2 happening in a post-explosion/near-apocalyptic NYC (which after 9/11 wouldn't be too popular; heck, they didn't show an INVADER ZIM episode with a devastated Manhattan!), this episode would have showed all too clearly what will happen. I stand by my original theory that as Peter's about to blow, Nathan flies him away from everyone else (I believe Nathan said "Let me help you" in the premonition) and, with Claire's healing power, Peter survives.
Also, is anyone else ready to see Sylar killed? I find it almost lazy that they can give him just about any power they want, on the assumption that he had killed someone with it earlier. We've seen some of the ones he's acquired, but they seem to add new ones at whim (like faking his death or recovery from paralysis). If there's a situation where they want him to fart Froot Loops, he'll just do it. Snuff him already! (Incidentally, anyone want to venture a guess why Mohinder didn't kill him last episode? Mohinder was willing to shoot Syler when the villain was thought paralyzed; but after Syler was knocked unconscious and Mohinder thought Syler had killed Peter (who Mohinder thought could be the key to the research and evolution), Mohinder just left him there? I think several bullets to the brain would've been called for. Let's see some different evil and/or selfish villains, or the machinations of Lindemuller (sic).
(The series has been (thankfully) vague about the actual mechanics of how Sylar steals powers from other heroes, but it's strongly implied that he needs to remove their brains to take them. How he uses those brains to graft their powers onto his DNA...I don't want to think about. Since Peter still has his brain (or as much a one as he ever had), I think we can assume that Sylar didn't get anything from him. Of course, if he had taken Peter's brain, he wouldn't have needed to continue being a seriel killer to expand his abilities. He could just take on any power from meeting someone...not that I think that he'd stop the killing if he had Peter's power. I think that Sylar is a classic seriel killer and that the pleasure he gets from repeating his power/brain-taking ritual is too great for him to give up. He might rationalize it by saying that there being someone with the same powers made him less "special," or might not even bother but I find it hard to believe that he'd stop. I'm actually surprised that he wanted to exterminate the remaining Specials. There his chosen victim-type. He'd never get his kicks from de-braining a normal person.)
As I understand Sylar power (as shown us in the flashback ep)--He's just like peter, an Empath. He diverges in ability because he can't relate to humanity. He's special--no one else is. His mindset won't allow for him to synch with others. Worse--he a sociopath--people are THINGS to him. He can deal with things--like watches. He understands them by taking them apart to see how they tick.
He cuts open peoples' skulls, and "sees how they tick", and from there mimics what they do.
(Incidentally, anyone want to venture a guess why Mohinder didn't kill him last episode? Mohinder was willing to shoot Syler when the villain was thought paralyzed; but after Syler was knocked unconscious and Mohinder thought Syler had killed Peter (who Mohinder thought could be the key to the research and evolution), Mohinder just left him there?
I think Mohinder realized that Sylar getting Peter's powers would be about the worst thing that could happen to the world. So his first priority was to get Peter's dead body away from Sylar. Fast.
I enjoyed this HEROES episode. (Incidentally, does anyone know what the title was? My TV's info listed it as "String Theory" but the credits showed "Five Years Later. Personally, I like the former title.)
It's "Five Years Gone". "String Theory" is the name they gave Chapter 30 of the HEROES online graphic novel.
I think this episode *proves* that Hiro will be able to change time and prevent the explosion.
The second episode where Hiro pops into New York on Boomsday shows that time can be changed. Ando isn't in Japan now, wondering where Hiro is.
(Incidentally, anyone want to venture a guess why Mohinder didn't kill him last episode? Mohinder was willing to shoot Syler when the villain was thought paralyzed; but after Syler was knocked unconscious and Mohinder thought Syler had killed Peter (who Mohinder thought could be the key to the research and evolution), Mohinder just left him there? I think several bullets to the brain would've been called for. Let's see some different evil and/or selfish villains, or the machinations of Lindemuller (sic).
"How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?"
Mohinder tried to shoot the devil. He missed. Mohinder paid dearly for it and now he's too damn afraid to try again, no matter how temptingly easy it might seem.
Yeah, warning bells started going off when "Nathan" made a comment about knowing how things work, but I didn't think about psycho-ass illusion girl until he really started chewing the scenery.
