Commentary: Heroes 3x04 "I am Become Death"

[brighteyedjill]

I Am Become Death

Mohinder tries to cover up his bad decision-making by putting on more clothes. And judging from the way he burst in on his neighbors' fight, he’s never had any training on how to handle situations of domestic abuse. Or how to get a clue.

At least the Alis are not clones… But still, how many sets of siblings separated at birth can there be in this show? He’s immune to her freeze power? Or maybe she was "acting" and got control of herself. If so, I must have missed that nuance.

Are the Company folks manipulating genes or are people born this way? Or both? Does something trigger manifesting the powers? If they wanted to see what injecting people would do, why haven't they been monitoring not-Niki? Could this be any more complicated?

Also, must geneticists always have accents? There are some American geneticists, right? Somewhere?

Re: Matt's peyote-fueled trip to the future - Isn’t this footage ripped off from Season One? What with the flying shots of New York?

Wow. This Peter has no faith at all. He’s the anti-Peter. And his words are super-clipped. Because disillusioned people can’t take the time to pronounce entire vowels.

Future!Peter fails at secrecy. “They’ll be looking for us, so let’s stand in this alley in broad daylight and talk of secret thing.” Peter takes out the Haitian! He’s not totally incompetent! However, with the blurry reception, I missed how he actually took out said Haitian. It looked like he hit him with a frying pan. Is that what happened?

Daphne looks so different with her hair like that; I almost didn't recognize her. It's hard, because every female member of the cast is blond; she could be anyone! And I like villains that we have a chance to give a crap about(like a team of Daphne, Claire, and Knox). And uh… If the Haitian’s gone, wouldn’t Future!Peter just heal again? I’m confused. They should cut off his head or something. I guess we have the convention that if you shoot Peter in the back of the head, he's dead, brain gone, game over. But... Peter and Claire seem to have survived an explosion that went sphere-of-annihilation on Daphne, so... What?

Kennedy it is! Because the Petrellis are much like the Kennedys. Except the Kennedy family is smaller. Nathan gets to mock Malcolm McDowell. Adrian must have been so psyched about that.

Maya is a nagging wife. Matt never complained about spoiled milk. Dump her, Mohinder. Uh… writers? Recycling a perfectly good device of journaling ala Jekyll and Hyde? Why not. I do like what they did with “aging” the voice recorder to take us to the future.

The cockroach makes an appearance! And what everyone’s been saying is true. Suresh is a cockroach monster… Although apparently the writers don’t want us to know that yet. So he’s all Adam’d out in a hoddie.

Going in armed is good, probably, Peter. Unless you want to, y’know… Talk. Or not traumatize the surprisingly trusting child. But Claire already tried to kill him once today, so I understand his concern.

Domestic!Sylar. And a chance for Zachary to do something different. I love Zachary Quinto more and more every episode. And… Waffles... and Mr. Muggles… Who luckily went away before the fight. If he'd gotten killed instead of the toddler, there would really have been hell to pay. Yes, "abracadabra" is a magic word. I like to think that the kid says a different magic word his dad asks. Next time, he'll try "expelliarmus."

The kid’s name is Noah! That’s adorable! I'm not sure where Noah is in this future, but he and Gabriel must have made a great team. Sylar is the best dad ever. But... who's the mom? It can't be Claire. Because that's incest, folks, and incest is wrong. So... why are they living in the Bennet house, and whose kid is it?! Also, I'd like to think that Nathan gave him the "hail to the chef" apron. What a nice brother.

Peter just likes to parrot back the last word Gabriel says. "Brothers?" "Won't?"

“My name is Gabriel.” I love Redeemed!Sylar. His reaction to being called Sylar was priceless. And I’m flashing back to Love’s the Burning Boy, personally. Not wanting his kid to see him getting all powerfied is just precious.

The future is awesomely domestic! Matt is back into het. Now we get to fight over whether Matt or Sylar is a better dad.

Teenage!Molly is great. And still sassy as always. And the fact that they still live in Mohinder’s apartment is sort of sweet/twisted.

Sylar teaching Peter about his ability is so awesome. The watch. The Yoda-ing. The... awesome.

Um… That fight scene was the best thing that ever happened in the history of ever. That’s all I can say about it right now. I’m speechless from awesome.

Hiro and Ando need to kiss and make up. Or keep getting their asses kicked. And failing at everything.

Ew, Mohinder is slimy. I thought he couldn’t get any grosser after sleeping with Maya. I was wrong.

Nathan is praying… again… Mixed feelings about religious subplot… Resurfacing… Not-Niki can’t go away for good. There’s no one else in this plot line for Nathan to interact with. They’d better connect this line up with some other heroes soon. Because one imaginary dead mob boss and one crazy Niki-clone are not enough.

“You can fly.” *drinks* Great delivery.

“I have to show you something.” Nathan’s inner monologue: “It’s your boobs, right? Say it’s your boobs.” Aaaand it is. About sex. Of course.

Nathan is very presidential. And this time we know for sure he’s not Sylar. Ali's sunglasses are huge. Maybe she's the one turning into a cockroach.

The explosion burned off all of Peter's clothes! What a tragedy! Luckily, Claire found him some pants. Or maybe the Haitian found him some pants. Bottom line, he's not naked, and there's no gratuitous shower scene in sight. Claire likes bloodplay. Kinky. But now you have to be careful. Peter’s got Sylar inside him, and he’s growly.

