Heroes Season 3 [PURE SPOILER]

[AKA_Bait]

I think Mama Petrelli was referring to the first mimicked ability that he demonstrated, which was indeed her ability.

I'll have to go look. I thought Peters mention of his foot 'hovering for a second' when he was getting out of bed was before his dream. I could be wrong though, I don't remember it that clearly.

The other thing about it is that Ma Petrelli hasn't been referring to Peter from the Future as her son. That might just be a nod to the time traveling Peter not being the current Peter but I'm not so sure.

The other thing that bothers me is future Peter's scar. I suppose he could have gotten it if he was near the Hatian at some point but I don't see how else something like that wouldn't have totally healed.

[afroakuma]

Cood catch on the scar. I hope it portends something deadly.

[Green Bean]

The other thing that bothers me is future Peter's scar. I suppose he could have gotten it if he was near the Hatian at some point but I don't see how else something like that wouldn't have totally healed.

I figure it's just the writer's way of easily differentiating between past and future Peter. Future Peter in Season 1 had a scar, so it's an easy association. Even if Season 1 Future Peter actually had a valid reason.

[AKA_Bait]

I figure it's just the writer's way of easily differentiating between past and future Peter. Future Peter in Season 1 had a scar, so it's an easy association. Even if Season 1 Future Peter actually had a valid reason.

If that's what it is, with no explanation, I'm going to call a serious lame on it. There are lots of ways they could diffirentiate the characters without needing to resort to inexplicable scars.

[afroakuma]

The scar should be from some really cool fight; Future Hiro considered it one of Future Peter's defining features. And those two ROCKED together.

For the first time in a loooong while, I am actually anticipating the next episode. I want it yesterday. (House was not all that inspired.)

[Jerthanis]

This episode (303) may be my favorite episode of Heroes ever.

You see; my two biggest problems with Heroes has been the pacing and the distinct lack of superpowered conflict.

Pacing wise, until now if an episode ended with the promise of something happening right away (HRG saying he was going after the four villains for instance), you could bet that it'd be 6 episodes later that anything came of it... if anything EVER came of it. Here we see immediate return on both HRG's promise to pursue the villains, on Peter in someone else's skin (I was expecting that to drag on for the whole freaking season myself), Tracy on finding out about her history... even Claire's story managed to go somewhere inside of one episode and that is unprecedented. Parkman's plot is kind of stymied by him being in Africa, unable to interact with the larger plot except in his looking at the future paintings. Which is a shame because he's my favorite character. I look forward to seeing where his plot goes, but I don't think it will go for several more episodes.

Then there's the overall lack of superhero battles in Heroes so far, which between the first two seasons was limited to maybe a half dozen fights which for the most part didn't make great use of the powers themselves. Now this episode had one of the biggest battles yet. Considering there's still so many unnamed villains out there, and "don't relax around blacks" guy escaped, I have great hope that this episode's fine brawl will be repeated.

I wish the accidental subtext between Parkman and Mohinder had been adopted into canon by the writers instead of quietly forgotten about as both their sexualities are reinforced as heterosexual. They had great chemistry, and TV doesn't have enough homosexual couples which are "just two guys", and has far too many that are Camp gay. Also, Heroes writers have proven they aren't that great at romance writing when it's intentional, so I would have liked if they had just continued their accidental success than push both in other directions that risk feeling forced... like Mohinder with Maya and Parkman with the blonde in the painting who looks like Daphne but I'm not 100% sure.

Of course, this is probably just the obsessive shipper in me, so pay me no mind.

One last question: How was Hot Momma able to survive and breathe comfortably in the shipping container when Claire couldn't? How did the fire not start sputtering and dying once it had no oxygen?

[Green Bean]

One last question: How was Hot Momma able to survive and breathe comfortably in the shipping container when Claire couldn't? How did the fire not start sputtering and dying once it had no oxygen?

Presumably, part of her firestarting abilities includes immunity to its effects. This is backed up by her history; after all, she did survive her house burning to the ground.

