talkingsoup | April Twenty-Freaking-Third

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April Twenty-Freaking-Third

Actually, the episode was kind of disappointing last night. It was noisy. As in, there was near-constant music playing, even during dramatic scenes and stuff. It got on my nerves. Part of it might have been the TV which was definitely favoring background noise over verbal, but so it goes.

Also in terms of content, the episode just wasn't as great as the others. *shrug*

Well, Mohinder, Sylar and Peter have all survived. Peter managed to heal as he was getting his head cut open and turned Sylar's own telekinesis against him. Mohinder fell to the ground and Peter went invisible, though Sylar solved that problem by shooting broken glass all over the place. Peter got one in the head and "died" for awhile, like Claire did when she had the stick in her head.

Mama Petrelli advised that they hide the body until after Nathan's election, which is very...out of character for her. Unless, as we think, she's in with Linderman. Why else would she be so adamant about Nathan being elected. Meanwhile, Claire got to meet Nathan, her daddy. She was also the only one smart enough to yank the piece of glass out of Peter's head, which brought him back to life. Peter attempted to convince Nathan that he needs to open his eyes to what's going on in the world. Nathan, meanwhile, is trying to avoid falling into Linderman's pocket.

Linderman's plan has been revealed, though anyone reading the novels or paying attention to the various websites (or reading the TV guide like me) knew what it was beforehand. He wants the bomb to go off and NYC to be destroyed. He's going to get Nathan into the White House and use the incident to rally the nation behind a common cause--pretty much, making the world a better place and all. Aside from all the people who will die in the explosion (.07% of the world's population), Peter is also the cause of the explosion, which doesn't make Nathan happy. Though it's still up in the air as to whether Nathan's gonna go along with Linderman.

Linderman also has a power--he can heal things. And it's been revealed that he is indeed the power behind Bennet's Company.

Bennett, Matt and Ted have also escaped and are headed toward New York City. That's where the tracking machine that tracks the heroes is. It's also where Peter is. Where Peter can absorb Ted's power. Though to Ted's credit, it looks like he's starting to get better control of his powers.

Isaac handed in what will be the last issue of his comic book. Sylar had been knocked out by Mohinder back in the apartment, but upon waking up he found a picture of Isaac and so gave the inevitable house call. Isaac had accepted his fate, though he had some parting words for Sylar--specifically, that Isaac himself has left clues behind that will help people to defeat Sylar, and stop the bomb.

But in any case, Isaac is now dead and Sylar has his power. -_-

Claire got to have a talk with Nathan-daddy, and it looks like she's going off to Paris for a week until the election is over. The whereabouts of the Haitian are unknown. Mama Petrelli also has known not only about Claire, but also about Peter and Nathan's powers. And she hinted that she had one of her own.

Linderman, meanwhile, asked Jessica/Nikki if he could borrow Micah--obviously so that Micah can rig the election that will get Nathan elected. Jessica refused, so Linderman sent Candice--the girl who can shapeshift--to the house. There she posed as Nikki and handed Micah off to Linderman. Jessica/Nikki herself showed up seconds too late. DL meanwhile has found out that Jessica's back and is threatening to take Micah away. Too late now.

And lastly, with our favorite Heroes, Hiro and Ando have ended up in the future. Ando said that they should go back, but Hiro said they should stay--stay so they can figure out what they have to go back and change so that the bomb won't go off. They went to see Isaac and instead came upon Future Hiro's lair, where he has strung timelines across the whole room like a giant spiderweb. The episode ended with Hiro and Future Hiro meeting for the first time.

The whole episode felt kind of rushed and forced. Meh.

Oh but dude, I figured something out. The Peter that Future Hiro knows--the Peter with the scar--is not the Peter we know. He's the Peter that will be assuming the bomb does go off. Future Hiro knows a Peter from that specific timeline, not our Peter. Interesting quantum-timeline-stuff to chew on.

We know what Future Hiro is trying to do now, too. Specifically he wants to stop the bomb. Future Hiro exists in the reality that will happen if the bomb does go off, and that's the reality he's trying to change. No bomb.

The next episode is set 5 years in the future, in the future that will happen if the bomb does go off. Oh man, that one's gonna be awesome.

I have some insider info on the next episode, too. Damn TV guide. They live to spoil things! Though, it was my choice to read it. *evil snicker* I've got some juicy tidbits.

