DVD Commentary IV: Lunch Break (Heroes)
Oct. 27th, 2007 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe trains are rolling again, but I'm in Saxonia, and finding a wi fi hot spot is hard. Otoh, I used the time in the train to finish the promised commentaries. This one was requested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wee_warrior, who misses Hiro and Nathan interacting as much as I do. Lunch Break, set during the season 1 episode Godsend, was basically my love letter to that relationship.
I had two choices to place a later season Hiro and Nathan encounter in, Godsend and Parasite, and after their scene in Parasite, Nathan and Hiro were both a tad too busy to plausibly reunite for another chat an hour so later. So Godsend it was.
If there was one place Nathan Petrelli had not planned to revisit again, it was Isaac Mendez’ studio. But returning to the hospital only to find out one’s comatose brother had finally woken up and promptly run away made for a change of plan. It seemed likely Peter would come here; either to find his girlfriend, or because of the paintings, those paintings which seemed to embody the madness Nathan found himself engulfed in these recent weeks.
Those paintings which had caused Peter’s coma to begin with.
As it turned out, his guess was wrong. There was no sign of Peter, and upon hearing he had woken up, Simone Deveaux at once launched a series of whys and wherefores which Nathan had neither the ability nor the inclination to answer. He wasn’t sure why Simone irritated him. All things considered, she was exactly the kind of girlfriend his mother always hoped Peter would have; beautiful, wealthy, with a father who was some sort of old acquaintance and the essence of respectability.
aycheb recently observed that Simone's hostile scenes with Nathan struck him as encounters between two adults, as opposed to Simone's scenes with either Peter or Isaac regarding their romantic triangle which were juvenile. There is some truth in that, and I had a similar interpretation in my Simone story, The Worst Lies. Nathan's cool attitude towards Simone - he's never rude to her, but there is definitely mutual dislike - is interesting because as stated here, on the surface she's pretty much the ideal girlfriend for Peter from a Petrelli point of view. (If you take the deleted season 1 scenes - which give us some background on Heidi - as canon, it's a further irony that Nathan the conservative, not Peter the rebel, is the one who invariably seems to be drawn to women outside his social circle, with Meredith, Niki and Heidi all being cases in point.) Depending on where you stand on the subtext, this could be simply due to the fact that Simone gave Peter the photo of the painting showing him dead or a certain possessive attitude on Nathan's part.
“Maybe he’s waiting at my home,” Simone said, and rushed out. Nathan wondered whether he should follow her, but on second thoughts decided it would probably be pointless. According to his mother, Peter had said he needed to “get away”; this sounded vague enough to include everybody and everyone in his life right now.
He almost hoped he would get another phonecall from a police station telling him his brother was under arrest. At least that would mean he knew where Peter was.
He wasn’t the only visitor in Mendez’ studio. Hiro Nakamura was still there, though it looked like he had been in the process of leaving when Nathan came back. During the terse exchange between Simone and Nathan, he had listened in silence. Now the small Japanese looked at Nathan, bit his lips and asked:
“You okay, Flying Man?”
Godsend was the first time Nathan graced us with the Stubble Of Brotherly Concern. He did look rather haggard.
They were alone, and Nathan didn’t bother to correct him this time. It was odd, being asked a question like that. It was odder not to mind the implication; the idea that Nathan was at less than his usual confident and self assurance exuding level.
“Sure,” he said automatically. “Where’s your friend?”
Ando, he was told, had discovered their car had a flat tire, and was currently looking for a garage which could fix it or sell them a new one so they could be on their way again.
I had to get rid of Ando because there is no way Nathan would have let his guard down with Ando present. Note that in the four on screen meetings between Hiro and Nathan in the first season, Ando isn't present at all during the first and third occasion, and during the second, in Isaac's studio in Godsend, we cut from Hiro and Ando entering the studio and discovering Nathan to Nathan having drawn aside with Hiro to talk to him alone, leaving Ando to converse with Simone in the background instead.
“In Manhattan? They’ll let make you wait for a week at least. You should rent another car,” Nathan said. Hiro looked somewhat disconcerted.
“But is car from Mr. Isaac’s comics,” he insisted. “Car of destiny.”
