Heroes 3x13 "Dual"
Right, I have too many things to say to confine this to commenting on other people's entries, so here I go with my own! I've broken it up into a few sections -- comments on the episode, followed by two meta-analysis sections, and finally thoughts for the future of Heroes.
Battle of the Petrellis
Is it just me, or are Peter's actions somewhat parallel to those of "Powerless"? Only this time, he's on the side of good. In any case, I think Peter gave Nathan the Idiot Ball in Haiti, and now their roles of being smart and dumb are reversed.
On the other hand, Nathan's actions do make sense when you look at it on a personal level. Nathan has been constantly manipulated by people with abilities, starting with Linderman in Season 1. You could also argue Arthur manipulated him, but it's hard to know where to draw the line between a father's expectations and a psychopath's plans. Maybe there isn't a line...
But here's my theory. Nathan, stealing Peter's petulant child attitude, has decided that he's tired of everyone telling him what to do and he's going to be making his own decisions now. And to keep anyone from controlling him again, he's going to control them by locking them up.
I think Knox and Flint are a little too used to taking orders. They followed Peter way too easily. Then again, Flint did go rogue at the end, showing that he has always been watching out for himself. I'm sad to see Knox go, I feel like he had a lot of potential.
I have more comment related to Mohinder, but it fits in the meta-analysis bit.
Sylar's game of cat and mouse
Hello Sylar, you delicious evil psycho! We missed you.
This sub plot? Totally in character for Sylar. I'm surprised he was so efficient at shutting down Primatech, but I'll let that slide. He, like Nathan, wants revenge on the people who manipulated him. But instead of getting the President to do something, he's just going to kill them, or make them kill each other.
I'm not sure if he took any abilities from the level 5 guys Noah used as "bait". That would be a waste if he hadn't, and unlike him.
The return of creepy stalker Doyle was handled well. But I'm not surprised that Sylar was able to take him down. However, I don't think that Meredith's adrenaline overload was realistic (surprise, surprise!). IMO, it would have worn off by the point she combusted.
I also loved the scene between Angela and Sylar. I was kind of hoping she was actually his mom, via an adulterous liaison, but it makes sense that she would have just manipulated him from the start. But that brings up the question of how Arthur knew about the "pretend Sylar is our son" part, since Angela thought he was dead. I know, I know, plot holes are par for the course now.
Also? Sylar is not dead. I refuse to believe that, even though it was implied. They wouldn't kill him off, plus he's been seen in tons of promo pics. So maybe his birth parents have abilities, whoever they are...
Find the Formula (and Hiro)
This section is brief because it overlaps with my meta-analysis, so most of it is covered there.
Ando, Matt, and Daphne make a great team.
We still don't know what Kaito's power is. But it's interesting that the Nakamuras and Petrellis paralleled one another: From two powered parents, Hiro was born with an ability, while his sister Kimiko was not (at least, as far as we know...). Peter was born with an ability, Nathan was not. The Petrellis chose to inject their normal son, while Kimiko was left alone. Of course, if Kimiko is revealed to have an ability, this bit goes out the window.
The two Hiros working together is pretty funny. Also sad in how much Hiro has not changed from when he was a kid.
Meta-analysis 1: Where do abilities come from?
Matt posits that abilities come from some sort of wish-fulfillment thing. I sincerely hope not, because I like my theory better. Matt simply inherited his father's ability, which actually kind of makes sense to me. Other people with abilities were either given them or had two powered parents. I think Peter's ability appears to be some combination of his father's and his mother's, and Hiro's is probably the same way. Claire's is different from her two biological parents. But as far as we know, Matt's mother was normal. So I'll buy the simple inheritance.
For Daphne, we don't know anything about her mom. I think it might be reasonable to state her ability came from a freak mutation, and giving her the ability to run fast? Makes a lot of sense. Her body compensated for the cerebral palsy.
And now we get to the people who had injected abilities. IMO, it makes a difference whether they get it as babies or as adults. Nathan, Niki, and Tracy had injections as infants, and they all turned out quite differently. Tracy's ability relates to her personality, which I'm sure is just something the writers thought was funny. But it is possible that, as a child, her personality developed around the ability. For Niki, her ability was tied to her MPD, so it's a bit harder to figure out where it might have originated from. I got nothing on Nathan.
We don't know what Mohinder's ability is. He has one now, or else he would have been dead. I don't think it's superstrength, or at least it has the possibility to be something other than superstrength. I suppose we'll find out in Vol. 4.
Scott the marine appeared to get super strength, but he's dead, so we won't know for sure without more explanation.
Peter got his own ability back. While this makes sense narratively, it would have been cool if he'd wound up with something else. Though I suppose one could make an argument that his system was "primed" and wanted to go back to the way it was before.
Ando got ability supercharging, which Heroes Wiki tells me was also D.L.'s mother's ability. Huh. I don't read the graphic novels, so I rely on the Wiki for this info. Anyway, this feels like it makes sense to me. Ando works best as part of a team. When Hiro was off on his I-have-superpowers kick, Ando was there to bring him down to earth. When Hiro lost his memory, Ando did everything to help him get it back. I think Ando was special without an ability, and I don't mind that he decided to get one -- he wanted to help Hiro, first and foremost, which makes it all right by me. I'm interested to see where they go with Ando's power.
Meta-analysis 2: Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.
Disclaimer: I'm sure I'm missing things in this section. Any omissions were not deliberate oversights, and I welcome further commentary.
With apologies to non-Doctor Who fans who don't get the reference. You should go watch Blink.
Thus far, Hiro is the only one who's done any past time traveling. Most of the time traveling we've seen with Peter and others is in the future. Based on this episode, plus the others Hiro has been in the past in, I have two conclusions to draw.
1) Hiro's time traveling is part of (a/multiple) predestination paradox(es). This means that all people who can time travel cannot change the past.
2) Claire changed the past. But she never would have been there if Hiro hadn't brought her. So people who cannot time travel but are brought in the past can affect events.
(This is really just me trying to figure out continuity.)
I do think that Claire had the catalyst until her trip into the past. Her talking to HRG was the thing that made him decide not to take baby Claire back in. Without HRG holding back, Hiro would not have been able to take the catalyst from his mother. I'd still like to know how Arthur Petrelli figured out where and when they were -- no, I won't overlook this plot hole! It is too gaping!
In Japan, Hiro caused the Takeso Kensei legend to unfold as he knew it. If he hadn't been there to change things, Adam Monroe would not have become Kensei, and there would have been no Kensei legends.
But with his father, Hiro caused the formula to be ripped. Kaito took his job as guardian very seriously. He probably never would have given Angela half had the physical paper not already been torn in half. Once it was, though, he had the idea and hid the formula in two places. Again -- Hiro caused the past to stay the way it was.
Of course, this runs up against a problem with the appearances of Future Hiro and Future Peter. They clearly changed their pasts -- the Explosion Future that Future Hiro came from no longer exists; there have been two Future Peters (Explosion and Exposed).
But: agents from the present changed those futures. Hiro and Ando were responsible for averting the Explosion future. The "Exposed" future has been nullified by a couple of different people/agencies/events.
Unanswered questions:
Is Flint dead? Is Doyle dead?
What is Mohinder's ability?
How is Sylar going to survive the fire/glass in his neck? Cause he will.
Overall, I'm optimistic that things will get better, that maybe Vol. 4 will be more like the best S1 episodes. Certainly "Dual" and "Our Father" point that direction for me, despite still having some plot/character issues.