My mother-in-law is strongly encouraging us to watch this show, saying we’re bound to love it because we like Lost.
We’ve sat through the last two episodes with her. She says she’s loaned her copy of season 1 to a friend, but that as soon as she gets it back, we’re going to have a marathon or something.
Well, from the two episodes I’v seen, as far as I can tell, the writers proceed as follows:
Select a character. Flip a coin. If the coin comes up heads, have the character act like a good guy for the next three minutes. If tails, have the character act like a bad guy for the next three minutes. Repeat. (The same characater may be selected as many times as you wish.)
I guess this is what is supposed to pass for “ambiguity” in this show?
Will things seem better once I’ve watched the first two seasons? As it stands I’m not looking forward to watching them at all–but I think I’m going to have to.
Gah! My wife and her mother and their habit of insistent overselling!
They sure do. It’s only when overly observant (or anal-retentive, depending on your point of view) fans force the continuity issues that they go back and try to explain (which often leads to an even more convoluted answer - see Hawkman).
Now, to be fair, Hawkman’s problems began with blatant idiocy on the part of DC Editorial who decided a flashback series (Hawkworld) should suddenly be transplanted into the modern day so it could cross over with other titles. I think the complex answer that resulted as a consequence is better than it being completely inexplicable.
Obviously the solution is to have Geoff Johns write a Heroes episode that explains and fixes all the continuity gaffes. He’s already done a Smallville episode, right? After fixing Hawkman, Heroes should be easy-peasy.
If you watch them back to back to back without catching a breath, most of the first season is pretty fun and you only kind of notice the big, gaping problems. It isn’t LOST, not even close. And I don’t like LOST. But it is fun…popcorn will help.
I neglected to explain what I was trying to explain. Since Mrs. P. said they were disappointed Nathan didn’t have the gene because he had two parents that did and that would seem to mean that yes, there are still plenty of natural supers around. But that the synthetic supers are only something that has occurred in the last 40 years.
And yes, I do think Nathan looks 40ish and is probably supposed to be 40ish, I was only stating what I would consider his youngest possible age. I don’t recall if his age when he fathered Claire was mentioned but I do think he was supposed to be legally adult but still young enough for his parents to figure they had to intervene and protect him from himself, so early 20’s still making him barely 40, if even that much. Also, since it was stated that they tampered with Nathan as an infant and Niki/Tracy does not seem to be much older than 30ish it would seem the tampering went on for several years. So there could be quite a few synthetics.
Which also begs the question if the synthetics pass along the gene at all. Didn’t Linderman infer that they got Niki and DL together on purpose? So was that a breeding experiment with a natural and a synthetic or two synthetics to see if they could produce a natural? I think it would be two synthetics because if one parent was a natural then any offspring could likely get the gene from the one parent, so breeding two synthetics would be more likely an experiment.
Then that makes me wonder if Nathan and Claire’s mom was an intended experiment as well (two synthetics?) or if that was just a natural and a synthetic getting together on their own and messing with The Company’s plans.
I believe only Future Peter’s powers were included under this. Sylar’s powers are considered “inherent” enough to qualify, and we’ve clearly seen Peter get powers that Sylar stole from other people.
In both Claire and Micah’s case, only one parent has been confirmed to have synthetic powers, and in Claire’s case, Nathan might not have expressed powers but he could still pass on one copy of a recessive gene from his own parents.
We haven’t so far seen one way or the other if he has powers, have we? All we saw was Maury making the Ghost of Linderman, and then talking to Arthur in his hospital bed. Maury can read minds, so having a conversation with someone who can’t speak is an easy thing.
Of course I think Arthur would need some compelling means to control Maury, since Nightmare Man seems the amoral sort who won’t do anything unless something’s in it for him. That wouldn’t need to be a supernatural something, necessarily.
(And it does seem like powers can first manifest at wildly different stages of life for different people. I seem to recall that Dale’s super-hearing didn’t manifest until a few years at most before Suresh found her… so she would have been mid-to-late-forties, maybe? Plus Nathan’s first flight was during his car accident with his wife… also around age 40. Peter and Hiro manifested in their mid-20s. Parkman was mid-30s. Molly was 8 when they found her, although Sylar spared her so we don’t know if she hadn’t yet manifested then. She certainly had by the end of the season a few months later. Claire was apparently healing from babyhood, having survived the fire, which would also put Meredith as having manifested by around age 18ish, possibly earlier. So it’s possible Arthur didn’t manifest til after the war.)
I’m thinking his control over Maury indicates him having a power, and a pretty fearsome one at that – Parkman sen. seemed rather uncomfortable in his presence. I thought it might be some kind of voice-control thing, like Eden; thus, the loss of his voice would have mostly de-powered him, unless of course you’re a telepath and can still ‘hear’ him.
By the way, in Angela’s dream, was that supposed to actually be her husband, or was it Maury capturing her in one of his telepathic illusions? Maybe Maury created an illusion of Arthur using his power on her?
Could be supernatural, could just be blackmail. We’ll probably find out later.
They certainly implied that something was scary about Arthur, for sure. He has been pulling quite a few strings behind the scenes, and doing it all from a hospital bed with a tube in his throat, which is no mean feat. I’d bet on supernatural, just because it is Heroes after all, but it’s possible the writers have some other direction in mind.
I think it was probably intended to be ambiguous (as was Arthur’s control over Maury, I imagine). They set it up so we don’t have any way of knowing who’s power was working, there. Angela dreaming something that’s going to happen? Maury manipulating her mind so she thinks she is? Arthur doing something scary and controlling? The writers are teasing us.
All good points, I had assumed that when Angela had seen him in the dream and then was stuck in a coma that it had been him, I hadn’t considered that it might’ve been Parkmans dad who had done that.
I guess it’s also possible that he tests positive as an X gene carrier and just hasn’t manifested powers himself.
Side question that I was thinking about today: Have we ever seen Peter use 2 different active powers at the same time? I can’t recall him using any other power while flying, for example.
On the whole Papa Petrelli thing, Linderman describes him as a man of “great power”. (this is to Nathan during season 1, IIRC). Linderman is not an easy man to impress.
It was pretty obvious that Mr Petrelli was the powerful force controlling everything that Angela mentioned, the one that only Hiro can stop. After all he died years ago, and so was guaranteed to be the big bad. Clearly though, his power doesn’t need much getting up and walking around to use. Parkman Sr looked terrified of him.
If I were Hiro trying to fake Ando death, I would teleport Ando somewhere safe, go to the future, grab a future Ando, kill him in place of Ando, then invalidate the future where Ando suddenly disappears (somehow). That would work, right? RIGHT?!
Or Monroe’s blood. That probably makes more sense.
Edit: On Peter using 2 powers at the same time, this was why in season one:
*his fight against Sylar in Mo’s apartment went bad - being invisible left him powerless
*why, at the end when he’s going nuclear he could not simply fly away himself
However, someone can answer this better than I. When on the roof with Invisible Guy and the company finds him, doesn’t he fly away while invisible?
There might be other examples in s3 that I can’t think of. Not s2 though. That season didn’t exist. I deny it.
Peter’s abilities rely on his tapping into a certain emo connection to the original super, so I can understand why he can’t quickly switch between powers, or use more than one at a time.
The reason that I asked is because I read a lot of people complaining about how inneffective Peter sometimes is. Like Future Claire and her team of avengers trying to kill him should be like butterflys trying to kill Superman.