Is also sponsor of show, I know.
Nathan thought, why the hell not? “On second thought, I haven’t done nearly enough for the garage owner vote,” he said, and made a phone call, only interrupting once to ask Hiro for the number of his friend’s mobile. As a result, Ando something or the other was directed to the mechanic who guaranteed to fix the tire of a Nissan Versa within the hour, courtesy of a generous fee, and promised he’d vote Petrelli in the elections.
Hiro is the one example in season 1 of Nathan doing things for someone he's not either related or attracted to or politically beholden towards. Peter usually has to go through the whole complicated song and dance of Petrelli communication methods to get Nathan to do things like ask Linderman for a painting; Hiro announces his sword-stealing intentions and Nathan smuggles him into Linderman's inner sanctum without even hesitating. Considering such canonical proof of Hiro's Nathan-charming powers, I think it's safe to say that organizing a car repair would have been entirely in character. *g*
Hiro beamed at Nathan. He really was the most enthusiastic person Nathan had ever met. If he ever encountered Peter, the two would…
Drive Nathan insane, more likely than not. At the very least keep him very busy. I let this happen in Runaways.
If. If Peter was around to be encountered. If Peter was around and in one piece.
Because the fraternal angst is never entirely off his mind.
“Did you have lunch yet?” Nathan asked Hiro abruptly.
Apparently, Hiro and his friend had already sampled the delights of New York fast food. “But,” Hiro said, “great responsibility requires great strength. You like waffles, Flying Man?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Nathan said, which was the truth, more or less. Waffles hadn’t made it on the list of approved menus in the Petrelli home, and as opposed to pizza, they weren’t used as campaign food, either. Hiro looked at him, pityingly, and apparently decided that Nathan needed to be educated in the ways of the waffle. They ended up at Max Brenner’s on Broadway, a mixture between café and chocolate shop which had Hiro push up his glasses and go into yet another hyper stage of enthusiasm.
Max Brenner's is a real place. Feel free to visit if you're in New York.
Some inner voice asked Nathan what a man who had spent more time in the hospital than in his campaign office or, for that matter, with his wife and children at home in the last two weeks was doing playing truant with a Japanese boyscout instead of getting back to his normal life and try to catch up with fourteen days of neglect. Another voice answered that he was tired and exhausted and, right now, truly sick of being Nathan Petrelli. Especially since Nathan Petrelli had managed to miss the one moment where his brother had needed him to be there, and was still four points behind in the polls.
Being thought of as something out of a comic book might be embarrassing, but it had an oddly liberating charm to it.
Giving Nathan a break from being Nathan Petrelli is one of the perks of the relationship for Nathan, imo.
Hiro bought chocolate waffle balls as a takeaway for his friend, and brought back a tray with dark chocolate granita, served in a plastic cone, and thick, fresh waffles with chocolate sauce.
“Well, you certainly don’t believe in holding back. Enjoy your meal,” Nathan said, amused. Hiro shook his head.
“Oh, no. These for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes,” Hiro said, and nodded. He looked at Nathan, and though the eager enthusiasm was still there, there was something very serious in his gaze. “I told you. Great responsibility requires great strength. Big responsibility for you, Na-than. Go eat!”
Hiro would be the type to make sure Nathan eats something while quoting Spider-man at him. Fun fact: in the podcast commentary for Landslide, George Takei and Masi Oka joked about the fact that the way Hiro pronounces Nathan's name makes it sound like the word for "Big Sister" in Japanese.
There was a lot he could have said to this, most, if not all of it sarcastic. But he found himself looking at Hiro Nakamura and his round face with the far too open eyes inadequately protected by his glasses, and realizing that it had been a while, truly, since he had eaten something. Hospital food just wasn’t his style, and when he came home after checking up on the office before, it was usually too late for more than some yoghurt.
The taste of fresh waffles covered with chocolate should have been too sweet for him, but he found himself eating up every single bit while listening to Hiro’s chatter. Steadily improving English with Japanese fragments in between. Maybe it wasn’t Japanese, though. Maybe it was Klingon. Peter had gone through a Star Trek phase when he was 13 and 14 and had insisted on things like wishing Nathan “Qua’pla”. To this day, Nathan pretended he did not know what it meant.
