Heroes Season [Volume] 1(#23)---5/21/07-'How to stop an Exploding Man' Season Ending.

[GoodKingJayIII]

That would just be a more nuanced use of the TK power.

When he was in his mother's apartment, he was making the snow globes fly around the room while freezing the water from the sprayer at the same time, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, I'm in agreement. The head-slicing thing as its own separate power is, to me, a bit of a stretch. I don't see why TK can only lift stuff; perfectly viable for cutting stuff as well, as far as I'm concerned. He did it in the beginning of the episode when he destroyed the painting of Peter.

The ending was very anticlimactic, but I liked it. I was disappointed by the whole "teleport in, run up to Sylar, stab him." Not only did it look stupid, but it made very little sense. Sylar's demonstrated himself to be much faster in the past. Heck, not two minutes before hand he stopped a trio of bullets in mid-flight. Why couldn't he toss some wimpy little Japanese dork with a sword? Hiro should've popped in, shouted his name, and stabbed Sylar in the gut. Or stopped time. It's the only way that whole interaction makes sense to me.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

We're comparing the way you're looking at it is a d and d way and not a realistic way. Sylar has had this power most of the season. He can fake his death somehow. We the viewer have seen him do that but none of the heroes have. In d and d terms we the players know that this guy has... regeneration (figuratively) but none of the pcs does. Even HG doesnot really know of the power. I agree, an additional scene would have been nice but was not needed. I don't mind a cliffhanger at the end of the season.

Even still ,it might not have been sylar whom did it, it might have been someone else, future sylar( possiblity) or even a hero or another team moving it.

If you think I am looking at it from a D&D prespective then I have failed in voicing my complaints. D&D is a small part of my life and is about the least likely prespective I would have in viewing a show. As such let me try again.

I don't have a problem with the amount of action, although more would have been nice. I don't have a problem with the specific actions that the Heroes took. What I do have a problem with is the poor writing that left huge gaping holes of irrational behavior in the actions of the characters. Having to come up with some speculative theory based on very little about why a character might have made a choice isn't a cliffhanger, its a deficiency in the writing. Especially when those items could be easily addressed and we could be spending more time about the real cliffhangers. Cliffhangers are about things that are going to happen, not trying to patch the gaps of logic in people's behavior.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hey, I like the idea of Sylar melting himself. (But it doesn't exactly explain the traces of blood to the gully)

As someone else mentioned, Sylar and Peter are fundamentally different:
Sylar is analytical. He understands how his powers work, and trains in their use (think of the scene where he is "playing" with his radiation powers on top of the building)
Peter is intuitive. He picks up a power and just uses them if the time feels right (except for nuclear blasting ). It has a near casual quality to it when he uses a power (think of how he easily he turned invisible or how he took Nikkis strength.)
I think you can see it even visually (and it might even indicate a fundamental difference between Peter and all others) -
if Parkman reads other people's thought, he looks very focused and concentrated. Peter just picks them up. If Sylar uses a power, he is usually making gestures and focusing on what he is doing (think of his telekinesis and the "Force-Crush" movements he does).
But Peter is not always aware of the powers he has or how to use them.

If Sylar was in the position of the other heroes, he would probably have been a lot better prepared and would have ensured that the maniac brain-opener would be dead and not just appear dead.

One of the main reasons why the other Heroes didn't check on Sylar might have been that they were all occupied with themselves.
Parkman and DL effectively bind Nikki, Mohinder and the kids. Bennet might have been more concerned with his daughter or vice versa (he was injured). Nathan and Peter are dead or at least far away...
Still doesn't explain why they failed to show a scene where someone noticed that Sylar got away...

