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HEROES 3x13 "Dual" (Volume 3 Finale)

Grade the episode


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Well, at least we know how and why Hiro turns into FutureHiro. Namely, why he's going to need to carry around a katana, learn how to fight, and otherwise mature really quick -- he won't have his powers for a good long bit.

It's also fairly clear that the "formula" is completely out of the picture yet. Yes, they destroyed a piece of paper, but we've seen digital displays of it on computers and etc. The only what-if is the catalyst and God only knows what that really was. Too easy to mumbo-jumbo it away with some new discovery/power. We also haven't seen the confrontation Hiro witnessed between himself and a powered-up Ando (presumably requiring Ando to supercharge Hiro's powers). So quite a few open doors there.

I agree with the main jist though; nothing significant happened this season at all save for Hiro's depowering. New characters were introduced then killed off, Nathan's back to pubically outting the heroes, Sylar's "dead" and soon-to-be-depowered, etc. The worst part isn't just that the entire season was futile, but horribly written. They need to just flat-out fire all of their current writing staff and get brand new blood in there. I don't think Fuller alone will be able to stop them from all the flaky bullshit that's going on with that staff.

One interesting thing that (should) be showing up on the show soon is the appearance of PastHiro and PastPeter. It'll be interesting because everything will have to go pretty much exactly as they experienced it last time or the consequences (with a real writing staff) will be dire.

Which of course is why I say time travel to the future is pretty futile in a show like this. If you go forward, see something, go back, and change it... then when that new future comes into being you wouldn't have been able to see the old one when you show up the next time.

But, blah. What's even more annoying is that instead of writing out time travel they're introducing new ways of doing it. Namely Daphne. And what's really weird about it is that it makes no sense how she was able to travel back to the future. Sure, she could run faster than the speed of light and travel back in time, but how'd she go forward? Running in reverse? Pretty lame all around.
 
I'll bet if grown up Molly had shot Keiko, it would have given Miles pause, yes. Peter and Nathan are contemporaries. It should have rocked Nathan's world in a very bad way that Peter shot him, future or not. Nothing happened except a little bible reading. That's bad writing.
 
Totally agree, Dorian. This show has been defined by bad writing the last two seasons.

I'm all for Hiro becoming Samauri Hiro. I just hope he doesn't lose his comic relief value. Less bumbling he needs to be (no more endangering the world because he's bored or selfish) and more serious for certain but he also needs to keep his...I guess sense of humor. Way too many characters and shows take themselves way to seriously. Samauri Hiro is badass but personality wise, he was as boring as dirt.
 
I thought it was FANTASTIC TV...but...seriously, it's like all of the writers checked out and just expect people to tune in and so it doesn't matter.
it feels like after the first season they let go the original writers and hired the ones who write their daytime soap operas.

I like to think of the first season of Heroes as this awesome self contained miniseries(& probably the only Heroes Ill ever own on dvd) & the 2nd & 3rd(so far) seasons are like a bad soap/parody weekly series version of it.
 
One interesting thing that (should) be showing up on the show soon is the appearance of PastHiro and PastPeter. It'll be interesting because everything will have to go pretty much exactly as they experienced it last time or the consequences (with a real writing staff) will be dire.

That actually shouldn't be happening for two reasons:

1) When Hiro and Peter jumped to the future, they jumped to an alternate future. Since they changed the past, their past selves will not jump to the current timeline.

2) Also, in Heroes time, it is only late summer/early fall 2007. Peter and Hiro jumped five years into the future in season 1 and four years in season 3. Even if they could jump into the current timeline, they wouldn't even appear until the year 2012.
 
Average.

The stuff with Sylar at Primatech was good but Hiro's story fell completely flat in the end and Nathan's characterization continues to be utterly incomprehensible. His latest 180, to ratting out the metahumans to Barak Obama there in the limo, is more in character than he has been, since late in S1 he told Simone that he thinks the metas will be rounded up and put in camps "because that's what I would do," but the crucial motivating catastrophe wasn't depicted.

Considering how ridiculous and careless the metas are, even when not criminal or just insane, it would have been easy for some big, terrifying, barely-averted event to have changed Nathan's mind and made this change plausible. But once again, these writers seem to have zero grasp of how to properly structure a story for dramatic impact.

Ando's new power is interesting because of how dangerous it is to him. He obviously doesn't see that Matt's warning has come true. Ando is still powerless, but other metahumans will now have a prime motive to manipulate and coerce him. He's been given one of the worst powers imaginable. If I had any respect left for these writers, I might think this poses fascinating possibilities, but they'll probably just ignore them and do something pointless or stupid instead.

Sylar is so not dead. He'll dig his way out of the rubble. These people never learn.

