Heroes 1.20 and 1.21: Where do I sign?
1.21 - "The Hard Part" and 1.20 - "Five Years Gone" (hereinafter 5YG)
Okay, I still owe meta on last week, I know. And I'll get there, but this one's fresh in the head and it does impact back on how we understand 1.20, so, I'mma start with it, but they're both mixed in liberally. Before that, a little minor episodic squee.
First, just, holy shit, how is this show so totally awesome?
Second, *pitty-pat-kerplow-splatter!* Oh, Mohinder. How are you still unfucked by the Petrelli brothers SINGLE?
Third, Peter, serious, wear that shirt all the time, mmm-kay?
Fourth, oh, Claire, you really ARE a Petrelli what with that hugeass crush on your uncle and all.
Fifth, hi hulloz. I think we should just rename this episode "The Bad Touch", amirite?
Oh, show. You pretty much pwn me. *pokes finger with a pin* Where's the dotted line?
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All right, fannish silliness sorta out of the way, storyline by storyline:
Ando, Hiro, Sylar: Don't worry New York, I'm going to save you? Oh, Hiro, could you be cuter?
So, right, anyway, Hiro and Ando arrive back in NY on a mission from Future!Hiro to save the world by killing Sylar. They think he's going to be the exploding man. But, in order for Sylar to be the exploding man, he has to take Ted's powers and Ted is still alive. And, Peter has Ted's abilities too. So, they actually have to stop three possible human bombs, and they only know about one. Multiple possibilities for failure there.
Ando, dear soul, tries to convince Hiro to kill Sylar before he's supposed to. And, if he does manage, then Sylar can't kill Ted and take his powers. That leaves Ted who can control his powers and Peter who can't. How much do I love that Hiro's going to follow the Bushido code to the letter, but the prospect of losing Ando is enough to make him kill a penitent man? Of course, Sylar's not exactly penitent at the moment at which he's plunged the scissors into his mother's breast, but that wasn't, entirely, intentional.
Hiro believes he has failed, but as Ando points out, he still has two days. The broken sword - well, he could go back in time to not try to kill Sylar then and thus not have a broken sword.
One thing seems clear here. In order to kill Sylar, he has to do it while time is stopped. We know from GN #31, "Walls" as well as earlier episodes, it's possible to move time-stopped bodies. It seems likely it's also possible to cleave them with a sword then.
Aside: this might explain how Peter got his scar. If Hiro hacked at him during a time-stop it might keep him from healing. (I've seen Niki/Jessica related explanations but according to "Walls" that's not possible. Peter didn't know Niki/Jessica until after he had the scar). Another serious possibility is that Peter learns to control his powers well enough not to use them and chooses not to heal the scar to remind himself of what he almost did.
In any event, Hiro has now seen Peter with a scar that seems obviously to be a sword scar. And Peter and Sylar look enough a like in the comics drawings that people have postulated they're twins (they're not, it seems clear, though he might be a Petrelli or a Petrelli relative if Angela is his mother's sister). Hiro might realize he also needs to stop Peter or he might not.
And, to wrap this one up, Hiro and Ando, along with Linderman, Thompson, and Angela Petrelli (working together now confirmed!) know large swaths of possible futures, whereas Peter, Isaac, Sylar, Nathan, and Claire by extension were given glimpses of it. Hiro tells us that future!Hiro has killed so much he forgot it should be hard. All along, we've trusted future!Hiro because he wants to save the world and he's a good guy. But he may not have all of the picture, and Hiro still needs to get a hold of the sketchbook Isaac gave to the delivery guy…unless those were the ones they get in the future…Anyhow, Hiro studied the future, but he may not have been in possession of all the information. Viz, he doesn't seem to know about Molly and Molly being the only one who can stop Sylar - if in fact she is.
Isaac, Sylar, Gabriel, Gabriel's mom: Isaac, poor dead Isaac. Well, at least you gave your sketchbook away so Sylar wouldn't know how he would die. However, wittingly or un, you've given Sylar the idea that he should become the exploding man, which, maybe, was exactly what you were supposed to do. These predestination paradoxes are a real bitch.
Interestingly, Sylar seems to have a more realistic painterly style than Isaac. He's not a comic book artist. Then again, there's a sort of softening/blurring that has a weirdly Munch-like feel to it. The use of color is all wrong, but the soft-fadey-blur reminds me a little of "The Scream." I'm not sure what that means, except possibly that Isaac died a comic book hero, but Sylar seems to be a real world villain. But that's probably just me.
So Sylar definitely has a thing for Mohinder. By accident, when answer the question of what Mohinder would be if he weren't a geneticist, I've stumbled on what I think is the reason. Mohinder is the seeker and asker of questions. He needs to know how things work, and in that, he is like Sylar.
To go one step further: the watchmaker as god v. the geneticist as god. Mohinder has the potential to do by non-violent means what Sylar must kill to do. Or possibly Mohinder can choose to cure. He's a virtual innocent - like those in NYC Sylar doesn't want to kill - and he could help Sylar which Sylar wants when he is his best self. ETA: Um, all that said, I am not now, nor will I eer be a Mhinder/Sylar shipper.