I think Nathan probably watched the Star Wars movies during their original release in the cinema - he's the right age - but not more than once, and caught the occasional Star Trek and TNG episode on tv when there was nothing else to do as a teenager, but no more than that. Peter, otoh, obviously is a genre fan, though not as intensely as Hiro.
“Why New York?” he asked in between bites.
“Why New York what?” Hiro asked back, confused.
“Why does this bomb thing happen in New York? As opposed to any other place in this country, let alone the world, that is. Did your trip to the future tell you that?”
“New York is city of superheroes and supervillains,” Hiro declared, not missing a beat. “Like Magneto, he destroy New York, though now is retconned. The Avengers, Spider-man, all live here. But not to worry. I save New York. You do, too.”
In case you're wondering, Magneto destroyed New York during Grant Morrison's run of New X-Men; the post-Morrison retcon basically declared this wasn't Magneto but another character. Asklikeadeuce for details if you want to hear more.*g*
I must be insane, Nathan decided. I’m not having this conversation. Maybe Peter never woke up, either. Maybe I’m still at the hospital, and just caught up on some sleep.
While he was dreaming, there was still some chocolate granita left to be consumed.
“….and after,” Hiro said, gesticulating wildly, “after, we found league of superheroes. Have regular meetings to fight crime. New York best place for that, too.”
“No kidding.”
“We can meet here,” Hiro said, and looked around, taking in the orgies of chocolate decorations between creamy yellow walls and brown beams, eyes gleaming. “Best place for meeting.”
Hiro would want to found a league and have them meet at a place with plenty of waffles and chocolate.
“Tell you what,” Nathan said, having finished the granita, too. “If you do save New York, and I do win the election, as you said, I’ll invite you for brunch here, and we’ll celebrate mutual victories.”
“I will be there, Na-than,” Hiro said earnestly. “I promise.”
This would be the bittersweet part of this mostly fluffy story. Did I mention the Nathan-Hiro scene in Landslide makes me cry like Hiro does?
It had not been more than an idle remark, but as with everything else he said during his encounters with this most unlikely of acquaintances, Nathan strongly suspected he actually meant it. Why not, after all. After the election, there would be time, a small window of time before the preparation for Congress would start, the meetings with lobbyists and other interested parties, the planning for the new term. Time enough for a meeting with – he wasn’t sure what to call Hiro Nakamura.
And now I'm tempted to write a between seasons story featuring a bearded fellow at Max Brenner's. Go away, plot bunny!
“Well,” he said. “Your car’s tire should be fixed by now, and your friend will be waiting. I’ll give you a lift to the garage.”
The driver of the taxi they took recognized Nathan and started into a rant on immigration laws, so Nathan made the appropriate non-committal and polite noises. Apparently, these weren’t enough for the taxi driver who sniffed and said: “I’m so voting for the other guy. At least he doesn’t hang out with Chinese business men even before the election. How many students do these guys have to shoot before losing the most favoured trade nation status anyway?”
“I am Japanese,” Hiro said politely.
“I hated Letters from Iwo Jima!” the taxi driver yelled back. “No offense.”
New York taxi driver jokes: cheap but effective, what can I say.
“Still want to save New York?” Nathan asked drily once they got out of the taxi.
“It is my destiny,” Hiro said, slightly confused, spotted his friend and the waiting Nissan Versa and waved excitedly. Then he took Nathan’s hand and shook it, a little longer and more enthusiastically than necessary, his other hand making an upwards motion.
“Thank you, Flying Man.”
“Just keep it… enjoy the trip, Hiro.”
Hiro walked towards his friend, then turned around again and held up the bag with the chocolate waffle balls.
“Brunch!” he called.
“The morning after”, Nathan called back, feeling strangely light hearted. “I’ll be there.”
Go away, plot bunny!!!!
wee_warrior, who misses Hiro and Nathan interacting as much as I do. Lunch Break, set during the season 1 episode Godsend, was basically my love letter to that relationship. I had two choices to place a later season Hiro and Nathan encounter in, Godsend and Parasite, and after their scene in Parasite, Nathan and Hiro were both a tad too busy to plausibly reunite for another chat an hour so later. So Godsend it was.
