HEROES 3x13 "Dual" (Volume 3 Finale)

[stj]

Real physics showing up in Heroes is shocking. It's a shame that it gets criticized for it.

Yes folks, going faster than light is physically equivalent to going backwards in time. The simplest way to "explain" is to remember that as an object is accelerated, outside observers perceive time slowing for the object. An unstable particle like a muon if moving rapidly enough will seem to have a longer life than a slow moving muon, though in its proper frame of reference, the period is the same. That's just good old special relativity. Faster and faster the object moves, the slower and slower time passes for it. At light speed, there would be no passage of time at all. Is it not expected that faster than light implies time becoming negative?

 

[RoJoHen]

^That's not the problem.

It's the fact that they were then able to use the same method to travel back to the present day.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Hiro still has no powers and now with the formula gone there's no way he can get his power back.

I'm happy that Hiro is the one with no powers. Maybe that situation should be permanent. I just see no role for him in this story. With powers, he's redundant with Peter, as the "Luke Skywalker character," but Peter being a Petrelli and just inherently more interesting and marginally less childish and annoying, is the one I'd keep. So what the hell is Hiro there for?

Maybe having no powers will free up some other role for Hiro to assume that will give the writers better ideas how to integrate him into the story because this volume proved in spades that they don't have ANY notions for him, good or bad. At least for Sylar and Nathan, for instance, they have ideas. Mostly stupid ideas, but still...ideas.

Peter has an obvious role, powers or no powers. Tracey could be a good character if they'd stop making her such a one-dimensional bitch. But Hiro is a problem I can't devise a solution to.

I thought Knox turning good guy might have been a good idea but they instead chose to save freezewoman over him.

The guy can't act, so they had no choice but to kill him. I was hoping the guy from The 4400 would stick around, though. He's a decent actor.

I honestly don't know what goes on in Sylars head. I mean WTF! he's like a schizophrenic with 500 personalities.

My attempt to explain Sylar, after paring away all the parts that don't synch up, of which there are many:

1. Because of his upbringing, he has a real complex about wanting a family to fit in with, preferably one that boosts his fragile ego by being powerful and special in some way. That's the "nurture" part of his problem.

2. Because of his power, he has an overwhelming need to "see" powers and intergrate them into his own abilities somehow. The "seeing" rather than killing or power is what he's after, although as a practical matter, "seeing" requires killing and power is the result, so the three different things get all jumbled up as an apparent motive. That's the "nature" part of his problem.

3. Nature and nurture combine in him to make him worse off than he otherwise would be. If he were 100% mentally healthy, he could resist the hunger better than he does, even though it would still be a continual strain. Because he is unhealthy, the strain is too much for him, especially when he becomes demoralized, angry or frustrated by anything that pertains to point one. That's why he killed Elle, for instance, but was able to exercise enough will power to stop killing when he had little Noah in his care.

Actually the scar he had from the future and the one we saw in Volume 1 in the post nuked new york episode that he had went down the middle of his face, the cut Peter gained in the last episode was a small one on his cheek. A completely different scar, infact we don't even know if that cheek cut will even scar.

I interpreted that to mean that Peter does fight with his father in some manner but that he's standing in a slightly different location and gets hit by the blast so that he scars. And no, that won't scar because it would be pointless work for the makeup department. NBC is already telling shows to cut costs, so pointless expenses like that are certainly out.

 

[stj]

^That's not the problem.

It's the fact that they were then able to use the same method to travel back to the present day.

Didn't think of that, because physically that's not an insuperable objection. But I can't think of a simple "explanation" like the other one. The simplest real one I know of would involve cool graphics with light cones, and I don't have any.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The thing with this show is that I think it's actually better if you don't watch it regularly. I tend to dip in and out of it, watching a few eps in a row then missing it for a couple of weeks and so on. I don't get to witness the plotting trainwreck you guys are all talking about. From that casual perspective, it's still quite a fun show. Sort of like picking up the odd comic here and there as a kid. You don't really follow the entire storyline but you get a quick fix of some fun lines & action.

You remind me of the text from the Hitchhikers guide novel talking about the aliens who play a game like cricket behind an 80 foot wall, because the brief anticipation of missing the entire game is just like how you know some thing just awesome has to happen if you've left the lounge for a sew seconds to make some tea during a televised test match... except continuously for 4 days.

This is why shows are bottle necked mostly, to make things friendly for you tourists.

 

[mswood]

Why would he? It was a future version of Peter that did it

Because it's Peter. Future Peter is Nathan's brother just as much as present Peter. Peter and Nathan--at least as presented until this volume--were willing to die for one another. Peter shooting him should have caused severe psychological problems and trust issues for Nathan. With Ando and Hiro, Hiro wasn't sure what he saw in the future. Nathan's pretty sure that Peter shot him. That should have been a major focus. No way around it.

