Heroes 3.03 - October 6, 2008

[DoctorFinger]

Tonight's episode "I Am Become Death". From the preview Peter adapts a dangerous ability in order to save the world, HRG gets rid of his partner, and Hiro and Ando want to find out who hired Daphne.It looks like they're trying to humanize Sylar a bit, which on any other show I would call a swerve, but on this one they may be serious about it.

[Atepsflame]

I've officially given up on Heroes. Until I hear some more positive things about this season I'm going to be spending my monday nights more effectively. ...by posting on the forums.

[rein]

Well... ...I'm lost.

I got distracted and the next thing I know Biker Chick Barbie is wanting to kill Peter and all hell breaks loose.

[Karmakin]

It's four years later that's why. For some reason, FYL Claire has a serious chip on her shoulder towards Peter. Actually, so does Parkman as well.

The "swirve" on Sylar actually worked really well. They did a good job of explaining why such a change could occur, and the ending for the FYL segment fits into the established story very well.

At least to me it's starting to get very interesting, and threads are starting to come together. Or at least WTF they're fighting about in the first place.

[Church42]

Boom!!!!!!!!!!!

[Zero]

This show is so much better when the characters get to use their powers.

[Lint of Death]

I felt so bad for future Sylar (Sorry, Gabriel), I was genuinely moved :(

I like how even future Peter's last dying instructions are a FUCK-UP move.

[cppcrusader]

The only thing I didn't care for in this episode was Parkman being able to see the future with the Bushman's peyote.

[Lint of Death]

He's got a turtle spirit guide now, though. Doesn't that make up for it?

[Aggort]

Yea this episode sucked and that's my two cents. I am tired of so many questions and Adam certainly didn't help any.

[Rogue_hunter]

This show is so much better when the characters get to use their powers.

Yes, though they barely used their powers. I wanted to see Gabriel do more against the fear guy.

[Lint of Death]

Did anyone else notice that present Sylar had no problems mopping the floor with both Jesse and Knox simultaneously but future Gabriel (initially) got pretty pwnd? And that, more importantly, future Knox's attacks did peculiarly little physical damage to him despite the kid's fear? I was expecting holes to be punched like with the German. Granted, I'm positive Gabriel was holding back - he should have been able to instantly take control of the situation -all three of the attackers - with his telekinesis alone.

[OrangePulp]

Yeah, I don't know why future sylar didn't just kill them all (except clair, I guess). For that matter, why didn't Peter just stop time and fix things? That's one of the mistakes of the show, I think; Peter, especially, should be able to handle any situation at all. Stop time + one of his offensive powers can't be beaten, even by Hiro. If they're going to give them these powers, at least let them use them to the fullest.

[Spacetronaut]

That's exactly the problem with Heroes these days. They gave all these people incredible powers and now they don't know what the hell to do. It seems their only solution is to make everybody incredibly stupid.

[DoctorFinger]

I liked this episode a lot more when Mark Waid & Alex Ross did it as Kingdom Come.

[Lint of Death]

I'm still waiting for Sylar to melt stuff.

[Deadend]

Yeah, I don't know why future sylar didn't just kill them all (except clair, I guess). For that matter, why didn't Peter just stop time and fix things? That's one of the mistakes of the show, I think; Peter, especially, should be able to handle any situation at all. Stop time + one of his offensive powers can't be beaten, even by Hiro. If they're going to give them these powers, at least let them use them to the fullest.

The crutch excuses they used were Sylars kid and Peter couldn't concentrate with the sppedster girl punching him. Agh, Speedsters, you can tell Jeph Loeb works on the show.

The whole 4 years later is lame, as it doesn't really make sense, as I can't recall why Peter should be wanting to change the future again. Aside from Modern Peter is almost as retarded as Future Peter.

[Zero]

I kept screaming "Freeze time!" at modern Peter during that whole scene.

[Lint of Death]

Come to think of it, the speedy one punching Peter constantly is a good excuse for preventing Peter from stopping time (or at least making the power not useful), as Peter had never even met her before and has been shown capable of moving around when time is frozen. She had the advantage of being unknown, as did Knox for a little bit.