We DON'T want the bomb to explode, let me tell you that right now. Contrary to what Linderman believes, the world is a dark, dark place. Claire is there, Nathan's the president, and Mohinder is a medical adviser of some kind. Matt is with something similar to Homeland Security. Peter's alive and has a big old scar, and is quite intimate with Jessica/Nikki. And Hiro is a wanted terrorist. As is Sylar, it looks like.

Future Hiro is apparently not a very nice guy, either. Not the kind of person that Hiro wants to become, at any rate.

As for Bennett, the Haitian, Ted, Hana, DL, Micah, Meredith, Mama Petrelli, the rest of Claire's family, and Linderman, I don't know.

In any case, we're going to get a glimpse at the people everyone has become assuming the bomb goes off. Nathan's considering genocide, Claire's working as a waitress in some diner (Burnt Toast?), NYC isn't any closer to being rebuilt 5 years after the fact, Peter seems to be kind of a jerk, and Matt, well, I'll tell you about Matt.

Remember how I said that Hiro is a wanted terrorist? Well, Matt's the one to capture him--our Hiro, not Future Hiro. And Matt is not a nice guy in this future, not at all. Let's just say that it doesn't go well for Hiro.

And that's the extent of what TV Guide has spoiled and what I've figured out from the previews.

Augh, can't wait for next week.

I have until this Thursday to finish my Iran paper. Meep!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If you'd read this week's graphic novel and read his blog, you'd know that Future Hiro is the same Hiro we know and love, he just can't deal with watching his world fall into ashes. There's some other interesting tidbits in the graphic novel. Check it out.

Yes, but he's darker, grimmer, all around jaded. He's a product of a post-nuclear society, in other words, and present Hiro doesn't want that.

I finally read it. Woot! Who knew Sylar was the bomb?

Also, I think the reason we weren't so enthused by the episode is because we spoiled ourselves. We knew or assumed almost all of the plot twists and information in the episode. Next week's should prove to be far more interesting since we don't have a month and a half to research and theorize.

It's not just because we spoiled ourselves--it's also because, compared to the majority of the earlier episodes, it just wasn't as good. They cut out a lot of show time to make room for advertising, taking full advantage of the shows popularity. Popularity which could only have grown in the past month and a half as new viewers caught up and old viewers introduced their friends to it.

The entire thing felt stilted; Bennet's talking to Matt in his head was cool, but their escape felt way too easy. If this organization is as experienced in dealing with 'special' people as it seems to be, they should have thought of contigencies for the most outlandish situations possible. The interlude with Claire showing up at the Petrelli household, a moment that could have been immensely emotional and intense, was taken for granted. Peter's being dead and then coming back from the dead was also sort of treated as a given--as though, since the audience knew he couldn't die, they didn't expect us to care about the reactions of those around him. And he stayed dead waaaay too long. The conversation with Nathan after he came back was, as far as I can tell, inane and largely pointless. The only things I can remember from it are Peter asking what he should do with the thing that killed him, and then saying, "She's your daughter!" over and over again. I did sort of like the conversation that Nathan had with Claire, but again--where was the emotional moment of connection, the "holy crap, this is the kid that I thought had died, this is the person that could have been my family?" Nathan is that kind of person, much as he might not want to admit it. Peter's mom was out of character, too. Suddenly she's so election-focused that she proposes the burial of her suposed favorite without even blinking, when a few weeks ago she was stealing socks and making her future-senator-son come to the police station to cover it up.

That's disregarding the issue I had with Sylar being PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR, with a GUN in the ROOM, and Mohinder NOT killing him, and then turning around and saying, "We have to stop Sylar!" to a complete stranger who looks less than trustworthy just in the way he smiles.

The standout moments for me were Sylar levitating the glass (thank God for smart villians), and Hiro meeting Hiro. Beyond that, I was heartily dissapointed.

Haha, well Mohinder hasn't always been the brightest crayon in the box.

Just that whole thing with Nathan, Mama, Peter and Claire...it was like "meh" the whole time. I mean, they didn't really leave it like, "well shit, he might really be dead!" because we already knew he had Claire's power. Bleah.

Next week should make up for it!