Of course by that same token, we should also get a Peter who gets to drill Nathan about how he is willing to send people who actually do kill him. At least that future version of Peter was not trying to actually kill him. Peter knows that future Nathan is certainly willing to see him die. and be tortured. I mean seriously, Peter absolutely gets the pass on this one.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Eh, Peter is such a douche anymore I blame him anyway. Nathan's allowed to kill him because he's an annoying little twit. He just stood there while the Haitian was begging him that he couldn't subdue Arthur anymore. Justifiable homicide.

I still think Nathan is Arthur. Love your sig, BTW. Love it and concur with it.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think Nathan has always been about gaining power and being in power.

I disagree. If this is true, it makes his "sacrifice" at the end of Season 1 pointless.

I DO agree that through most of Season 1 he was about gaining power, and then he began to struggle with what that might mean (destruction of New York)...but, then he choose his life over his ambition.

However...the writers kept him around. He didn't do anything in Season 2, and most of Season 3 was spent introducing Tracy to people, and then finally tagging on this quest for power.

 

[RoJoHen]

I don't care at this point about Nathan's journey thus far. I'm pretending it didn't happen.

But if they want to make him the main villain in the next volume, they simply need to keep him that way. There should be no redemption for him.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I don't care at this point about Nathan's journey thus far. I'm pretending it didn't happen.

So are the writers...

 

[Dorian Thompson]

I still say they should have connected Nathan's betrayal to Peter shooting him. Justified or not we may argue, but it at least makes sense from a storytelling and emotional perspective instead of the sudden flip flop in Haiti.

Also, appropos of nothing, 2 of Heroes' male cast members made the Buddytv list of 500 sexiest men on television 2008. Adrian Pasdar did not make the list.

Zachary Quinto, #15
if having our head sliced open and having our body burned is the price we'd pay to have sex with him, we'd certainly consider it.

Peter the emo boy, #22
as was the case in season 2, his character becomes infinitely more compelling whenever he takes his shirt off.

No Adrian.

 

[Mallet]

Ok, here are my thoughts on Nathan:

When we first met Nathan he was about gaining power, doing good (to make up for his fathers badness) and taking care of his family. He was also desperate to keep his (and Peter's powers) a secret. When he first learned of the plan to allow New York to blow up he was totally against it, because of the massive loss of life and the fact that Peter would be killed. But once he learned that Peter could possibly survive the blast (they never knew for sure that he could) and he saw the "big picture" that only .07% of the worlds population would die and the world would actually end up a better place for it (so he was told) AND that he would end up as President, he warmed up to the idea and actually went along with it, thinking that it was not only inevitable, but also for the greater good. But at the last moment he saw how manipulative his mom was and how Claire would also die in the blast (she jumped out the window and went to find Peter) he changed his mind and went to save the city even if it cost him his own life.

In season Two, he started drinking, lost his position as a congressmen, lost his wife and kids, thought Peter was dead and saw how cold and calculating his mother was. It was once he teamed up with Parkman to fight Parkman's dad and to stop Adam and Peter from releasing the virus that he saw how dangerous people with powers could be. That's what led him to make the decision to hold the press conference and tell the world about people with powers, because it was also the right thing to do and for the "greater good".

After he was shot, he found God, and still wanted to do what was best and do good work. He thought his powers were a gift from God and a blessing. This all changed when he learned that his powers were actually the product of this mother and fathers tampering with his DNA as a child, and not God's work at all. This upset him and finally, once and for all, showed him how evil his mother and father were. Meeting up with his father and learning of Arthur's plan to create an army of super-people he was against it, because he already knew how evil his dad was and he knew that his dad would only use the supers for his own sinister ends.

When he went to Haiti he saw first hand how evil some people with powers could be, especially to the weak (like the girls chained up in the cell with him) and how the only way to stop some people with powers was to use powers against them (Baron Samdi could only be defeated by the Haitian's powers (just like Murray could only be defeated by Parkman) any conventional powers would be useless against him). This made him change his mind about Arthur's plan of creating Super people. The only way to stop some super people was to use other supers against them. It would be for the greater good. So he went back and took over Pinehearst and the plan from his father, ready to make the world a better place by creating a super powered police force.

When that fell apart and the formula was destroyed he went back to a form of his original plan, "outing" the supers but this time he did it behind the scenes. He went to the president and got permission to round up known supers. This would be for the greater good as well. It would prevent them from doing more damage, and (this is speculation here) also allow him to pick the ones that wern't crazy or evil and create a team/use them to make his super powered police force. Still with the greater good in mind.

