New Heroes Fan via DVD w/ questions please not too much spoilage

Cafe Society
1

I am on the 11th ep, I think, the very beginning of the one after the Claire is saved from Sylar at homecoming, so don’t tell me anything I don’t ask without a box, please.

The questions that I would like answered (unless it just flat out ruins something)

  1. What exactly is Niki’s “ability”: the ability to be freakin’ insane? Yeah, I know she can rip the heads off people with her bare hands, which can come in handy, but what’s with the whole Now-i’m-jessica-that-daddy-killed thing? How is that an ability, rather than being nuts? Or is the head-ripping the ability and the split personality garden variety nuttage?

  2. Where do I know her hubby from? I’d look on IMDB but I don’t know his character’s name…

  3. What is the black guy that can resist pixie-mind-control chick’s “ability” besides being able to resist pixie mind control chick, which doesn’t seem like much of an ability, seeing as how its so closely associated with one person?

  4. Do we learn a little more of how/why Hiro failed to save the girl he loved?

  5. Am I supposed to know by now what all the abilities Sylar has taken on are, exactly?

Just as an aside, this build up of the heroes’ abilities as “genetic” makes no sense on the face of it, since everybody’s ability seems to have kicked in simultaneously and they are all different ages, that suggests some outside force.

I hope Clea Duvall turns out to be a hero…but I’m pretty sure she won’t.

Oh, and I don’t understand why Pixie chick couldn’t mess with Claire’s Daddy’s mind juse because Black Guy That Can Resist Her was nearby. And now he’s always her shadow. If there’s a whole lot more to be explained on that, I guess I can wait, but if I’m supposed to have better clarity at this point in the show, I’d appreciate a hand.

And hey…WAY cool show!
(Aside: my best friend came by yesterday and saw the show paused on the TV and asked what it was. I told her and she said, oh, I was just by my friend Tim Kring’s house the other day, they just bought it. It’s AMAZING…the fence just goes on and on and on…add that to seeing the location manager from Dexter, among many other things, and I have to say that living in LA is strange and yet fun.)
One more thing: can I get a big “BOOYA!” from the ladies and gays on the yumminess of so many of the men on this show??? Mohinder to start with, I think he’s stunning, the Painter (Yeah, I suck with the names, and get this: I watch it with hearing impaired captioning on! You’d think I’d retain! That’s a result of too much rock and roll as a child…yes, kids, your parents were right.) who is actually yummier clean shaven, which I dont’ usually find true, I like scruffage, then Peter is no slouch, his brother is a little too cartoony in his appearance, but still handsome, and I find the cop just adorable, I’d totally do him.

2

Jessica controls the strength. (That’s it in a nutshell; anything else would be spoiler.)

The character’s name is D.L. Hawkins, played by Leonard Roberts. I don’t know where you know him from.

The Haitian can erase memories. He also seems to be a sort of damper or sink for other psychic abilities.

Maybe just a little, but not a lot.

No, not all. You’ve seen the main ones, though, IIRC.

Nathan’s ability kicked in before. And you will learn more than that as the series goes on.

See prior about his apparently being a psychic sink or damper. And you will find out exactly why he’s so interested in Claire as the series continues.

And I’m sure someone else will be along to correct my probably faulty memory.

3

I don’t think that’s quite right and might be a bit confusing if someone keeps watching thinking that’s the deal. I think this is just one of those things viewers have to be patient with and allow the show to explain as it goes on.

4

Thank you… Nikis hubby IS from Buffy. I was going to say Angel, but I knew that wasn’t it. He was her military boyfriend’s best pal.

There’s a definite sliding scale in Hero ability usefulness, that’s for damn sure.

5

Okay, but can anyone give me one tiny reason why Sylar survived his encounter with Mohinder and Peter?

The only one I can come up with relies heavily on “poorly thought-out” and “didn’t want to waste our main villain”.

-Joe

6

Hey Joe, what are you talking about? Something WAY beyond where I am, thus totally messing with me in a way I asked not to be messed with in my OP?

7

I was thinking about that regarding Charlie’s ability. (She’s the waitress Hiro fell in love with.) A perfect memory would be a great thing to have for a person, and would make you awesome in a research-related field (like law), but I don’t see it having a lot of superhero potential.

I’m on Disc 5 of season one myself.

