Heroes Ep 11: Fallout
First of all, I want to comment on an article I read in the paper yesterday that was picked up from the New York Times news service. As in, this is an article that appeared in the freakin’ New York Times, and then went out to other papers, who picked it up and printed it there. I read it in the Globe and Mail. It was an interview with our beloved Masi Oka, but here’s the issue: The woman writing the article is writing about a show that is being dissected week after week, layer by layer, and she got really, REALLY basic things wrong. She said Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli) has the power of flying. Um… yeah, that’s what we thought after TWO episodes. She says that Hiro uses his time-stopping powers to play poker. Right. That’s all he uses it for. She said that this past week’s episode was the 10th before going on hiatus (it was the 11th). Does the New York Times not have a fact-checker?! Anyway, enough bitching. On to the episode.

I LOVED this episode. Personally, as much as I’m on pins and needles waiting for the next ep, I thought last week’s episode was the perfect way to end this particular arc, and make us wait until next year. Then I saw this one, and no, they’ve left this one on a MUCH better cliffhanger, and made the whole season thus far come full circle. Brilliance.

Claire and her dad: Claire has told her dad her secret, her dad tells her he already knows, and we find out his Haitian can remove memories. He says everything he’s been doing was for her own good and to protect her, but what did that have to do with erasing Matt’s memories? “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of to keep you safe.” I can’t wait for us to see more of this. This guy is so creepy he pours chocolate milk while they’re discussing the death of one of her “friends” and telling her that he’s done bad things. Later in the episode, Claire talking to her brother and to Zach has got to be one of the spookiest things we’ve seen. And the saddest, since Claire has just said that Zach is her best friend, and now he thinks she’s a freak on crystal meth. Removing a person's memories must be one of the most invasive things you could do to a person. Without your memories, are you really the same person? Now we also understand why her mother is always in such a daze, obsessing about Mr. Muggles and not seeming to notice her own kids sitting there. Did you notice, when Mr. Bennet and Claire went to visit Peter in the cell, Peter shook his hand and then began coughing like something was wrong with him all of a sudden. It suggests Mr. Bennet has a power as well, but not a good one.

Matt: He and Peter begin reading each other’s thoughts, which just seems to cause excruciating feedback in their brains (brilliant idea). I never thought about what might happen if those two ended up in the same room, and what a great result. It’s through Matt that we realize the Haitian has power over people’s minds, not physique, and he can block Matt’s powers. Can he block other people’s powers, too?

Peter: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… his power isn’t solely that he can take on the power of others around him, but that he has these prophetic dreams. The scene with him in the jail cell dreaming about Nathan talking to him, and then Sylar is suddenly sitting there saying he doesn’t know the first thing about his power, totally freaked me out. Peter hasn’t seen Sylar’s face like that, yet there it was in the dream. This is something far beyond the average vivid dream. Does that mean he has two powers, or are they connected into one somehow? Question: When he was in Sylar’s presence, did he become all-powerful?

Jessica/Niki: Her power still eludes us for the most part, but it definitely took on new proportions this week. Niki is becoming far more consumed by Jessica, though something like Micah being hurt can jolt her back to Niki. Did you notice when she ran up to Micah, though, and appeared to be Niki, that the camera – for the first time – didn’t zoom in on the right shoulder? We only saw the left one in that scene. I’d like to think she reverted to Niki, but she was acting strangely, and seemed a little too compliant. The only thing that makes me think it was Niki is that Micah believes it was, and he seems to know the difference between Niki and Jessica. But maybe Jessica’s caught on.

DL: OK, what is up with this guy? He gets shot in the shoulder, and it’s a serious wound, but when he’s shot in the HEAD the bullet just whizzes through, we see an actual HOLE, and then it’s gone. The bullet cleared his head, his hand can move through wood to open a door (much to Micah’s delight), yet he sustains a shoulder wound. What I’m assuming is he can control his ethereal nature with his mind. So when he didn’t know the first bullet was coming, it felled him. Then he knew more would be coming, so he changed his chemical makeup so the rest would whiz through him. I believe he can become a solid or a liquid at will, but if caught off guard, he remains a solid.