[afroakuma]

The best thing about this season, so far, is that the Coconut Superpowers trope is being dodged. They seem to have a decent budget for special effects and are cracking it out with a vengeance. I can't imagine that the time stops are especially cheap; we've also had fire, freezing, super speed... it's gearing up to be a lot of fun.

And I want to see Happy Brother Sylar with Mr. Muggles II. That is seriously wicked. In a... you know... kind of way. It's fun.

[Rare Pink Leech]

I liked the episode. Season 3 shows much promise, although it seems like they're wrapping up story lines pretty quickly. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 10 episodes of Villains. No new theories from me this week.

Does anyone else think this season might be going the Run Lola, Run route? There were a lot more mini-plot arcs wrapped up this week than I thought were going to have been. Makes me wonder if they can sustain the pacing without resorting to a reset button. That coupled with the running chick with Euro hair led me to the RLR idea. Peter will keep tweaking things at the time of the press conference until he gets the desired future. Until then, we're treated with three or more climaxes, most bad, some bittersweet and one just good yet cliffhangery enough to segue into season 4.

This is an intriguing idea. It certainly makes sense because they paid particular attention to Future Peter screwing up the timeline in the first couple of episodes. The only problem with this is they've introduced a lot of plotlines since the press conference, so I don't think it'll happen exactly this way. They would have had Future Peter go back to the conference already, methinks.

I'm actually suprised he killed Jesse instead of Knox. He's already got telekinesis, after all, and he enjoys toying with his victims so much that I'm shocked he wouldn't leap at the opportunity to upgrade from "immortal serial killer" to "immortal serial killer who feeds on your fears!"

Who knows? Maybe Sylar killed Knox too. We didn't see what happened to him, so for now all we can say is he's unaccounted for. I certainly hope, however, that he escaped. Killing three of the villains so quickly would be rather anticlimactic.

Clones. My money's on clones. Implanted in different women. All with different powers. Fortunately, Tracy is a great character.

But I must agree that after all the build up, the four psychos were really embarrassingly easily dealt with. Scary Black Man punched a hole in Dimestore Magneto, then Present-Peter Black Canaries everybody down. Of course it allowed us to behold the sheer delight of a Sylar Force Choke.

So, Flamey McGrannycooker is back in level 5, two are dead, Sylar now has a sonic scream (I still think they tried to build that up to much with Benett when he was talking to Claire) and Scary Black Guy is still at large. Frankly, I'm disappointed with the quick wrapup. That leaves what...8 escapees left? If Sylar and Benett weren't so awesome I'd be more concerned about show quality.

I agree with the clones theory. It makes the most sense now, after hearing from Dr. Zimmerman.

I also agree that the villains were taken down awfully easily. They built up the dangerous-ness of them waaay too much to have them defeated so quickly and easily.

Also, I believe the villains-at-large count is 9, if Knox got away. I think they mentioned 12 escapees. With The German and Jesse dead and Flint recaptured that's 9.

I enjoyed this one.

The only thing I didn't like was that they killed off another Graphic Novel character - the German. I genuinely fear for Daphne's life.


EDIT: Next weeks episode is set in the future and Future Peter reveals to normal Peter that there's another point in time where everything changes, and he has to go and stop it. Normal Peter gains a new power along the way.

Molly returns.

Hiro and Ando pay a visit to someone to find out more about Daphne.

Mr Zimmerman reveals some information about Niki, Jessica, Gina and Tracy.

Claire, armed with Primatech files, goes after her first villain.

Do you think you could spoiler it when you talk about stuff that's going to happen next episode? It's nice to have a spoiler-free thread so everyone who's up to date on Heroes can discuss it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to know what's going to happen next episode until I watch the next episode, even if what you reveal is pretty general stuff.

Knox isn't the only one who's out.

Maury has most probably escaped, then there's Echo from the Webisodes who's basically another Jesse. There are also three other villains - Eric Doyle (the fat one seen running off after the other when they escaped), he can control people as if they were puppets. Stephen Canfield, who I believe is Claire's villain, can create miniature black holes, there's a third who is presumably from Haiti, called Samedi - I don't know what he can do though.

