Heroes Season 1(#10)---11/27/06-'Six Months Ago'

[Umbran]

I think Sylar's power is to understand. What he can understand, he can control or reproduce, in himself. I don't think Sylar detects heroes so much as he understands the connections that cause them to be where they are. Sylar takes brains to study them, I'm guessing, to take them apart and see how they work.

Okay, no. I am very sorry, but you cannot study and understand how the brain works with a pair of magnifying glasses and watchmaker's tools, and that's all he had on him. No. By all the gods, I'd prefer the cannibalistic version to the idea that he can figure it out with those tools...

Sylar mentions how he's a clockmaker - he knows broken things. It's his destiny - like Matt is a cop, Peter is a nurse... okay, that's all I've got so far as powers matching destiny. Sylar can clearly see the "genetic abnormality" (Chandra's words exactly) as being broken in the hero with TK - which he plainly steals.

Right. And we take the words of a murderer to know that the guy was "broken"? The guy was just scared that he'd hurt somebody. Sylar is psychotic, and is using the "broken" thing as a rationalization to commit murder. I don't see any indication that Sylar actually "senses" anything.

I may be proved wrong, of course, but that's how I see it.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I had thought about Charlie being fated to die of an incurable disease, but decided that was just too corny a gag for them to pull. Surprise!

 

[Crothian]

Okay, no. I am very sorry, but you cannot study and understand how the brain works with a pair of magnifying glasses and watchmaker's tools, and that's all he had on him. No. By all the gods, I'd prefer the cannibalistic version to the idea that he can figure it out with those tools...

Ya, I was hoping for more of an explanation here. I didn't think it worked well.

 

[Taelorn76]

Okay, no. I am very sorry, but you cannot study and understand how the brain works with a pair of magnifying glasses and watchmaker's tools, and that's all he had on him. No. By all the gods, I'd prefer the cannibalistic version to the idea that he can figure it out with those tools...

Maybe his glasses and tools are a crutch for him, in the beginning, Like Issac's need for the drug to paint. Perhaps in time and with more use of his power he weens himself off his glasses.
He's able to disect (sp) a brain on the spot an fix his brain to match that power.

 

[BRP2]

First off, Peter has a strong connection with his brother, too strong to be natural. Makes me curious really.

More importantly, Sylar. Okay, I think Sylar's ability is simply that he is some type of super genius who thinks in clockwork, even super computer-like thinking skills. Basically, he knows what makes people and things "tick", pun intended. This may or may not have caused his insanity. I think he method of gaining powers is simple. He finally realized that the powers come straight from the brain. Like taking a gear from a watch and adding it to another, he could take the special piece of brain that allowed the powers and add it to his own with a surgery procedure. Now, I'm not sure how he did something tricky like operate on his own brain, so that leaves me curious. Otherwise I'm pretty dead-set on this.

Sylar has instantly become my favorite character. He is actually what I was looking for. I don't want to go into detail, but his insanity is quite awesome and almost understandable. It seems Brennet and Sylar are probably going to go head to head in a battle of the minds with Sylar at a big disadvantage.

I wonder if the "Haitian's" power is to block out mind abilities or if its to block out all powers around him.

For a moment I thought Sylar was going to be like a Magneto figure, then he goes and kills the guy a moment later lol.

I personally don't believe he can sense powers.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Ya, I was hoping for more of an explanation here. I didn't think it worked well.

Now that I've come down off my high, and not worrying about missing Studio 60 (which I'm gonna have to watch at least one more time, that was really confusing), I have to agree. The episode wasn't bad, per se, but I'm not really sure it was anything special.

The biggest thing, I think, is that some heroes (Matt, Nathan, Claire, Charlie, and possibly Peter, Sylar and Nikki) had their powers start working six months ago - but not all of them did. Eden, the Haitian, and possibly Micah all seemed to have powers prior to the six month window.

Honestly, I'm entirely convinced this episode wasn't so much supposed to be about Sylar as it was an excuse to improve Hiro's English.

 

[Milkman Dan]

More importantly, Sylar. Okay, I think Sylar's ability is simply that he is some type of super genius who thinks in clockwork, even super computer-like thinking skills. Basically, he knows what makes people and things "tick", pun intended. This may or may not have caused his insanity. I think he method of gaining powers is simple. He finally realized that the powers come straight from the brain. Like taking a gear from a watch and adding it to another, he could take the special piece of brain that allowed the powers and add it to his own with a surgery procedure. Now, I'm not sure how he did something tricky like operate on his own brain, so that leaves me curious. Otherwise I'm pretty dead-set on this.

No offense, but the brain surgery idea just sounds silly. I really don't think he has to physically add a piece of someone's brain to his own for that matter. He might simply need to study it, and understand it. "So that's how he can move objects without touching them. Now I know how to do it too."

I wouldn't be that surprised if he had to eat a bit of someone's brain instead. Wild Cards had the cannibalism thing as a power too, or so I'm told. Said person discovered it while eating a hamburger at a fast food place and suddenly gaining a cow's memories, since it had bits of the cow's brain.