If there was one place Nathan Petrelli had not planned to revisit again, it was Isaac Mendez’ studio. But returning to the hospital only to find out one’s comatose brother had finally woken up and promptly run away made for a change of plan. It seemed likely Peter would come here; either to find his girlfriend, or because of the paintings, those paintings which seemed to embody the madness Nathan found himself engulfed in these recent weeks.
Those paintings which had caused Peter’s coma to begin with.
As it turned out, his guess was wrong. There was no sign of Peter, and upon hearing he had woken up, Simone Deveaux at once launched a series of whys and wherefores which Nathan had neither the ability nor the inclination to answer. He wasn’t sure why Simone irritated him. All things considered, she was exactly the kind of girlfriend his mother always hoped Peter would have; beautiful, wealthy, with a father who was some sort of old acquaintance and the essence of respectability.
aycheb recently observed that Simone's hostile scenes with Nathan struck him as encounters between two adults, as opposed to Simone's scenes with either Peter or Isaac regarding their romantic triangle which were juvenile. There is some truth in that, and I had a similar interpretation in my Simone story, The Worst Lies. Nathan's cool attitude towards Simone - he's never rude to her, but there is definitely mutual dislike - is interesting because as stated here, on the surface she's pretty much the ideal girlfriend for Peter from a Petrelli point of view. (If you take the deleted season 1 scenes - which give us some background on Heidi - as canon, it's a further irony that Nathan the conservative, not Peter the rebel, is the one who invariably seems to be drawn to women outside his social circle, with Meredith, Niki and Heidi all being cases in point.) Depending on where you stand on the subtext, this could be simply due to the fact that Simone gave Peter the photo of the painting showing him dead or a certain possessive attitude on Nathan's part. “Maybe he’s waiting at my home,” Simone said, and rushed out. Nathan wondered whether he should follow her, but on second thoughts decided it would probably be pointless. According to his mother, Peter had said he needed to “get away”; this sounded vague enough to include everybody and everyone in his life right now.
He almost hoped he would get another phonecall from a police station telling him his brother was under arrest. At least that would mean he knew where Peter was.
He wasn’t the only visitor in Mendez’ studio. Hiro Nakamura was still there, though it looked like he had been in the process of leaving when Nathan came back. During the terse exchange between Simone and Nathan, he had listened in silence. Now the small Japanese looked at Nathan, bit his lips and asked:
“You okay, Flying Man?”
Godsend was the first time Nathan graced us with the Stubble Of Brotherly Concern. He did look rather haggard.
They were alone, and Nathan didn’t bother to correct him this time. It was odd, being asked a question like that. It was odder not to mind the implication; the idea that Nathan was at less than his usual confident and self assurance exuding level.
“Sure,” he said automatically. “Where’s your friend?”
Ando, he was told, had discovered their car had a flat tire, and was currently looking for a garage which could fix it or sell them a new one so they could be on their way again.
I had to get rid of Ando because there is no way Nathan would have let his guard down with Ando present. Note that in the four on screen meetings between Hiro and Nathan in the first season, Ando isn't present at all during the first and third occasion, and during the second, in Isaac's studio in Godsend, we cut from Hiro and Ando entering the studio and discovering Nathan to Nathan having drawn aside with Hiro to talk to him alone, leaving Ando to converse with Simone in the background instead.
“In Manhattan? They’ll let make you wait for a week at least. You should rent another car,” Nathan said. Hiro looked somewhat disconcerted.
“But is car from Mr. Isaac’s comics,” he insisted. “Car of destiny.”
Is also sponsor of show, I know.
Nathan thought, why the hell not? “On second thought, I haven’t done nearly enough for the garage owner vote,” he said, and made a phone call, only interrupting once to ask Hiro for the number of his friend’s mobile. As a result, Ando something or the other was directed to the mechanic who guaranteed to fix the tire of a Nissan Versa within the hour, courtesy of a generous fee, and promised he’d vote Petrelli in the elections.
