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selenakThere is a new trailer for episode 19 of Heroes, as well as a clip from the episode, the later featuring Nathan and Mr. Linderman.
Of course, both lead to speculation:
Firstly, the clip shows Linderman revealing his power to Nathan. (Hands up if you didn't guess he had one, which makes him the oldest superpowered person we've met yet, btw.) Which seems to be healing. That's a really cool twist - giving a villain a quintessential good guy power, but I've read that someone of the writing staff compared it to Ben's power in Carnivale. For non-Carnivale watchers, Ben was a healer, but had to pay a price each time he used that power. For "minor" healings, i.e. wounds and the like, he could use the lifeforce of plants around him, or animals. In order to heal someone who had a mortal wound? He had to take someone else's life. (And yes, Ben could bring people back from the dead as well; he did it once.) I could see a similar catch with Linderman, but even if not: having the power to heal, to decide life and death, might have contributed to giving him a god complex. This being said, it could come handy very soon...
...since in the trailer, we have Mohinder paying Mrs. Petrelli a call and telling her Peter is dead. Followed later with a quick shot of Nathan cradling/hugging a seemingly dead Peter, with Angela standing behind. Now I'm not seriously worried this death is final, as obviously, Peter has to make it to the season finale at least, not to mention into the future so Future!Hiro can meet him with a scar. I'll make an educated guess and say Linderman makes an offer Nathan really can't refuse/Nathan makes the obvious devil's deal and gets Peter resurrected by Linderman in exchange for complete fealty.
It makes me wonder why Linderman goes to all this effort with Nathan. I mean, if he needs a frontman in Washington, why Nathan Petrelli (not even elected yet) as opposed to a dozen other politicians? Presumably because Isaac's paintings include one that shows Nathan in the White House, so he's a sure bet from Linderman's pov. Which positions that Isaac's paintings always become true, that the future can't be changed. Given that Hiro & Ando have just arrived in a future!New York where Peter did explode at the end of episode 18, that is pretty much the question for the remaining season - can the future be changed? Prophecy versus free will, that old genre question. Speaking of Hiro and Ando, the trailer includes two people I can't recognize because they have their backs to the viewer and the clip is over too quickly standing on the roof of the Deveaux building while someone - Nathan or a future!Peter with a different haircut and a business suit, which is a remote possibility but can't be excluded because again, such a short moment - flies up to them. And later on we have a Present!Hiro meets Future!Hiro event, it seems. At another guess, the future they ended up in isn't just months but several years later (there are reconstructions going on at the end of episode 18), enough years for Isaac's painting of Nathan in the White House to have become true. Which I think won't be a good thing.
Blame the Babylon 5 fan in me, but more and more I suspect Nathan is going to be the equivalent of Londo Mollari (with Peter as his Vir and G'Kar both; though given the scenes between them so far Hiro might become Vir later?). For non B5 watchers: what I mean is: Nathan is, along with Mr. Bennet, the show's most ambiguous character; he could go either good or bad. We've already seen him make some bad choices, but we've also seen him capable of caring. Londo was a character who thought he wanted power and had no choice on his way to gaining it, but once he had power didn't want it any longer and was truly bereft of choices, realizing he had them all the way back then. Also, his final step to power wasn't taken because he wanted it (he already was past that stage then) but to save his home planet in general and a few inviduals in particular, and he knew he was trapping himself for the rest of his life by it. If they're going in a similar way with Nathan, the future Hiro and Ando are currently visiting would show that he did, indeed, get what he thought he wanted at the start of the show - political power - but in a way that actually makes him someone else's tool (sustitute Linderman for the Drakh), with the final step towards power no longer taken for power's sake but because the alternative was unthinkable. In B5, there is a flash forward time travel episode where we see Londo near the end of his life as Emperor in a devastated Centauri Prime. Methinks future!New York (and indeed future!America if Nathan has become President while bound to Linderman) could be similarly dystopian. Londo in the episode breaks away from the control he's under long enough to send Our Timetravelling Heroes back (when earlier, while still under control, seeming to condemm them) and to orchestrate his own death. I could see Hiro's and Ando's trip to the future ending in a similar fashion.
Going back to Linderman: aside from telling Nathan that he, L., will be remembered as a humanitarian, the trailer also shows him encountering Micah and asking the boy how Micah would like to save the world. Hmmmmmm. You know, Micah can control computers. Linderman needs Nathan to win the elections. I'm thinking he intends to use Micah to make sure of that, if New Yorkers vote electronically. (Do they?)
***
Dexter vid: Keep Breathing is a Deb character study through the first season and captures Deb in her brittle, zany, damaged glory. Oh, Morgans, how I love you both.
Of course, both lead to speculation:
Firstly, the clip shows Linderman revealing his power to Nathan. (Hands up if you didn't guess he had one, which makes him the oldest superpowered person we've met yet, btw.) Which seems to be healing. That's a really cool twist - giving a villain a quintessential good guy power, but I've read that someone of the writing staff compared it to Ben's power in Carnivale. For non-Carnivale watchers, Ben was a healer, but had to pay a price each time he used that power. For "minor" healings, i.e. wounds and the like, he could use the lifeforce of plants around him, or animals. In order to heal someone who had a mortal wound? He had to take someone else's life. (And yes, Ben could bring people back from the dead as well; he did it once.) I could see a similar catch with Linderman, but even if not: having the power to heal, to decide life and death, might have contributed to giving him a god complex. This being said, it could come handy very soon...
