PeterDavid.net

You're a lot more forgiving of Heroes' flaws than I was.

Hey Peter-

I definitely agree with you on the ending for Heroes as being a lesser payoff than previous episodes. Unless there's some good explaination later on in the series, the Petrilli's sacrifice doesn't make sense. If Peter can use multiple powers, then everyone could have been saved by Claire shooting Peter, stopping him from exploding, and the invincibility would have allowed him to awaken later. As far as Hiro's backwards in time thing, at first it put me off seeming like a scene from Evil Dead. When they showed the eclipse (being it is the title credit), it made me want to know more about it.

On the Lost front, I also agree that fans should have stuck around. Although season two could almost be removed from the series with no loss, season three has recaptured what we loved about Lost. It will just be hard only getting 16 episodes each year for the next three years. Still, it will be less time than waiting for movie sequels.

Smallville still has me on board. After six seasons, it still hasn't lost steam in my eyes. Even though my DVR malfunctioned and recorded Ugly Betty instead of Smallville on it's season finale night, I was able to find it on YouTube before they took it off. Yes, I think no one was fooled as to the fate of Lana. I have loved how they have evolved Lois over the last three seasons. The only thing I didn't like was when they killed Johnathon Kent (I would much rather have seen Lana go). This season has been better for Lana, but she still seems to suck anybody's good feelings they might have when she is around. I loved to see more of the Martian Manhunter. We know have one more JLA on board! I wholeheartedly agree the last scene's flash of Bizarro had me panting, waiting for next season. I admit, I was put off by the show when it first aired, in that their motto was they wouldn't have any costumes. Only on DVD did I find the joy of watching it from the beginning. I also liked that they put Lex in a position where he can realize his full evil potential (feeling alienated from everyone).

Thank God there is still a few shows to look forward to next season. Maybe even 24 will realize it's mistakes this year, and be good again next season.

Smallville: I agree with the Lana save. And the ending was the best part of the show. I love the line "I'm you, just a little more bizarre".

I haven't been following American Idol (thank God) but you are entirely right about the other shows. I think Smallville only works if it as viewed as the story of Clark Kent - not THAT Clark Kent, not necessarily - coming to terms with his powers and responsibilities. If we accept that we know how he's going to turn out, it just doesn't work. Far too many people would know right away that Superman is just old Clark in a blue suit, and the meetings in Smallville with so many characters belonging to Superman's adulthood pose a lot of problems. Of course, a 30 year old Tom Welling/Clark and nearly 29 year old Erica Durance/Lois pose problems of their own. Welling is almost believable as 20 year old alien, but Durance will never be believable as a human just past childhood. Well....I like it, so it's fine.

I think the explanation for Charlie's actions lies in the fact that Desmond was charging toward him like a madman. If Charlie hadn't acted to shut that door IMMEDIATELY - meaning, not taking the time to step out, turn around, slam the door, and get beaten to a pulp by Desmond - Desmond would have charged right on in past him to see Penny.

I thought that Charlie's seemingly unnecessary death was a deliberate act on his part--the "prophecy" specifically said that he would have to die or Claire and the baby and everyone else would not escape. Yes, he could have tried to get the best of both worlds, flood the hatch and escape but he had every reason to think that this would result in nobody escaping. It was a heroic act and it doesn't take much to see a Jesus parallel in there, especially with him making the sign of the cross as he dies.

On Lost, the Flashforward idea was brilliant. One thing that intrigues me about it is when Jack tries to fill the prescription. It's from his father's pad and the hospital pharmacy was going to call his father's office. Does this mean his father isn't dead? The hospital pharmacy would have known that he was dead but they were going to call his office to verify the prescription? Hmmm.

The Charlie thing didn't bother me at all. I saw it completely as intelligent character action. Charlie knows how Desmond's visions work. If something changes, it changes the outcome of the vision. Charlie knew if he didn't drown it was likely that it would change the outcome of Claire and her baby being rescued. He had already come to terms with what he was going to do to save Claire so he did the selfless thing.

Posted by Moon Man at May 24, 2007 08:11 AM
Thank God there is still a few shows to look forward to next season. Maybe even 24 will realize it's mistakes this year, and be good again next season.

What about 24 exactly was it that you didnt like?
Just wondering

Regarding Peter not trying to fly and Charlie not thinking of getting on the other side of the door -

unlike a lot of other heros we read about, these guys don't have a Danger Room.