 

[Dire Bare]

If it comes down to Sylar versus Peter, it will be one hell of a fight. I think it will come down to who can use the others power against them first would win. If Sylar understands how Peter works first, Sylar wins, and if Peter copies and achieves Sylar's understanding first, Peter wins. They almost seem evenly matched. Maybe the winner will be decided by their humanity rather than their power, if their powers cancel each other out.

I never bought those looney theories that Peter was Syler, but I can kinda see why some people thought it might be (despite how ludicrous the "theories" were). Sylar is the Anti-Peter! They kinda look similar (build, hair & complexion) and they both have powers that "feed" off the powers of other heroes. Which made their confrontation last episode kinda cool in retrospect.

I think Sylar's power is to simply (if "simply" is the right word) to sense and understand how things work. He has to concentrate on it, it's not like a hero radar! In the diner, he was focused on Charlie, and probably didn't even pay attention to Hiro. If he had . . . He also passed right by Claire-Bear in the locker-room and went for the non-powered cheerleader, because he felt he already knew who the hero was from the newspaper reports. But once he saw her regenerate . . .

I don't think he can simply walk through a crowded room and have his spidey sense go off showing him all the heroes.

My guess is he takes the brain, examines it, and then replicates the power. Whether this involves self surgery or a type of autohypnosis (like the D&D skill) I'm not sure. He probably used his watchmakers tools at first, but probably doesn't anymore. Remember, coming into your superpower isn't necessarily as fast as snapping your fingers. Your powers can start out smaller and grow, at the same time your own understanding and control of your powers grow.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but what do you think Sylar's current list of powers are?

- ability to sense and understand how things work
- telekinesis
- ability to obscure his presence (like the Arcane power in the old WW Mage game)
- super memory (Charlie's power)
- he's seems super-tough

He's killed a lot of heroes and examined their brains . . . do you think he's taken all of their powers, or only select powers?

He's obviously looney, do you think he's killing heroes to take their powers . . . or for some other reason? He mentions a "biological imperative" when he kills Brian, his first hero. And I think he was very unbalanced before he ever came into his power and met Chandra, but of course during his "discovery" period he goes over the edge . . .

Oh, and is everybody reading the online comic books on nbc.com? They're short, but pretty cool with great art and some interesting insights to the characters. This weeks comic gives us more info on Eden!

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Sylar can't sense others with powers, he's working off the list from Chandra Surresh. Because if he could sense others with powers he would have killed Hiro at the diner. And the reason that he didn't bother with Hiro, is that Sylar only bothered so far with reading and tracking down the Americans from that list.

 

[Torx]

This post is spoiler-rich and mostly rantish. Move on if that's not your thing...

I thought the episode was rather poor, myself. It struggled with the problem it's had from nearly the beginning: too many characters and not enough time to tell each of their stories. It acted like an origins story but only told the origin of a character we now really see for the first time, Sylar. On that front, the episode did very well.

Otherwise, it was a miserable failure. Hiro's and Charlie's love story was far too short to be believable. Don't get me wrong, I'm as much a gushing, gullible romantic as the next guy, but I found their romance unbelievable because of its brevity, poor editing, and lack of chemistry between the actors. It also left too many threads open that shouldn't have been. How exactly does Charlie die now? An aneurysm or Sylar? And when did she die? How did Hiro get all that money? He's had financial issues before but he buys multiple international tickets before and after he loses his power. How exactly did that happen again? These seem more like hand-waving than planned plot devices.

Peter and Nathan's background story also lacked spark. We learn nothing new about Nathan save the actual circumstance behind his wife's injury. He shows that he has developed not at all. The story mentions of both Linderman and their father remain superficial since we have not been privy to either character save in reference. The fact that the brothers were willing to turn on their father means little if all we know about the father is that he deals with a mobster (whom we haven't seen).

Matt's backstory told us that he's not the flawed character who failed the detective exam serveral times like we thought. Nope, he has a disease, so it's not his fault. It serves to weaken his character and make him flatter, taking away his flaws and richness. Eden's backstory illuminated little beyond what we already knew or strongly suspected. Claire's backstory was nearly nonexistent. It served only to show that her father has known about her ability from the beginning, and that the slogan should have been: "Save the Backup Cheerleader, Save the World."

Even the Niki/Jessica plotline, arguably the strongest of the established characters, was pretty boring. This may be my bias against her character showing through, but I didn't really buy it. She was a recovering alcoholic who, by all accounts, had a perfect wife/mother relationship with her family but was struggling with the financial aspects. Then her estranged father rolls in, tries to patch things up, and it is revealed that Jessica is really Niki's [older?] sister. Then Jessica beats up their father and gives back money that could help her family.

Am I the only one who thinks Jessica does not have Niki's best interests at heart? Most of Niki's problems have been financial in nature, that has been well established. She returns their father's assumedly large donation. Then D.L. is about to make the score of a lifetime and Jessica highjacks it and puts the $2 million in the attic. Then Jessica allows Niki to borrow $50k from a mobster and not be able to pay it back. Not a very wise alter ego.

Sorry about the longish and disagreeable rant. I recently went on and saw all the episodes of Battlestar Galactica for the first time in a long, multi-season marathon. Heroes this week did not add up.