Heroes ***spoilers***

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Ok, I'll finally chime in on this. Just saw the recent episode, and I must say, it was probably one of my favorite's yet.

The one thing I didn't really like too much was that Peter figured out (somehow) that he absorbs others powers. Now, I took Peter to be a rather dim-witted guy who was just to over-zealous for his own good. And speaking of that scene where Claire runs off to get help, it would seem that the power(s) he absorbs is still around for a while even after the other super(s) have left. As you can see when he twists his foot back into place before the police arrest him (oh dear!).

I'm definately liking how the characters stories are starting to all come together. With Peter meeting Ando, and then going to Odessa to save the cheerleader. That was a fun few scenes.

I am still a bit unclear about this hatian dude. Does he make people sleep? And if so, did he need the help of that woman's persuasion ability to really knock Sylar out? If so, Sylar is much to powerful for anyone's own good!

Will the heros have to make a great decision and kill the Nuclear Man? What was that painting of? Some crazy red-energy being thingy.

Ent: Zach is certainly quite gay. It's rather obvious after a while of listening to how he talks to Claire when he comes to "rescue" her.

Nessa: We see the picture earlier in the episode without Hiro. Then at the end we see Hiro in the same picture.

[stacer]

That was an awesome episode, except for one thing: Peter told Claire to run off by herself to get the police. He had no idea where Sylar was (he obviously wasn't dead), and no idea if it was safe anymore, and he still needed her regen powers, and they were both covered with blood, and--worst of all--he didn't have a good reason to stay behind.

I was thinking this exact same thing when I finally watched it yesterday. Hello, you're telling her to run off into the dark?! He might be out there!

[House of Mustard]

I was kind of bummed by last night's episode.  I mean, it was cool, but now Sylar doesn't seem nearly as scary as he used to.  It was interesting, but kind of a letdown.

[Fellfrosch]

I actually loved everything about last night's episode--I didn't think the Sylar stuff was a letdown at all. He was very creepy, long before his powers showed up, and the idea that he doesn't have any powers at all if he doesn't kill people and eat their brains is pretty cool. It enhanced his spooky serial killer vibe, which I admit I'm partial to.

What was awesome about that episode, though, was everyone else's stories. We got stunningly perfect explanations for so many things:

Nathan hates flying because he blames it for his wife's accident. That made Nathan seem a lot more human, and made his "flying is stupid" attitude actually make sense.

Hiro told Peter to save the cheerleader because he couldn't do it himself, because he can't change the past directly. It's always bugged me that a cool dude with a sword who could travel through time didn't just pop into the past and save Claire; now we know why. Also, Charlie was an awesome character and her relationship with Hiro will certainly have a big impact on him. He's sat by twice so far while people were killed, without doing anything, and I don't think that will happen again.

Niki had a split personality long before her power showed up. I can't think of a better explanation for Jessica than the "dead sister and abusive father" angle they revealed last night. It doesn't make sense that a mutant superpower would involve a second personality (that was one of the big reasons I didn't like the character), but if the personality was already there due to prior trauma, it makes perfect sense that it would trigger when she Hulks out. That the second personality is abused, jaded, and violent makes the whole thing work really well. I was quite pleased.

On top of those explanations,  we learned lots of other things: that Mr. Bennet has been dealing with superheroes long before Suresh; a little more about Eden's past (and that she looks twenty times better with long hair); a little more about the cop (who's name I still don't know: Matt?), and we've seen a second oracular dream by Peter. That's still at "coincidence" level, but it could develop into something interesting.

As for Sylar, I'm really surprised that you didn't like his backstory. What were you expecting?

[Tink]

I found Sylar very creepy and I like the explanation for why he's going around killing supers (and not just because they're super). It makes me dislike him even more. It also makes me wonder what all his abilities are.

[House of Mustard]

I think the backstory for Sylar changed him from monstrous to serial killer.  To me, he'd always seemed to be the monstrous, irrational-killer bad guy, while other people (Linderman, possibly?) seemed to be the more cerebral bad guys.

I think it's just the old monster-movie thing: the less you see the monster, the scarier he is.  When you see him--and see that he can be understood--he is less scary.  Don't get me wrong--it was a great backstory.  I just was expecting him to be... more, I guess.  More powerful, more all-knowing, not just a bad version of the other supers.

