HEROES 3x04 "I Am Become Death" Discuss and Grade

[3D Master]

Well, this show officially jumped the shark. The moment Sylar turned out to be a sweet nice guy, this show lost all interest to me.

Won't be watching this anymore.

Not convinced Sylar is a good nice and sweet guy. I think he is playing along for his own gain.

What? He secluded himself in a home raising child to... play along? Play along with what? Play along with the boy?

Seriously, when Peter also "had the hunger" they showed that Sylar was only "bad" because of his power. And if he can control "the hunger" which he evidently did in the future, he's just a normal nice guy. In short, Sylar isn't a bad guy, he's just mentally disturbed, and some therapy will make him all better.

And I say: Ugh.

 

[Mistral]

When you have a child of your own it can change you in ways you least expect. Sylar making waffles was pretty believable IMO. The anger when Noah died-also believable. I have a little boy and if he was killed I doubt I'd want to live one second longer than it took me to get revenge. And Sylar has some pretty advanced means of doing that. My beef was in regards to Future Peter not healing. WTF-didn't he absorb CLaire's power?

 

[Sakrysta]

Heroes in a half-shell! Turtle power!

I thought I won the thread with the Mister Roger's comment, but no, sir, you win.

Agreed! I'm so glad I'm alone in the office today, otherwise I'd have had swift investigations into my sanity.

I am disinclined to pick too much of this season apart. To me, it ruins the fun of just watching it. I am much more engaged and interested in this season's events than last, and I'm willing to go along for the ride for now. There are certainly characters I could do without (Mohinder & Maya, par example), but overall this feels more like first season Heroes than last season did.

I am confused by Future Peter's death. If Claire is immortal, shouldn't Peter be too?

 

[JD]

Wow, so am I the only person on here who actually still likes Heroes? I thought this was a really cool episode (except for Future Claire, Hayden really doesn't do the whole "badass" thing well) I really enjoyed this future, lots of suprising connections like Claire working with Knox, and Daphne and Matt being married. Future Sylar was pretty fun too, although I wish we could find out who Noah's mother was, and why he was named after Noah. I was also pretty suprised by the revelation that some of the Heroes/Villains were givent their powers artificially, although that does explain why everyone is so connected. I'm also really interested to see where their headed with Matt, because right now I have no friggin clue whatsoevere. I rated this one an Excellent.

If thing continue this way, I think this might actually end up being my favorite season.

Edit: I forgot about the Mohinder story, which I'd pretty much sum up the same way I did the Matt one. Oh, and Nathan and Tracy, which I'm also liking so far. At this point I'm also really curious to see what is up with Linderman. Oh and the end with Adam was great, definitely goes up there with the great endings from season 1.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Average... They really need to stop this OH NO THE FUTURE IS BAD CHANGE THE TIME LINE plot - it is getting severely annoying. For the third season in a row now!

As as someone else stated already, this episode should be the textbook definition of "throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks"... Some good moments, but also mind numbing stupidity.

In retrospect, having characters that A) can absorb powers (Peter & Sylar) and B) characters that can manipulate time (Hiro) just opens up WAY too many easy cop-outs for the writers. Those characters are simply to powerful - and as a result they have been forced to make the stupid. If they show is to be saved, these characters need to be gone ASAP from the show.

 

[Hermiod]

Wow, so am I the only person on here who actually still likes Heroes?

No, but it does just seem to be you and me.

Oh well, it'll get canceled at the end of the season and that'll be another one off my list before TV is dead to me.

 

[Garak]

Ummmm why did future Peter die? He was just shot, and I didn't see the Haitian around anywhere to stop him from using his healing powers.....

 

[Hermiod]

^Present Peter runs past the Haitian just after Future Peter is shot. It's likely Claire made sure of the job by shooting him in the back of the head afterwards, anyway.

 

[BenRoethig]

Parkman hooked up with Daphne?

Can you blame him?

Why did Peter need Sylar's ability?

That's a good question. He already absorbs powers.

 

[exodus]

When you have a child of your own it can change you in ways you least expect. Sylar making waffles was pretty believable IMO. The anger when Noah died-also believable. I have a little boy and if he was killed I doubt I'd want to live one second longer than it took me to get revenge. And Sylar has some pretty advanced means of doing that. My beef was in regards to Future Peter not healing. WTF-didn't he absorb CLaire's power?

Remember and fragment to the head and I guess the heart keeps her from regenerating until that object is removed. If the bullet is logged in his heart, he can't heal until it's removed.