I have a question, though - why can Peter use telekinesis but not have Sylar's real power until just now? And why doesn't Peter use any of the other powers Sylar copied? ARGH story elements are losing their sanity.

[PathMaster]

Sylar/Gab did not want to use his powers in front of his son (who is the mom?), so he held back, until he went boom. Oddly, we know peter survived, but where did Sylar go afterward? He can not die from doing that, soo...?

Much better episode for me. Best of the season so far.

Next week should be good. Hopefully we find out who Adam is working for. Which might be Papa Petrelli.

[Lint of Death]

Yeah! That was a surprise to find that he's back. Perhaps the apparent ghost of Linderman did that.

And why does Angela seem so intent on bringing in all the villains that carry out the atrocities in her vision? Now maybe I'm doing the show's writing for them, but maybe with Matt displaced someone would have been able to use Molly to find Adam anyway so it's best to make sure his location is known?

PS I wonder why the kid's name is Noah. Please don't tell me HRG dies again :(

[TheKeck]

So, um... yeah... Heroes. I used to like this show. :(

Don't get me wrong, though, it's not like I'm going to stop watching or anything crazy like that. ;)

[cppcrusader]

And that, more importantly, future Knox's attacks did peculiarly little physical damage to him despite the kid's fear? I was expecting holes to be punched like with the German.

Didn't Sylar acquire impervious skin from someone along the way? That would explain Knox not being able to punch holes in him.

Wait a minute, I think I might be thinking of a scene from one of the Season 2 episodes that got cut with the rewrite.

[Lint of Death]

Didn't Sylar acquire impervious skin from someone along the way? That would explain Knox not being able to punch holes in him.

Wait a minute, I think I might be thinking of a scene from one of the Season 2 episodes that got cut with the rewrite.

According to the wiki that was cut, and that is evidenced by the first episodes of the new season (Claire stabs Sylar with a knife, HRG shoots him full o' lead), but maybe he finds the power later on.

WAIT A MINUTE. Some of this stuff was intended to be part of season 2. Maybe this future stuff has Sylar with impervious skin because it assumes that he did pick it up when, in actual continuity, he didn't. That'd be an amusing gaff. Also I'm surprised Knox's head didn't explode when Gabriel punched it the first time :p

Bonus post-script: Check it out! Present Peter managed to get Flint's fire ability! Maybe he's got Jesse's and Knox's hiding in there, too. Maybe even the German's. Who knows, blargh.

[Zero]

PS I wonder why the kid's name is Noah. Please don't tell me HRG dies again :(

I actually thought that was a nice touch. Probably a tribute to his former partner. Doesn't necessarily mean HRG is dead, though.

[PathMaster]

Gabriel is in Noah's house after all.

I think papa Petrelli was supposed to be in season 2, which obviously was cut.

[Disgustipated]

I just downloaded Episode 4 as well as 3... uh... is 4 even out yet?

[Lint of Death]

Monday was episode 4. The episode numbering in these threads is screwed up because the debut had two episodes back-to-back.

edit: and man, if HRG does end up being the one to turn Sylar around, this season will be great to watch unfold just for how they get to that (assuming no Haitian mind-erasing) :D

Also, interesting note on the immortality thing: Looks like if they die when the Haitian is around, it's permanent? Notice how future Peter was not shot in the head.

[Zero]

Also, interesting note on the immortality thing: Looks like if they die when the Haitian is around, it's permanent? Notice how future Peter was not shot in the head.

That's a good point. I wondered why future Peter didn't just heal.

[bryan]

That's a good point. I wondered why future Peter didn't just heal.

Don't even wonder. The show is stupid, if you wanna watch it you have turn your brain off. And even then it might not work.

[KingGorilla]

Pardon me whoring myself twice in one day...

But this week I will be putting up an article titled "Goddamnit, you clever bastards."

