Heroes 2.11

[selenak]

Firstly, I kind of guessed that we'd end with a cliffhanger re: Nathan, as a direct parallel to last season's Fallout which ended, if you recall, with Peter's non-breathing-anymore in Nathan's arms, and given how much this show loves mirroring and parallels, I figured we'd get one with Nathan in Peter's arms, but I had thought it would be because of the virus. It coming because he's getting shot is actually a relief because come on. Matt survived four bullets (courtesy of Sylar) in last season's finale without any healing blood anywhere near him. Which means I'm really not worried about Nathan's impending demise. On the other hand, the assassination attempt via gun, not supernatural means, brings him back into the political plotline, and echoes the varies1960s assassinations, and it prepares an obvious interfamily conflict, not the obvious one (Angela and her sons) but between the Bennets and the Petrellis, since Noah just rejoined the Company.

(I'm not sure they'll go as far as having had Noah made the assassination attempt himself or planned himself. Could be, though. Could be. Very juicy set-up.)

Now that the cliffhanger is being dealt with:

1) To no one's grief, we've seen the end of the Claire-West romance. I'm actually glad they didn't write West of the show in a lethal way, because Claire doesn't need any more corpses to angst about right now, especially not with the impending big conflict between her fathers (see above). The scene with Sandra hurt in a dramatically fascinating way, because it's the first time we've seen Claire pull the special-and-not-your-biological-daughter card on Sandra, and I hope in the next volume we'll see some follow-up and exploration of her relationship with her mother, which we didn't get much of previously. It's ironic that Claire comes to the same conclusion as Nathan does in this episode re: secrets and safety, and both are stopped by the Company and the previous generation, but in very different ways.

2) I got my Hiro-sees-Nathan-again-and-knows-he's-not-a-villain scene. Granted, it was extremely short, but still, it was there, and hey, missing scenes and all! I predict fanfic covering the following: Hiro finding out what happened at Kirby Plaza, Hiro and Nathan talk some more, Hiro at Nathan's bedside post assassination attempt. If no one else writes it, I will.

3) Speaking of Hiro: yes, he did change. He pulled a Connor on Adam/Kensei. For non-Angel-watchers, that refers to burying Adam alive with the intention of leaving him there for the rest of eternity. Hiro thinking death is too good or Hiro stilll balking at killing Adam? You decide. Again, worth character exploration in fanfic.

4) Petrellis: and everytime we think they can't get more screwed up... Speculation that Angela was the one who helped Adam back in the day pays off (note she's also sure he won't come after her in present day anymore), and here we see her accept the necessity of both her sons dying for different reasons. Nathan's utterly non-surprised by the news when Matt gives it to him. And yet at the same time, you could see the impact both when Angela heard Peter is alive (so she didn't know what the Haitian did!) and when she gets the Nathan-has-been-shot news at the end.

5) Brotherly reunion: more than the reunion itself, the follow-up scene with "I missed you" was what reduced me to wibbles.

6) Niki. You know, I've come to like Niki very much, shaky s1 storyline or not, which is due to a combination of writing her in fanfic and her s2 scenes starting with "Out of Time". If this was her end, I think it was a good one, reemphasizing the show's idea that you don't need superpowers to be a hero, and adding the tragic irony of Niki dying in a fire after saving DL's and Micah's cousin from it as a mirror to DL being a fireman in the end. "I'll be a fireman when the flood rolls out". RIP Niki, if you're dead. More fanfic on you, too, covering those last months.

7) Sylar. Still alive. Why?

8) Otoh, the Bishops are getting to be competition to the Petrellis with the screwed-up stakes as Elle wants to be a hero for her father AFTER hearing more of the gruesome experiments back in the day. Oh, Elle.

9) Resurrected Maya: is okay by me in as much as Maya becoming yet another dead Sylar victim would have heightened the dead women and dead pocs on this show, and hopefully her character will get fleshed out more in the future, now that she's definitely in a different storyline. Also, the gunshot thing hammered the point home that Nathan won't die, not that I expect this to change certain reactions because I know fandom.

10) "We'll never talk about this again": funniest line of the episode. Matt and Nathan were this volume's unexpected and best team-up.

11) In case we ever doubted it, Adam/Kensei was definitely in love with Hiro, not Yaeko. "You were more than that to me."

All in all, I loved the episode, but I'm a bit scared to look at other people's reactions, because I expect them to be all about the cliffhanger and nothing about the ep...