[Fellfrosch]

I've thought of him as a serial killer since the beginning, not a monster, so I guess I was coming from a different perspective. Part of the problem is that the guy is creepy but not menacing. Imagine Sean Bean in the role and he'd be a heck of a lot scarier.

[House of Mustard]

Here's a question: did we ever see how Suresh tracked down all the supers?  In particular, do we know ho he tracked down Claire?  (She was adopted, and I got the impression that the adoption was kind of under-the-table.)

[Fellfrosch]

The Mohinder flashbacks the past couple of weeks mentioned the Human Genome project, and I got the impression that Suresh was able to access the data gathered by that project and find those participants with abnormal gene patterns. That, of course, is assuming that the Human Genome project gathered DNA from thousands of people across the US and mapped their genes, which it may or may not have done. I have no idea.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I didn't really see any explanation to as how he found out who was who. But I did like they backstory to Sylar. Now I want a Sylar watch. I think Eden looks much better with short hair; she just seems so... odd with longer hair.

I definately like Nathan much more now. Peter seems like an even bigger prick to me now. I hope he gets screwed by the fact that he's being cuffed and taken in by the police.

[Fellfrosch]

This show gets better and better, and last night's was awesome. I can't believe we have to wait until January 22 to get another episode.

This was the episode where they said: stuff is actually going to happen on this show. Claire actually told her Dad what's going on, the dad actually wiped some memories, Eden actually got shot (we all knew she was dead as soon as she walked into the room, but the way she died was pretty cool), and the revelation at the end with the Haitian was stunning. So many of these shows never really do any meaty changes, because they try to maintain the status quo as much as they can. Killing a sort of main character, wiping Zach's mind, getting Isaac to paint without drugs--these are all huge steps forward, and show that these people are actually committed to advancing the plot rather than just leaving us in the dark as long as possible.

One of my favorite scenes was with Matt trying to read Peter's mind, and watching them wince back and forth as Peter unwittingly copied the power and triggered a feedback loop. Awesome. Though it seemed really weird, and kind of stupid, that Matt just left the room, and never came back to talkto Peter--last time he found a fellow super he didn't want to let him go, and had a million questions, and this time he just wandered off and didn't care. The follow up scene with Matt and whatsername staking out Mr. Bennet was also great, if only for finally addressing the issue of "how do you act if your partner can read your mind."

I'm also very pleased that the show has earned enough of my trust that I fully expect Hiro to actually fight a dinosaur.

[Tink]

So I have some questions to ponder and discuss.

Why didn't what Eden say to Sylar work (i.e. telling him to kill himself)? It worked before when she told him to sleep.

Who do you think Claire's dad works for? The government?
And why did the Haitian not wipe Claire's mind? Why did her dad think that would be a good thing (to wipe her mind) when she would just discover it again and start the cycle over)?
Do you think Claire knew she was special before, but had her mind wiped?

Her dad must have known the Haitian for a long time if he's wiped Claire's mom's mind so much.

Seems like Sylar could have already escaped. Why hasn't he?
Does Claire's dad really think he can control Sylar? (Is he that dillusional?)
Could Peter use all of Sylar's abilities if he were near Sylar?
If so, could he use them against Sylar?

From what I understood from Peter's dream (which is prophetic, I assume), he uses Radioactive Man's ability to blow up. Why? Can't he control it? It seemed like everyone was afraid of him. How did they know what was going to happen?

Obviously many of these questions won't be answered till later, but if anyone would like to speculate on the answers . . .

[Fellfrosch]

I suspect that Sylar's holding cell had some kind of anti-super "field" around it, which Eden turned off in order to use her powers on him. As for why her power didn't work on him, maybe it can't work through barriers? I don't know.

I hadn't thought of it until your comments, but maybe Claire has already learned about her powers before, and had her mind wiped before? I doubt it, because in the "Six Months Ago" episode she cut her hand and it took a day or two to heal completely, so her power wasn't working at full capacity until very recently.

As for Peter's dream, I suspect that he either can't control the power (he gets too close to the bomb guy, suddenly gets his power, and has no idea how to control it), or the whole dream was completely allegorical. I vote for the latter.

[House of Mustard]

Yeah, I don't think the dream was literal.  Nuclear Guy would get really hot when he lost his temper--Peter seemed to be very calm.

[Nessa]

What was with Peter acting all sick? He was pale and coughing and stumbling around. I couldn't figure out what for. Any ideas?