That is to say, they arn't trained to think of how to handle emergencies, like superheros, or for that matter cops and firemen - when the pressures on the paniced just enough that the solution that the "obvious" outs might not occour.

that said - loved both finales, i'm uber-glad I was wrong about Ando working for Linderman, and Hurley JUST KICKS ASS!

Something I read along the way since the final episode was the theory that Peter was concentrating so hard on not exploding, that he was not able to use his other powers. (It was clear in the flash forward episode that he was capable of using more than one power at a time.)

"What about 24 exactly was it that you didnt like?
Just wondering"

This year of 24 just didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I thought the previous five seasons just kept getting better and better, with Season Five as a standout. This season (6) felt like a retreading of things that had been done better in earlier seasons. I think they need to have a season where the white house isn't involved every time. Wayne Palmer was not a believable President, was the starter for bad things for me this season. The nuclear explosion in the early episodes just felt forced and I didn't care. In the very first episode of the season Jack is kidnapped by the main bad guy, and when he escapes he doesn't try to take him down right then. Every other place in the show he has no problems taking down even twenty or more men on his own. So right off the bat, it felt like the show was artificially keeping the story going. I know they tried to change the direction of the show towards the end, but the last episode made it a little too little, a little too late. "Ricky" Schroeder showed off his bad acting skills, and sported a haircut straight from his Silver Spoons days. Who cared Chloe was pregnant in the last episode? Then there was these love triangles flying a hundred different directions at CTU that just didn't make sense. There were several elements that didn't live up to the great 24 tradition right at the beginning of the season. I was glad Heroes was there to give me something to look forward to on Monday nights. I will watch 24 again next year, and hope for more of the glory that came before. Now that the show has fallen hard for a season, it will be hard (not impossible) for it to leave that taint behind....

Peter, I have to agree with your thoughts on the climax to Heroes: as soon as Nathan arrived, I thought, 'But Peter has Nathan's powers; couldn't he just fly out by himself? And if he can in fact survive the detonation, should he boil up again in the future, maybe having a latte in Starbucks, he would just excuse himself, fly into the stratosphere, detonate and end up somewhere else. Of course there's all that fallout to deal with, but you can't have everything.

Looking to the future, I'm looking forward to the 'Minutemen' flashback, in which we see the previous generation's super-folk, including Linderman, Peter and Nathan's mom, the Richard Roundtree character and a few other characters I'm sure I've forgotten.

Regarding the Lost finale, I took was very pleasantly surprised, especially the scene of Hurley improbably coming to the rescue in the VW van. And I was totally on board with Sawyer blowing away the last of the Others on the beach; not only did it provide the audience with a much-needed emotional catharsis, as Sawyer quite rightly points out, you can't trust these guys. And Formerly-Bearded-Guy (Mike?) had it coming.

As for Charlie's sacrifice, I read it that when the grenade blew open the wall, he basically sealed the connecting hatch, thus preserving the structural integrity of the facility and saving Desmond at the same time. Didn't anybody else see it that way?

And finally, I'm not sure I agree with you regarding this season of Smallville, Peter; I found it wildly uneven but with some pretty cool stuff scattered throughout the season. And since just about every season has ended with one or more characters seemingly dead/buried/blown up/vanished, I never accept any character as dead unless I see the corpse. And not even then...

It looked clear to me that future Peter could not use more than one power at a time. When rescuing Hiro, he turned visible to use strength to throw the first goon, then TK? then warping space to get away.

I was convinced that he's Ultra-Boy. Even though flying away was the obvious solution all along, I don't think he could once he was losing control of Ted's power. If Claire had killed him to shut it down, he still could have regenerated if the bullet could be dug out without doing too much damage.

Peter being safe from blowing up later I'm fine with. He was in a super high pressure situation and he lost control. All he has to do is avoid facing down serial killers until he can learn to control his powers better and he'll be fine. Considering the massive amount of improvement in power control he's made recently, I'm OK with that. Even in the future they made no mention of him blowing up a second time, so I have faith in him learning to control his powers, even if they didn't spell it out.

Sylar living was lame. Not just because he could blow up again, but because a great villain deserves a great ending. They spent the whole season proving that the only way to stop Sylar is to kill him, and now they're back to where they were for most of the season, Sylar on the loose.

Or maybe Sylar will mope in a basement for a few months and then crawl out as one of the good guys.

On the subject of the invisible hand of fate.

PAD, early on in Heroes you wrote a round up that mentioned the coincidence of so many heroes showing up in Vegas at the same time. At the time, you were right, that did seem a bit coincidental. However, we've seen now that it wasn't just coincidence, Linderman was pulling the strings of many of those characters. He'd actually been controlling their lives for years, planning out various ways in which he could use them to affect each other.