 

[papastebu]

Hey, I like the idea of Sylar melting himself. (But it doesn't exactly explain the traces of blood to the gully)

As someone else mentioned, Sylar and Peter are fundamentally different:
Sylar is analytical. He understands how his powers work, and trains in their use (think of the scene where he is "playing" with his radiation powers on top of the building)
Peter is intuitive. He picks up a power and just uses them if the time feels right (except for nuclear blasting ). It has a near casual quality to it when he uses a power (think of how he easily he turned invisible or how he took Nikkis strength.)
I think you can see it even visually (and it might even indicate a fundamental difference between Peter and all others) -
if Parkman reads other people's thought, he looks very focused and concentrated. Peter just picks them up. If Sylar uses a power, he is usually making gestures and focusing on what he is doing (think of his telekinesis and the "Force-Crush" movements he does).
But Peter is not always aware of the powers he has or how to use them.

If Sylar was in the position of the other heroes, he would probably have been a lot better prepared and would have ensured that the maniac brain-opener would be dead and not just appear dead.

One of the main reasons why the other Heroes didn't check on Sylar might have been that they were all occupied with themselves.
Parkman and DL effectively bind Nikki, Mohinder and the kids. Bennet might have been more concerned with his daughter or vice versa (he was injured). Nathan and Peter are dead or at least far away...
Still doesn't explain why they failed to show a scene where someone noticed that Sylar got away...

I think the blood MIGHT be explained by the godawful-huge dai-katana that was thrust through Sylar's abdomen. Just guessing, but maybe he can't melt what's no longer part of him? Maybe he can turn INTO a cockroach, and that's why they're all so interested in him?
That's it. He turned into a cockroach after dragging himself into the manhole. If you look really closely, you can see the downsized---though proportionally, still gaping---sword wound in his thorax!
But I digest digress.
I was, overall, quite happy about the whole show.
I knew that Nathan wouldn't give up on his brother because they were too close. I am exceptionally pleased with his turnaround. It took his long-lost daughter to snap him out of his idiot phase, but the real Nathan was there, finally. Flight, btw, is one of my all-time-favorite powers, and the scene where HRG and the Haitian had to eat his SUPERSONIC vapor-trail is, to date, my favorite of the season.
I totally get where the character of Peter Petrelli is at in that showdown scene. If I had a dollar for every time I got wishy-washy because I had too many things to think about at the same time, there'd be a big pile of money somewhere that I wasn't able to find, because I'd forgotten where I left it! Pete was freaked out, because the whole thing was going down just like he dreamed it. Everybody was there as in the dream, and he knew that his brother had to come save him, because that's what big brothers do, and Nathan, especially.
Granted, there are some fair-sized logic holes in the episode, but I didn't think about most of them until afterward, 'cuz I was having way too much fun.

 

[Vocenoctum]

We're comparing the way you're looking at it is a d and d way and not a realistic way.

The omniscient viewpoint has absolutely NOTHING to do with D&D, so I can't understand the phrasing at all.

Sylar has had this power most of the season. He can fake his death somehow. We the viewer have seen him do that but none of the heroes have. In d and d terms we the players know that this guy has... regeneration (figuratively) but none of the pcs does.

Ah, so you're thinking in D&D, got it.
Mohinder was smashed against a ceiling because he underestimated Sylar, but I guess that doesn't count? Bennet doesn't hold any kind of grudge for Eve's death? Bennet doesn't remember being locked in a room when Sylar last was supposed to be dead?

Sylar hasn't faked his death much otherwise. I can see the roach having reawakened him from pseudodeath in containment, as an emissary of the Dark One, but I don't think Sylar has the power himself.

Even HG doesnot really know of the power. I agree, an additional scene would have been nice but was not needed. I don't mind a cliffhanger at the end of the season.

Even still ,it might not have been sylar whom did it, it might have been someone else, future sylar( possiblity) or even a hero or another team moving it.

I think a discovery (rather than a camera showing the audience) would have been a lot more efficient. Even a random paramedic saying "hey, wasn't there a body here before?" would have been a lot less bewildering.

 

[Vocenoctum]

If Sylar was in the position of the other heroes, he would probably have been a lot better prepared and would have ensured that the maniac brain-opener would be dead and not just appear dead.