Plus, doesn't Peter need to consentrate on the person he got the power from in order to activate it?


Frankly in general I don't why so many are complaining, I thought it was the best ep. of the series so far.

BTW, I think there are 7 versions of Nikki. I think she is similar to the character from the book: "The Seven Faces of Eve." Did anyone catch that Dr. Zimmerman first called her Barbara?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Excellent! This show is just so flat-out entertaining that I hardly mind that Peter and Mohinder appear to be engaged in a contest to see who can get themselves into more trouble through sheer stupidity.

Peter: "Even though I'm an impuslive nincompoop, I believe I can handle this terrifying power much better than my more-intelligent, stronger-willed brother, who it has driven completely insane." This will end well, yup.

However, it is clever of the writers to realize that time travel alone really doesn't mean the power to change the timeline to suit your tastes. Sylar's "seeing-how-things work" power combined with time-travel might do it, if we assume Sylar's power is akin to a Jedi being able to "read" the force and figure out how to shape reality with it. Never thought of it that way, but that's a truly awesome power that could be applied to things other than watches and braaaaains...

In the ongoing retconning that is going on, here's something they've changed. Sylar's "hunger" (and therefore his evil) is a side-effect of his original power, which contradicts S2, where he lost his power but still appeared driven to kill. And this may be a small nuance, but if the power creates a need to "see into reality" regardless of whose skull you need to cut open, then that was always Sylar's goal, and "being special" was never the issue. I actually like both retcons, so I can't argue with this.

Any explanations why Future Peter remained dead? Just because the bullet lodged in his brain and nobody bothered to dig it out?

oh I also loled during that one early scene where Present Pete & Future Pete kept mumbling back & forth to each other about what was going on.
FP-Duh!
PP-Duh?
FP-Duuuuh!
PP-Duuuuh!!!

Yup, that was classic. Gawd, Milo can't act to save his life. Most actors would at least attempt to make each character different from the other, but everything about them was 100% the same.

 

[exodus]

Parkman hooked up with Daphne?

Can you blame him?

Why did Peter need Sylar's ability?

That's a good question. He already absorbs powers.

Sylar's power is the ability to veiw everything as an equation to be solved, like a machine or a clock were all the gears work together to make something happen. His thirst comes from the fact that every solution leads to another question, another problem he must solve. So as long as the question "Why?" exists, he can't stop.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think they're expanding the definition of Sylar's powers into something more grandiose, the ability to see "big things" like all of reality, cause and effect, etc. Which you'd need in addition to time travel ability if you wanted to change the timeline to suit yourself and stop flailing around like Future Peter has been doing.

One thing I don't like is the idea that Sylar's murderous streak was caused strictly by his powers. That's too much of a cop-out.

It would be easier to swallow if they hadn't presented Sylar as being inherently murderous in S2. But I thought that was a bad call because I was fully expecting them to keep Quinto at least till Star Trek XI comes out, for the PR value, and probably beyond, and having him be inherently murderous gives them no place to go with the character that doesn't get repetitious. They wrote themselves into a corner and now they're trying to wiggle out of it. They could use some better advance planning on this show, that much is sure.

 

[exodus]

I think they're expanding the definition of Sylar's powers into something more grandiose, the ability to see "big things" like all of reality, cause and effect, etc. Which you'd need in addition to time travel ability if you wanted to change the timeline to suit yourself and stop flailing around like Future Peter has been doing.

One thing I don't like is the idea that Sylar's murderous streak was caused strictly by his powers. That's too much of a cop-out.

It would be easier to swallow if they hadn't presented Sylar as being inherently murderous in S2. But I thought that was a bad call because I was fully expecting them to keep Quinto at least till Star Trek XI comes out, for the PR value, and probably beyond, and having him be inherently murderous gives them no place to go with the character that doesn't get repetitious. They wrote themselves into a corner and now they're trying to wiggle out of it. They could use some better advance planning on this show, that much is sure.

Maybe.

Then again just like most comic books, things and characters seem to change on the turn of a dime. For example in the X-Men, who back in the early 80's would ever suspect or even accept characters like the White Queen or Juggernaut to turn good?

 

[Hermiod]

The only real problem I have with this episode is that Claire, Knox and Daphne shouldn't be able to get close to either Peter or Sylar, and certainly not both.

Let's see, you've got a girl who can't die with a gun, a speedster and a guy who becomes stronger through feeding off of others' fear.

