Heroes 2.06
Oct. 30th, 2007 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOr, the one where everyone goes (even more) ambigous.
Well, save for Monica, who remains sweet and nice. (I don't mean that sarcastically; it's a good thing to be, and Monica is clearly getting the spot Hiro had last season up to Six Months Ago, i.e. the innocent simply enjoying the power in a non megalomaniac way.) Otherwise, morally grey reigned. First and foremost with Noah Bennet, of course, whose use of the Haitian to torture his former teacher was chilling (and chillingly effective), ending in murder. Writers of Heroes, I hereby apologize again for suspecting that post-Company Man, you wanted me to forget all about questionable actions by our Mr. B. and wanted to make him an unambiguous White Hat. Also for suspecting you took the Jack Bristow rather than the Michael from Lost way of narration when it comes to actions by fathers for their children. Here we see Noah going from telling Mohinder to inject Monica with the virus for the sake of maintaining his cover to torture to murder of what is essentially his older double, a man who did questionable things for the Company and loves his family. No more or less evil than our Mr. Bennet. And why does he do this? I don't think "to keep my family/Claire safe" covers it anymore; that's part of it, but not all of it. "Bringing the Company down" is another part; but the urgency of the quest for the paintings didn't start until Noah saw himself dead on one.
"You'll be in hell." "I know." Indeed. The road to hell, as we all know, is made by good intentions, and a great many people are on their way there this episode. One more thing about Noah: lying to Claire and Sandra about the whole trip gets yet another reason - in addition to not wanting them to know about the painting (which, you know, would have given Claire a far better reason to listen to her father re: dating than a "don't do it" did), he doesn't want them to know what he does; that torture and murder aren't a thing of the past, and not because he's ordered to by a Company superior.
Meanwhile, Claire is discovering the morally grey zones herself, and not by observing them in other people. Of course, this is the girl who reacted to Brody the date rapist last season by using her car and her invulnerability to try and kill him by crashing both of them, but there is a difference between that action and what she does here, urged on by West. Brody had harmed her, had harmed other girls, and was likely to do in the future. Debbie might be obnoxious, bitchy and what not, but she had not harmed Claire; she was simply in her way to a safe alibi. She was inconvenient. And so she was removed. I dare say this in miniature is how Angela and the rest of the Elders drifted from superheroing to those various activities ominously referred to by Kaito, Angela, Linderman, Bob et al. And suddenly the West romance seems to serve another purpose than "complicate Claire's relationship with her father" and "give Claire a love interest". We had various examples of specials finding each other by now, but in none of them happened what happened to the Elders as a result. It just might to Claire.
The Maya y Alejandro plus Sylar story thread looks like it's heading a similar way. Maya already used her power deliberately to break Alejandro out of jail, but back then she let him save everyone she had harmed instantly. Now, encouraged by Sylar, she uses it without giving the people who tried to stop them from entering the US that reprieve, and thus deliberately kills them. Sylar sketches out two possible futures - either Mohinder cures him, and he kills both twins, stealing their powers, or he remains uncured and uses Maya as his personal killing tool. Which probably means neither way will happen, at least not how he envisions it. My current guess it that upon arrival in New York, he'll be frustrasted by his favourite geneticist, and will go for option b), killing Alejandro. Which, however, will then result in Maya going fury on him. (What is it with Sylar killing one co-dependent sibling of a pair in alternate time lines?)
Mohinder, for his part, is discovering more of the joys of the double agent life. As in 5YG, he balks at the very moment of the injection (but doesn't kill anyone else instead). The Company getting the idea they could use the virus - to which they have the cure via Mohinder - in order to control specials is no big surprise; what is a surprise is that Bob doesn't go for the obvious blackmail option via Molly, or simply takes Mohinder prisoner. (He can't kill Mohinder as long as they can't replicate the cure, but nobody said anything about Mohinder walking around free in order to provide blood.) Instead, he comes forth with interesting hints about some dangerous special named "Adam", whom we hear more of in another plot thread, and gives Mohinder what is fastly becoming the traditional speech each of the Elders has to recite at least once. (Made shady choices in my past, check, regret some of those, check, but they were necessary, check, now we're all in trouble, and you, young person, are needed, check.) It's an interesting juxtaposition the other Horned Rimmed Glasses wearer being far more ruthless in getting what he wants in Odessa, Ukraine, and further muddies the waters. Not that it means we can trust Bob one bit, but it furthers the impression he's not the moustache twirling evil type but a human being.