A lot of people have postulated a split personality or MPDD for Gabriel/Sylar. I just don't think that's right. Sylar consciously chooses to become Gabriel after making a call. It's a disguise, and he's very aware of what he is capable of when he's playing Gabriel. It's true that he initially uses the powers to entertain and amuse his mother, but then goes batshit. We've seen with Peter, though, that controlling the powers takes real work and real desire. Sylar's desire not to do bad things is conspicuously absent on the small scale and he certainly shows a violent streak toward his mother with the tuna sandwich incident.
The mother, clearly, put a lot of pressure on her son (not unlike Angela Petrelli, and not unlike Peter with Claire; the parallels were almost anvillicious, especially with the arrival of counterpoint "good" parent, Mr. Bennet). She had delusions of grandeur and wanted a better life for herself which she foisted onto her son. Between her cruel refusal to tell him that he was good enough as a watchmaker, her serious bad touch habits (c'mon, what mother draws their fingers over her son's mouth like that?), her religious faith (another parallel to la Angela) and the pure amount of clutter in their home? That boys and girls is how serial killers are made.
Sympathy for the devil from me? More than I want to feel, but I'm rapidly cured of that when he's painting in his mama's blood and threatening my boyfriend Nathan. Also, the fact that he could be responsible for killing Ando - the best good guy on the show - really puts a dent in that. But even more so, the fact remains: he's got no qualms about killing for a purpose - his purpose, which is taking the powers of the unworthy, and he sets himself up as judge, jury and executioner there. He isn't against killing the people in NYC so much because it's wrong, although he seems to have some understanding of that, as he's against killing them because they're innocent and it doesn't serve his purpose. Which says to me that if he had a purpose to kill them, he'd be perfectly willing to do it. And, in fact, once he decides "he can even be President," he has a purpose: blow up NYC and somehow take power.
Note: the line that he could even be President… while it's chilling because we know he was in 5YG, he doesn't yet know that Nathan will be President some day. And, even assuming he identifies him in some painting or other, he doesn’t yet have Candace's power, so killing Nathan does him no good even if he does know. Also, because he doesn't have Matt's power, killing Nathan wouldn't give him access to everything Nathan knows. So, this is a backwards explanation in part, I suppose, for why I think in 5YG Nathan had done at least some of the work of becoming President himself before Sylar took over, and probably a lot of it, since Hiro and HRG both thought Candace was still alive (which suggests she wasn't likely dead for long before the time period of 5YG).
Anyhow, now that Sylar's killed his mother, what's presumably his last tie to any kind of "normal" life is gone. He's become unrepentant. I expect him to become a bit reckless, acting on the information in the paintings without a clear understanding of what they mean. It won't stop him from doing a bunch of damage, but it's interesting to see that foreknowledge of the future may hinder as much as help.
Mohinder, Thompson, Molly, Sylar: So, before the hiatus, my other boyfriend Mohinder showed his true colors in attempting to save Peter from Sylar even though he couldn't possibly harm Sylar indefinitely. He takes him out with a freestanding blackboard (mapstand?), takes Peter's body (so Sylar can't take his brain), and takes the computer (the list, so Sylar can't have that though he does have Charlie's instant recall now, so more likely the genetics info). Go Mohinder!
This past week, we see that he followed Nathan into hell because he believed Nathan was trying to do good for the world - and because it gave him money to do his research. Also, because Nathan and he became lovers friends and kept each other's secrets.
Some people think this was all Sylar, and Mohinder got duped all along. Possible, but for the reasons I suggested above, I don't think so. I think Nathan and Mohinder did work together as an outgrowth of the character arc established when they go together to look for Peter, and Sylar came in to prey upon that close in time to 5YG. Another reason for this is that "Nathan's" actions in 5YG represent a significant departure from his behavior of the previous five years. Sylar cruised around and picked up powers and once he had his fill, he took Nathan's and took his place then set out to "eliminate the competition."
And though Sylar, once he had Candace's power (and possibly Claude's), could come and go as he pleased, Nathan would still be monitored 24x7. Sure, Sylar could sneak away from time to time, but Candace's powers require her to be present in order to use them, so he couldn't simply project that Nathan was there and all was well. Possibly if he had Micah's power too, he could make the surveillance tapes show continuous loops, etc., but it would be very restrictive for Sylar to have to be President Petrelli all the time, and without being a mindreader, there'd be lots he didn't know that would eventually cause problems. If he weren't susceptible to any of these things, he'd be too perfect a villain.
Hm, long digression, basically to say that while Mohinder got duped again, I don't think he and "Nathan" had been traipsing down the worst possible path for five years. Like the SG1 episode that aired the same week, in which General Hammond and President Landry had been led into martial law etc by Orii attacks, Nathan and Mohinder did what had to be done. Or rather, what it seemed they had to do. Even before the specific order to kill Hiro, Mohinder had begun to resist Nathan's plans and orders. He went to learn what he could, and when he saw that the world might be saved, he absolutely refused the kill order and saved the world instead but taking out The Haitian and letting Hiro go. Note that even though he'd die and had no chance against them, Mohinder spent his last minutes throwing himself against the door to buy more time. Go Mohinder!