Peter, just by standing there, gains all of those abilities in addition to his other useful skills. The only struggle here is him choosing which of the many ways to beat the crap out of all three of them he chooses to use.

 

[IJD GAF]

See, I can sort of get why Peter would need Sylar's power. And okay, I guess we'll play along and say the power causes the hunger.

What I don't get is why Peter's hunger has to be satiated exactly the same way Sylar's power is. That is to say, Sylar's only means of attaining new powers is to kill people. Peter could easily just take another person's power the easy way -- the same way he always has. And hell, why would he go after Nathan anyway when we all know he already has that power?

 

[Mistral]

I think I like exodus's interpretation of Sylar. Logical. Neat. Tidy. I'm sure the writers will come up with something far messier to explain it.

And to respond to Acronymity, yes, Peter can absorb powers but if you recall the bit with Claire and Sylar, Sylar needed to know the part of her brain that caused her abilities. Remember, he pulled out a tiny chunk of her brain. If Peter has Sylar's ability now he's gonna have that same drive to know how things work, why they work, you see?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think they're expanding the definition of Sylar's powers into something more grandiose, the ability to see "big things" like all of reality, cause and effect, etc. Which you'd need in addition to time travel ability if you wanted to change the timeline to suit yourself and stop flailing around like Future Peter has been doing.

One thing I don't like is the idea that Sylar's murderous streak was caused strictly by his powers. That's too much of a cop-out.

It would be easier to swallow if they hadn't presented Sylar as being inherently murderous in S2. But I thought that was a bad call because I was fully expecting them to keep Quinto at least till Star Trek XI comes out, for the PR value, and probably beyond, and having him be inherently murderous gives them no place to go with the character that doesn't get repetitious. They wrote themselves into a corner and now they're trying to wiggle out of it. They could use some better advance planning on this show, that much is sure.

Maybe.

Then again just like most comic books, things and characters seem to change on the turn of a dime. For example in the X-Men, who back in the early 80's would ever suspect or even accept characters like the White Queen or Juggernaut to turn good?

Well, things changing on a turn of a dime isn't exactly good writing. But in Sylar's case, I can see why they're implementing a plot twist that is annoying many people who want Sylar to stay eeeevil and not just be misunderstood. But I've known for a while now they'd be forced into this path, so the writers on this show should have been planning for the future better. The main complaint in this thread is that the show is becoming random and incoherent.

What I don't get is why Peter's hunger has to be satiated exactly the same way Sylar's power is. That is to say, Sylar's only means of attaining new powers is to kill people. Peter could easily just take another person's power the easy way -- the same way he always has.

The hunger drives the user to see how things work - it's a hunger to learn. Peter's original way of absorbing powers doesn't inform him how the powers work, so that doesn't satisfy the hunger.

They went over the logic of Peter needing Sylar's power (for timeline manipulation) and the probable consequences very quickly, probably too quickly. And for someone as doltish as Peter, he understood the usefulness of Sylar's power way too quickly.

 

[exodus]

The only real problem I have with this episode is that Claire, Knox and Daphne shouldn't be able to get close to either Peter or Sylar, and certainly not both.

Let's see, you've got a girl who can't die with a gun, a speedster and a guy who becomes stronger through feeding off of others' fear.

Peter, just by standing there, gains all of those abilities in addition to his other useful skills. The only struggle here is him choosing which of the many ways to beat the crap out of all three of them he chooses to use.

They still have 4 more years of experance on Peter.

Peter is powerful but he lacks the ability to think on his feet and the experance that comes with that.

 

[Hermiod]

They still have 4 more years of experance on Peter.

Peter is powerful but he lacks the ability to think on his feet and the experance that comes with that.

That partly explains Peter, but not Sylar. It took Peter, Parkman, Noah, Hiro and Nikki to stop him in Kirby Plaza and he wasn't as powerful then.

See, I can sort of get why Peter would need Sylar's power. And okay, I guess we'll play along and say the power causes the hunger.

What I don't get is why Peter's hunger has to be satiated exactly the same way Sylar's power is. That is to say, Sylar's only means of attaining new powers is to kill people. Peter could easily just take another person's power the easy way -- the same way he always has. And hell, why would he go after Nathan anyway when we all know he already has that power?

I don't know why this is so hard.

Peter specifically says that he needs Sylar's ability to understand how things work so he can understand all the variables in order to figure out how and why things went wrong with Future Peter's attempt to stop the spread of abilities.

Sylar then explains that with his ability comes a need to understand how everything works, a need that can't be easily satisfied.