For all the chilling moments that we witness in this episode set five years hence, the one that got me most was this: Confronted with armed opposition and a means of simply walking past them via freezing time, Hiro and Peter instead choose to take them on directly, slicing and dicing their way through the hopelessly overmatched guards because they "haven't had a good fight in a while."
I found that scene effective for entirely different reasons. I saw it as a case of gallows humor as a means of coping with being forced to do something distasteful yet again for the greater good. They needed to take out the guards one way or the other, since if they had stopped time and walked right past, they would have had heavily armed foes behind as well as in front when the Haitian shut their powers down. I think it showed that a certain amount of nobility remained in future Hiro and Peter that they gave the guards a (very slim) fighting chance instead of simply butchering them in stopped-time.
I just had a potentially disturbing thought about one possible way for Sylar to show up in the second season, even if he's killed by Hiro. Since we don't really know how time travel works in the Heroes world, it would be very comic-bookish of them to have Future-Sylar eat (or whatever) future Hiro's brain and jump back in time to a point before Present-Sylar dies, collapsing Future-Sylar's timeline.
I think I gave myself a headache writing that...
-Rex Hondo-
Matt wrote:
It wouldn't surprise me too much if Hiro had to sacrifice himself to keep this from happening, just like Eden did.
... except that Eden's sacrifice apparently didn't do any good; if you'll recall, Sylar used The Voice last week...
We know that this future is not the future of the series' present; among other things, in the present our heroes all know that Claire survived the prom. Future Hiro thought Sylar had killed her there. So even though she survived in both timelines, the circumstances were different.
Neither is it the same one that Hiro on the train came from. In train-Hiro's future, Claire may or may not have survived the prom, but Mohinder would have no memory of Hiro going back to the train because it hadn't happened.
Re: Future Peter's scar - he clearly survived blowing up because of Claire's powers. Maybe regenerating after being blown to bitty bits is just hard and imperfect and that's why the scar.
But who was the woman with Bennet who got shot in the head? Was that Candace? If so, how did Sylar get her powers? That bit confuses me.
I think they hinted at the Nathan/Sylar reveal last week.
If memory serves, after Sylar took Isaac's powers, he painted a picture of himself in the oval office, standing in the same position as Nathan was in Linderman's Oval Office painting.
Let's not forget that with Sylar, and Hiro dying in the episode, that Sylar could have gotten Hiro's powers in the future. That would allow him to gain anyone's powers in the future, and use Hiro's power to come back to the past and use them. I don't think it's a problem for Sylar to have almost unlimited powers, as that just adds to how difficult it would be to stop him. It's when a heroe is omnipotent that it's hard for him to have a good villain.
Rob
The signing of an actor for a second season doesn't mean the character survives. They know we know when an actor 'signs'. It's so easy to issue a press release saying an actor has signed, even when they haven't. Don't ever blindly trust 'news' like that in a show with this many surprises.
2) If Hiro kills Sylar, and Peter explodes, that certainly doesn't mean that the horrible future happens. .7% are dead, but if Sylar is out of the picture, a different future chain of events will occur.
They mentioned in the episode that Hiro couldn't kill Sylar because he regenerated with Claire's power. So they changed things so that he couldn't get it. So here's my theory: they now need Sylar to become the bomb.
If Peter is the bomb, as in the future, he won't be killable because he has Claire's power and the bomb still happens. If Sylar becomes the bomb, he can be killed since he now doesn't have Claire's power, and the bomb stopped. I also think they may need to kill Sylar after he has taken Sprague's power. If they kill him beforehand, Peter could still absorb Sprague's power and be the unstoppable bomb. Of course, they could just kill Sprague, but no one who knows about the bomb knows about him as the source of the power yet.
The other possibility I see is that they kill Sylar thinking he's the bomb, only to be wrong. Then Peter ends up being the bomb, and we end with the moral dilemma of having to kill Peter.
Time travel paradoxes make my head hurt.
Marcos wrote: "But who was the woman with Bennet who got shot in the head? Was that Candace? If so, how did Sylar get her powers? That bit confuses me."
That was Hana aka Wireless. We saw her in one scene on TV, when she was talking with the Radioactive guy on his computer. We see her more in the online comics and on the Heroes 360 webpage http://samantha48616e61.com/
Neil
Do you guys realize what's been happening? What you've been saying?
Here you are, all of you experienced and knowledgable geeks, and none of you - not even the pro who's paid to write this stuff - knows for certain how any of it is going to fall.