A world where Nathan is the more idealistic one? What kind of crazy future is this?! Why is this volume all about the Petrelli brothers murdering each other? At least Peter is suitably horrified by murdering his brother. He's now got problems controlling his powers and moral quandaries about his powers. New and improved Peter, now with twice the angst (just when you thought we couldn't pack any more angst into this pretty little package).

Oh, writers. That was MEAN! Oh that was just horrific! Poor Daphne. Matt can’t get a freakin break.

“You don’t read much, do you?” Yea subversion of the mystical negro trope!

And the turtle is officially more important than the cockroach. Slowest. Spiritwalk. Ever.

Angela is amazing with anyone. But kudos to Ando for actually having a spine and standing up to her while she's calling Hiro a waste of space.

Cut to Hiro and Ando digging up a coffin...Wait… when did this turn into an episode of Supernatural? MONROE IS BACK! Squee!

Arthur Petrelli is coming next week, I predict. Awesome. Yet another Petrelli.

Overall, I'm happy with the actiony action sequences and the twisty twists. I don't think they broke Peter, just gave him another handicap to excuse why he doesn't just take over the world. I want Nathan back in the game, I want more Sylar and Bennet (and more Bennet in general), I want Peter to have a clue, and I want Maya and Mohinder to go away and never come back. But (as you may tell by counting the number of times I say "awesome" in this post) in general, I'm a happy Heroes camper.

Comments

[rednihilist.livejournal.com]

Wait… when did this turn into an episode of Supernatural?

LOL And, maybe this is me, and I could very well be wrong, but I thought the geneticist wasn't frozen because what's-her-name. . . Nikki version 2.0, gained a modicum of control over her suddenly-manifesting power and kinda stopped. *shrug* But the accent just sunk me. I was never a Niki fan, and now I'm definitely not a clone fan, and why does Nathan have the most boring plot right now? *pouts* I think I'll go back and re-watch my season one DVD's, yet again. Remember what the show used to be (no Maya *shudder*), instead of the still pretty disappointing mess it is now.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Oh, that could be. I must have missed any "acting" that went on in that moment.

I agree that Nathan needs to get back to the main plot! Or at least do something about the financial crisis! Come on, man!

[rednihilist.livejournal.com]

Heh. Who needs acting when you're blonde, huh?

Also, I love your icon. Speaking of, just think of all the naughty-wrong-oh-so-frickin'-scorchingly-hot Petrellicest going on right now with the inclusion of Gabriel into the family! Rawr!


. . . *looks up through eyelashes* any good recs for a loyal fan? *wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more* XD

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

I'm so enjoying new Volume III icons. Oh, the snark!

I agree that this opens up so many new possibilities for Petrellicest. But I have yet to read any fics on this topic. mystery_sock threatened to write a Nathan/Sylar/Peter threesome, but she's been sort of busy lately... Damn. That means that if I want to read some, I might have to write some. Crap.

[rednihilist.livejournal.com]

Damn. That means that if I want to read some, I might have to write some. Crap.

*rubs paws together gleefully* And now you have found out my EBIL plan! Mwhahahahaha!!

Ahem. Er, well, I always really enjoy your writing, so. . . YAY! XD

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yours is an evil plan. But I haven't written ANY volume three fic yet. And we're now 4 episodes in. I'm officially made of fail. So I guess I'd better remedy that situation... With porn. *sigh*

[(Anonymous)]

My guess about the kid's name being Noah is that Gabriel/Sylar's father is Noah Bennett. Didn't Angela already make reference to her sleeping around? So it is possible, also fits into how Gabriel gets a hold of the Bennett house.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Hm... I think Noah might be a little young to have a son as old as Gabriel allegedly is. It's possible that little Noah was some sort of orphan entrusted to Gabriel by the Company, ala Claire... Still a confusing situation.

[47-trek-47.livejournal.com]

I really don't know what to make of all this yet, but something that randomly struck me that I forgot to mention in my own review is... Gabe totally used that Petrelli chin-cupping manuever on Peter. How awesome. Clearly, Adrian and Milo have, indeed, been coaching Zach.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

They have! Zach's been watching Milo and Adrian and Milo has definitely been watching Zach. In the Bennett house and that morgue-ish thing, Milo's movements were more like Zach-as-Sylar, and in Level Five, too.

How is Peter going to get out of Level Five if it blocks abilities, though? Hmmm.

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

It's the Adrian and Milo school of ho-yay! Well, we already heard that Adrian and Zach did some rehearsing together for Five Years Gone, so I definitely think these guys are the kind of actors that would get together (on Adrian's boat, perhaps... nice and private) and hash out this stuff.

I'm confused about what Level Five actually does to abilities. The blue-fire guy was able to keep throwing fire in his cell... But obviously Jesse and Knox had to have their abilities blocked or they could have easily escaped. Um...

[redandglenda.livejournal.com]

This is pretty hilarious. I haven't seen any of the new season (or season 2, to be honest), and reading it like this is massively amusing. :)

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

Hee! I can't imagine my non-recap is terribly easy to follow. Re-reading it, I realize I don't actually say what happens. But I'm glad it could provide some amusement. :D