Another aside here: I saw some people complaining about The Haitian's role in things. I expect to find out that he's related to the Petrellis in some way (Angela's son? Because, y'know, hey, that would make Claire/The Haitian into Petrellicest too and that's just too cool to pass up. *g*) or indebted to them thus explaining why he seems to be at first Angela then Nathan's (in 5YG) behest. I think the reason we don't know his name yet is that it's a secret - rather like Claire's paternity was. And, also, I don't think Mohinder killed him in 5YG. We've already seen Mohinder use drugs to knock out Sylar. If Mohinder chose not to kill an innocent Hiro, there's no reason to believe he would make killing The Haitian his first choice.
Anyhow….back to this episode: Mohinder finally wised up about Primatech. Calling them "goondas" which from my handy-dandy Indian-English dictionary is Hindi for member of a crime gang; hired muscle; thug; troublemaker. He's being played, yes, but he realizes now that his knowledge is power and he's determined to stop Sylar. He finally has a goal around which to wrap his brain and for someone like Mohinder, an idealist crusader, having a specific cause is a good thing. Regardless of whether helping Linderman et al is the best plan, he does help save Molly. The question of whether he will then save Molly from being used by Linderman and company remains, obviously, open.
Squee moment: OMGSOCUTEWITHTHEHUGGING. I am MADE of flail over Mohinder and little Molly Walker. That was some of the best and sweetest coverage that we've yet had on Heroes, imo, and it made a nice inverse parallel to Peter and Claire. Mohinder's saving Molly who wants to save the world. Claire may have to kill Peter who wants to save the world. But also, Peter has to coach her on how to do it. Anyway, yes, onwards.
Another squee moment: OMGHECALLEDHIMAVIGILANTE. Batman! He's gonna make more mistakes before he gets there, but it could be. It really could. S'all I'm sayin'.
Aside: I do wish they'd bring back Sanjog, the dreaming kid. He'd be interesting to have around right now.
HRG, Parkman, Ted: Not really a whole lot here, IMO, except that Ted's developing solid control of his powers under HRG's tutelage, so likely Matt is also.
Oh, fuck me wide. The "walker system" they're going to take out? Is MOLLY. Molly WALKER.
Matt and Ted definitely don't know it's a little girl (Matt will recognize her when they see her, since he saved her the first time), but HRG maybe does, since he maybe would've taken custody of her for Linderman and Thompson. Maybe he doesn't, but he knows that the system can find them anywhere. Since they were wound up about being tagged, he might well lie to them by calling Molly a "system." It's not clear whether he'll take the girl and place her with a family who don't know about her ability like was done with Claire or he'll just have them kill her.
Finding out whether he knows or not will say a lot about HRG as a person. We know he'll do whatever he has to to protect Claire. But where he actually stands on "special abilities" is a closed book at the moment. He's definitely using Ted and Matt.
Aside from that, not much there, though the reunion with Claire as a means of bringing Ted and Peter together was particularly sweet and very well executed.
Candace, Niki, DL, Micah: I wish I thought this more interesting than I do. The revelation that Linderman's been watching them since they were kids is interesting, but not surprising. DL calls them a science experiment, but I'm inclined to go with breeding and the study of lineages. It seems possible that getting them together to produce Micah is the result of some study of the future that requires him, especially since Linderman feels he needs to have Micah in NYC for the big showdown.
I've been thinking a bit about that. Micah's a technopath, meaning he can make machines do what he wants them to. His power is similar to Hana's, in that he can probably cause communication devices to do what he wants them to do. I can see at least three possible reasons to want Micah on the ground for the showdown and election: (1) to rig the voting - and this seems most likely; Micah is his insurance for Nathan's victory; (2) to interrupt broadcasting or other camera related security devices at some critical point; and (3) to direct machines, etc., to interfere with Ted, Sylar, and Peter once Molly locates them.
Oh, Petrellicests: gods, where to even start here…?
Well, it seems clear that Heidi doesn't know about Claire yet and likely Nathan's been told to keep it that way in case Heidi goes batshit about it and takes it to the press. Although, I had a moment where Nathan said "do you wanna see what I got you?" where I thought the answer was going to be "a big sister." Still, I think not.
From the photos of Angela with the boys - last episode? I saw them in some icons and I can't remember where they came from - and the strangely grandmotherly clothing routine with Claire (and that was a nice coat), along with her various "moments" over Peter (who "has always been her favorite" - of what? It no longer seems as simple as "her sons," especially if maybe The Haitian is one of them as well. But maybe she's just talking about the special kids as a group), we're being shown a very complex character. Like Linderman and HRG, her motives seem to be mixed.
I'd still like to know what her powers are, if any. Twice now they've teased us with them - her standing up to tell Claire she made mistakes and taking off her gloves when she tells Nathan he doesn't know all there is to know about her (also, that's a visual reference to her hands/gloves after a verbal reference to gloves with Claire, which, given the tight construction of the show, doesn't seem accidental…at all).
It's confirmed now that she's in on this with Linderman and Nakamura. And it seems that Thompson - from his talk with Nathan - should be considered among the upper echelon. It'll be interesting to find out who the "many others" who've worked hard to get them to this point are, and, in the end, what "this point" actually is. More on that in conclusion.