With the Sylar battle, I have a feeling there was a scene cut from the end of it. Every episode goes over and they have to cut a few bits to make it fit (especially since they have to fit in all these new commercials). I wouldn't be surprised if there was a tail-end to that battle that we just missed. Or even if there isn't, there's a perfectly logical reason for his actions.

He hit Sylar with a big plank of wood. That's not guaranteed to knock anybody out. Mohinder can't see camera angles. And even if he could, there's the chance that Sylar could just be faking. If he tried to use the gun and Sylar was conscious, it simply wouldn't work. Sylar has had a lot of experience stopping bullets. Plus he was wounded (badly) and Peter was either mortally wounded or dead. All he knew was that he knocked Sylar away for a moment. In that moment, he probably thought, "I could either use this chance to try and kill Sylar again or I could run away while I can. Hmm... I'm wounded, Peter's probably dead and if I screw up killing Sylar again, I'm dead too." If he knew that Sylar was unconscious, that would be a different story, but he didn't. He saw a chance to run from a psychopathic super-killer and he took it.

As for the Company being prepared for something like that, honestly, there was no way Matt or Ted could have escaped without HRG's help. The Company was as prepared as they needed to be for normal circumstances. And maybe they did have emergency plans or trump cards, but they all probably required electricity, which is kinda hard to use after an EMP. Besides, Matt and Ted still have the tracking devices, so they aren't necessarily in the clear yet.

Claire already had her "real family" moment when she met her mom. I think while she years to get closer to her biological family, after meeting her real mom, any more super emotional moments from meeting the Petrellis would be melodramatic and sort of out of character considering how underwhelmed she was when she met her real mom (who pretty much used her as a meal ticket and lied to her). She's probably hesitant to reach out to them for that reason and especially considering that she's in no position to (Peter's saving the world, Nathan's trying to win an election, and she's running from the Company). I agree that the moment could have been emotional and intense, but to me, it would feel gratuitous considering what Claire's been through and the kind of person she is.

I dunno, Nathan crying over his dead brother struck me as pretty intense. I mean, Nathan is a very stoic character. Seeing a normal guy cry over a lost loved one is expected. Seeing Nathan cry over anything is big and shows how much his brother means to him, which considering where the plot is going, is a very important thing to get across.

I will say that Angela's reaction was very weak considering her reaction to Peter's "attempted suicide". I feel like her character is changing a lot from where it started out and it does bother me. It's possible that she's just a manipulative genius, but I doubt it.

Peter's conversation with Nathan was very important. We saw Nathan realize that his brother could probably survive an explosion of that magnitude and that makes the .07@ seem a lot smaller since his brother (who as we found out earlier means a hell of a lot to him) isn't a part of it. And I'm pretty sure he only said "She's your daughter!" once.

Once again, Claire and Nathan are both very emotionally distant characters. Claire distrusts Nathan because she heard his conversation with her mom. She knows that he's not exactly excited to know that she's around and even says so when she says, "You don't have to pretend to be nice to me." As for Nathan, he's always emotionally distant particularly in scenarios where he's out of control. Especially right now because even if he wanted to make it up to Claire, he simply can't if he wants to be elected. Nathan did make an "Oh my god" connection with Claire when he talked to Claire's mom and first saw what she looked like.

Maybe this episode wasn't GREAT, but it was on par with an average episode of Heroes, the only difference being that we knew a lot of what was going on so it felt a bit cheapened in comparison.

Even so, next week should kick a ton of ass.

Well, after considering your points and going back to think over the episode itself, I've come to the conclusion that it actually sucked a lot more than I originally thought.

I know they have to cut a few bits. They probably have to cut a lot of bits. But--as with earlier episodes, where doubtless some narrative was lost--you can cut time without cutting content; in this case, the content itself wasn't great to begin with.

Firstly, the Mohinder Incident:
there's the chance that Sylar could just be faking. If he tried to use the gun and Sylar was conscious, it simply wouldn't work.... He saw a chance to run from a psychopathic super-killer and he took it.

Of course it wouldn't work if Sylar was conscious. Running away wouldn't work with a conscious telekinetic in the room, either. And Mohinder didn't just run--he stopped to pick up a body and left with it, something that takes a hell of a lot more time than snatching up a gun and squeezing off a few rounds. I mean, if he was strong enough to carry a body out of his apartment—which seems to be several floors up—and out to his cab (with no one noticing and calling the cops, what the hell?), he was certainly strong enough to apply the poundage necessary to squeeze a trigger.