It centers around Heroes and how just enough happened with this week's episode that I will continue to watch. I will psychologically deconstruct my own madness.

Those fuckers are clever. They feature a mig hero mele, Peter picks up some new powers. I have Brunette Claire in my spank bank. Things got interresting again.

[Zero]

I have Brunette Claire in my spank bank. Things got interresting again.

Awww, dude. It's not even a very good dye job.

[PathMaster]

Actually, I think it might have to do with the bullet still being in his head, similar to season one's chunk of wood in Claire's head. The whole time I was thinking, peter, grab scarred pete and tp out and yank the bullet out.

[Lint of Death]

Actually, I think it might have to do with the bullet still being in his head, similar to season one's chunk of wood in Claire's head. The whole time I was thinking, peter, grab scarred pete and tp out and yank the bullet out.

Like I said before, though, and I'm utterly positive you can see in the episode, future Peter was not shot in the head.

[Zero]

Like I said before, though, and I'm utterly positive you can see in the episode, future Peter was not shot in the head.

Yup, twice in the chest.

[CES]

Actually, I think it might have to do with the bullet still being in his head, similar to season one's chunk of wood in Claire's head. The whole time I was thinking, peter, grab scarred pete and tp out and yank the bullet out.

Well, there's the fact that the Haitian (who got beaned quite brilliantly) in all but one time we've seen him, blocks every power in the radius. The only exception was in S1 with Parkman, who was able to get one word from HRG's mind even when his powers should have been inhibited.

But, this is not a series given to logic or a tight plot. It is first and foremost about "how much cool CG superpowers can we cram in?"

[cppcrusader]

Yup, twice in the chest.

That's what I thought. I chalked it up to Future Peter choosing to stay dead. Just before he was shot he was telling Peter how he had fucked with the time stream too much. He wanted to take himself out of the equation.

[PathMaster]

Thought he was shot in the back of the head. I was wrong then.

[Hotcod]

It's twice Claire has gone to shoot him with out us seeing the Haitian around and she seems sure his going to end up dead... so the only thing i can think of is that something happened, probably when peter gets the scar, that leaves him unable to regenerate... i don't think we've ever seen him heal when his had the scar so it's the only thing that i can see that makes any sense

[DiBiddilyBop]

I'm giving up on Heroes. I loved the first season (up until the last episode), the second season was disappointing, and this season is a bust so far. They just can't seem to keep any kind of continuity going, they're using every tired plot device in the book, and many of the decisions the characters make don't make any sense when put into context. For example:

The first season. I think we all remember "Save the cheerleader, save the world." And what role did Claire play in the final episode to save New York? Oh yeah... nothing. It was all Nathan. I guess "Save the congress man, save the world" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The second season breaks up the quirky and very likable dynamic that Hiro and Ando had going and basically gives Hiro his own show inside of a show. As with most instances where a single character from a series gets his own spinoff, this does not work. Sylar ending up in the middle of the jungle in South America is never sufficiently explained, nor is the loss of his power. The hispanic brother's power proves to be completely useless (and thus the character is useless) when we discover it's little more than a glorified form of Prozac and the sister can control her own power by learning to chill the fuck out. The whole world ends up saved before we ever really get any sense of the fact that it's in danger (thank you, writer's strike).

Apparently the catalyst for the third season is the theft of some mystic formula which is scrawled on a piece of paper from a guy whose power is to stop and rewind time. There is nothing about this that makes sense. 1. Paper is not difficult to destroy. You don't have to nuke it, pour acid onto it or do anything exotic. Matches, paper shredders, and good, old-fashioned water all work equally well. Burying it in your yard would probably do the trick. So if this paper is so dangerous that it could destroy the world, why would you keep it at all? Just get rid of it. 2. Hiro's power is time travel. Stopping time is part of it, but he's also shown on many occasions that he can literally rewind time. When your father has posthumously made it abundantly clear that this paper is very, very dangerous and could destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands, I'm not sure why rewinding time 14 seconds to put the paper back in the safe and close it is out of the question. And how the HELL did the speed chick know to be there at that exact moment? It might be explained later, but I'd bet money that it isn't. Perhaps if your whole season revolves around overlooking something so ridiculously obvious, you should rethink your plot device.