Heroes is written on two levels; one for the average "mundane" who doesn't know, understand or likely care about genre fiction...and also written for geeks who do. Kring and Company are keeping hold of them while keeping hold of us. I can't recall any show in history that pulled off that feat.
Kring has a lucrative future, not just in creating this show and others for TV, but in holding writing seminars that amateurs and pros will pay big bucks to attend.
"Do you guys realize what's been happening? What you've been saying?
Here you are, all of you experienced and knowledgable geeks, and none of you - not even the pro who's paid to write this stuff - knows for certain how any of it is going to fall."
That, my friend, is the hallmark of good writing. If it was all predictable, then it wouldn't keep us watching.
I am confused, you sound angry at everyone who posts on this page, but yet you are reading and visiting this site...
Rob
"Introducing some young girl into an alternate-world storyline as a deus ex machina...that trick never works."
Tee Hee Hee, that's funny! Now we just need her to say she "knows things."
Between this week's Heroes, Spider-Man 3's impending release, a couple comments on another blog, and my own warped imaginings, I just couldn't help myself...
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m297/Rex_Hondo/SylarBrock08.jpg
-Rex Hondo-
... except that Eden's sacrifice apparently didn't do any good; if you'll recall, Sylar used The Voice last week...
That question's come up a few times in the regular "Behind the Eclipse" Q&A with two of the show's writers on CBR. Per their responses, Sylar does not have Eden's power...the instances of his voice going all modulated like that are just the sound editors making Sylar spookier.
I had a brief moment wondering why Parkman didn't spot him from his thoughts years ago, but...It's Sylar. He could have stolen some weird power along the way that would stop that.
I don't think Matt was ever in the same room as Sylar/Nathan (in the episode, at least); they only spoke on the phone. Matt's power doesn't have that sort of range. We also don't know exactly how long Sylar had been masquarading as Nathan.
Plus, Matt should have enough control over his power, especially by five years hence, to only glean information from Sylar/Nathan if he intentionally probed him. He may not have, for whatever reason.
About Future Peter’s scar, I personally think that it caused by an accident sword cut because Hiro said that the sword have a special ability to enhance the user’s power. However, it may have another hidden power to prevent the wound from regenerate completely or made a wound becomes very difficult to healing. That would explain why Future Peter couldn’t able to regenerate at all. That scar look like a deep wound and almost a sword cut. And of course, Sylar’s signature cut is on the forehead always unless a rare event may occur where Sylar made an accident move.
About an illustration which shows the Asian person stabs Sylar with a sword, I have a strong feeling about an Asian person turned out to be Ando, not Hiro. Why Ando? Look at the picture carefully. That person doesn’t have glasses on and is fair tall and skinny (neither short nor chubby). It hit my thought from the beginning of that scene that it’s going to be Ando which fits that character in an illustration unless it may be very twist.
About how Sylar steal the special powers from Heroes, look back to the previous episode where Mohinder’s father first met Sylar and expected that Sylar have some special power. Follow me on that? Okay good. However, Sylar was the clock fixer and can able to understand how the clock broke inside. Same idea as Sylar can able to understand how a special power functions inside a Hero’s brain by looking at that person’s eyes or brain then alter his own DNA inside his brain by learning a new power, not eating other person’s brain. That’s how Sylar got his first stolen power from a person who has a power of telekinesis. Sylar is completely opposite of Peter the Empath. And I called Sylar “The Fixer”, not “The Brain Eater”. I don’t know anything about Sylar’s mother or father because it’s too early to tell a story about them and the season two may be ready by then.
Lots of things that goes on from latest episode are hard to explain such as why Parkman becomes a bad copy, How Haitan gets on Parkman’s side, where Peter’s mother and Linderman have been, and how Hiro becomes so cool and no longer need glasses at all.
Like other people said before, time can tell and we will wait and find out on next three more episodes.
... except that Eden's sacrifice apparently didn't do any good; if you'll recall, Sylar used The Voice last week...
That question's come up a few times in the regular "Behind the Eclipse" Q&A with two of the show's writers on CBR. Per their responses, Sylar does not have Eden's power...the instances of his voice going all modulated like that are just the sound editors making Sylar spookier.
To wit, maybe that was the power of Molly's father that he stole... or the dude in Chicago if he got the crynokinesis from Molly's Dad and froze him post mortem...