The Escape:

As for the Company being prepared for something like that, honestly, there was no way Matt or Ted could have escaped without HRG's help. The Company was as prepared as they needed to be for normal circumstances. And maybe they did have emergency plans or trump cards, but they all probably required electricity, which is kinda hard to use after an EMP. Besides, Matt and Ted still have the tracking devices, so they aren't necessarily in the clear yet.

Right. They couldn't have escaped without HRG's help. And how in the name of Holy Mother Mary did know about that pipe? WHY wouldn't he have told someone? What if they were to keep someone potentially deadly in that room? HRG may be protective of Claire, but he's also not stupid enough to let loose pipes--loose weapons--go when he might need to keep someone potentially dangerous in that room. Up until they found out about Claire, he did his job well. It makes absolutely no logical sense that he'd leave something like that unseen to--unless, unlikely of unlikelies, he discovered the pipe right before he was imprisoned. But then what are the odds of Matt being put in that room, or HRG, or Ted (who wouldn’t be able to hear HRG and wouldn’t trust him anyway)?

What, precisely, are ‘normal circumstances’ when you’re dealing with people that can blow up New York or set apartments on fire with a snap of their fingers? I would think that they would put some non-electricity-based provisions in place. If you think about it, control of electricity is a far more natural evolutionary step than control of fire. We’re choc full of bioelectricity! And if the Company is controlled by Linderman, surely he would make sure that they provided for extremes? Caroline makes an interesting point in saying that they probably relied a lot on the Haitian, and I think she’s right, but still. Linderman seems like he would be the High Priest of Backup Plans.

They had plenty of time, also, to make provisions tailored to their new prisoners—which brings me to my biggest issues about the escape. Why the hell was Ted not sedated? Hadn’t they been keeping him that way so he wouldn’t go nuclear and blow up the factory? Was that no longer an issue? Were they giving him an inhibitor? If so, why was he able to use his abilities? If not, again, why the hell was he not sedated?

He’s given them absolutely no reason to think that he won’t blow them all to hell; he’s got nothing to lose but his life. And even if he doesn’t really want to die, he most certainly has enough power to escape if he’s awake. The Company always seemed to be made up of the types who err on the side of caution. Apparently this isn’t true, because not only was Ted wide awake and ready to split atoms, the angry and imprisoned mind reader that they’d been exploiting was right next to one of the Company’s former best, middle-man though he may be. And even if they weren’t right next to each other, they should have been keeping Matt isolated, testing his range, and then keeping him unconscious in the interim, so he couldn’t pick up on Company secrets. If not sedation, then at least supervision. Good God, it’s like the Company paved the way for HRG and his compatriots in silver and gold. And we know that they didn’t want to let them escape, because those people passing by said that they’d been given the order to eliminate.

The only relatively good part of their escape was the fact that they’re still on the company radar. That said, since they are on the radar anyway, wouldn’t they take a plane instead of the bus? It’s not like they can hide. Logically, they should take speed over caution at this point. They sit on the bus for days, heading in the direction of New York City, and any Company member with half a brain will figure out where they’re going, why they’re going, and put up precautions against them, if not head them off completely.

And last but not least, The Family Petrelli:

Claire already had her "real family" moment when she met her mom...

I dunno, Nathan crying over his dead brother struck me as pretty intense. I mean, Nathan is a very stoic character. Seeing a normal guy cry over a lost loved one is expected. Seeing Nathan cry over anything is big and shows how much his brother means to him, which considering where the plot is going, is a very important thing to get across.

I’m not talking about Claire. I think you’re right about Claire. Claire, in fact, was the most in-character of all of them. I’m talking about Nathan. As far as him bursting into tears... I’m sorry, no. Didn’t do anything for me emotionally at all. Because, as you say, Nathan is an emotionally withdrawn person. He would cry over his brother, but that wouldn’t be his immediate reaction. That’s why a gradual build of tension in his emotional state would have been soooo much more effective.

