Here is No Why

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"The Hard Part" or "Setting up the Dominoes"

May 8, 2007 2:45 AM

oddamn, I really liked this episode.

First of all, I really like the relationship between Peter and Claire. I really like the fact that Peter talks to Claire like she's a real person without being condescending. I think she deserves that, and he seems to be the only person who really does that. I think she likes that, too, even if she's not always down with his save-the-world imperative. It was nice to see Claire and her dad reunited. I really hope Claire doesn't end up having to shoot Peter in the back of the head.

Oh, and Claire looked really hot in the outfit she was wearing at the Petrelli house.

Then there's Molly Walker. Her ability is cool, and it'll definitely be useful to have someone around who can always find Sylar, but how does that make her the only one who can stop him? How does that mean she can stop him at all? At most, she can tell people where he is, which is helpful, but not really all that . . . awesome. On a related note, I'm glad to see Mohinder's not on The Company's side per se, and I really like the little kid they've got playing Molly. The question now, of course, is why Mohinder's sister and Molly have the same disease. Does it mean they had the same ability? Are we about to find out that Mohinder does, in fact, have an ability or some sort?

I also loved the fact that every new thing we learn about Sylar both makes him a more developed character and increases his creep factor. He thinks he's going to be the bomb (to which there is a simple solution--don't take anymore powers), but he doesn't want to kill innocent people indiscriminately. All of the scenes with his mom were awesome, and provided a sort of scary look into Sylar's childhood. How could he possibly have turned out normal with such a wacked-out, yet potentially well-meaning, mother? It's understandable, I guess, for a mother to dote on her son and expect him to be president, but Sylar seems to have internalized that way too much. It doesn't help that his mother seems to be crazy and manipulative.

Sylar seems to genuinely regret having killed people (or at least doesn't seem to be looking forward to killing half of New York), which was really nice. We almost feel sorry for Sylar. Then he does some creepy snow-globe shit, freaks out his mom, and then accidentally kills her.

Why isn't Nikica more pissed that Mr. Linderman fucking stole her kid? I mean, sure, Jessica's a bitch, but I thought she at least cared about her kid. Turns out, no, she's just a stupid bitch. Who painted that picture of Micah in bombed-out New York? How long has Mr. Linderman been stalking the super family? And why? Micah was Linderman's back up plan for rigging the election, so why all the fucking creepy stalker shit?

The writers finally confirmed that Candice is not a shapeshifter but a master of illusion. I like it.

Hiro needs to get over his fear of killing people. Yeah, it sucks that he's gotta kill Sylar to save Ando and four million other people, but a hero's gotta make tough choices, right? I like the fact, though, that Hiro doesn't want to turn into his hardened and jaded future self, even if Future Hiro was one hell of a badass. I appreciate the journey Hiro's on, and the fact that he's still got a ways to go before he becomes the person he's going to be, but, seriously--it's time to kick some ass. Although it's nice that he seems to have gained a significant amount of control over his teleporting. But now the sword is broken Does someone have a fix things ability? Also, I was disappointed not to see Sylar melt the sword.

Finally, it turns out both Nathan and his mother are, well, bad people. Now Nathan is selling out both his brother and his daughter. How fucking close is Nathan to The Company? How long has he known Thompson? Does Thompson, and by extension The Company, know that Claire is Nathan's biological daughter? Do they know where she is? Was Molly able to tell them before the virus started inhibiting her ability?

Oh. And let's not forget Mrs. Petrelli. I honestly thought she was one of the good guys. I assumed that she had some connection to Mr. Linderman, but I thought--based on her "saving" Claire--that she was working against Linderman. Turns out she's working with him and she's down with the kill half of New York plan. Does that mean that her directing the Haitian to not erase Claire's memory was part of Mr. Linderman's plan? And here's another question: Mrs. Petrelli presumably stopped the Haitian from erasing Claire's memory so that The Company wouldn't get her--yet Mr. Bennet was going to abduct Nathan. Did Mrs. Petrelli know and not care? Or was she kept out of the loop?

All in all, this was a great episode. I'm really looking forward to the last two, especially the return of Mr. Nakamura and his much-hyped revelation. What do you think it's going to be?