Anyway, Ken Lally (The German) has said that he plays a major part in season 3. I wouldn't write him off just yet.

I'm not so sure Maurie is out yet. Matt left him trapped in one of his own nightmares, so having Level 5's security shut down for a few minutes wouldn't help him escape. Considering Mama Petrelli's dream it seems like he will escape eventually, but I would have thought that if he had already escaped everyone would be freaking out about it. Sure, the four guys who escaped are deadly, but Maurie's got to be one of the most dangerous people in the show.

And while the characters are diametrically opposed, I loved all the scenes that HRG and Sylar shared. They have real talent on their own, and putting that together just made it better. I still have no idea what Mama Petrelli is up to, but it's a "it's going to be cool to find out" feeling, rather than "they're pulling this out of their butts" one. Also, after what happened at the bank? It must've been the most awkward car ride home, ever.

I would have loved to see that car ride.

[Skippy]

I'm pretty sure that future Peter isn't Peter at all. Remember when his 'mom' reminds him that his 'first power', prophetic dreaming, was inherited from her? Peter's first power was absorbing other powers... and I'm pretty sure even the first one he absorbed was flight.

Not if you consider that before flying, on the very first episode, everything begins with Peter dreaming that he could fly. Then he flew. But I thought that he had acquired that from Mr. Deveaux? After all, in the beginning he could only use the powers of the people around him, and he had those dreams while taking care of him...

[Callos_DeTerran]

I also agree that the villains were taken down awfully easily. They built up the dangerous-ness of them waaay too much to have them defeated so quickly and easily.

Also, I believe the villains-at-large count is 9, if Knox got away. I think they mentioned 12 escapees. With The German and Jesse dead and Flint recaptured that's 9.

I don't think they were taken down easily at all but rather just came up against the wrong people at the wrong time. Knox took the German completely by surprise and killed him before the other could use his power plus (if Hereos isn't using the 'Human Bodies are made of plastic' trope) the sheer strength to punch THROUGH a human body and a metal sheet behind it is...well...terrifying.

Considering Jesse needed to scream to use his (Chokeholds for the win!) Sylar got lucky that flame-thrower got knocked out quick.

[Dihan]

Do you think you could spoiler it when you talk about stuff that's going to happen next episode? It's nice to have a spoiler-free thread so everyone who's up to date on Heroes can discuss it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to know what's going to happen next episode until I watch the next episode, even if what you reveal is pretty general stuff.

Everything I said in the quoted post is just a brief summary of the NBC Blurb.

Anyway, I thought this is for "Pure Spoiler", unlike the general Heroes thread.

I'll remember this for the future though.

[afroakuma]

I think "pure spoiler" is only supposed to extend to episodes that have actually played. The reason I founded this thread is because on all the other threads, every relevant plot from past episodes was hidden with spoiler tags. I expected this to be an evolving progression of up-to-date Heroes commentary, with a warning that if you have not been following the show (and only the show, not any interviews/leaks) then you should not read forward, because we're going to roll with the newest happenings.

Regarding the dreaming power debate: I think you're all forgetting that Peter's first manifestation, chronologically, was in 1x10. Peter was having a celebration of becoming a nurse. This suggests that he had not yet been employed by Deveaux, leaving only Nathan's (unmanifested) ability and Mama Petrelli's for him to have absorbed. Considering that his dream had been similarly recent, it confirms that Mama Petrelli was the donor.

Also, she mentions that she was aware of her sons' abilities long before they were. Her power explains that.

That all said; I always believed that dreaming was Charles' power. They were just really pushing Mama Petrelli's "I stroke you, you don't complain about me stroking you, and you cooperate with me" pseudo-power to such an extent that it seemed a given.

[Yulian]

Presumably, part of her firestarting abilities includes immunity to its effects. This is backed up by her history; after all, she did survive her house burning to the ground.

I'd agree. Very likely part of being a (successful) pyrokinetic is a great resistance to heat, including the hot air in your lungs that usually kills people in fires (along with the CO inhalation).

I have to also agree with those who say that the damn pacing has vastly improved. I was also worried we'd have Present-Peter inside Fat Canary for half the season. So...I wonder where that leaves Present-Peter?