Tears are a Generally Accepted Response to loss—tears = shorthand for grief. It may have been dramatic but in terms of effectiveness it failed, miserably. I’ve taken classes and gone to con panels about character interaction and emotion, and one of the most common mistakes that new writers make (according to most authors) is inserting kicking and screaming where there should be quiet trauma. Weeping and gnashing of teeth from a normally taciturn character only serves to make the viewers say, “Bwuh?”

Nathan’s not an outright emotional man. You’re right. Even when it comes to his own wife—when he’s in the hospital, he has a brief outburst over the doctor’s news and then checks himself almost immediately. He gets the news that Peter is dead, and denial would hammer down hard and fast. Especially because he loves Peter so much. Especially because they’re so close.

He’s got plenty of room for denial. Think about it: “Linderman said that he’s in the future—he can’t be dead.” “Peter’s the one in Isaac’s paintings. He can’t be dead.” “He’s special. He fell from that high school balcony and there was blood everywhere and he was fine, so he can’t be dead.” “He came out of a two-week coma no worse off, so he’ll be fine. He has to be.” People are incredibly capable of denial, even when the evidence is laid out on their couch (Lord, just look at history!).

Here’s where, to me, Claire could have been far more effectively employed. She’d be full of disbelief, too. She’d want to see the body. She’d want to know why, if he’s like her, Peter’s hasn’t come back. Nathan has gone to enormous lengths to try and help his brother in the only way he knows how, and he failed. He wasn’t there when Peter needed him the most. Nathan, in all his protectiveness and (I would suspect) helpless rage, wouldn’t want her to get near him. He might even blame her, say that Peter only got involved with all of this because he thought he had to save her. She was already supposed to be dead! She wasn’t supposed to exist!

He’d want to be alone with his brother’s body, because alone is the only way someone like Nathan knows how to mourn. His mother could then drop the bomb about hiding the body; enter Claire while they have a heated fight, sneaking, hurrying, knowing enough to check Peter’s body—out comes the glass, back comes Peter, and there would be the perfect place for Nathan’s complete emotional breakdown. And then that, too, adds greater tension to Nathan and Claire’s conversation (which I said before that I rather liked), because he has the added guilt of snapping at her before she brought his brother back.

I love HEROES. It’s an awesome show. Every awesome show is bound to have a crap episode or two, and this was one of them. It felt like badly-paced fanfic, or a treatment of the script, without the normal fullness and emotional/imaginative engagement. I’m a writer; it’s my life to look at what others have done, analyze it, admire it, or take it to pieces if needs be. I love HEROES—what I don’t love is that episode’s shoddy execution and emotional shorthand, its tidy wrap-up of existing lines of tension so that they can move on to the stuff that really wants to be written/acted/shown. I’ve been conditioned to expect better from them, and I think it’s what television shows owe the people who give up an hour of their week. This is, in part, what I want to do with my life—I’m determined to do it fucking well, and for that, I have to pick apart others.

Eh, I came off as snarky--I actually had a lot of fun doing this. My excited sarcasm came through a bit too much. ^.^;

Don't sweat the snarkiness. It's not like we're having a serious discussion here. It's a TV show.

No, he doesn't have any doubt in his mind. He sees a corpse. And he doesn't know that Peter fell from the balcony and regenerated like in the painting. He didn't know Peter could regenerate at all. And he saw a painting of Peter being dead and Peter didn't die. That probably causes him to cast some doubt over the paintings. Corpses are usually big denial killers when it comes to death. And he's a realist. He believes what he sees right in front of his face.

Nathan wouldn't blame Claire. He might have if Peter died trying to save her, but he didn't. He died trying to save Mohinder. Nathan holds no resentment towards Claire, nor should he. If anything, he feels guilty about Claire. Nathan is an alpha dog. When something goes wrong, he blames himself. Peter's death is his fault. Claire being alone is his fault. He felt guilt and the only rage he probably had was toward himself. So of course he wouldn't mind Claire to have a moment with Peter. He's in no position to order Claire around.

I don't think this episode was crap. The only parts that dissatisfied me was some of Mohinder's actions (why take Peter to his home instead of an emergency room?) and Angela acting rather strangely (which might be explained later). I feel like you're too quick to assume characters were just being stupid. The characters aren't omniscient like the viewers are. Even the smart ones can slip up or do something stupid. And the fact is that you can look at just about any episode and point out something stupid someone did. Mohinder not shooting Sylar directly after getting his spinal fluid? Stupid. Linderman's group hiring a random guy (Ando) on security and letting him roam around on his own? Stupid. Linderman hiring Jessica to kill someone he needs? Pretty fucking stupid. Characters do stupid things. It doesn't make an episode bad. What makes an episode bad is when a character acts in a way that cannot be rationalized, when a plot is incredibly obvious and formulaic, when the acting is god-awful-horrible, or when there is blatant fan-service probably because the studio executives said that there needed to be.