Nathan isn't among the upper echelon, but he's been told a lot more than anyone else knows. He's being asked to make a sacrifice and let the bomb go off. Is given the Truman speech (and I half expected to hear Coventry trotted out as well) and told great men are always misunderstood.
I think it's interesting that when Peter and Claire try to persuade him, his first call is to Linderman - because they have a problem. We're not told what the problem is, but I think the fact that there's another possible bomb, not Peter, is what's in his mind. Not necessarily the fact that Claire and Peter are off to try to stop it. Because he doesn't interfere with them at all or try to prevent it.
He says to Thompson that he doesn't think Linderman has it all under control - I think he's right. There are threads that future!Hiro seems to have missed and if there's one thing we learn from his tracking, it seems that there are many points and possibilities. And from when he stops time, we learn it's difficult to change - sticky. Thus maybe stopping Peter or Sylar from exploding only stops them, and others might rise up in their place because of that stickiness in the timelines. And, further, future!Hiro was worried about causing a "rift" by warning Peter.
Nice parallel to Hiro asking Peter if he'll be the one they need with Ma Petrelli asking if Nathan will be the one they need. And, when combined with Sylar's "brother against brother" in 5YG, it begins to look like Peter is the champion of choice for the forces of good and Nathan for the forces of evil. But, y'know, I don't think it's that simple, I just don't.
Why tell Nathan he might have to sacrifice his brother and all of NYC knowing that he's going to have serious qualms about it. Why give him information that he could use to prevent the bomb? Why not just keep him ignorant and then put him in place? Nathan likes power, but he'd be a lot more biddable if he didn't know who pulled his strings and how hard. This makes me wonder if they don't want Nathan to do something rather than nothing. What will it be?
If Peter's so all-fired determined not to blow up NYC, one wonders why he doesn't just leave for awhile. Like Sylar who could choose not to take Ted's powers, it seems like Peter could choose not to be there when the explosion is supposed to happen. The introduction of Ted makes it more plausible that Peter would want to stay, because he believes Ted wants to blow up the city and he has to take Ted's powers.
Oh for the love of SPN parallels! Claire having to maybe kill Peter if she can't save him is just almost too much after Mohinder-on-the-ceiling (Peter/Sam's girlfriend *g*) and Claire's mother "dying in a fire".
For those inclined to worry, Peter's not actually asking her to kill him. If she puts a bullet in his brain from a safe distance, it's likely once it's removed, he'll heal himself again. Unless his brain splatters everywhere and can't be restored? I think he's thinking there's a decent chance it'll stop him but he can heal from it. He knows that knocking him out will stop him…
Which reminds me. Where's Claude?
Aside: and, oh, interesting. Peter says "you know the spot" meaning there's likely a specific spot in the brain that - no, not kills him - controls the use of the special abilities. Which spot, likely, is what Sylar's getting at when he takes the brains. By parting them from their brains, he ensures they aren't able to use their powers against him. And, also, he sees how they tick that way. Possibly he's using the brain tissue to do some sort of gene therapy on himself, but it's not yet clear how.
Um, right, where was I. Peter and Claire and Nathan and Angela and a whole slew of bad touching. Seriously, Peter, back of the hand stroking your niece's tears away? BAD touch. That's a lover's touch. And, puhlease, "I thought I was alone until I found you"? Cue romantic music. They're just the model of a sweet little love story in the making. Too bad about that incest, huh? (Not that it'll stop me, and not that I'd even be interested were it not for the potential angstorama.)
Oh, but wait there's more! We get Papa!Nathan saying Claire's been through a lot, done a lot, been brave. And, no, he's not proud of her. He admires that. Cue romantic music again.
Is it a battle between brother's for Claire's body heart and mind? Probably not, since there's also the Peter/Nathan bad-touching. Which, oddly, there was very little of in this episode. Although there was the very pretty "trust me, Nathan" line, and Nathan's apparent choice to do that. To me, that says more about the evolution of the power balance in their relationship as anything else. But it was a good moment.
And then, finally, Peter getting Ted's power and trying to control it; HRG shouldn't be so busy hugging his daughter that he can't help him. Also, they're standing right there, so knocking him out should be feasible. Notice, though, that if Peter manages to learn to control the abilities, that means that Sylar probably has to kill Ted and become the bomb. But if the becomes the bomb and he hasn't taken Claire's power, then he'll probably die.
Very very twisty.
All right, in the end I'm left with this speculation: all along we've been led to believe that Linderman wants the human bomb to go off. Maybe he does. Maybe he needs it to put Nathan into power. But maybe he and others, or maybe others without him are playing a deeper game. Maybe they need all the pieces assembled to stop this from happening - why the obsession with Molly if not to be able to locate Peter, Ted, and/or Sylar? And why the desire to locate them if not to intervene. True, it's possible they might just want her to be the "Walker system" and locate all the special girls and boys. But I'm still left wondering why they'd tell Nathan at all, rather than shipping him off to somewhere with Heidi for awhile, unless they're counting on Peter telling him and trying to explain to Nathan why he can't just take Peter away from there.
IMO, it's just not all that clear that "the Linderman cartel" want NYC to blow up. And if they do, I expect we'll learn the reasons were a lot more specific than "people needed a rallying point".
That's it, that's all. I'm exhausted. I'm sure I'll think of more to say tomorrow, and possibly some meta on Mohinder, but for now, that's a wrap.