Last year's naif, Hiro, started to lose his innocence when he lost Charlie and couldn't save her. The moment of finite loss, the kiss he never could take, is replayed here and continued differently. Hiro stabbed Sylar, but not easily, and after giving him a chance when he saw a possiblity that Sylar might repent; Future!Hiro's actions aside, "our" Hiro never did anything morally grey - right until he remained in the past instead of leaving when he could have, after he made Kensei defeat the angry Ronin. He knew he wasn't supposed to remain there, but did it anyway; in this episode, he goes one step further, and by kissing Yaeko after wishing the space-time-continuum to hell invokes the wrath every geek should know about as it promptly strikes back. The road to hell indeed. I suspect Hiro will be able to fix the thing with the guns, but Yaeko will die (because alas the show is like that), and Kensei will continue the road from trickster to villain, with the interlude as hero and Hiro telling him all these tales about who he is supposed to be, a legend, only magnifying his ambitions. Am more sure than ever we're going to see Kensei in the present soon.
As "Adam?" Adam is the first man, and Kensei might have been the first special to manifest for all we know. Also, I'd be suprised if they introduce another new character, and "Adam" obviously is important, given that Bob mentions him and Peter finds a message from him. (If Kensei is "Adam", though, then he was roleplaying for Peter, because Peter's Adam writes as if the Company's dubious nature was something he only just discovered.) Leaving aside the Kensei = Adam? speculation, that message confirms a guess I mentioned in my comments to last week's review - just what Peter did between the explosion and arriving sans memory in Ireland. I think that like Mohinder and Niki, he made a deal with the Company, and that he did so for the same reason Mohinder did - to save someone he loved. Nathan, of course, who after the explosion must have been dying. If there was anyone with a list of specials, one or more of whom might have healing abilities, it would have been the Company. (Remember, Peter didn't know Linderman himself had healing power, and even so, powers, as we get demonstrated this season, are not unique and confined to just one individual.) I think the Company delivered, Nathan was healed, and Peter had to do something for them in exchange for Nathan's life. Whatever that something was brought him in contact with Elle (since he has absorbed her ability) and "Adam", and led to the current amnesiac situation.
Which leads me to the most unexpected plot twist of the episode. Now I was wondering whether we'd ever see Peter use Hiro's time travel ability, but I was wondering about him travelling in the past, not in the future. That was awesome. And very cleverly done by the show. Empty New York is familiar to us, it's the New York Peter saw repeatedly in his visions, before the explosion, so we think he's having another vision, until it's clear Caitlin is seeing the same thing. And then it's time for another stunner. So, the future. And New York evacuated. (Does that city ever get a break?) Currently, several possibilities are on the offer:
a) Maya's ability, used by either herself or Sylar.
b) The virus, which mutated and now affects non-specials as well.
c) The explosion, back on schedule though not via Peter.
c) is least likely, but I list it anyway to be thorough. Incidentally, a fourth possibility - that the future Peter and Caitlin went to is the one now made AU, from 5YG - I considered and discarded, because the paper Peter finds says "evacuation", and nobody got evacuated in the 5YG timeline. I think it's the virus, most likely.
As to people Peter and Caitlin will encounter in that future, my current guesses are: Claire (due to her natural immunity), Kensei (whether or not he's Adam, and same reason), Mohinder (because someone is going to have to infodump the reason for the catastrophe on Peter, and Mohinder is our exposition guy) and Nathan, with Nathan being the last encounter, and probably the one they'll give us just before Peter ends up in the present again, because the show is mean like that, and I don't think Peter will have his amnesia problem solved before encountering Nathan in the present.
