Heroes Season 1(#21)---5/07/07-'The Hard Part'

[Alzrius]

Sylar's ice powers have been hinted at for a long time now. When we first saw the Walker family slaughtered in one of the first few episodes, the father was frozen. We also see him use the ice powers on his way to kill Zane Taylor (the guy with the melting power).

This episode showed quite a bit about Sylar. With a mother like that, who desperately NEEDED him to be special, it's easy to see why he went off the deep end like that. And then, with her losing it and rejecting him before she's accidentally killed...that'd drive even a sane person off the deep end.

That said, a lot of how they characterized Sylar in this episode felt...off. The part about him being worried about killing the people of New York felt hard to swallow (the justification for him feeling that way is there, but it's thin), especially after seeing the Evil President Sylar plotting genocide in last episode's alternate future. More than that though, seeing him begging his mother to tell him that he doesn't have to be special...it just feels too late. This is the sort of crisis he should have been having after he killed the first time, not after leaving potentially dozens of dead bodies in his wake without a backwards glance.

In short, the entire thing with his mother felt like a reason for why he'd then go insane and become a villain...only he's already done that.

I didn't quite get the part where he faced Hiro. Telling Hiro to kill him, and then calling him a coward when he couldn't makes sense...except that Sylar was holding the sword, and then froze it in half.

This episode was a good one, but it felt like it was good in spite of itself. :\

 

[papastebu]

Actually, we are lead to conclude (from the FBI's muder scene talk) and how this fits the MO of the previous killings that Sylar must have acquired it in one of the kills before the Walkers. He used that power at the Walker crime scene on Mr. Walker to freeze him.

The "Ice power" was also shown by Sylar at the end of episode #20 in the fight against Peter (who had flaming hands). The Fire vs. Ice showdown.

I had thought that this blue hands were just the flip-side of Ted's power, it being the future, and all.
We still don't know for sure who the bomb is. I am excited to find out, though. It seems that Peter would be the most likely to lose control, him being new to the power. But will it cut off if he's unconscious/dead? Same question for Sylar, since the death of his mother pushed him even further down the coo-coo path.

 

[Steel_Wind]

This episode showed quite a bit about Sylar. With a mother like that, who desperately NEEDED him to be special, it's easy to see why he went off the deep end like that. And then, with her losing it and rejecting him before she's accidentally killed...that'd drive even a sane person off the deep end.

That said, a lot of how they characterized Sylar in this episode felt...off. The part about him being worried about killing the people of New York felt hard to swallow (the justification for him feeling that way is there, but it's thin), especially after seeing the Evil President Sylar plotting genocide in last episode's alternate future.

It felt a bit like they were reaching, yes.

I think the writers have changed their tune a bit on Sylar as the season has evolved. What was supposed to be a guest villain who ended with the season turned out to be a very popular villain on the net and amongst their fanbase.

Remember, at the time they were filming Sylar's first crime scene and frozen bodies and moms staked to a wall with forks and alittle crying girl in a closet - Zach Quinto had not even been cast for the part.

"Six months Ago" changed everything and made Sylar a very popular character.

Fandom loves Sylar. It's not too much a stretch to rank him as probably the second or third most popular character on the show.

So Sylar's popular. Very popular among the fans. I think this attempt to humanize him and have him not be so black and white is the attempt to turn Sylar into more of a sympathetic anti-hero - and not just some serial killer.

Because Sylar has been signed for the second season. So they have to do something to rehabilitate this guy a bit and make him a bit more like Magneto, and a bit less like Ted Bundy.

So they clarify a few things in his motives and background: Sylar's fire to be special was fueled by the needs of his mother. Sylar kills for power, yes, but he doesn't kill normals for kicks - he kills specials only to increase his power. In episode #20, he was even prepared to stop THAT after Claire. He didn't need any more power after her.

Similarly, the pathos and anguish over possibly wiping out half the city he grew up in and calls home hurts him and makes him reach out to those he felt close to - Mohinder, (closest thing he has to a friend - isn't that a sad comment on his life) and to his Mom.

It also served to humanize him in a way that Hiro could believably have difficulty in killing him.

 

[papastebu]

That said, a lot of how they characterized Sylar in this episode felt...off. The part about him being worried about killing the people of New York felt hard to swallow (the justification for him feeling that way is there, but it's thin), especially after seeing the Evil President Sylar plotting genocide in last episode's alternate future. More than that though, seeing him begging his mother to tell him that he doesn't have to be special...it just feels too late. This is the sort of crisis he should have been having after he killed the first time, not after leaving potentially dozens of dead bodies in his wake without a backwards glance.

In short, the entire thing with his mother felt like a reason for why he'd then go insane and become a villain...only he's already done that.

I didn't quite get the part where he faced Hiro. Telling Hiro to kill him, and then calling him a coward when he couldn't makes sense...except that Sylar was holding the sword, and then froze it in half.