Hiro is the one example in season 1 of Nathan doing things for someone he's not either related or attracted to or politically beholden towards. Peter usually has to go through the whole complicated song and dance of Petrelli communication methods to get Nathan to do things like ask Linderman for a painting; Hiro announces his sword-stealing intentions and Nathan smuggles him into Linderman's inner sanctum without even hesitating. Considering such canonical proof of Hiro's Nathan-charming powers, I think it's safe to say that organizing a car repair would have been entirely in character. *g*
Hiro beamed at Nathan. He really was the most enthusiastic person Nathan had ever met. If he ever encountered Peter, the two would…
Drive Nathan insane, more likely than not. At the very least keep him very busy. I let this happen in Runaways.
If. If Peter was around to be encountered. If Peter was around and in one piece.
Because the fraternal angst is never entirely off his mind.
“Did you have lunch yet?” Nathan asked Hiro abruptly.
Apparently, Hiro and his friend had already sampled the delights of New York fast food. “But,” Hiro said, “great responsibility requires great strength. You like waffles, Flying Man?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Nathan said, which was the truth, more or less. Waffles hadn’t made it on the list of approved menus in the Petrelli home, and as opposed to pizza, they weren’t used as campaign food, either. Hiro looked at him, pityingly, and apparently decided that Nathan needed to be educated in the ways of the waffle. They ended up at Max Brenner’s on Broadway, a mixture between café and chocolate shop which had Hiro push up his glasses and go into yet another hyper stage of enthusiasm.
Max Brenner's is a real place. Feel free to visit if you're in New York.
Some inner voice asked Nathan what a man who had spent more time in the hospital than in his campaign office or, for that matter, with his wife and children at home in the last two weeks was doing playing truant with a Japanese boyscout instead of getting back to his normal life and try to catch up with fourteen days of neglect. Another voice answered that he was tired and exhausted and, right now, truly sick of being Nathan Petrelli. Especially since Nathan Petrelli had managed to miss the one moment where his brother had needed him to be there, and was still four points behind in the polls.
Being thought of as something out of a comic book might be embarrassing, but it had an oddly liberating charm to it.
Giving Nathan a break from being Nathan Petrelli is one of the perks of the relationship for Nathan, imo.
Hiro bought chocolate waffle balls as a takeaway for his friend, and brought back a tray with dark chocolate granita, served in a plastic cone, and thick, fresh waffles with chocolate sauce.
“Well, you certainly don’t believe in holding back. Enjoy your meal,” Nathan said, amused. Hiro shook his head.
“Oh, no. These for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes,” Hiro said, and nodded. He looked at Nathan, and though the eager enthusiasm was still there, there was something very serious in his gaze. “I told you. Great responsibility requires great strength. Big responsibility for you, Na-than. Go eat!”
Hiro would be the type to make sure Nathan eats something while quoting Spider-man at him. Fun fact: in the podcast commentary for Landslide, George Takei and Masi Oka joked about the fact that the way Hiro pronounces Nathan's name makes it sound like the word for "Big Sister" in Japanese.
There was a lot he could have said to this, most, if not all of it sarcastic. But he found himself looking at Hiro Nakamura and his round face with the far too open eyes inadequately protected by his glasses, and realizing that it had been a while, truly, since he had eaten something. Hospital food just wasn’t his style, and when he came home after checking up on the office before, it was usually too late for more than some yoghurt.
The taste of fresh waffles covered with chocolate should have been too sweet for him, but he found himself eating up every single bit while listening to Hiro’s chatter. Steadily improving English with Japanese fragments in between. Maybe it wasn’t Japanese, though. Maybe it was Klingon. Peter had gone through a Star Trek phase when he was 13 and 14 and had insisted on things like wishing Nathan “Qua’pla”. To this day, Nathan pretended he did not know what it meant.
I think Nathan probably watched the Star Wars movies during their original release in the cinema - he's the right age - but not more than once, and caught the occasional Star Trek and TNG episode on tv when there was nothing else to do as a teenager, but no more than that. Peter, otoh, obviously is a genre fan, though not as intensely as Hiro.
“Why New York?” he asked in between bites.
“Why New York what?” Hiro asked back, confused.
“Why does this bomb thing happen in New York? As opposed to any other place in this country, let alone the world, that is. Did your trip to the future tell you that?”
