Heroes# 12: Our Father/Dec 2008

[Umbran]

If people’s opinion about the quality of Season 3, Episode 12 comes down to Arthur Petrelli’s appearance on the top of the Devaeux Building...then the show isn’t the thing which is broken around here.

And if your opinion of people around here comes down to their opinion of an episode of a TV show, what does that say, sir?

Please avoid the hyperbole and insulting suggestions. Failing to agree with you does not make someone else "broken".

That goes for everyone - this is about a TV show. There is no accounting for taste. Different people like different things - if you cannot accept that, please consider posting elsewhere.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The second half is where it went bad, and it went bad because the writers were inconsistent with past episodes of time travel and time lines. The whole change in the catalyst would have had repercussions on the time line, but it didn't. If the writers hadn't already established that the timeline could be changed it would have been ok, but they have and it isn't. The Haitian was also neutered for story effect and no one learned from the past and figured it was ok to not finish Pa Patrelli off properly.

You assume that:

1) History has been changed by Hiro and Claire. There is no evidence of this so far. We do not know that history has been altered in the least from the current time line by their actions. They may always have done what it is that they did, if you follow me. Moreover, if there was a change in the timeline, that does not mean that it happened in episode #12 in the past; and,

2) That Arthur Petrelli is not dead. I think his body vanishing and the departure of the "Catalyst" into thin air was strong visual evidence that he is, in fact, dead.

In short, the attacks you make are based on assumptions which may be wrong - and probably are.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Nope. Not backing down Umbran. There appears to be an epidemic of "piling on" here past the point of reasonableness.

 

[fba827]

Here is a random theory (not necessarily likely, but not necessarily wrong either).
What if Claire never was the catalyst and it was always Hiro?
Fact 1) Claire assumed she was because Sylar said she was special; but maybe Sylar saw something else in her brain and she was wrong about being it
Fact 2) When Arthur was deducing who Kaito gave the catalyst to, he was looking at a folder with both Claire and Hiro's pictures in it; he made a guess of Claire but maybe that was just to send his goons after her while he worked the Hiro angle himself

This would account for the "regular" time line not getting screwed up by the changes down in the time-traveled-past.

 

[stonegod]

The second half is where it went bad, and it went bad because the writers were inconsistent with past episodes of time travel and time lines. The whole change in the catalyst would have had repercussions on the time line, but it didn't. If the writers hadn't already established that the timeline could be changed it would have been ok, but they have and it isn't. The Haitian was also neutered for story effect and no one learned from the past and figured it was ok to not finish Pa Patrelli off properly.

Actually, I'm not sure the catalyst was ever given to Claire: Our only assurance of that was Claire assuming it was so (because Sylar said he wouldn't/couldn't kill her). There could be other reasons for that. There could have been a perfectly stable time loop where there was no catalyst in the intervening years.

It also explains why Pa would have had to wait so long in the present, since he knew he needed the powers from Hiro.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I don't think anything has yet been changed which has any real significance, with the exception of Sylar's reversion to evil.

Future Sylar was a good guy and had a son, probably with Elle. If there has been a change in the timeline, that's the one that has significance. Future "Good" Sylar destroys Costa Verde and that leads to "full weaponization" of the formula. That event would appear to no longer be in the cards.

So whatever lead to that odd flip-flop and fip-flop back of Sylar's "alignment" is probably the only real event that has significance. It might be that the scene in the car rental shop with Elle which seemed so utterly random at the time was the product of time-line interference. Not sure, obviously.

If that event was the thing which tipped the balance in favour of Syler "becoming evil", then the resulting death of Arthur Petrelli last night through Sylar might also be key.

We know from how this Chapter began that Future Peter had a scar - and that Future Peter had regained his powers.

So we know that the events of last night, and in particular, the fact that Peter had lost his powers, and that he received a scar was always "supposed" to happen. (Athough, I seem to remember the scar being on the other side of his face.. I may be wrong about that.)

We also know from the fact that Future Peter had his powers that he gets them back at some point. Hence, we know the Catalyst worked and that next episode or a few after the next one, Peter will take the perfected formula and be restored.

What we don't know is how everything goes off the rails. I think that the choice which Peter faces is the one that the Chapter began with. Averting the future was never about stopping Arthur Petrelli... It just looked that way. It was, in fact, always about stopping Nathan Petrelli.

Nathan will have to back down and stop the spread of the formula - or someone - probably Peter - will have to kill him... for the third time.

 

[RangerWickett]

So the episode where I decide, "That's it, I ain't bothering watching this junk anymore" turns out to be pretty good.

I enjoyed it, and it told a decent story. Now there were some unfortunate flaws due to idiotic crap that had been written into the show previously (why make Hiro be a 10 year old? where the hell did all this 'catalyst' crap come from?), and due to the fact that the actors playing Tracy and Arthur just don't do it for me at all. But having George Takei on again certainly helped, and overall, it was a good episode.

Therefore, I will ignore all the time paradoxes it caused, because hopefully our long national nightmare of badly written Heroes has ended.

 

[Umbran]

Nope. Not backing down Umbran.

Then you may leave the thread. Have a nice day.

 

[DonTadow]

If people’s opinion about the quality of Season 3, Episode 12 comes down to Arthur Petrelli’s appearance on the top of the Devaeux Building...then the show isn’t the thing which is broken around here.

The big bad villian randomly appears at a place in time at the exact spot he needs to be with no knowledge to the audience of how he knows to take some random magical (magic in a show that's first season stuck to science fiction) energy that he somehow knows hiro has. Then in the future he mixes a magical stew to give powers. In th mean time ma petrelli sends her best agent, the emo Peter to assassinate the man who she thinks will destroy the world. Once again the hatian's powers are nerfed or increased at the speed of plot and then sylar comes in and does the killing thing because thats what he does.

Right... this episode didn't have any problems. The scenes were HRG was good (as they always are) but stupid Hiro has been done to death. The last half of the episode just broadcasts in high def the absurd inconsistencies of the show that will lead to the show's cancelation in the near future. The show's about people with powers, those powers need to be defined and consistant for any audience to buy into the mythos. If they keep changing, disappearing, morphing and twisting it makes for a hard to understand plot and even harder to understand characterization. Every season has 2 or 3 different versions of the future, which further strangles the writing as they make inconsistencies to fix future inconsistencies.

People, like myself and many on this thread, are just frustrated with the show and can't accept a less than the first season version of it. I can't look at a crappy inconsisent episode and say ... well those three seens were good so I'll give it an average score. I need to look at the whole and say, was i fully entertained. Heck, if i just watched the first 25 minutes, i would give it a 6, but those last 35 ruined the overall show. I kept asking myself questions, trying to remember things that didn't exist to find some form of reason why things that made no sense were happening

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Actually, I'm not sure the catalyst was ever given to Claire: Our only assurance of that was Claire assuming it was so (because Sylar said he wouldn't/couldn't kill her). There could be other reasons for that. There could have been a perfectly stable time loop where there was no catalyst in the intervening years.

It also explains why Pa would have had to wait so long in the present, since he knew he needed the powers from Hiro.

The problems I see with that is that up to this episode Arthur is trying to get Claire because he believes she is the catalyst. Then this episode Hiro is given the catalyst instead of Claire and Arthur is back in the past collecting the catalyst from Hiro. To me it seems we are either in an alternate future where Arthur knows Claire isn't the catalyst or the writers gave some major omnipotence to Arthur and royally screwed up concistency.