I felt like Sylar was more comprehensible after this episode. Seeing how overbearing--albeit in a sweet, caring, supportive way ---his mom was, we see the dichotomy of the voices in his head. He wanted little more than to be like his dad. Many men grow into this as they mature, some start out with it. His mother was living vicariously through him, though, and wanted him to be more than his father was---it was obvious that she didn't respect the man.
I feel like Sylar was just riding the wave of discovery while acting on deeply-dysfunctional views. He discovered a way to be something more, and was doing so. Finding out he was going to become a bomb was like a slap in the face, a wake-up call. He had rationalized that the ones he'd already killed were necessary evils, but mass-murder was outside the paradigm. How do you make something that big go inside his tiny, little watch-body of a mind? His mother had been his guide. He went back to her to show what he could do, and to ask if he was special enough, yet.
Obviously, he wasn't. His mother's death was a serious blow to his already damaged psyche. Even though we see him as a villain, he wasn't in his own mind. He only was getting his due, as far as he was concerned. They didn't deserve what they had, he thought. He was asking his mom "Why would I do that?" about the bomb thing.
I think that the reason he wanted Hiro to kill him was that he felt that he needed to die for killing her, but suicide was a coward's way out. Sylar is not a coward, whatever else he is. He said he was then going to kill Hiro because he loathes cowardice. Holding the sword was a reflex, I think, as was the freezing.

 

[papastebu]

Steel Wind, I see some of your points, but I don't agree that he's now more like Magneto. Unless it's the genocidal version. He is now a part of the Happy Mutants for Nuclear Energy(TM) group, and is free of the shackles of morality and remorse.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Mostly a good episode. As usual, I had a couple of problems with it. Most have already been mentioned. Interestingly, the one I had the biggest problem with was Sylar's mom's death. Not that he killed her accidently, but that he couldn't! There is no way that the scissors could have been driven into her chest from where they had their hands.

As for Sylar coming back next season, blah. The one thing I've long hated about the comics is villains coming back over and over no matter how many lives they ruin. Just kill the bastich and be done with it!

 

[Steel_Wind]

Steel Wind, I see some of your points, but I don't agree that he's now more like Magneto.

I didn't mean that literally - I meant the writers are trying to nudge the character to at least having some noble human qualities - however buried they may be. If they can show him to be more human, a man who has some redeeming qualities, he is more amenable to later flirting with the iconic touchstones of the anti-hero.

Otherwise, we are left with Hitler and the future's Final Solution to the Mutant Problem - or a portrayal of a souped up Ted Bundy.

 

[papastebu]

I didn't mean that literally - I meant the writers are trying to nudge the character to at least having some noble human qualities - however buried they may be. If they can show him to be more human, a man who has some redeeming qualities, he is more amenable to later flirting with the iconic touchstones of the anti-hero.

Otherwise, we are left with Hitler and the future's Final Solution to the Mutant Problem - or a portrayal of a souped up Ted Bundy.

Do you really think that they're trying to humanize him?
Look at The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The titular character resisted being what he'd suddenly become from the start until he couldn't do anything else but what he was made to do. I don't see Sylar ever coming around like that. Granted, Thomas Covenant didn't murder, but he brought terror into peaceful people's lives through rape and connection to evils that were under control up to that point.
Does Sylar have the capability to save the world? I don't think so. He wants to be the only one who's special, so that his mother can rest. Or he can get relief from her. She told him to be president. He's gonna do that. I think that the writers are going to spark our interest even further with Sylar's development as a character, but as a monster-character, rather than a human being. He may come to be a savior in the public eye, but I think that from here on out, he'll be the tail that's wagging the dog, and the Spin King.

 

[Taelorn76]

Mostly a good episode. As usual, I had a couple of problems with it. Most have already been mentioned. Interestingly, the one I had the biggest problem with was Sylar's mom's death. Not that he killed her accidently, but that he couldn't! There is no way that the scissors could have been driven into her chest from where they had their hands.

It's funny I thought the same thing when I saw that.

 

[F5]

Interestingly, the one I had the biggest problem with was Sylar's mom's death. Not that he killed her accidently, but that he couldn't! There is no way that the scissors could have been driven into her chest from where they had their hands.

Based on the expression on her face after the stabbing, I kind of got the impression that she did it herself.

More questions about Sylar, and one answer. HOW did he manage to re-start time? I doubt he has any kind of time-control power, and I also doubt he has the Haitian's power-cancelling power (if he did, he would have used it on Peter to make him go visual again, rather than the glass shards trick). So, how did he do it? Have we ever seen a power actually work on Sylar? Maybe one of his tricks is Power Immunity.

His re-starting time does answer one nagging question, though. Why don't future Hiro or Peter just go back in time, freeze-frame and cut off Sylar's head? Because they can't. Time stop foesn't work on Sylar.

I still want to see Micah take over Linderman's building, and wipe out his entire organization. While sitting in his chair playing PlayStation.