I thought I caught Linderman in the crowd scene at the memorial, I'm going to download the episode and check it out again tonight... Kinda scary either way...
I don't think Thomas Reed sounded angry, he sounded admiring. Granted, it's hard to tell in the Internet.
Tim Kring did something that appeals to both geeks and the mainstream. He isn't the first to do so, there was Lost, Twin Peaks, X-Files... but he is the first to do it with original superhero characters, I guess.
I think he came the closest to creating characters that at the same time are and aren't superheroes. Many people have said that characters like Buffy already were "disguised superheroes", but Heroes takes the idea to it's extreme.
You shave off the elements mainstream people would consider childish in the superhero (costumes, codenames, mild-mannered secret identities, fictional cities, crimefighting), but you keep enough of the essentials to please superhero fans too.
For what it's worth, on the topic of who drew the sketch of Hiro stabbing Sylar, you can tell it must have been Isaac simply because it was drawn by Tim Sale, Isaac's "ghost artist" - as opposed to Sylar's "ghost artist," Alex Maleev (compare and contrast Isaac's painting of Peter in the Oval Office with Sylar's painting of the same scene).
Marcos wrote: "We know that this future is not the future of the series' present; among other things, in the present our heroes all know that Claire survived the prom. Future Hiro thought Sylar had killed her there. So even though she survived in both timelines, the circumstances were different.
"Neither is it the same one that Hiro on the train came from. In train-Hiro's future, Claire may or may not have survived the prom, but Mohinder would have no memory of Hiro going back to the train because it hadn't happened."
Actually, if the Heroes graphic novel is considered canon, then chapter 30, "String Theory", reveals that Future-Hiro and Train-Hiro are the same person. The comic establishes that moments after returning to 2012 after his meeting with Peter, Future-Hiro sees a light on in the loft, investigates, and encounters his past self and Ando.
Yes, Claire survived Sylar's attack (at homecoming, not the prom), but that's because Future-Hiro delivered the message to Peter, who succeeded in saving her. However, so far as Future-Hiro knows upon returning to his own time, Peter failed to save her, and events happened as he remembered them.
It's seems pretty clear to me that upon encountering his present-day self and learning that A) Claire survived, thanks to his intervention into the past; and B) Present-Day Hiro didn't kill Sylar, Future-Hiro realized that present-Day Hiro needed to return to his own time. He concluded that since Present-Day Hiro jumped forward, he wasn't there to kill Sylar at the crucial moment. Thus the explosion still happened.
That's the most logical answer he has, given that he doesn't know that Peter, not Sylar, is the one who exploded.
It's also possible that Future-Hiro would have needed his Present-Day self to return to the past, even if there'd never been a bomb, in order to minimize potential paradoxes. Certainly, if Present-Day Hiro had been killed in 2012, future Hiro would have ceased to exist; and everything he'd done would've been erased from the timeline. And thus no one would have had reason to capture and kill Present-Day Hiro in 2012.
As to whether the glimpse we got of 2012 is the future of the series' present, I think it is. Present-Day Hiro wasn't there to kill Sylar as Future-Hiro believed he was meant to (or to kill Peter, as some have suggested here); or he tried and failed for reasons that had nothing to with Claire's abilities. Either way, the explosion occurred. And because the future we saw is extrapolated from the series' present, Mohinder would remember the train incident. There's no reason why he wouldn't.
Future-Hiro may or not have been aware that when he returned to 2012, it was the 2012 of an alternate timeline, one he created be going back in time and meeting with Peter. I'm going to assume he was aware this would happen, since it's a logical result of changing the past. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather as a child, you don't create a paradox, you just shunt yourself into an alternate timeline (or create it, whichever) in which there's no record of your existence. Your original timeline is still out there, but you're now on a different track. In fact, I wrote a short story about a man who uses this feature of the so-called Grandfather Paradox to his advantage.
But anyway, Future-Hiro's original timeline and the timeline he created are pretty much the same, except that Claire died at Sylar's hands at homecoming in the original, and didn't in the alternate. Whether Sylar was the bomb in the original, or everyone just thought he was isn't clear. We know he wasn't in the timeline created when Peter saved Claire, but the world at large believes otherwise.