Bombs away? *koff*
Okay, I still owe meta on last week, I know. And I'll get there, but this one's fresh in the head and it does impact back on how we understand 1.20, so, I'mma start with it, but they're both mixed in liberally. Before that, a little minor episodic squee.
First, just, holy shit, how is this show so totally awesome?
Second, *pitty-pat-kerplow-splatter!* Oh, Mohinder. How are you still unfucked by the Petrelli brothers SINGLE?
Third, Peter, serious, wear that shirt all the time, mmm-kay?
Fourth, oh, Claire, you really ARE a Petrelli what with that hugeass crush on your uncle and all.
Fifth, hi hulloz. I think we should just rename this episode "The Bad Touch", amirite?
Oh, show. You pretty much pwn me. *pokes finger with a pin* Where's the dotted line?
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All right, fannish silliness sorta out of the way, storyline by storyline:
Ando, Hiro, Sylar: Don't worry New York, I'm going to save you? Oh, Hiro, could you be cuter?
So, right, anyway, Hiro and Ando arrive back in NY on a mission from Future!Hiro to save the world by killing Sylar. They think he's going to be the exploding man. But, in order for Sylar to be the exploding man, he has to take Ted's powers and Ted is still alive. And, Peter has Ted's abilities too. So, they actually have to stop three possible human bombs, and they only know about one. Multiple possibilities for failure there.
Ando, dear soul, tries to convince Hiro to kill Sylar before he's supposed to. And, if he does manage, then Sylar can't kill Ted and take his powers. That leaves Ted who can control his powers and Peter who can't. How much do I love that Hiro's going to follow the Bushido code to the letter, but the prospect of losing Ando is enough to make him kill a penitent man? Of course, Sylar's not exactly penitent at the moment at which he's plunged the scissors into his mother's breast, but that wasn't, entirely, intentional.
Hiro believes he has failed, but as Ando points out, he still has two days. The broken sword - well, he could go back in time to not try to kill Sylar then and thus not have a broken sword.
One thing seems clear here. In order to kill Sylar, he has to do it while time is stopped. We know from GN #31, "Walls" as well as earlier episodes, it's possible to move time-stopped bodies. It seems likely it's also possible to cleave them with a sword then.
Aside: this might explain how Peter got his scar. If Hiro hacked at him during a time-stop it might keep him from healing. (I've seen Niki/Jessica related explanations but according to "Walls" that's not possible. Peter didn't know Niki/Jessica until after he had the scar). Another serious possibility is that Peter learns to control his powers well enough not to use them and chooses not to heal the scar to remind himself of what he almost did.
In any event, Hiro has now seen Peter with a scar that seems obviously to be a sword scar. And Peter and Sylar look enough a like in the comics drawings that people have postulated they're twins (they're not, it seems clear, though he might be a Petrelli or a Petrelli relative if Angela is his mother's sister). Hiro might realize he also needs to stop Peter or he might not.
And, to wrap this one up, Hiro and Ando, along with Linderman, Thompson, and Angela Petrelli (working together now confirmed!) know large swaths of possible futures, whereas Peter, Isaac, Sylar, Nathan, and Claire by extension were given glimpses of it. Hiro tells us that future!Hiro has killed so much he forgot it should be hard. All along, we've trusted future!Hiro because he wants to save the world and he's a good guy. But he may not have all of the picture, and Hiro still needs to get a hold of the sketchbook Isaac gave to the delivery guy…unless those were the ones they get in the future…Anyhow, Hiro studied the future, but he may not have been in possession of all the information. Viz, he doesn't seem to know about Molly and Molly being the only one who can stop Sylar - if in fact she is.
Isaac, Sylar, Gabriel, Gabriel's mom: Isaac, poor dead Isaac. Well, at least you gave your sketchbook away so Sylar wouldn't know how he would die. However, wittingly or un, you've given Sylar the idea that he should become the exploding man, which, maybe, was exactly what you were supposed to do. These predestination paradoxes are a real bitch.
Interestingly, Sylar seems to have a more realistic painterly style than Isaac. He's not a comic book artist. Then again, there's a sort of softening/blurring that has a weirdly Munch-like feel to it. The use of color is all wrong, but the soft-fadey-blur reminds me a little of "The Scream." I'm not sure what that means, except possibly that Isaac died a comic book hero, but Sylar seems to be a real world villain. But that's probably just me.
So Sylar definitely has a thing for Mohinder. By accident, when answer the question of what Mohinder would be if he weren't a geneticist, I've stumbled on what I think is the reason. Mohinder is the seeker and asker of questions. He needs to know how things work, and in that, he is like Sylar.
To go one step further: the watchmaker as god v. the geneticist as god. Mohinder has the potential to do by non-violent means what Sylar must kill to do. Or possibly Mohinder can choose to cure. He's a virtual innocent - like those in NYC Sylar doesn't want to kill - and he could help Sylar which Sylar wants when he is his best self. ETA: Um, all that said, I am not now, nor will I eer be a Mhinder/Sylar shipper.