Finally, there's lvl 5. How anti-climactic was that? The world's most dangerous criminals are a guy who yells really loudly, a guy who can crack safes, a pyro (don't we already have a few of those?), and a guy whose power increases from fear. Since they are *really scary*, let's send the relatively harmless pathological psychopath who is telekinetic, pyrokinetic, radioactive (apparently enough so to wipe out a city), has precognition, and super hearing. OH YEAH! And he can't be killed or harmed by anything.

And don't even get me started on the stupid plot devices. I think we've pulled out all the stops on this one. We have the bad guy turns good, the good guy turns bad, the good guy and bad guy are related, several other characters find they are related, one or more characters get amnesia, and a character is killed off only to be immediately replaced by her identical twin since the original character had a worthless and boring ability, although the new character isn't doing much better.

I'm sorry, Heroes, but I just can't look past the ridiculousness of your writing any longer. I'll stick with shows like Dexter that actually keep a cohesive plot line.

[Lint of Death]

The first season. I think we all remember "Save the cheerleader, save the world." And what role did Claire play in the final episode to save New York? Oh yeah... nothing. It was all Nathan. I guess "Save the congress man, save the world" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
First, Nathan never, not once had to be protected - the only time he was assaulted he rescued himself with a fantastic spot of violence and a quick flight away when nobody knew what he was capable of. Although, you are right in the sense that it would have been pretty disastrous if Sylar had known about him. The Cheerleader needed to be saved for two reasons: first, if she hadn't been, Sylar would have become undefeatable at the worst moment - there was a point at which he was convinced that he should explode and season 3 seems to hint that even in the future he can't actually handle Ted's power very well; and second, Claire was the only one able to kill Peter and stop the bomb without dieing.

The second season breaks up the quirky and very likable dynamic that Hiro and Ando had going and basically gives Hiro his own show inside of a show. As with most instances where a single character from a series gets his own spinoff, this does not work. Sylar ending up in the middle of the jungle in South America is never sufficiently explained, nor is the loss of his power. The hispanic brother's power proves to be completely useless (and thus the character is useless) when we discover it's little more than a glorified form of Prozac and the sister can control her own power by learning to chill the fuck out. The whole world ends up saved before we ever really get any sense of the fact that it's in danger (thank you, writer's strike).
I won't debate the Hiro story, as I, too, like it best when Hiro and Ando do things together.

Sylar losing his power and being in the middle of nowhere in South America are explained by the same thing. While I cannot recall why the Company wanted him alive, they gave him the Shanti virus to make sure that he lost his powers and test that particular strain and they put him in South America away from everyone to keep a potentially contagious strain of Shanti from killing everyone. Nikki had been given the Shanti virus as well, which is why she couldn't save herself from the burning home at the end of the season.

Alejandro was not useless. He could undo the damage that Maya had done; I believe Maya can only prevent herself from causing the damage in the first place. His character wasn't useless because he tried to protect his sister from the seemingly inevitable. He just failed, is all.

The danger to the world was the Shanti virus. It had the theoretical advantage of stripping a person of their powers, but it also tended to be fatal. While not initially contagious, the Company had developed a strain that was not only contagious, but could also kill regular people. Adam wanted to release that strain upon the world in an attempt to kill everyone except himself (and Claire, since it appeared that those with his power would be immune to the virus). Adam's murderous rampage is a mix of revenge and his bloody quest to find the strain.