...since in the trailer, we have Mohinder paying Mrs. Petrelli a call and telling her Peter is dead. Followed later with a quick shot of Nathan cradling/hugging a seemingly dead Peter, with Angela standing behind. Now I'm not seriously worried this death is final, as obviously, Peter has to make it to the season finale at least, not to mention into the future so Future!Hiro can meet him with a scar. I'll make an educated guess and say Linderman makes an offer Nathan really can't refuse/Nathan makes the obvious devil's deal and gets Peter resurrected by Linderman in exchange for complete fealty.
It makes me wonder why Linderman goes to all this effort with Nathan. I mean, if he needs a frontman in Washington, why Nathan Petrelli (not even elected yet) as opposed to a dozen other politicians? Presumably because Isaac's paintings include one that shows Nathan in the White House, so he's a sure bet from Linderman's pov. Which positions that Isaac's paintings always become true, that the future can't be changed. Given that Hiro & Ando have just arrived in a future!New York where Peter did explode at the end of episode 18, that is pretty much the question for the remaining season - can the future be changed? Prophecy versus free will, that old genre question. Speaking of Hiro and Ando, the trailer includes two people I can't recognize because they have their backs to the viewer and the clip is over too quickly standing on the roof of the Deveaux building while someone - Nathan or a future!Peter with a different haircut and a business suit, which is a remote possibility but can't be excluded because again, such a short moment - flies up to them. And later on we have a Present!Hiro meets Future!Hiro event, it seems. At another guess, the future they ended up in isn't just months but several years later (there are reconstructions going on at the end of episode 18), enough years for Isaac's painting of Nathan in the White House to have become true. Which I think won't be a good thing.
Blame the Babylon 5 fan in me, but more and more I suspect Nathan is going to be the equivalent of Londo Mollari (with Peter as his Vir and G'Kar both; though given the scenes between them so far Hiro might become Vir later?). For non B5 watchers: what I mean is: Nathan is, along with Mr. Bennet, the show's most ambiguous character; he could go either good or bad. We've already seen him make some bad choices, but we've also seen him capable of caring. Londo was a character who thought he wanted power and had no choice on his way to gaining it, but once he had power didn't want it any longer and was truly bereft of choices, realizing he had them all the way back then. Also, his final step to power wasn't taken because he wanted it (he already was past that stage then) but to save his home planet in general and a few inviduals in particular, and he knew he was trapping himself for the rest of his life by it. If they're going in a similar way with Nathan, the future Hiro and Ando are currently visiting would show that he did, indeed, get what he thought he wanted at the start of the show - political power - but in a way that actually makes him someone else's tool (sustitute Linderman for the Drakh), with the final step towards power no longer taken for power's sake but because the alternative was unthinkable. In B5, there is a flash forward time travel episode where we see Londo near the end of his life as Emperor in a devastated Centauri Prime. Methinks future!New York (and indeed future!America if Nathan has become President while bound to Linderman) could be similarly dystopian. Londo in the episode breaks away from the control he's under long enough to send Our Timetravelling Heroes back (when earlier, while still under control, seeming to condemm them) and to orchestrate his own death. I could see Hiro's and Ando's trip to the future ending in a similar fashion.
Going back to Linderman: aside from telling Nathan that he, L., will be remembered as a humanitarian, the trailer also shows him encountering Micah and asking the boy how Micah would like to save the world. Hmmmmmm. You know, Micah can control computers. Linderman needs Nathan to win the elections. I'm thinking he intends to use Micah to make sure of that, if New Yorkers vote electronically. (Do they?)
***
Dexter vid: Keep Breathing is a Deb character study through the first season and captures Deb in her brittle, zany, damaged glory. Oh, Morgans, how I love you both.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 05:50 pm (UTC)It could be that you have additional information, but as far as I know, the comparison with Ben was made by Michael Ausiello (a TV guide spoiler source), so I'm not sure if it can be taken at face value.
Somewhat related, do you read the online comics? They do provide pieces of backstory to the show, but aren't particularly well drawn or written, unfortunately. The current series could be interesting in respect to the above question.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 06:12 pm (UTC)Comics: yes, I've read them and the Dallas & Laredo as Petrelli Senior & Linderman speculation. Given that everyone else in that patrol boat died, Linderman could have used this to heal Petrelli. Though it has occured to me that this close a copy of a Carnivale-invented power (i.e. the coupling of healing with killing) might bring them into plagiarism and expensive lawsuits territory, which would argue against Linderman having Ben's impediment!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 07:07 pm (UTC)Right I hadn't considered that... I figured since they were dead, and nothing seemed to die when he repeatedly healed the Vietnamese prisoner later on, he just heals without having to draw the energy from somewhere.
There is also the fact that in the preview scene, he transforms the flower without either him or Nathan seemingly suffering from it, but of course a small plant wouldn't need so much energy... hmmm. (Then again, a lawsuit is probably always a good argument. :) )
I think your idea of him probably offering to heal Peter is a good point, but I was thinking he might probably offer to heal Heidi instead, which would be rather ironic, considering he apparently caused her predicament in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 07:39 pm (UTC)In any case, I'm glad that both the previews and the comics play the Linderman-thinks-of-himself-as-as-a-good-person trying to save the world card - we already have our "I'm EVIL" villain in Sylar, and Linderman as someone who started out as idealistic etc. and then had that warped is much more interesting as an antagonist.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 08:14 pm (UTC)Very much so, although he must have great powers of self-denial, given how he earns his money. But he is certainly fairly different from what I expected - he seems almost nice, and yet at the same time he is incredibly manipulative - from deliberately turning his back to Nathan to make it more difficult for him to shoot to healing a withered flower of all things - which makes him quite a bit scarier - and arguably more dangerous - than Sylar.