A lot of people have postulated a split personality or MPDD for Gabriel/Sylar. I just don't think that's right. Sylar consciously chooses to become Gabriel after making a call. It's a disguise, and he's very aware of what he is capable of when he's playing Gabriel. It's true that he initially uses the powers to entertain and amuse his mother, but then goes batshit. We've seen with Peter, though, that controlling the powers takes real work and real desire. Sylar's desire not to do bad things is conspicuously absent on the small scale and he certainly shows a violent streak toward his mother with the tuna sandwich incident.
The mother, clearly, put a lot of pressure on her son (not unlike Angela Petrelli, and not unlike Peter with Claire; the parallels were almost anvillicious, especially with the arrival of counterpoint "good" parent, Mr. Bennet). She had delusions of grandeur and wanted a better life for herself which she foisted onto her son. Between her cruel refusal to tell him that he was good enough as a watchmaker, her serious bad touch habits (c'mon, what mother draws their fingers over her son's mouth like that?), her religious faith (another parallel to la Angela) and the pure amount of clutter in their home? That boys and girls is how serial killers are made.
Sympathy for the devil from me? More than I want to feel, but I'm rapidly cured of that when he's painting in his mama's blood and threatening my boyfriend Nathan. Also, the fact that he could be responsible for killing Ando - the best good guy on the show - really puts a dent in that. But even more so, the fact remains: he's got no qualms about killing for a purpose - his purpose, which is taking the powers of the unworthy, and he sets himself up as judge, jury and executioner there. He isn't against killing the people in NYC so much because it's wrong, although he seems to have some understanding of that, as he's against killing them because they're innocent and it doesn't serve his purpose. Which says to me that if he had a purpose to kill them, he'd be perfectly willing to do it. And, in fact, once he decides "he can even be President," he has a purpose: blow up NYC and somehow take power.
Note: the line that he could even be President… while it's chilling because we know he was in 5YG, he doesn't yet know that Nathan will be President some day. And, even assuming he identifies him in some painting or other, he doesn’t yet have Candace's power, so killing Nathan does him no good even if he does know. Also, because he doesn't have Matt's power, killing Nathan wouldn't give him access to everything Nathan knows. So, this is a backwards explanation in part, I suppose, for why I think in 5YG Nathan had done at least some of the work of becoming President himself before Sylar took over, and probably a lot of it, since Hiro and HRG both thought Candace was still alive (which suggests she wasn't likely dead for long before the time period of 5YG).
Anyhow, now that Sylar's killed his mother, what's presumably his last tie to any kind of "normal" life is gone. He's become unrepentant. I expect him to become a bit reckless, acting on the information in the paintings without a clear understanding of what they mean. It won't stop him from doing a bunch of damage, but it's interesting to see that foreknowledge of the future may hinder as much as help.
Mohinder, Thompson, Molly, Sylar: So, before the hiatus, my other boyfriend Mohinder showed his true colors in attempting to save Peter from Sylar even though he couldn't possibly harm Sylar indefinitely. He takes him out with a freestanding blackboard (mapstand?), takes Peter's body (so Sylar can't take his brain), and takes the computer (the list, so Sylar can't have that though he does have Charlie's instant recall now, so more likely the genetics info). Go Mohinder!
This past week, we see that he followed Nathan into hell because he believed Nathan was trying to do good for the world - and because it gave him money to do his research. Also, because Nathan and he became lovers friends and kept each other's secrets.
Some people think this was all Sylar, and Mohinder got duped all along. Possible, but for the reasons I suggested above, I don't think so. I think Nathan and Mohinder did work together as an outgrowth of the character arc established when they go together to look for Peter, and Sylar came in to prey upon that close in time to 5YG. Another reason for this is that "Nathan's" actions in 5YG represent a significant departure from his behavior of the previous five years. Sylar cruised around and picked up powers and once he had his fill, he took Nathan's and took his place then set out to "eliminate the competition."
And though Sylar, once he had Candace's power (and possibly Claude's), could come and go as he pleased, Nathan would still be monitored 24x7. Sure, Sylar could sneak away from time to time, but Candace's powers require her to be present in order to use them, so he couldn't simply project that Nathan was there and all was well. Possibly if he had Micah's power too, he could make the surveillance tapes show continuous loops, etc., but it would be very restrictive for Sylar to have to be President Petrelli all the time, and without being a mindreader, there'd be lots he didn't know that would eventually cause problems. If he weren't susceptible to any of these things, he'd be too perfect a villain.
Hm, long digression, basically to say that while Mohinder got duped again, I don't think he and "Nathan" had been traipsing down the worst possible path for five years. Like the SG1 episode that aired the same week, in which General Hammond and President Landry had been led into martial law etc by Orii attacks, Nathan and Mohinder did what had to be done. Or rather, what it seemed they had to do. Even before the specific order to kill Hiro, Mohinder had begun to resist Nathan's plans and orders. He went to learn what he could, and when he saw that the world might be saved, he absolutely refused the kill order and saved the world instead but taking out The Haitian and letting Hiro go. Note that even though he'd die and had no chance against them, Mohinder spent his last minutes throwing himself against the door to buy more time. Go Mohinder!