Apparently the catalyst for the third season is the theft of some mystic formula which is scrawled on a piece of paper from a guy whose power is to stop and rewind time. There is nothing about this that makes sense. 1. Paper is not difficult to destroy. You don't have to nuke it, pour acid onto it or do anything exotic. Matches, paper shredders, and good, old-fashioned water all work equally well. Burying it in your yard would probably do the trick. So if this paper is so dangerous that it could destroy the world, why would you keep it at all? Just get rid of it. 2. Hiro's power is time travel. Stopping time is part of it, but he's also shown on many occasions that he can literally rewind time. When your father has posthumously made it abundantly clear that this paper is very, very dangerous and could destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands, I'm not sure why rewinding time 14 seconds to put the paper back in the safe and close it is out of the question. And how the HELL did the speed chick know to be there at that exact moment? It might be explained later, but I'd bet money that it isn't. Perhaps if your whole season revolves around overlooking something so ridiculously obvious, you should rethink your plot device.
If you want to know why the speedster was able to steal the formula so soon after the safe was opened, read the comics on the Heroes website. It's explained how she was able to intimidate an employee at the company into giving her building access and information.

edit: as for Hiro rewinding time, I think part of the point of seasons 1 and 2 was to make him extremely averse to doing so. Remember what Hiro's father taught him before his death. Future Peter never got to learn any of that, though, because he has had no mentor since the invisible man.

Finally, there's lvl 5. How anti-climactic was that? The world's most dangerous criminals are a guy who yells really loudly, a guy who can crack safes, a pyro (don't we already have a few of those?), and a guy whose power increases from fear. Since they are *really scary*, let's send the relatively harmless pathological psychopath who is telekinetic, pyrokinetic, radioactive (apparently enough so to wipe out a city), has precognition, and super hearing. OH YEAH! And he can't be killed or harmed by anything.
I'm certainly not going to disagree with the disappointing power difference between Sylar and the level 5s, except in this much: if you ask me, Flint was just seconds away from torching the fuck out of Sylar if it hadn't been for HRG shooting him at the right instant. Also, if you want to see that sound power being nasty, there's a three-episode, live action webseries on the Heroes site about a character with exactly the same power. I honestly wish they had just brought back that guy instead of introducing Jesse.

That's enough for now, I'm off to do something else :p

[DiBiddilyBop]

First, Nathan never, not once had to be protected - the only time he was assaulted he rescued himself with a fantastic spot of violence and a quick flight away when nobody knew what he was capable of. Although, you are right in the sense that it would have been pretty disastrous if Sylar had known about him. The Cheerleader needed to be saved for two reasons: first, if she hadn't been, Sylar would have become undefeatable at the worst moment - there was a point at which he was convinced that he should explode and season 3 seems to hint that even in the future he can't actually handle Ted's power very well; and second, Claire was the only one able to kill Peter and stop the bomb without dieing.

I know Nathan never needed saving, but my point was he was really the only one who was important to saving New York. I guess it could be argued that saving Claire prevents Sylar from destroying New York, but the end of the season kind of implies that it was going to be Peter all along, which again means "Save the cheerleader, save the world" actually didn't mean anything.

Sylar losing his power and being in the middle of nowhere in South America are explained by the same thing. While I cannot recall why the Company wanted him alive, they gave him the Shanti virus to make sure that he lost his powers and test that particular strain and they put him in South America away from everyone to keep a potentially contagious strain of Shanti from killing everyone. Nikki had been given the Shanti virus as well, which is why she couldn't save herself from the burning home at the end of the season.

Ok, I must have missed that about Sylar. With how truncated the storyline was last season, I'm not surprised I missed some points.

Alejandro was not useless. He could undo the damage that Maya had done; I believe Maya can only prevent herself from causing the damage in the first place. His character wasn't useless because he tried to protect his sister from the seemingly inevitable. He just failed, is all.

Alejandro never undid Maya's damage. If she killed someone, they were dead. His only ability was to mellow her out before she actually killed the people, which she learned how to do by herself anyway.

The danger to the world was the Shanti virus.

Oh yeah, I know that was the plotline... it just seemed like it was resolved before the audience really felt any sense of urgency or danger from it. Bad story telling and the writer's strike are to blame here.

If you want to know why the speedster was able to steal the formula so soon after the safe was opened, read the comics on the Heroes website. It's explained how she was able to intimidate an employee at the company into giving her building access and information.