Rare Pink Leech, I did miscount is Knox is free. I really want to see him actually do a little something. His power let him do with his hands what he could have easily done with a gun or knife. Just being super strong doesn't do you a lot of good unless you use that strength creatively, because otherwise it forces you to kill at close range. "Jessica" had the advantage of being a skinny woman so it took people totally by surprise when she went Black Adam on them.

It must also have been reeeeeeeally fun for Bennet to have to try and explain to the police why one of the bank robbers had been given a cleanly cut calavarium in the course of the "agents'" actions. Then there's the fist-shaped hole in a guy's torso and the wall behind him.

The Company must have one hell of a scrub team.

- Yulian

[Green Bean]

That all said; I always believed that dreaming was Charles' power. They were just really pushing Mama Petrelli's "I stroke you, you don't complain about me stroking you, and you cooperate with me" pseudo-power to such an extent that it seemed a given.

I always figured Angela's constant touching was a little detail to explain where Nathan and Peter got their habit. Seriously, those guys touch each other a lot.

[Gavin Sage]

Not if you consider that before flying, on the very first episode, everything begins with Peter dreaming that he could fly. Then he flew. But I thought that he had acquired that from Mr. Deveaux? After all, in the beginning he could only use the powers of the people around him, and he had those dreams while taking care of him...

Strictly speaking though that limitation was not biological, but mental. Peter's power hasn't grown, he simply concious of it now. Thus the dreams coming from Mama Petrelli still makes sense. And dreams would manifest easier because the subconcious is more free in a sleeping state. (At least by standard TV shrinkology at any rate)

[tyckspoon]

One last question: How was Hot Momma able to survive and breathe comfortably in the shipping container when Claire couldn't? How did the fire not start sputtering and dying once it had no oxygen?

Meredith referenced waterboarding, which is a simulated drowning. The subject of it is no real physical danger, unless the person performing the torture decides to make it real.. different and probably against-board-rules topic there, tho. The point is that there probably was plenty of oxygen left over (and unless Meredith's flames were a lot more intense than they looked, I don't think a fire of that size could make a full-sized shipping container unbreathable inside of only a couple of minutes. Those things are big. Claire also recovered rapidly once Meredith turned off the fire, which seems like it would be inconsistent with there actually not being much oxygen left.) Meredith was just keeping her fire close to Claire's face, which would make it feel much hotter and less breathable than the container really was, which in turn would make Claire more amenable to the suggestion that there wasn't enough to breath.

[TigerHunter]

Only halfway through the second episode.

Discworld reference FTW. Though I was hoping we'd found someone with a shapeshifting power. Because that would be awesome.

[Jerthanis]

Meredith referenced waterboarding, which is a simulated drowning. The subject of it is no real physical danger, unless the person performing the torture decides to make it real.. different and probably against-board-rules topic there, tho. The point is that there probably was plenty of oxygen left over (and unless Meredith's flames were a lot more intense than they looked, I don't think a fire of that size could make a full-sized shipping container unbreathable inside of only a couple of minutes. Those things are big. Claire also recovered rapidly once Meredith turned off the fire, which seems like it would be inconsistent with there actually not being much oxygen left.) Meredith was just keeping her fire close to Claire's face, which would make it feel much hotter and less breathable than the container really was, which in turn would make Claire more amenable to the suggestion that there wasn't enough to breath.

Wow, that's actually a perfect explanation. I totally buy that and wonder why I didn't catch it on my own. Thanks.

[Gavin Sage]

Meredith referenced waterboarding, which is a simulated drowning. The subject of it is no real physical danger, unless the person performing the torture decides to make it real.. different and probably against-board-rules topic there, tho. The point is that there probably was plenty of oxygen left over (and unless Meredith's flames were a lot more intense than they looked, I don't think a fire of that size could make a full-sized shipping container unbreathable inside of only a couple of minutes. Those things are big. Claire also recovered rapidly once Meredith turned off the fire, which seems like it would be inconsistent with there actually not being much oxygen left.) Meredith was just keeping her fire close to Claire's face, which would make it feel much hotter and less breathable than the container really was, which in turn would make Claire more amenable to the suggestion that there wasn't enough to breath.