Another aside here: I saw some people complaining about The Haitian's role in things. I expect to find out that he's related to the Petrellis in some way (Angela's son? Because, y'know, hey, that would make Claire/The Haitian into Petrellicest too and that's just too cool to pass up. *g*) or indebted to them thus explaining why he seems to be at first Angela then Nathan's (in 5YG) behest. I think the reason we don't know his name yet is that it's a secret - rather like Claire's paternity was. And, also, I don't think Mohinder killed him in 5YG. We've already seen Mohinder use drugs to knock out Sylar. If Mohinder chose not to kill an innocent Hiro, there's no reason to believe he would make killing The Haitian his first choice.
Anyhow….back to this episode: Mohinder finally wised up about Primatech. Calling them "goondas" which from my handy-dandy Indian-English dictionary is Hindi for member of a crime gang; hired muscle; thug; troublemaker. He's being played, yes, but he realizes now that his knowledge is power and he's determined to stop Sylar. He finally has a goal around which to wrap his brain and for someone like Mohinder, an idealist crusader, having a specific cause is a good thing. Regardless of whether helping Linderman et al is the best plan, he does help save Molly. The question of whether he will then save Molly from being used by Linderman and company remains, obviously, open.
Squee moment: OMGSOCUTEWITHTHEHUGGING. I am MADE of flail over Mohinder and little Molly Walker. That was some of the best and sweetest coverage that we've yet had on Heroes, imo, and it made a nice inverse parallel to Peter and Claire. Mohinder's saving Molly who wants to save the world. Claire may have to kill Peter who wants to save the world. But also, Peter has to coach her on how to do it. Anyway, yes, onwards.
Another squee moment: OMGHECALLEDHIMAVIGILANTE. Batman! He's gonna make more mistakes before he gets there, but it could be. It really could. S'all I'm sayin'.
Aside: I do wish they'd bring back Sanjog, the dreaming kid. He'd be interesting to have around right now.
HRG, Parkman, Ted: Not really a whole lot here, IMO, except that Ted's developing solid control of his powers under HRG's tutelage, so likely Matt is also.
Oh, fuck me wide. The "walker system" they're going to take out? Is MOLLY. Molly WALKER.
Matt and Ted definitely don't know it's a little girl (Matt will recognize her when they see her, since he saved her the first time), but HRG maybe does, since he maybe would've taken custody of her for Linderman and Thompson. Maybe he doesn't, but he knows that the system can find them anywhere. Since they were wound up about being tagged, he might well lie to them by calling Molly a "system." It's not clear whether he'll take the girl and place her with a family who don't know about her ability like was done with Claire or he'll just have them kill her.
Finding out whether he knows or not will say a lot about HRG as a person. We know he'll do whatever he has to to protect Claire. But where he actually stands on "special abilities" is a closed book at the moment. He's definitely using Ted and Matt.
Aside from that, not much there, though the reunion with Claire as a means of bringing Ted and Peter together was particularly sweet and very well executed.
Candace, Niki, DL, Micah: I wish I thought this more interesting than I do. The revelation that Linderman's been watching them since they were kids is interesting, but not surprising. DL calls them a science experiment, but I'm inclined to go with breeding and the study of lineages. It seems possible that getting them together to produce Micah is the result of some study of the future that requires him, especially since Linderman feels he needs to have Micah in NYC for the big showdown.
I've been thinking a bit about that. Micah's a technopath, meaning he can make machines do what he wants them to. His power is similar to Hana's, in that he can probably cause communication devices to do what he wants them to do. I can see at least three possible reasons to want Micah on the ground for the showdown and election: (1) to rig the voting - and this seems most likely; Micah is his insurance for Nathan's victory; (2) to interrupt broadcasting or other camera related security devices at some critical point; and (3) to direct machines, etc., to interfere with Ted, Sylar, and Peter once Molly locates them.
Oh, Petrellicests: gods, where to even start here…?
Well, it seems clear that Heidi doesn't know about Claire yet and likely Nathan's been told to keep it that way in case Heidi goes batshit about it and takes it to the press. Although, I had a moment where Nathan said "do you wanna see what I got you?" where I thought the answer was going to be "a big sister." Still, I think not.
From the photos of Angela with the boys - last episode? I saw them in some icons and I can't remember where they came from - and the strangely grandmotherly clothing routine with Claire (and that was a nice coat), along with her various "moments" over Peter (who "has always been her favorite" - of what? It no longer seems as simple as "her sons," especially if maybe The Haitian is one of them as well. But maybe she's just talking about the special kids as a group), we're being shown a very complex character. Like Linderman and HRG, her motives seem to be mixed.
I'd still like to know what her powers are, if any. Twice now they've teased us with them - her standing up to tell Claire she made mistakes and taking off her gloves when she tells Nathan he doesn't know all there is to know about her (also, that's a visual reference to her hands/gloves after a verbal reference to gloves with Claire, which, given the tight construction of the show, doesn't seem accidental…at all).
It's confirmed now that she's in on this with Linderman and Nakamura. And it seems that Thompson - from his talk with Nathan - should be considered among the upper echelon. It'll be interesting to find out who the "many others" who've worked hard to get them to this point are, and, in the end, what "this point" actually is. More on that in conclusion.
Nathan isn't among the upper echelon, but he's been told a lot more than anyone else knows. He's being asked to make a sacrifice and let the bomb go off. Is given the Truman speech (and I half expected to hear Coventry trotted out as well) and told great men are always misunderstood.