This episode wasn't executed poorly. It wasn't executed spectacularly, but it wasn't executed poorly. The emotions of each character may have felt strange to you, but I thought they generally worked well and made sense if I thought about it. And keep in mind that this is a group of writers. Each writer might see something different in each character. So it makes sense that the characters might behave slightly differently, just as long as they are still within their character's emotional spectrum.

And things have to be wrapped up or else this show will become "Lost". I don't want them dragging everything out to an unnecessary length. And also, just because something seems settled doesn't mean it'll stay that way.

Logic has very little place in grief. You're probably right--he would internalize the grief, blame himself, but even then, he would want to be alone with Peter. He wouldn't really care what Claire wants, I don't think--presuming you're right, that he's accepted it enough to throw himself, weeping, onto the body, he doesn't care much about anything at the moment--let alone Claire's feelings or whether or not he is in a position to tell her what to do. And again, his child or not, at the moment she fits the position of an intruder on an important family affair.

I still can't help it--it just wasn't good. I can appreciate that they wrapped things up. I much, much, much prefer that to the narrative bog that LOST has become, but that isn't an excuse for not wrapping it up well. I didn't think that the acting was that great, either, to be honest.

And of course writers are going to see different things in the characters--that's what spin sessions are for, that's why they take the script to the collective table and give notes on it, to come to collective conclusions on how said characters should act.

Claire showing up was taken for granted--maybe Nathan already knew she was there. He acted like it, but we didn't see that he knew. Peter coming back was pretty much taken for granted. The characters didn't feel like they fell into their typical emotional spectrum; at a different stage of their development, maybe this would be their natural reaction, but again, I can only react to what I see, and what I saw was not within the normal bounds of logic as established for the characters involved.

Sooo, agreeing to disagree, I guess. I'm not saying the show sucks, I'm saying I really, really disliked that episode and--personally?--thought it was quite crappy compared to their normal excellence.

Honestly, if I were Nathan, I'd want to distance myself from Peter feeling like seeing him further would only make me feel more guilty. And in his mind, he has no right to think of Claire as an intruder. She's his fault and he knows that.

That's what I'm saying. You have a room of a bunch of different people who see the characters slightly differently. If none of them think anything is weird about their behavior, then that probably implies that their behavior is in character.

And on a different note, if you think about it, the Company is usually in way over its head when it comes to containing these super-people. Sylar escaped, Nathan escaped, Matt remembered a lot of what happened... It makes sense that this escape wasn't insanely difficult.

Ted was in a special room. His room was entirely encased in lead shielding and his powers were probably inhibited. By the room. But once he was out of the room, he could use his powers again without a problem. And once again, Ted was behaving and cooperating. When Matt came to rescue him, he didn't want to go at first, probably thinking that the smart thing to do would be cooperate.

And Matt wasn't right next to HRG. Otherwise, HRG would have had him rescue him first. Matt could hear HRG all throughout the complex. He didn't have to be near him. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe he's read HRG's mind so much that he's just become attuned to his brainwaves or something. In any case, Matt probably could have heard HRG anywhere and there was no way to suppress his power without the Haitian. And Matt was under supervision. Not constant supervision, but remember that guy he knocked out? Supervision. And Matt was sedated too. He was awakened by HRG. If HRG hadn't thought out loud so hard, Matt probably would have still been sleeping when the guy he knocked out showed up.

Have you seen airport security? The last thing they want is more attention. Especially if Linderman runs the airports. And maybe the Company will head them off. Who knows? They might be more on top of it than we think.

I guess a gradual build might have been a bit better, but he's been worrying about Peter getting himself killed since Episode 1. It's not like he didn't see this coming, so maybe a gradual develpment of his realization wouldn't have made that much sense. And there's also the fact that he does an instant 180 after seeing his brother's corpse that lets the audience know just how much he cares about Peter. It's his weakness. The chink in his ego-armor. If his brother's death would have THIS much effect on him, instantly, that says a lot about his character. And maybe he did have a gradual buildup from the moment he heard and during the ride over. We didn't see it, but it probably happened, and seeing him dead probably pushed him to the breaking point.