The pieces are now in place. There are three people who could be the bomb: Ted, Sylar, and Peter. We saw that Peter already can't control Ted's power (which was pretty cool). We can therefore assume that Sylar, should he get Ted's ability, would have a similar difficulty controlling the ability (although maybe not, give Sylar's ability to understand things quickly). The previews make it look like Sylar does get Ted's ability and, more importantly, like he gets over his fear of blowing up the city pretty quickly. So who's it going to be: Ted, Sylar, or Peter? And how are the heroes going to stop whoever it ends up being?

There's only two episodes left--I guess we're going to get these answers pretty soon. But I still can't wait.

On a different note . . .

I watched the end of season two of Lost last night. It was decent, but I've just got one thing to say: A giant four-toed foot? What the fuck?!

5 Comments

Utah said:

What we don't know is why Lindermann and company want to blow up half of New York...there could be a very good reason that we don't know about. The reference to Harry Truman killing thousands to save millions may have been a hint.

I'm beginning to think that the events may really be unstoppable. Afterall, if Sylar could be killed, why didn't future Hiro go back and do it himself? And on that note, how did Sylar unfreeze space and time to confront Hiro? I really hope that Hiro can protect Ando, he's turning into one of my favorite characters.

May 8, 2007 9:19 AM

kristin said:

Really? The foot is what got to you? I was more confused about the Portugese-speaking parka-wearing chess players in the middle of the (Ant?)Arctic.

May 8, 2007 9:28 AM

Vice said:

Honestly, I didn't care for this episode. It seemed like a lot of people standing around and complaining - nothing really happened. Which, I suppose, is necessary, in order to set up the final two episodes. So no big deal.

I don't even want to contemplate the "Why didnt..." questions pertaining to time-travel, because that will open up an endless series of questions about why he didn't pop up at this time or that time when it could have been much easier to accomplish something. The only answer can possibly be that Hiro doesn't have a mastery of his power. Otherwise he could go back in time as often as he wants, wherever he wants, and affect anything he wanted to.

And if you're dying to know what the deal is with that statue (and the Portugese speaking Arctic camp), you're in luck because...well, about 20 episodes into Season 3, we still no nothing about the statue, and just a little about what was going on with that camp.

May 8, 2007 10:18 AM

frank x. said:

Hey, did you notice that Bennet et al. were trying to shutdown the Walker tracking system in NYC. I got the feeling they didn't know that Molly Walker is the new tracking system. I wonder how they plan to "shut down" the system.

May 8, 2007 10:52 AM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Utah,
Yeah, I considered the possibility that Linderman and Co. are actually the good guys i a twisted way. Linderman must know what the future would be like if the bomb doesn't go off, and he must prefer the "Five Years Gone" future. The question, of course, is why. We didn't get to see Linderman in the future, so we don't know if he's dead or if he's ruler of the whole world--the only mention we got was "the Linderman Act." Still, given what we know will happen if the bomb goes off, it looks like a world in which New York is not destroyed is infinitly preferable to one in which it is.

Kristin,
The foot pissed me off the most just because it was the most worthless thing. It's like the writers were sitting around going "I don't know... this scene with Sayid and Sun and Jin is kind of boring. Let's add something. How about, like, they see the smoke monster or something? Oh, no, wait, I got it! A giant four-toed foot!"
"But that doesn't relate to anything we've done so far!"

"Who gives a shit?"

"Good point."

Vice,
I guess you're right, this was a bit setting up episode. But I didn't notice that while I was watching it for some reason. I really liked the glimpses of backstory we got, as well as the developing relationship between Claire and Peter, and the glimpse into Sylar's psyche.

I agree that it's best not to speculate about why Future Hiro didn't do various things. For example, if Future Hiro stabbed Sylar and Sylar regenerated, why didn't Future Hiro just go back to a point where Sylar had not yet absorbed Claire's power? Why not save Claire himself? Why not kill Sylar as a child? Or kill Sylar as a teenager? Or kill Sylar's parents? The fact of the matter is that there's a perfectly coherent in-universe explanation: Future Hiro had spent five years trying to find the exact moment at which a subtle change would have a large outcome. We know from Hiro's experience with Charlie that Hiro can't influence the past in a significant way directly. Maybe he was just trying to find a way around that.

Frank,
Yeah, I noticed the Walker tracking system. But I bet Mr. Bennet has no idea that it's actually a little girl. It seems like Mr. Bennet might be much more out of the loop than we thought, so it's possible that he just thought it was an upgraded mechanical or electronic system, not a little girl. I bet if and when they find out what it is, they'll have a change of heart.

May 8, 2007 11:35 AM