Micah: We see in that final scene in NY, Micah is there, which means he’s one of the heroes. What is his power? We saw him momentarily fix the phone in the phone booth, so I wondered if it might be a healing power. Will he be able to put his hand over DL and heal the shoulder wound? Notice how he falls over at one point because of his knee, but he begins kneading the area in a strange way and then stands up again, saying he’s OK.

Mohinder: He’s back in NY, and calls someone on the phone asking them why they weren’t warning people in advance (he mentions Charlie). Who is he talking to?

Eden: DAMN. Just as I was getting to like the girl, she goes and eats it. Sigh… Unfortunately, the lead-up to the scene was a little too obvious, “Hey, I’ll explain it all later, but right now I have to do something. But don’t worry, I’ll be over soon and fill you in on all of it.” Uh huh. Bye bye, Eden. We know she’s a good person in the end, because her final act is to do what any of us would hope to do in that situation. “If you could have killed Hitler…” etc.

Isaac: Eden also lets Isaac go, which brings Hiro and Ando back into the fold. We see him go all white-eyed for the first time without his heroin, and realize he’s done it before, but didn’t know he was drawing the future. Is there some significance to the fact that he couldn’t draw with Eden helping him, but can do it with Hiro and Ando standing nearby?

Hiro and Ando: “Who is it?”
“Destiny.”
“I wish Destiny would lose our number.”
They believe they haven’t saved the cheerleader, and after a funny exchange about whether “Save the cheerleader, save the world” is an “if then” statement or two separate statements, they get the call from Isaac. I thought the transition scene from Isaac’s comic panel of the two of them standing in front of the bloody “Welcome Home” sign to the actual scene was amazing; go back and watch how they do it, with the black panel lines on the side staying there as we watch Ando and Hiro talk. And how hilarious is it that Hiro gives him the Vulcan sign when he sees him in person, haha!

“The Haitian”: Or “Hay-tee-an” as Cher would say on Clueless. “Can you keep a secret?” We finally hear him speak, and realize he’s not completely on side with what Claire’s dad is doing. Why does he choose this moment to finally diverge from what HRG has been instructing him to do?

Hannibal, er, Sylar: Forget what I said about Sylar’s cell looking like Spike’s on Buffy. Instead, the scenes are stolen right from Silence of the Lambs. But hey, worked for me! The fact that Claire’s dad hasn’t killed him, but instead wants to study him, shows that Claire is NOT his major concern. He’s far more interested in what is making these people mutate and change. Sylar is the only one doing it willingly, and doing it over and over. The scene where he grabs Eden is terrifying and SO well directed. It would seem that maybe HRG has some sort of power, but Sylar isn’t interested in it. He knows Eden has the bigger power, and he’s been holding out for her to come into the room to make his move. But in a final moment, Eden prevents him from getting her power, which is arguably the biggest of all of them. I found it interesting that Sylar seemed angry that she hadn’t stopped him -- don’t forget in an early episode, we see his room with “FORGIVE ME” plastered on the walls, like there’s a part of him that still thinks what he’s doing is wrong, but it is being overpowered by the monster in him. Kinda like a vampire that still has the human part of him in there somewhere, unable to come out.

The final scene: “How do you stop an exploding man?” asks Hiro earlier in the episode. And in this final crazy scene, we see that it’s Peter who explodes. Why is the street abandoned? It’s easy to understand why Peter explodes, and why Matt is trying to get everyone to run away from him. Think about it: Peter can absorb any power around him, and if surrounded by the powers to paint the future, stop time, be invincible, fly, read minds, become a liquid, and split your personality, you just might… explode. Clearly the heroes know Peter’s power by this point, and they’re trying to get away from him so he DOESN’T blow up real good. Claire hesitates, as if thinking, "If I stand next to him, could I stop him from exploding?" but she runs away, too, apologizing as she goes. Notice Isaac pulling Simone away, begging the question: What is her power?? Yet Nathan strides right up to him. Why doesn’t he shy away like everyone else? Doesn’t he know about Peter's power? Has he become a bad guy? Or is he trying to foist his power on him, thinking that if Peter could just fly away, he could be spared the immolation?

Next episode: Godsend, January 22, 2007