Why can't Tracey just die? Her power is cool (hah) but the character is just a waste of space.
Okay, why the hell did Peter fell the need to save Nathan? I mean Nathan can fly, nothing was stopping him from flying away from the flames. The flames surrounded him on the ground but not above him. WTF.
I thought he was going to save Mohinder by rolling the dice and seeing what powers he gets. And how did Mo escape, anyway? Nice of Peter to totally forget about him.

Why is this show called Heroes? It doesn't seem like anyone of these characters does anything good and that whole premise of why I liked it (Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things) seems to be lost.
Maybe the title was meant ironically. These "heroes" spend most of their time messing things up and even when they save the day, it just means something worse will happen. Which is why I couldn't believe Nathan could think more powers would do any good. Now that he's decided the solution is to restrict people with powers, at least he seems to be using his noggin, though the precipitating factor could have been more dramatic. In fact, what the hell was the precipitating factor? That Peter busted up Primatech? Why should that "prove" the plan was a bad one? Why not just try again?
If you all hate Heroes that much, why don't you just stop watching? I'm really sick of all this bashing!
Too many pretty guys. Can't stop watching. Damn you, show! :rommie:

I'll just touch on one bad science element: Daphne's supercharged speed. Traveling at relativistic speed will not send you back in time, it will age everyone else faster than you from your subjective viewpoint.
I thought of that, too. They should have had her run backwards! :rommie:
However, Ando showed earlier that you can't easily choose which ability you get. I think he's got the empathic mimickry back and used that to copy Nathan. I guess he's a blank slate again.

To the extent this show exhibits any logic at all, there seem to be powers inherent to people, whether they are natural or artificially induced. So Peter's natural power should be the same as his artificial one. Why would it be any different?
 
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However, Ando showed earlier that you can't easily choose which ability you get. I think he's got the empathic mimickry back and used that to copy Nathan. I guess he's a blank slate again.

To the extent this show exhibits any logic at all, there seem to be powers inherent to people, whether they are natural or artificially induced. So Peter's natural power should be the same as his artificial one. Why would it be any different?

Mohinder's unfortunate line about people getting whatever power they (Arthur, Nathan, Tracy and himself) choose to give them.

I like the fact that powers are linked to personalities, even if it means Ando gets Super Sidekick Power!

If only they could hire Hermiod

Sadly, my attempts to get Brannon Braga to hire me as a continuity consultant never worked, so I can't see this working either. :D
 
I'm rewatching the episode; some folks on other forums are floating the idea that Nathan isn't Nathan. At the very beginning of the episode when Peter is kneeling over Arthur's dead body, Nathan comes right out of the next room, just like he was lying in wait. There's an eerie calm to Nathan. His personality seems to switch on a dime. Did Arthur manage to steal some of that body switching ability? You'll notice that Peter/Sylar conveniently didn't shoot Arthur in the back of the head? Claire mentions the back of the head again this episode.

What if Nathan is trapped in Arthur's semi dead body and this is Arthur doing this? It would fit with the theme of "Five Years Gone" Nathan wanting to start a plan, then being appropriated by Sylar. It also fits Nathan's "you broke my heart" line since we know the writers haven't connected the dots to the shooting.

Or it's a completely dumb idea and the writers aren't that smart and what I am thinking/agreeing with? It's just that Nathan does seem way too calm at the beginning when he discovers daddy's dead body with Peter.
 
Or it's a completely dumb idea and the writers aren't that smart and what I am thinking/agreeing with? It's just that Nathan does seem way too calm at the beginning when he discovers daddy's dead body with Peter.

There are many ways to explain that.

Future Peter demonstrated a power similar to that of Candace Wilmer. Present Peter may have absorbed that power. Arthur gained all of Peter's absorbed abilities when he took Peter's powers. Arthur may be using that power to convince Peter that he is dead and also that he is Nathan.

Future Peter also demonstrated the ability to put one person "inside" another, an ability Present Peter most likely copied and then "donated" to Arthur. It's possible that Arthur did this with Nathan.

Given Arthur took Peter's ability to absorb powers remotely, he may have inherited Maury Parkman's powers.

Sylar took Candace's power as well but while still suffering from the virus. The official line is that of the abilities he had before being infected, Sylar only retains his own ability and his telekinesis. He retains the telekinesis for the same reason he was able to copy Elle's powers - empathy. He feels strong guilt over killing to get that particular power. So, while he may not be able to manifest the powers he lost, they may still be there and Arthur may have copied them just by being in proximity - this is a long shot of course.

The most likely situation, is, however, that Nathan's belief that by giving the "right" people powers he is doing good and will be able to prevent those who already have powers from using them to endanger the world as they have before (Peter going nuclear, the virus etc). Without the ability to do that any longer he sees no choice but to round up those with abilities in order to protect those without them.
 