And that's the funny thing about this "death" scene. Angela is handling her grief silently where Nathan is bawling his eyes out. This is the exact opposite of what you would think for both characters and shows both of them in a different light.

And you're right about the denial. But the moment he sees a corpse, the denial which was containing his emotions shattered and he just lost it. It makes sense.

I didn't realize that Ted was in a special room--that makes more sense now. But still, why would he cooperate? Did they offer him something? We don't know. What could they use to intimidate him? Presumably everything he loves is gone. He doesn't seem the type to care about the 'smart' thing, either--he hijacked HRG's family as was prepared to shoot HRG's wife.

Chemical sedation isn't easy to break through, loud thoughts or no, and even if he did come out of it enough to listen, he would be spacey, dizzy, disoriented perhaps--hardly fit for escape. That would have been more interesting than what they gave us. As far as his guard goes, he wasn't being supervised, because it took the guy three minutes just to get there. That's not supervision--that's mild preventative measures.

Good point about airport security, but what about Claire and the Haitian? They were able to get fake passports etc, and I would imagine that HRG has contacts built up from his days with the Company. Whether or not they would be willing to work with him whether or not they would hand him over--interesting source of dramatic tension, there.

As far as Nathan goes, that's exactly my issue--we didn't see the build, and the only thing a viewer can react to is what they see. He did see it coming--and he's been trying to prevent it the entire time, a factor which would add to his denial, not help him accept Peter's death. He didn't want it to happen, whether he saw it coming or not. He wouldn't want to have failed.

Because he loves Peter so much, he would hold out on accepting it until the last possible logical moment, even though he's usually a logical man. Denial doesn't immediately shatter--believe me, it doesn't, body or no. He could have responded internally with, "That's not my brother, it can't be my brother," as easily as any of the other reactions I suggested.

Maybe they did what they did with Isaac: Told him they would help him. Besides, maybe he didn't think he could escape. He didn't know what an EMP was, let alone that he could generate one. And he was probably scared.

He was a bit disoriented at first, but when your adrenaline's pumping (he was told he'd never see his wife again and that he would die if he didn't do something quick). And even while sedated, your brain is still active.

Yeah, but they had a chance to prepare. HRG, Matt, and Ted had to split and keep their profiles as low as possible. With the Company shorted out (EMPs are permanent) they wouldn't be able to track them for at least long enough to get a head start, so they just tried to get as far as possible without reaching anybody who knew them.

Maybe there was a build that was cut? Wait for the DVD.

Denial shatters pretty easily for a realist if there's something put right in front of him. Nathan's a realist. He sees a corpse that looks like Peter, smells like Peter, and Angela says that it is Peter, his denial ends.

Running away would work since he knocked Sylar back. Whether or not he was conscious, he was on his back and at least in some amount of pain. That bought him time, but there was no way of knowing how much time he could have bought. And because Mohinder is a good guy, he'd rather take the guy who just saved his life out of the room with him instead of potentially wasting everything to attempt to kill Sylar again. And as for no one calling the cops, it's New York/

As for the pipe, maybe that was on HRG's list of things to take care of, or perhaps since the subjects were almost always unconscious (thanks to the Haitian), they didn't see the point in fixing it, especially since it was incredibly unlikely that anyone would notice. And would you call Matt potentially dangerous? He's a fat cop who can read minds. He's pretty much harmless especially since he seemed to be cooperating. And his escape wouldn't have worked without HRG's guidance.

And it's not a matter of having a non-electric backup power source, it's a matter of everything they use being electrical. An EMP would make them not work. Even if you could control electricity, you probably couldn't generate an EMP, or at least not one big enough to fry the power grid. And as far as the Company knew, Ted hadn't developed his power enough to generate an EMP. And he probably wouldn't have without HRG's guidance.

The Company was as prepared as they needed to be. Their one mistake was going easy on HRG ("because of friendship"). They underestimated him and so he was able to orchestrate this plan that couldn't have possibly worked without him.