I'll have to check out the comic, but does it explain how she knew Hiro was going to open up the safe at that exact moment?

edit: as for Hiro rewinding time, I think part of the point of seasons 1 and 2 was to make him extremely averse to doing so. Remember what Hiro's father taught him before his death. Future Peter never got to learn any of that, though, because he has had no mentor since the invisible man.

Hiro mentions something in the show about not wanting to travel through time, but during that same episode he does some fast forwarding, so when you know that the fate of humanity very literally could be at stake because of that piece of paper, I'm thinking a quick rewind might not be so out of the question.

[Lint of Death]

Alejandro never undid Maya's damage. If she killed someone, they were dead. His only ability was to mellow her out before she actually killed the people, which she learned how to do by herself anyway.
If you really want to, you can go back and watch when Alejandro uses his power. In many cases it's after Maya runs up to him, crying about how she just lost control and killed everybody. Without Alejandro, at that stage the victims are doomed.

Hiro mentions something in the show about not wanting to travel through time, but during that same episode he does some fast forwarding, so when you know that the fate of humanity very literally could be at stake because of that piece of paper, I'm thinking a quick rewind might not be so out of the question.
The thing about what Hiro learned, though, was the importance of accepting what has already happened. He firmly believes he can alter the future, however.

[Hotcod]

I know Nathan never needed saving, but my point was he was really the only one who was important to saving New York. I guess it could be argued that saving Claire prevents Sylar from destroying New York, but the end of the season kind of implies that it was going to be Peter all along, which again means "Save the cheerleader, save the world" actually didn't mean anything.

They saved the cheerleader and so could save the world. That said they do save the cheerleader half way through really so it goes from saving the cheerleader just to saving the world. If peter has not saved Claire then Slyar would have blown up new york, there's no two ways about it.


Alejandro never undid Maya's damage. If she killed someone, they were dead. His only ability was to mellow her out before she actually killed the people, which she learned how to do by herself anyway.

I'm sure he did, Maya can stop her self from doing it now but we see him able to reverse mayas stuff after it would be to late for her to stop... we also don't know what else he could have done in the long run but i have to agree i don't really like either of them or there plot lines.


I'll have to check out the comic, but does it explain how she knew Hiro was going to open up the safe at that exact moment?


Off the top of my head? sat across the street with a telescope staking out the place... she see Hiro opening the safe and bang she's there.

Heros dose at this point have such a confusing plot that it lets the writers get away with doing silly things or revising history... the first was really good, the 2nd was really bad and would have been even with out the writers strike and the 3rd is shaping up to be ok... that said it's still much much better than most other things on tv at the moment.

[Generation ABXY]

I'm a little late to the party, I know (been watching on Hulu, and there was a debate on Tuesday - that just seemed more important), but I actually liked this past episode. I have to agree that it was probably the best of the season so far, and gave me hope that, yes, they may actually do something interesting this time around.

So, as someone who was a still a bit worried after its first few episodes, I think I'll be sticking it out a little longer...

[pomeroy]

DiBiddilyBop - If you hate it so much, don't watch it. It's really not worth the thesis-level ranting you're doing.

I liked this episode. The complete 180 of Sylar in the future had me cracking up at first, and then I really felt for him. Only thing that would have made this a better episode would be some K-Bell.

[Abednigo]

There's too much to read right now, but my two cents about this season so far is that it has potential (as they always do), but they need to start putting the pieces together. I'm hoping that things over the last two seasons start to get resolved in season 3. I hate to think they have left things unresolved from previous seasons, and that some of the things in previous season have no meaning in this season. Example, I hope that the whole "save the cheerleader, save the world" mission from season 1 has larger connotations beyond the first season. If they are doing things that way, it'll be awesome.

But they can't leave stuff unresolved. Like the Irish chick that got stuck in the future last season. Now that the virus was stopped, what happened to her? Stuff like that needs to be cleared up. I'm sure it was a casualty of the writer's strike, but come on. There must be a way to resolve those things now.