8

You are correct that it’s not entirely right; it was the best “nutshell” I could come up with, given the lack of sleep and stomach upset. Sorry for misleading anyone.

9

Well, I did try to be as incredibly vague as possible.

-Joe

10

There isn’t a really good way to answer any of your questions without telling you more then you want to know.

Finish the series and (most) of these questions will get answered. It is well worth it.

Also, I am diggin’ the new season like crazy, (though I know many people who feel it is getting off to a slow start) So finish it quick so you can jump onto the new season.

11

Well, I dont’ know if I want to finish it too quickly, I’ve done this many times: get hooked via DVD, have the luxury of many episodes to watch, suck them all up fast then get stuck in the weeklong waits!

It’s a very cool show, though. And I’m deeply amused by the credits and other comic book touches.

12

If you like the comicbook stuff you should check out the ongoing graphic novel on NBC.com. It’s broken up into something like 5 page installments. It fills in some background and tells some side stories. As an added bonus each installment opens with a drawing of the Nissan Versa. I am way behind, I’ll have to catch up. I think they were putting up new episodes even during the show’s hiatus.

13

In the online graphic novel it seems like that power also allows you to learn how to do things. Syler learns how to drive a truck by leafing through a manual. Gives him an extra edge on Peter on learning to use the powers he acquires. I say “extra” edge because Peter seems somewhat inept at mastering his powers.

If Sylar felt he needed an extra edge in a fight he could watch some martial art training videos. But why would he need to with the powers he already has.

14

Two things -

First off, has anyone got an answer to my question above?

Second, do we have any reason to believe that Sylar actually NEEDS to kill people to take their power, rather than just copying it like Peter?

Sure, Sylar thinks he has to kill them and slice their head open (unless he just does the slicing part for fun), but…

-Joe

15

I watched that episode the day you posted it, but I forgot to go back to this thread and answer you.

After Sylar killed Peter, Mohinder knocked Sylar out with the bulletin board. But rather than go over and kill him, he was so devastated by Peter’s death that he was more concerned with getting Peter out of there than dealing with Sylar again.

By the way, Season 2 is on Netflix’s “Watch It Now.” They post the newest episode every Wednesday. For the first time in 15 years, I’m actually able to watch a TV show when everyone else does (I’m a DVD only TV watcher otherwise)!

16

To what question are you referring? How Sylar survived his encounter with Mohinder and Peter? Which encounter with them do you mean? I don’t recall an encounter specifically between those three characters. Peter and Sylar fought in Texas, Mohinder captured Sylar and failed to put a bullet in him, Peter and Sylar fought in NYC and Sylar killed him and then there was the final confrontation in which Sylar was gravely wounded but removed from the scene by Candice. Is there some other encounter that I’m forgetting?

There is dialogue in S1 to the effect that Sylar re-writes his DNA to accomodate gaining the new power. That doesn’t make for a compelling visual, so brain-eating it is.

My WAG-slash-fanwank is that Sylar’s “how things work” power enables him to study the brain structures of other people with powers and then alter his brain to mimic the structures, thus granting him the power. Papa Suresh has dialogue in “Six Months Ago” that fairly strongly indicates that it’s brain chemistry/architecture, as dictated by genes, that result in powers. This continual alteration in brain chemistry/structure, combined with Gabriel’s already-unstable personality, equals a bugshit nutty Sylar.

It would be interesting to see Sylar in a situation where he has to choose, based on the part of his brain that needs to be modified, between keeping an existing power or gaining a new one. That should lock him into a “does-not-compute” loop for a while which would be ever so fun to watch.

17

Oh come on, Mohinder tried shooting Sylar, he tried the drug that was supposed to stop his powers. None of it worked and Sylar had him pinned to the roof, then he goes and kills Peter. If i was Mohinder i would have GTFO also rather than try killing the guy who i already failed miserably at killing and that just killed someone much more powerfull than me. To me what happened made perfect sense.

18

A quick question regarding the region 2 DVD.

The box says it contains the unaired pilot episode. I was wondering if that is the one that starts with the scrolling text “In recent days a seemingly random group of individuals…” and ends with Isaac cutting his hand off?

ETA Actual ending is when the Petrelli brothers are floating in the air.

19

Yes, that is the unaired pilot.

20

Cheers Otto.

I got the first few episodes from torrents, and that was one of them. Watching again, it seems like folks would miss a lot starting at the next episode.