Original timeline: Peter and Mohinder on the train. Nothing out of the ordinary happens; Claire is killed by Sylar; Hiro tries and fails to kill Sylar; Sylar explodes if he's taken Ted's power; or Peter explodes and Sylar's blamed if he hasn't.
Timeline created by Future Hiro's visit to Peter: Peter tells Mohinder of his odd encounter on the train; Peter contacts Present-Day Hiro and saves Claire. In the near future, the bomb will still go off, unless Present-Day Hiro (and perhaps some of the others) can stop it. If he succeeds, that will create a new timeline, one in which Present-Day Hiro visited the future, returned to the present, and prevented that future from occurring. Present-Day Hiro will live the next five years in a world where there never was an explosion, but will remember the timeline he visited. And that other timeline will still be out there, as is the original, in which Claire died at homecoming.
As to the Claire of 2012, all we know is that she's gone underground by that time. We don't know why. But since the world believes Sylar's dead, it can't be because she's hiding from him. Could be an overdue library book. Some libraries are pretty strict about such things.
Rick
My guess is that the Claire of 2012 (which, if it is five years in the future, shouldn't it be 2011 since the election was in 2006?) was hiding because the government was rounding up heroes.
Where did Peter gain telekenetic powers?
Did he get them fromm Syler? Which would mean he can copy all of his powers.
In any case, Peter has too many powers. Unless something happens to restrict his abilities, he'll have to die. Peter seems like the kind of character who would sacrifice himself for the greater good.
The big question right now is how Hiro's erronious mission to kill Syler ties up with Peter's nuclear explosion, Linderman's plots and where does Nathan stand?
Everybody was asking why Mat Parkman joined the darkside. But why did the Haitian do it?
------------------
"and how Hiro becomes so cool and no longer need glasses at all."
If TV has taught us anything, it's that when a nerd takes off his glasses and changes his hairdo, he automatically becomes cool. Cool people don't really need to wear glases, it's basic science. For maximum effect changing clothing is also recommended, or at least unbuttoning the top button of the shirt.
Conversely, beautiful women become smart by wearing glasses, but their eye sight remains the same regardless.
I still say it looked like future Hiro knew exactly that he was going to die and he was holding the comic that told him of the moment of his death.
Rob, you said:
I am confused, you sound angry at everyone who posts on this page, but yet you are reading and visiting this site...
No, but everyone was just so occupied with the geeky analysis of the events of the episode that they couldn't step back and see the big picture.
That's one of the amusing-yet-frustrating things about geek culture - a culture I belong to but am not married to.
It is good writing, true. Something that's largely ignored in television today, which makes it special. But I was also making the point that this universality of theme, that attracts everyone, is a quality of writing that few in geekdom appreciate. They rarely think of mundanes (and try to get away from them as much as possible). It's enough that the science, or magic, or whatever, has an internal consistency.
A person wanting to make a successful TV show HAS to think of the mundanes too. Which means that he or she has to have a very flexible mind.
Peter didn't believe him, though. I know I'm unfamiliar with the characters, but could Sylar be lying about that?
There is a definite possibility. While Peter has a somewhat skewed sense of Nathan's true nature, Sylar is most definitely a sadist (and has a skewed perception of pretty much everything). It could go either way based on that alone. Then there's the Nathan factor. Without spoiling too much, appearances are very deceiving with the elder Petrelli brother. It could well be that Nathan was doing something that appeared to be selling out "his own kind" but was actually operating on a master plan that would save them.
We have to keep in mind a couple things. Future hiro goes into the past and talks to peter and then travels to the future, but it is not the future he lived in, but a new alternate future.
(It makes sense doesn't it. Plus he was as surprised as anyone that the cheerleader survived. He was unaffected by the time change because he had traveled to the past, "fixed things" and came back)
The main reason the future is still bad is that current hiro teleported into the future. It's as if in the current timeline he just disappeared. Remember in a previous episode when hiro teleported into the future without realizing it and he calls ando in japan. Hiro was missing and their was a "missing persons" poster on andos cubicle. by going into the future its as if hiro disappears from current existance. So in a way hiro's time traveling to the future powers are quite useless. he'll never get an accurate picture of the future.
I'm wouldn't call Hiro's ability to travel to the future useless. Even if you're right about the effects of his removal, it still would give Hiro an "I do nothing" view of the future. Kinda like he had gone and lived as a hermit in a cave. Sorta like "It's a Wonderful Life," but not retroactive.