There really was nothing the Company could have done. If they had removed the bar, Matt still could've just punched the guard out. And there's no way to EMP-proof a building.

And Linderman probably is the High Priest of Backup Plans, but do you think his main concern right now is Matt, Ted, and HRG? Or at least that it was at the time before they escaped? Linderman is occupied with rigging the election, especially now that Hana ruined his Plan A.

He didn't run, that's what I'm saying. It takes a lot to move a body--they're literally dead weight. Wounded as he was, I doubt even with a body full of adrenaline that it would have been easy. Far easier to grab a gun and pull the trigger--I'm talking about timing, here, more than whether or not Sylar was unconcious/concious and in pain.

And I'm not saying Matt is--I'm saying that HRG wouldn't want to keep desperate, dangerous people in general in a place with a potential weapon available, if they care to experiment with their surroundings. Imprisoned people can be incredibly imaginative, and they anaylyze every aspect of their environment--how can they not, when they're stuck in there for however long each day? And a frusterated, imaginitive prisoner could very well try to rip out a rusty pipe. They would try to use anything available--I know I would. (And as an aside, I think Matt is intensely dangerous in long-term circumstances; the information he can glean from simply walking through a controlled area is enormous.)

I know there's no way to EMP-proof a building. I'm not saying power source either, I'm saying a non-electric backup plan, period. And I'm not saying Linderman should have been keeping an eye on them, specifically--I'm saying he probably knows the risks of working with people like him, and would advise his people accordingly. Whether or not they would listen to his advice is a matter of speculation, really, and they're probably going to get their asses handed to them once the smoke settles with the election business.

Punching someone hard enough to knock them out is difficult, contrary to common TV/Movie logic. It's easy to break your hand trying, I'm sure, and then Matt would have been in trouble. Which actually would have been a good thing. Punching someone until they pass out is quite different, and more guards would have been there by then.

...that's another thing. Why was the guard alone? I mean, I supposed their logic could be, "he's just a mindreader" but there goes the "err on the side of caution" thing again.

The company could have done lots of things. They could have kept Ted sedated. They could have kept Matt sedated, or tied down, or supervised, or isolated and out of range. They didn't, and that's my problem.

Also, in terms of narrative, the writers sort of shot themselves in the foot making the escape so easy; people admire main characters for their ability to get out of tight scrapes by the skin of their teeth. Escape was *easy*, which takes away a *lot* of the intimidation factor that came along with the image of the Company. It should have been hard, because the Company is one of the main intimidation forces of the story; it wasn't, therefore the intimidation factor drops. At least it does for me.

Mohinder could have just dragged Peter. There was probably something cut from this. Wait for the DVD. If there's nothing else, I might admit that it was strange.

Maybe he wouldn't have kept dangerous people in there. Maybe just the ones with non-violent powers.

What kind of non-electric backup plan do you have in mind? Get a bugle player?

Even so, he could have caught the guard by surprise, took his weapon, and then knocked him out or killed him. He's a cop. He should know self-defense.

The guard was probably just going to go check on him and if he tried anything, there was an alarm right there.

The Company could have done a lot, but they didn't need to.

I dunno, a response squad of super-people, maybe? They seem to have a few on hand.

I'm done, kay? You've made your points, I've made mine--and I still disagree with you. Sorry.

I guess a response team makes sense. Hard to say.

Alright, fine. I guess we'll have to call this a no contest.

Lol, jeez, guys. It's going from snarky to bordering-on-mean here. Anyway, wasn't this a debate and not a contest to begin with?

She started it :P

o_O Pat, I think I know you well enough to know when you're being sarcastic, but you have to understand that sometimes it's hard for people to pick up on. Sometimes I can't even tell. And it's harder when it's on the internet--not just you, but sarcasm in general. People can misinterpret it as being mean. I've had that happen to me and it really sucks, so I'm trying to avoid a bad situation here. That's why I haven't stepped in until now.

Everyone just be nice, okay, please? ^_^;;

OK, OK, sorry. I'll be nicer ^_^

^.^ Thanks

On a slightly unrelated note, I saw 4 spoiler clips from next week's episode. Future Hiro is still awesome.

Oh good. Still can't wait for next week.

Yeah. I really think this is bound to be the best episode of Heroes ever. It's looking really really good.

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April Twenty-Freaking-Third

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