“New York is city of superheroes and supervillains,” Hiro declared, not missing a beat. “Like Magneto, he destroy New York, though now is retconned. The Avengers, Spider-man, all live here. But not to worry. I save New York. You do, too.”
In case you're wondering, Magneto destroyed New York during Grant Morrison's run of New X-Men; the post-Morrison retcon basically declared this wasn't Magneto but another character. Ask
likeadeuce for details if you want to hear more.*g* I must be insane, Nathan decided. I’m not having this conversation. Maybe Peter never woke up, either. Maybe I’m still at the hospital, and just caught up on some sleep.
While he was dreaming, there was still some chocolate granita left to be consumed.
“….and after,” Hiro said, gesticulating wildly, “after, we found league of superheroes. Have regular meetings to fight crime. New York best place for that, too.”
“No kidding.”
“We can meet here,” Hiro said, and looked around, taking in the orgies of chocolate decorations between creamy yellow walls and brown beams, eyes gleaming. “Best place for meeting.”
Hiro would want to found a league and have them meet at a place with plenty of waffles and chocolate.
“Tell you what,” Nathan said, having finished the granita, too. “If you do save New York, and I do win the election, as you said, I’ll invite you for brunch here, and we’ll celebrate mutual victories.”
“I will be there, Na-than,” Hiro said earnestly. “I promise.”
This would be the bittersweet part of this mostly fluffy story. Did I mention the Nathan-Hiro scene in Landslide makes me cry like Hiro does?
It had not been more than an idle remark, but as with everything else he said during his encounters with this most unlikely of acquaintances, Nathan strongly suspected he actually meant it. Why not, after all. After the election, there would be time, a small window of time before the preparation for Congress would start, the meetings with lobbyists and other interested parties, the planning for the new term. Time enough for a meeting with – he wasn’t sure what to call Hiro Nakamura.
And now I'm tempted to write a between seasons story featuring a bearded fellow at Max Brenner's. Go away, plot bunny!
“Well,” he said. “Your car’s tire should be fixed by now, and your friend will be waiting. I’ll give you a lift to the garage.”
The driver of the taxi they took recognized Nathan and started into a rant on immigration laws, so Nathan made the appropriate non-committal and polite noises. Apparently, these weren’t enough for the taxi driver who sniffed and said: “I’m so voting for the other guy. At least he doesn’t hang out with Chinese business men even before the election. How many students do these guys have to shoot before losing the most favoured trade nation status anyway?”
“I am Japanese,” Hiro said politely.
“I hated Letters from Iwo Jima!” the taxi driver yelled back. “No offense.”
New York taxi driver jokes: cheap but effective, what can I say.
“Still want to save New York?” Nathan asked drily once they got out of the taxi.
“It is my destiny,” Hiro said, slightly confused, spotted his friend and the waiting Nissan Versa and waved excitedly. Then he took Nathan’s hand and shook it, a little longer and more enthusiastically than necessary, his other hand making an upwards motion.
“Thank you, Flying Man.”
“Just keep it… enjoy the trip, Hiro.”
Hiro walked towards his friend, then turned around again and held up the bag with the chocolate waffle balls.
“Brunch!” he called.
“The morning after”, Nathan called back, feeling strangely light hearted. “I’ll be there.”
Go away, plot bunny!!!!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 12:57 pm (UTC)This story does many different things for me on different readings, but it always makes me hungry for waffles. It's certainly not diet-friendly. :)
Also, is this your bunny? It was gnawing on my couch.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 01:37 pm (UTC)Also, if you want diet-friendly, go reread F'Dan ripping out hearts in Lost in Translation.*g*
And you're welcome.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 01:51 pm (UTC)Hehe. I am honestly thinking about opening up shop as an edgy type of muse, I seem to show natural talent for that.
Also, if you want diet-friendly, go reread F'Dan ripping out hearts in Lost in Translation.*g*
...indeed, that works.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 04:34 pm (UTC)I loved this fic the first time I read it, and I still adore it to bits. *g* As mentioned, it soothes the hurt...and it makes me want to write something with Hiro in it in my copious spare time.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 11:40 am (UTC)OMFG, he does *ded* I am going to be calling Nathan "onee san" from now on. *facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 01:31 pm (UTC)