I think it's interesting that when Peter and Claire try to persuade him, his first call is to Linderman - because they have a problem. We're not told what the problem is, but I think the fact that there's another possible bomb, not Peter, is what's in his mind. Not necessarily the fact that Claire and Peter are off to try to stop it. Because he doesn't interfere with them at all or try to prevent it.
He says to Thompson that he doesn't think Linderman has it all under control - I think he's right. There are threads that future!Hiro seems to have missed and if there's one thing we learn from his tracking, it seems that there are many points and possibilities. And from when he stops time, we learn it's difficult to change - sticky. Thus maybe stopping Peter or Sylar from exploding only stops them, and others might rise up in their place because of that stickiness in the timelines. And, further, future!Hiro was worried about causing a "rift" by warning Peter.
Nice parallel to Hiro asking Peter if he'll be the one they need with Ma Petrelli asking if Nathan will be the one they need. And, when combined with Sylar's "brother against brother" in 5YG, it begins to look like Peter is the champion of choice for the forces of good and Nathan for the forces of evil. But, y'know, I don't think it's that simple, I just don't.
Why tell Nathan he might have to sacrifice his brother and all of NYC knowing that he's going to have serious qualms about it. Why give him information that he could use to prevent the bomb? Why not just keep him ignorant and then put him in place? Nathan likes power, but he'd be a lot more biddable if he didn't know who pulled his strings and how hard. This makes me wonder if they don't want Nathan to do something rather than nothing. What will it be?
If Peter's so all-fired determined not to blow up NYC, one wonders why he doesn't just leave for awhile. Like Sylar who could choose not to take Ted's powers, it seems like Peter could choose not to be there when the explosion is supposed to happen. The introduction of Ted makes it more plausible that Peter would want to stay, because he believes Ted wants to blow up the city and he has to take Ted's powers.
Oh for the love of SPN parallels! Claire having to maybe kill Peter if she can't save him is just almost too much after Mohinder-on-the-ceiling (Peter/Sam's girlfriend *g*) and Claire's mother "dying in a fire".
For those inclined to worry, Peter's not actually asking her to kill him. If she puts a bullet in his brain from a safe distance, it's likely once it's removed, he'll heal himself again. Unless his brain splatters everywhere and can't be restored? I think he's thinking there's a decent chance it'll stop him but he can heal from it. He knows that knocking him out will stop him…
Which reminds me. Where's Claude?
Aside: and, oh, interesting. Peter says "you know the spot" meaning there's likely a specific spot in the brain that - no, not kills him - controls the use of the special abilities. Which spot, likely, is what Sylar's getting at when he takes the brains. By parting them from their brains, he ensures they aren't able to use their powers against him. And, also, he sees how they tick that way. Possibly he's using the brain tissue to do some sort of gene therapy on himself, but it's not yet clear how.
Um, right, where was I. Peter and Claire and Nathan and Angela and a whole slew of bad touching. Seriously, Peter, back of the hand stroking your niece's tears away? BAD touch. That's a lover's touch. And, puhlease, "I thought I was alone until I found you"? Cue romantic music. They're just the model of a sweet little love story in the making. Too bad about that incest, huh? (Not that it'll stop me, and not that I'd even be interested were it not for the potential angstorama.)
Oh, but wait there's more! We get Papa!Nathan saying Claire's been through a lot, done a lot, been brave. And, no, he's not proud of her. He admires that. Cue romantic music again.
Is it a battle between brother's for Claire's body heart and mind? Probably not, since there's also the Peter/Nathan bad-touching. Which, oddly, there was very little of in this episode. Although there was the very pretty "trust me, Nathan" line, and Nathan's apparent choice to do that. To me, that says more about the evolution of the power balance in their relationship as anything else. But it was a good moment.
And then, finally, Peter getting Ted's power and trying to control it; HRG shouldn't be so busy hugging his daughter that he can't help him. Also, they're standing right there, so knocking him out should be feasible. Notice, though, that if Peter manages to learn to control the abilities, that means that Sylar probably has to kill Ted and become the bomb. But if the becomes the bomb and he hasn't taken Claire's power, then he'll probably die.
Very very twisty.
All right, in the end I'm left with this speculation: all along we've been led to believe that Linderman wants the human bomb to go off. Maybe he does. Maybe he needs it to put Nathan into power. But maybe he and others, or maybe others without him are playing a deeper game. Maybe they need all the pieces assembled to stop this from happening - why the obsession with Molly if not to be able to locate Peter, Ted, and/or Sylar? And why the desire to locate them if not to intervene. True, it's possible they might just want her to be the "Walker system" and locate all the special girls and boys. But I'm still left wondering why they'd tell Nathan at all, rather than shipping him off to somewhere with Heidi for awhile, unless they're counting on Peter telling him and trying to explain to Nathan why he can't just take Peter away from there.
IMO, it's just not all that clear that "the Linderman cartel" want NYC to blow up. And if they do, I expect we'll learn the reasons were a lot more specific than "people needed a rallying point".
That's it, that's all. I'm exhausted. I'm sure I'll think of more to say tomorrow, and possibly some meta on Mohinder, but for now, that's a wrap.
Bombs away? *koff*