I think that's my fundamental problem with the repetition of the season. The characters never learned/ advanced. They were still as badly organized at the end as they were at the start. There was no plan of attack, there was no coordination, they didn't share information. Bennet and Mohinder at the least should have a good idea of what powers he's got. Parkman's policy of "try the failed tactic again" seemed a bit pointless.

 

[papastebu]

I wish they had done the "Where'd that body go?" thing as an intro to showing us that Sylar had slithered off somewhere.
I am glad we're gonna see him again. I hope we see the Petrelli brothers, too---sounds like a circus act, doesn't it? "The Flying Petrelli's".
I think Hiro popping out of here and now and popping back in when and where he did was fairly logical.
I wish Nathan had tried to convince Peter to fly away on his own, and Peter had responded with "I---I can't! I don't know why, I just can't!" or somesuch.
Claire is not a cop, so her not shooting someone that she is definitely thinking of as family is cool, expected, even.
Peter had what he needed from Nikki, and was prepared to use it, so he was right to tell her that her family needed her.
D.L. was facing a probable lingering doom.
Micah, as brave as he can be, is a kid watching his dad bleed out all over the sidewalk.
Molly is afraid of Sylar, and what could she do if not?
Parkman may be dead from his own bullets kinetically-reversed.
I still don't know how Claire found her way to that plaza, never having been there. Maybe Pete and she had discussed it, a la Peter's dream?
Sylar got the drop on Noah Bennet, pretty much, and at that point, Claire picked up his gun.
The only explanations I'm actually missing, in story, are the non-notice of Sylar's body's disappearance, and Claire actually finding the plaza, and the why of Nathan having to sacrifice himself.
The rest of it seems pretty tight, to me. Even geniuses make mistakes, sometimes. Why not the writers of the show?
Fallout from Peter could start a whole new rash of mutations.

 

[papastebu]

I think that's my fundamental problem with the repetition of the season. The characters never learned/ advanced. They were still as badly organized at the end as they were at the start. There was no plan of attack, there was no coordination, they didn't share information. Bennet and Mohinder at the least should have a good idea of what powers he's got. Parkman's policy of "try the failed tactic again" seemed a bit pointless.

Parkman's not sure that bullets don't do much to Sylar, is he? He's a cop, and Sylar's a bad guy, a serious bad guy who needs to die. For all of Matt's clairaudience, he thinks the same way as he always has, which is to say a man who knows how to use a gun, and knows that he can't doe so unless the situation warrants it.
And, not trying to be snarky at all, these aren't the X-Men. They haven't been trained in the use of their powers, team-based combat, or even working together---other than HRG's guidance when the three of them were busting out of captivity. They've hardly known each other, up 'til now,and some of them are meeting for the first time in that plaza---Peter and the Hawkins family, for example---and are in exceedingly stressful circumstances, to boot.
Another thing to remember, all of the injuries occur from Sylar's puissance, not from anyone else's incompetence.
They's all jus' folks, ya know? With awesome cosmic power, sure, but just people.

 

[sniffles]

Clear to many others as well. There are more then a few that had a similar thought process.

And lets not forget, these are not actual people reacting to actual situations. I am not blaming someone that couldn't perform under a pressure situation. I am criticizing the writer's thinking of how the characters would react to the situation. They are in no different boat then I am when deciding how the charachter would react. Their decisions are not above criticism by any means.

I think you just made my point for me. They're not real people. It's a tv show. Sure, the writers could have written something else, but they didn't choose to. They had somewhere they presumably wanted to go with the story that required Sylar to survive and escape again (apparently), so that's what happened.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

I think you just made my point for me. They're not real people. It's a tv show. Sure, the writers could have written something else, but they didn't choose to. They had somewhere they presumably wanted to go with the story that required Sylar to survive and escape again (apparently), so that's what happened.

So you agree with me that they railroaded the characters actions, regardless if it was sensible or not, to have them do what the writers wanted them to do? Good, then we are in agreement.

I also consider that bad writing.