Sounds good but I honestly don't believe the writers in this case were thinking that far.

Though Claire's unstable I think enough you don't need much to bring up the trauma.

[AKA_Bait]

I don't think they were taken down easily at all but rather just came up against the wrong people at the wrong time. Knox took the German completely by surprise and killed him before the other could use his power plus (if Hereos isn't using the 'Human Bodies are made of plastic' trope) the sheer strength to punch THROUGH a human body and a metal sheet behind it is...well...terrifying.

Considering Jesse needed to scream to use his (Chokeholds for the win!) Sylar got lucky that flame-thrower got knocked out quick.

I'm not so sure about Sylar being lucky (I suspect he could have killed all three of them with little trouble, given that he can't die) but I generally agree with you. The others should be interesting. I'm assuming that Maury was one of them.

Rare Pink Leech, I did miscount is Knox is free. I really want to see him actually do a little something. His power let him do with his hands what he could have easily done with a gun or knife. Just being super strong doesn't do you a lot of good unless you use that strength creatively, because otherwise it forces you to kill at close range. "Jessica" had the advantage of being a skinny woman so it took people totally by surprise when she went Black Adam on them.

Actually, I see Knox as being an end of season sacrifice to make another villan stronger (be that Sylar, Peter or someone as yet undisclosed) just like Ted was at the end of season 1. I'm thinking the fear powerup he gets is an increase to all of his natrual physical abilties. If that applies to powers too, then someone with Ted's power (strong enough to blow up NY) who also gets it boosted several times over by having a lot of people terrified could probably create that scene of the sundered planet we have seen painted about.

It must also have been reeeeeeeally fun for Bennet to have to try and explain to the police why one of the bank robbers had been given a cleanly cut calavarium in the course of the "agents'" actions. Then there's the fist-shaped hole in a guy's torso and the wall behind him.

The Company must have one hell of a scrub team.

They do. His name is the Hatian. They may also have others who can do similar mind to Parkman, which would also make clean up easy as having a 2 second chat with the person in a parking lot.

I always figured Angela's constant touching was a little detail to explain where Nathan and Peter got their habit. Seriously, those guys touch each other a lot.

Also to show how manipulative she is. Touching, in various ways, is a pretty common technique for evoking various emotions.

Sounds good but I honestly don't believe the writers in this case were thinking that far.

Have to agree. I have some knowledge of shipping containers. Those floors should have caught fire, as they are made of plywood (you can even see that in frame).

[Yulian]

Also, do not forget that heat does not bind up the O2 in an area, combustion does. Hot Momma heated the metal of the shipping crate moreso than she threw actual fire around.

Humans also have a lessened ability to process the air they inhale when it gets hotter. This isn't unique to us. Interestingly, giant squid (who do not have iron-based hemoglobin) have a greatly lessened ability to carry O2 in their bloodstream in warmer water, which is why the ones we see near the surface are usually in very rough shape.

Claire is also somewhat panic-prone, as we've seen. It'll be interesting to see how she tries to learn to fight. Seeing as she isn't very physically strong, but is agile and quick, likely a fast-berserker style would suit her: close quickly, use weapons and the environment, leave herself open to hits so that she can get in shots at her opponent since she'll get better and they usually won't.

But still...not feeling pain is viewed as a bad thing? Pain tell us we've been damaged. No real damage, no need for pain. But yeah...she'd be breaking toes a lot. But if she is like Adam, then suffocation cannot kill her either.

I still don't know about what Sylar said about not being able to kill her if he wanted. No one's tried cremating one of these immortals? Not burning, cremating, reducing them to water vapour, carbon, calcium, nitrogen, and some trace elements.

- Yulian

[Jerthanis]

I still don't know about what Sylar said about not being able to kill her if he wanted. No one's tried cremating one of these immortals? Not burning, cremating, reducing them to water vapour, carbon, calcium, nitrogen, and some trace elements.