Anyway, I loved all the storylines this week, and am looking forward to the next one!
Well, save for Monica, who remains sweet and nice. (I don't mean that sarcastically; it's a good thing to be, and Monica is clearly getting the spot Hiro had last season up to Six Months Ago, i.e. the innocent simply enjoying the power in a non megalomaniac way.) Otherwise, morally grey reigned. First and foremost with Noah Bennet, of course, whose use of the Haitian to torture his former teacher was chilling (and chillingly effective), ending in murder. Writers of Heroes, I hereby apologize again for suspecting that post-Company Man, you wanted me to forget all about questionable actions by our Mr. B. and wanted to make him an unambiguous White Hat. Also for suspecting you took the Jack Bristow rather than the Michael from Lost way of narration when it comes to actions by fathers for their children. Here we see Noah going from telling Mohinder to inject Monica with the virus for the sake of maintaining his cover to torture to murder of what is essentially his older double, a man who did questionable things for the Company and loves his family. No more or less evil than our Mr. Bennet. And why does he do this? I don't think "to keep my family/Claire safe" covers it anymore; that's part of it, but not all of it. "Bringing the Company down" is another part; but the urgency of the quest for the paintings didn't start until Noah saw himself dead on one.
"You'll be in hell." "I know." Indeed. The road to hell, as we all know, is made by good intentions, and a great many people are on their way there this episode. One more thing about Noah: lying to Claire and Sandra about the whole trip gets yet another reason - in addition to not wanting them to know about the painting (which, you know, would have given Claire a far better reason to listen to her father re: dating than a "don't do it" did), he doesn't want them to know what he does; that torture and murder aren't a thing of the past, and not because he's ordered to by a Company superior.
Meanwhile, Claire is discovering the morally grey zones herself, and not by observing them in other people. Of course, this is the girl who reacted to Brody the date rapist last season by using her car and her invulnerability to try and kill him by crashing both of them, but there is a difference between that action and what she does here, urged on by West. Brody had harmed her, had harmed other girls, and was likely to do in the future. Debbie might be obnoxious, bitchy and what not, but she had not harmed Claire; she was simply in her way to a safe alibi. She was inconvenient. And so she was removed. I dare say this in miniature is how Angela and the rest of the Elders drifted from superheroing to those various activities ominously referred to by Kaito, Angela, Linderman, Bob et al. And suddenly the West romance seems to serve another purpose than "complicate Claire's relationship with her father" and "give Claire a love interest". We had various examples of specials finding each other by now, but in none of them happened what happened to the Elders as a result. It just might to Claire.
The Maya y Alejandro plus Sylar story thread looks like it's heading a similar way. Maya already used her power deliberately to break Alejandro out of jail, but back then she let him save everyone she had harmed instantly. Now, encouraged by Sylar, she uses it without giving the people who tried to stop them from entering the US that reprieve, and thus deliberately kills them. Sylar sketches out two possible futures - either Mohinder cures him, and he kills both twins, stealing their powers, or he remains uncured and uses Maya as his personal killing tool. Which probably means neither way will happen, at least not how he envisions it. My current guess it that upon arrival in New York, he'll be frustrasted by his favourite geneticist, and will go for option b), killing Alejandro. Which, however, will then result in Maya going fury on him. (What is it with Sylar killing one co-dependent sibling of a pair in alternate time lines?)
Mohinder, for his part, is discovering more of the joys of the double agent life. As in 5YG, he balks at the very moment of the injection (but doesn't kill anyone else instead). The Company getting the idea they could use the virus - to which they have the cure via Mohinder - in order to control specials is no big surprise; what is a surprise is that Bob doesn't go for the obvious blackmail option via Molly, or simply takes Mohinder prisoner. (He can't kill Mohinder as long as they can't replicate the cure, but nobody said anything about Mohinder walking around free in order to provide blood.) Instead, he comes forth with interesting hints about some dangerous special named "Adam", whom we hear more of in another plot thread, and gives Mohinder what is fastly becoming the traditional speech each of the Elders has to recite at least once. (Made shady choices in my past, check, regret some of those, check, but they were necessary, check, now we're all in trouble, and you, young person, are needed, check.) It's an interesting juxtaposition the other Horned Rimmed Glasses wearer being far more ruthless in getting what he wants in Odessa, Ukraine, and further muddies the waters. Not that it means we can trust Bob one bit, but it furthers the impression he's not the moustache twirling evil type but a human being.