I think all the talk about alternate timelines is way off base. Earlier in the season (ep 10 Six Months Ago), Hiro went back in time to save Charlie from being killed by Sylar and failed. He pointedly states afterward that the past cannot be changed inferring there is one contiguous timeline (path) the characters must follow. Even String Theory seems to reinforce this because it appears Hiro is trying to find the exact moment when he can ‘course correct’ history. Reminds me of the Voyager episode ‘Year From Hell.’
And yet Hiro did change the past. When he first meets Charlie, she doesn't remember meeting him six months earlier. He changed her memory of him by going back in time. The one thing he couldn't change was the fact that she was terminally ill.
Future Hiro has already succeeded in changin the past as well: He prevented Sylar from taking Claire's power. The point of the strings was not try and find moments in time where history could be altered, but those moments where changes would lead to the outcome he desired.
Do we know that Future Hiro changed the past? Or that Charlie wasn't pretending in the present to know know Hiro when we first see them meet?
Having seen each ep. only once, and not really looking for time-travel conundrums, I don't know. It seems plausible that future Hiro felt the need to travel back to warn Peter to save Claire from Sylar...not because in the alternate Future Hiro present, Slyar succeeded, but because Hiro found out Sylar had attempted to kill Claire, and was stopped by Peter...buy only because of Future Hiro's intervention. So not changing the past, so much as insuring that what has come to pass will still come to pass.
Which of course leads to questions about when Hiro jumps forward...is what he seeing already occuring? Does Isaac get killed by Sylar, shortly before something goes boom?
Time travel sure makes for interesting stories, but at some point, you have to establish the rules for what can and cannot be changed, how any such changes are shown on the show, and whether or not anyone in the context of the story will even notice. When Voyager did Year of Hell, they at least came up with a Trekky-plausible explanation for how they could be affected by the time shift one time, and not another.
Where did Peter gain telekenetic powers?
Did he get them fromm Syler? Which would mean he can copy all of his powers.
Yep, from Sylar. When Peter saved Claire, Sylar attacked him with TK, tossing lockers at him.
If Peter can able to copy all of Sylar's stolen powers include Sylar's original power of can able to understand how DNA work in Heroes' brain, then that means Peter don't know ALL of his powers because he have to understand how each power works. Remember that Sylar stole a "passive" power of superhearing from Dale. Then Peter should pick it up automatically by now when Peter and Sylar met for a second time where Mohinder was captured. Because that power is on passive, not active. Unless Peter know how to turn it off and on like Sylar know how to manage any "passive" power somehow.
That's how Peter found out that he have a power of telekinesis when the Invisibile Guy was about to hit him with a wooden stick and Peter pushed it off. Yes, Peter did copy ALL of Sylar's "stolen" powers but still have to figure out what other powers he did copy on his own.
and how Hiro becomes so cool and no longer need glasses at all.
If I were fighting on a regular basis, I'd do something to remove the obvious weak point on my face that says "break these and I can't fight you effectively any more," personally. If it happened suddenly it would be difficult to explain, but there's nothing especially mysterious about Lasik or contact lenses.
Do we know that Future Hiro changed the past?
Yes. Charlie's birthday picture changed from one without Hiro to one with him. It follows that Samurai Hiro did too.
"Yes. Charlie's birthday picture changed from one without Hiro to one with him. It follows that Samurai Hiro did too."
Ah, thankee. You just saved me a few hours reviewing past episodes just to find that out.
So, present Hiro only thinks he can't change the past. I wonder why Ando didn't mention to him that the picture changed? I mean, he noticed it changed, so unless his memory somehow vanished when Hiro returned....
We just finished watching Hiro reverse the Themarian Hope's gunfire. I guess since Hiro had his eyes closed, he missed how he actually made time go backwards, apparantly. Meaning he can change the past.
Bobb, I'd think that Ando's memories of the photo would change along with everything else. Afterall, from his perspective the photo always had Hiro in it. There's no reson that Ando shouldn't be changed along with everything else when the past change just because he knows Hiro. I don't recall if he actually looked at the birthday photo before Hiro left, but we can rationalize this away be simply assuming that Ando did not notive Hiro in the photo until after he was gone. Also, I am relying on the accounts of others that say the photo actually changed after Hiro left.