- Yulian

I honestly think Sylar was just lying his ass off, because Claire is currently demonstrating how her brain doesn't regenerate all damage done to her body, as Sylar damaged her nerve endings and those aren't regenerating.

The fact that this is actually a HUGE inconsistency with how regeneration has worked previously (dead Peter, shard of glass pulled out, alive Peter with no brain damage* despite being dead long enough for eyes to cloud) is perhaps beyond the awareness of the writers, but it is now known that it is possible to somehow cause lasting damage to regenerating characters.

*: Wait a minute... this might finally be the explanation behind Peter always carrying the idiot ball! Perhaps he WAS brain damaged, and lost a lot of the intelligence he had as a Nursing school graduate.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I honestly think Sylar was just lying his ass off, because Claire is currently demonstrating how her brain doesn't regenerate all damage done to her body, as Sylar damaged her nerve endings and those aren't regenerating.

It's possible that he didn't damage anything. This could simply be Claire's powers evolving and becoming more powerful.

EDIT: I mean...going with Mohinder's 'adrenaline' theory how much do you think was shooting through her when Sylar was ripping the top of her skull off?

[Toastkart]

I took it to be that her insensitivity to any feeling was a psychosomatic symptom brought on by the trauma of the violation. Sylar was correct when he said the brain can't feel pain (or can't feel his touching, I don't remember his exact words now).

In point of fact, there are certain areas of the brain, primarily in the temporal lobe, that if stimulated will cause a sensation on the part of the body that the Cortical Homunculus represents. Cool stuff.

I'm loving the new season so far. I still think Mama Patrelli is lying through her teeth about Sylar being her son, but we'll see.

[thorgrim29]

Actually, I'm going to ask all of you to remember that the show is not 18+, and then think a bit on what sensation is pretty much the closest to pain (I know its not exactly the same part of the brain, but then again they did pull a 10% on us), physiology-wise.... yeah.

The way I see it:
-No pain=cool
-No sexual stimulation, nor any feeling (I'm guessing), however, may get you to question whether you are still human.

Also, that wouldn't be exactly a first, remember, a date-rape attempt ended in her getting poked HARD with a stick, and the first thing her mom asked was "did he rape you"

[Rare Pink Leech]

Everything I said in the quoted post is just a brief summary of the NBC Blurb.

Anyway, I thought this is for "Pure Spoiler", unlike the general Heroes thread.

I'll remember this for the future though.

Thanks For some reason I don't mind rampant discussions trying to figure out what's going to happen, but I hate previews. Go figure.

I took it to be that her insensitivity to any feeling was a psychosomatic symptom brought on by the trauma of the violation. Sylar was correct when he said the brain can't feel pain (or can't feel his touching, I don't remember his exact words now).

In point of fact, there are certain areas of the brain, primarily in the temporal lobe, that if stimulated will cause a sensation on the part of the body that the Cortical Homunculus represents. Cool stuff.

I'm loving the new season so far. I still think Mama Patrelli is lying through her teeth about Sylar being her son, but we'll see.

That's what I figure happened -- Sylar touching her brain didn't have anything to do with his acquiring her ability, but rather it was him rewiring stuff.

[Bluelantern]

I took it to be that her insensitivity to any feeling was a psychosomatic symptom brought on by the trauma of the violation. Sylar was correct when he said the brain can't feel pain (or can't feel his touching, I don't remember his exact words now).

I was thinking that too. But rather, was because the pain that she felt because of the attack was so intense that any other pain after that is pretty much nothing.

Also, I they are trying to put a rape metaphore and I think many rape victims might not feel it very well afterwards.

[afroakuma]

I updated the OP with the rules for Pure Spoiler, since Rare Pink Leech correctly pointed out that some fans don't keep up with promos and spoilers.

The short of it is: promos are in (sorry RPL) but spoilers are out. The long of it:

The rules on this thread are simple: if it has apperared in a webisode, graphic novel, full broadcast episode, television promo or web promo, it is fair game to talk about. This is to help Heroes fans enjoy a fluid conversation about the show without tripping over a minefield of spoiler tags.

See you all after tonight's episode!

[Baxter190]

Sylars a dad!