Last year's naif, Hiro, started to lose his innocence when he lost Charlie and couldn't save her. The moment of finite loss, the kiss he never could take, is replayed here and continued differently. Hiro stabbed Sylar, but not easily, and after giving him a chance when he saw a possiblity that Sylar might repent; Future!Hiro's actions aside, "our" Hiro never did anything morally grey - right until he remained in the past instead of leaving when he could have, after he made Kensei defeat the angry Ronin. He knew he wasn't supposed to remain there, but did it anyway; in this episode, he goes one step further, and by kissing Yaeko after wishing the space-time-continuum to hell invokes the wrath every geek should know about as it promptly strikes back. The road to hell indeed. I suspect Hiro will be able to fix the thing with the guns, but Yaeko will die (because alas the show is like that), and Kensei will continue the road from trickster to villain, with the interlude as hero and Hiro telling him all these tales about who he is supposed to be, a legend, only magnifying his ambitions. Am more sure than ever we're going to see Kensei in the present soon.
As "Adam?" Adam is the first man, and Kensei might have been the first special to manifest for all we know. Also, I'd be suprised if they introduce another new character, and "Adam" obviously is important, given that Bob mentions him and Peter finds a message from him. (If Kensei is "Adam", though, then he was roleplaying for Peter, because Peter's Adam writes as if the Company's dubious nature was something he only just discovered.) Leaving aside the Kensei = Adam? speculation, that message confirms a guess I mentioned in my comments to last week's review - just what Peter did between the explosion and arriving sans memory in Ireland. I think that like Mohinder and Niki, he made a deal with the Company, and that he did so for the same reason Mohinder did - to save someone he loved. Nathan, of course, who after the explosion must have been dying. If there was anyone with a list of specials, one or more of whom might have healing abilities, it would have been the Company. (Remember, Peter didn't know Linderman himself had healing power, and even so, powers, as we get demonstrated this season, are not unique and confined to just one individual.) I think the Company delivered, Nathan was healed, and Peter had to do something for them in exchange for Nathan's life. Whatever that something was brought him in contact with Elle (since he has absorbed her ability) and "Adam", and led to the current amnesiac situation.
Which leads me to the most unexpected plot twist of the episode. Now I was wondering whether we'd ever see Peter use Hiro's time travel ability, but I was wondering about him travelling in the past, not in the future. That was awesome. And very cleverly done by the show. Empty New York is familiar to us, it's the New York Peter saw repeatedly in his visions, before the explosion, so we think he's having another vision, until it's clear Caitlin is seeing the same thing. And then it's time for another stunner. So, the future. And New York evacuated. (Does that city ever get a break?) Currently, several possibilities are on the offer:
a) Maya's ability, used by either herself or Sylar.
b) The virus, which mutated and now affects non-specials as well.
c) The explosion, back on schedule though not via Peter.
c) is least likely, but I list it anyway to be thorough. Incidentally, a fourth possibility - that the future Peter and Caitlin went to is the one now made AU, from 5YG - I considered and discarded, because the paper Peter finds says "evacuation", and nobody got evacuated in the 5YG timeline. I think it's the virus, most likely.
As to people Peter and Caitlin will encounter in that future, my current guesses are: Claire (due to her natural immunity), Kensei (whether or not he's Adam, and same reason), Mohinder (because someone is going to have to infodump the reason for the catastrophe on Peter, and Mohinder is our exposition guy) and Nathan, with Nathan being the last encounter, and probably the one they'll give us just before Peter ends up in the present again, because the show is mean like that, and I don't think Peter will have his amnesia problem solved before encountering Nathan in the present.
Anyway, I loved all the storylines this week, and am looking forward to the next one!