Of course, since he was actually time-traveling with Hiro in the last episode, it's a Horse Of A Different Color. He should remember everything about his most recent trip, I'd say.
I have only seen the last few episodes, but am starting to get into it, it's a cool show.
I'm surprised nobody has speculated on whether or not the "Hiro" or "Sylar" in the picture might not actually be the shape-changing girl (or does she project illusions? again, sorry, I'm quite new to the show). If Sylar's an imposter then that might explain why the actor's lined up for season 2.
This is wild speculation from somebody new, so sorry if it's been mentioned or discounted.
Fun show, though.
dhole,
Don't let being new discourage you. All good shows need to new patrons to keep them going.
Regarding the photo, we know for a fact that Sylar is not impersonating Hiro in the photo in question because we get to follow Hiro back into the past when he attempts to save the waitress, Charlie, from Sylar. We watch him pose for the photo. Also, Sylar's ability to disguise himself is an ability that he acquired at some point in the future. He acquires these new abilities by murdering people with super-powers and doing something vague and creepy with their brains. Future-Sylar mentioned his ability to impersonate Nathan came from "a woman named Candice." Candice is an established character and is alive and well in the present, so Present-Sylar does not have the ability to impersonate people.
Welcome to the Heroes additiction, dhole.
To answer your question about Candice's power, it is indeed illusion based, rather than shapeshifting. The first time we saw her use her powers, she not only altered her own appearance, but that of the area around her to keep police officers from seeing a dead body.
As to Peter's scar, I wonder if he maybe receives a wound while in the presense of the Haitian, leaving him unable to fully heal before the scar forms?>
The Haitian would be my guess as well. I have a feeling the story will be told in the Graphic Novel.
Do we know that Future Hiro changed the past?
Remember the first time he traveled into the future? That future had Isaac being murdered by Sylar way at the beginning of the season, in November or so. Then that's when the explosion happened, too. True, that means Hiro only deferred the two events, as far as we know, but that still doesn'tmean they're inevitable.
Lea said: "Remember the first time he traveled into the future? That future had Isaac being murdered by Sylar way at the beginning of the season, in November or so."
That hasn't changed. It's currently November in the series. Yesterday's episode took place just a few days before the election.
And, in point of fact, Hiro mentioned that the explosion is supposed to happen in a few days.
The entire season encompasses about five weeks (excluding the flashbacks and jump into the future, of course).
Rick
When Hiro first jumped forward, the police discovered Isaac's body right before the explosion. Tonight he thought he was too late because he saw Isaac's body and the explosion would happen any minute. It could be in the original timeline when Sylar had Claire's power that Sylar didn't kill Isaac for another day.
One thing we do know - Hiro didn't encounter Sylar at his mother's in Queens and break his sword the first time around.
Neil
The entire season encompasses about five weeks (excluding the flashbacks and jump into the future, of course).
Oh, god. I hate it when they do that.
I think the future present Hiro went to hadn't corrected itself yet. Future Hiro was suprised present Hiro was there, which means that Future Hero never traveled to the future and met himself. Perhaps in Heroes changes to a timeline take longer to affect the future. And it's also possible that the reason present Hiro failed to save the coffee shop girl was because he was the one trying to change history. And what I mean by that is, future Hiro came back and got Peter to go save Claire. perhaps only someone from a certain time period can alter it. Kinda like someone watching a tv show, or watching someone else play a video game, you physically can't do anything to alter what happens, but like with the video game, you can offer hints and tips to the person playing that could help them do what you want them to do.
Otherwise with Hiro everything would be like Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, whenever he barely got out of a tough scrape, he could just go back in time and do something that would make it easier for him to win. Watch Bogus Journey again(if you can stand it) and you'll see what I mean in the ending battle with the future bad guys.
And I think Peter got the scar because in the original future, he never came into contact with Claire and gained her powers. If he had originally, then Future Hiro wouldn't have made the comment about him looking different without the scar. Even when Clair was temporarily dead with the tree branch stuck in her head, once it was pulled out, she healed back up, including the autopsy cuts, which means that even when the power is blocked somehow, it will still heal any wound sustained while it was inactive. For the Haitin's power to block Peter's healing power, and cause him to have a scar, they would have to have been together when Peter got the scar, and for the next few weeks that it took for the scar to fully heal naturally, and possibly then negating the healing factor.