You're probably right, but it's a pity. The Arthur/Nathan switch is almost a half way clever idea. The idea of idiot Peter actually figuring it out could bring the brothers back full circle--Peter rescuing Nathan from the hell of a dead body and making up for shooting him like a moron would enable the sappy brotherness to return.
 
some folks on other forums are floating the idea that Nathan isn't Nathan.
That certainly would make sense, but I've been spending too much of this season making up reasons in my head why this or that stupid idea could turn out really great after all. I'm done making up excuses for these writers. :p

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Candace isn't really dead. There was no excuse for her allowing Sylar to kill her like that. Maybe it was a fake-out after all.

The most likely situation, is, however, that Nathan's belief that by giving the "right" people powers he is doing good and will be able to prevent those who already have powers from using them to endanger the world as they have before (Peter going nuclear, the virus etc). Without the ability to do that any longer he sees no choice but to round up those with abilities in order to protect those without them.

That does seem to be the explanation, but wow these writers didn't convey that clearly at all. What we got is "Nathan went mad with power and tried to start an army" followed by "Nathan is still mad with power but now his scheme involves concentration camps." Nathan deserves better than this.
 
I think Nathan has always been about gaining power and being in power.
He took over his father's plan to create an army of supers so that he would be the one controlling them. Then when that failed he went to the President and arranged for all the supers to be rounded up, with him in charge of the operation, which would also end up putting him in charge of of all the other supers and getting him in good with the President at the same time. He's always been about gaining power, with only some slight deviations when it came to helping Peter and "doing good" but if he believes that rounding up supers is for the greater good then that is what he will do, especially if he gets political power from doing so.
 
Best episode of the season. Though I question how Nathan can go from "give everybody powers" to "lock everyone who has powers away"
 
I think Nathan has always been about gaining power and being in power.
He took over his father's plan to create an army of supers so that he would be the one controlling them. Then when that failed he went to the President and arranged for all the supers to be rounded up, with him in charge of the operation, which would also end up putting him in charge of of all the other supers and getting him in good with the President at the same time. He's always been about gaining power, with only some slight deviations when it came to helping Peter and "doing good" but if he believes that rounding up supers is for the greater good then that is what he will do, especially if he gets political power from doing so.


Bingo. But his main message, from season 1 onwards, has been that some of these guys are dangerous and they should be restricted somehow. First he tried to expose them, got shot, then he tried to fight them, got beat, then he tried to create a counter army, got nowhere, so now he's exposing them to the government.
 
As for the formula and what powers it gives...

Well we know there are two ways to get powers: naturally (Peter, Claire, Adam, etc...) and with the formula/DNA manipulation (Nikki, Nathan, Tracy, Barbra, Ando, Elle, etc...).

We also know that the natural powers are "Evolutionary" (if Mohinder and his dad's theories are correct (and so far they seem to be)). The people with natural powers are the next step in evolution. So the abilities are part of their DNA.

So there are two options:

So, in this case we assume that the formula doesn't "give" powers, but rather activates latent genes in people causing them to manifest powers (simulating or speeding up their evolution to match the people naturally born with powers) because everyones powers are hardwired into their genetic code & DNA at birth (Nathan can only fly, it's what he was hardwired to do genetically. The formula only activated/evolved his DNA to allow the power to manifest. He would never have been able to shoot fire, teleport, etc...). So then someone who already had powers like Peter or Hiro wouldn't gain new or different powers with using the formula, they would just get their old powers back.

Or two... Of course if that is not the case, and the formula can alter-peoples DNA and give them any power (not just what is hardwired into them) then that means everyone is capable of manifesting any power with the right DNA manipulation. Nathan could shoot fire bolts if his DNA was messed with again. Ando could fly if he was worked on, etc... In this situation Peter (and Sylar and Arthur) would be at almost the apex of human evolution in that his DNA can change to give him any ability he wants (and that he's be close to) without being manipulated by outside forces.

Not sure where I was going with this, just random thoughts on how it all might work.
 
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Candace isn't really dead. There was no excuse for her allowing Sylar to kill her like that. Maybe it was a fake-out after all.

Tim Cring said the unaired and ultimately never-filmed Volume planned for Season Two (Exodus) would've featured a subplot with Sylar and Candace teaming up for a few episodes, before she is killed off by Sylar. The actress playing Candace was unavailable for filming as she'd jumped onto another show, so they reworked it and had another actress play Candace, but only for one episode, where Sylar kills her pretty much straight away.

Given we have seen examples of people having duplicate powers (Claire and Adam, Nathan and Wes, etc) we may yet see another changling one day.
 
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