So I think Nathan has always been consistent in his quest to do what he thinks is best for the world (and himself politically. I guess he thinks the more powerful he is politically the more good he can do) it is just that how he decides to go about making the world a better place is what keeps changing.

 

[Holdfast]

The thing with this show is that I think it's actually better if you don't watch it regularly. I tend to dip in and out of it, watching a few eps in a row then missing it for a couple of weeks and so on. I don't get to witness the plotting trainwreck you guys are all talking about. From that casual perspective, it's still quite a fun show. Sort of like picking up the odd comic here and there as a kid. You don't really follow the entire storyline but you get a quick fix of some fun lines & action.

You remind me of the text from the Hitchhikers guide novel talking about the aliens who play a game like cricket behind an 80 foot wall, because the brief anticipation of missing the entire game is just like how you know some thing just awesome has to happen if you've left the lounge for a sew seconds to make some tea during a televised test match... except continuously for 4 days.

This is why shows are bottle necked mostly, to make things friendly for you tourists.

In this case, judging by the thread, I'm very glad to be a tourist.

 

[Meredith]

^That's not the problem.

It's the fact that they were then able to use the same method to travel back to the present day.

On the way back she just moved slightly below light speed, see "twin paradox"

Probably circled the world a couple of billion times or something.....

She had to run about 16 light years around earth........ that is a lot of running.....

Unless her speed has a time manipulation effect kinda like Hiro's power but it only allows her to move fast.

 

[Kryton]

I kinda wish there was more effort on her part. At least Milo and some of the others make what they do seem like it taxes them to SOME small degree. I liked it when The Flash (Wally West version) had to consume HUGE amounts of calories after stressing his abilities. She should at least have to catch her breath for a couple minutes or something! Sheesh!

 

[mswood]

Also, appropos of nothing, 2 of Heroes' male cast members made the Buddytv list of 500 sexiest men on television 2008. Adrian Pasdar did not make the list.

Zachary Quinto, #15
if having our head sliced open and having our body burned is the price we'd pay to have sex with him, we'd certainly consider it.

Peter the emo boy, #22
as was the case in season 2, his character becomes infinitely more compelling whenever he takes his shirt off.

No Adrian.

I'm more of a #1 and #7 man myself.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

When he went to Haiti he saw first hand how evil some people with powers could be, especially to the weak (like the girls chained up in the cell with him) and how the only way to stop some people with powers was to use powers against them (Baron Samdi could only be defeated by the Haitian's powers (just like Murray could only be defeated by Parkman) any conventional powers would be useless against him).

I never saw anything onscreen that validated why Nathan would decide giving people powers is a solution to anything. He's had plenty of experience with powered people either being crazybad or just regular bad (Sylar, Arthur, Angela, Elle, Linderman, Maury Parkman, Knox, Flint) or being warped by having powers (Mohinder, future Peter), but I can't think of anyone with a stellar track record of using their powers effectively for good without it all going horribly wrong.

The Haitian seems like a good guy but he's also Angela's henchman and I don't think he can be trusted to be consistently good. He might have felt responsible for controlling his own brother but he certainly doesn't run around like Superman with a do-gooder ethos. That's what Peter, Hiro and now Claire have been doing, and it just causes chaos (mainly because their plans are poorly thought through and salvaged only by writer fiat when it's time to end the story).

The moral of the story is that even when you are good-hearted and trying to be a hero, you will fuck things up. Maybe Peter is too stupid to see this, but Nathan is not, at least not till now. Heroes' theme is "power is bad in and of itself, regardless of motive." The stupidest thing about all this is that the Heroes writers and producers probably don't realize that that's what they've been telling us. But if you just look at the stories so far, that's the one central message, loud and clear. These morons don't even know what story they're telling!

Since the show has been telling us powers are bad regardless of motive, Nathan's supersoldier plan seems idiotic and doomed to failure. There are too many bad examples of powered people and far too few good examples to counterbalance them. Ratting out the metahumans is smart by comparison, but there needed to be some build-up to some big catastrophe that propels Nathan to act. That didn't happen, which is not a problem with logic but a problem with creating a well-constructed story. These writers are lousy at both.

I'm more of a #1 and #7 man myself.

My list is: 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 25, 44. Plus Zachary Levi and Joe Flanigan! These lists always leave off the most obvious contenders.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Numbers one and seven work for me. Especially number one. To think that geeky skinny little Dean from Gilmore Girls turned into that Rory's an idiot.

 

[mswood]

Oh not to worry, I am sure that 8 episodes into the fugitives arc we wil get a flashback showing the motivations for all the characters shoehorned to about 2 minutes a piece that show why they are doing the things they have been doing for the last 9 episodes.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

No. Fuller wasn't lured back into the fold in time. How many episodes have they already filmed? I hate to say it, but I watch Heroes in an MST3K kind of way.