Now you've mentioned the invisible hand of fate putting Hero where he needs to be at the end of the season finale. That makes me think of another little bit from the episode. Locator Girl mentioned someone worse than Sylar, someone who looked back at her whenever she looked for him. Perhaps there's a connection? Perhaps there's some master manipulator out there. Either way, I thought it was neat that they laid that seed for the future.

One last note, I loved when Mr. Bennet said, "Call me Noah." I hadn't even realised that I'd gone the whole season without knowing his first name, and it was a really nice little character moment.

IF there is a big baddy out there manipulating all of this, maybe Sylar is still dead but the uber-evil took the body. If Sylar can get his powers by sucking them out of people's heads, its possible the bigger bad dude could to.

Personally, I think what we saw in the first season was a battle in an ongoing war (various allusions have been made to that, most notably Mr. Nakamura telling very specific tales to Hiro.) There are two sides trying to manipulate things (the big baddie, and ? - Primatech may have been the good guys once but derailed at some point). Following this logic, it would be interesting if Sylar was being manipulated, thinking he had to steal all these powers to save NY, when all the time he was collecting for someone else. (Fits into the Sylar as eventual good guy theory too).

Personally, I was a little disappointed in the Finale per se, but they did tie up MOST of the major loose ends.

One I couldn't track. What happened to HRG's wife and son? At one point they were in a hotel, he came back, thought he was talking to wife and it was Candace, which means wife was moved. I don't recall seeing her after, and in the 5 years ahead ep she wasn't mentioned, was she?

Lost -- The flashback got me at the end. I see Kate pull up and think "He's known her from before the crash?" which would have been shocking in itself only to discover it is a flash forward. I wonder if they will be doing flashforwards next year instead of flashbacks. (Or worse, they pull an Alias and next season is several years later).

It does raise questions about his father. Twice he brought his name up as if he was still alive.

I was expecting to see Walt and Michael in the finale. Not sure if that was really Walt or just a vision. THey have to show up somewhere, no one makes it off the island..

Eric

I came in late to the whole Heroes thing, as I was never home when it was on and nobody would loan me tapes. Anyway--watching the finale, watching the Petrellis fly into space, if I remember right, all you see is a flash after they go out of sight. So, they might NOT be toast. Sylar might not be alive, just somebody Morlock-style took his body into the sewer. I got a whole Children of the Corn Blue Man thing forming in my head with Sylar, or his body, at least.

Anybody else see Petrelli and think of the Fratellis from The Goonies? No? I guess it's just me. Hello? Where'd everybody go? My, those crickets are loud for the middle of the afternoon.

This isn't my idea but I thought I'd share:

What if the remaining 3 seasons/48 episodes of Lost all took place off the island in the "present" and the flashbacks were of their rescue? Is that what was being teased/hinted in the finale?

I don't watch Smallville, but your Heroes and Lost thoughts are spot on.

Regarding Heroes, I think Peter did try to do something but couldn't. When Nathan shows up and they are mentioning finding another way Peter says "I can't control it. I can't do anything." The way I see it, it hasn't been that long since he learned of his powers and the training with the invisible man only gave him some control over it. But the radioactive power was just too much for him to handle and sent him in to overload. Either way, I'm assuming he wasn't able to fly himself. I do wish they had made it slightly more clear though.

For no good reason, I rewrote the ending of the finale of "Heroes" with the same events, more or less, but with different pacing.

http://cabridges.livejournal.com/52776.html

I think it would have worked much better had we
a) had a sense of urgency, rather than assorted heroes just strolling up to Sylar
b) a sense that Peter couldn't do anything besides barely control the explosion
c) a sense that the explosion was going to be as dangerous as, say, Ted blowing up the Bennet house, which looked way more menacing than Peter's flashy lights, and
d) less drawn-out emotional scenes when there's a frickin' explosion imminent.

Jack challenged the other doctor to call his father and see who was more drunk. With the episode ending the way it did, that becomes the most interesting line of the show.
So let us assume that Christian Shepard is alive. That's why his casket was empty. Did the island resurrect him or did he fake his death?
He is directly responsible for two at least two people being on flight 815 - Jack and Ana Lucia. Also, the psychic that gave Claire the plane ticket later claimed to Eko to be a fraud. Did Christian have something to do with that as well? Did he buy Claire's ticket?
In the (seemingly throwaway) episode where Nikki and Paulo died, Hurley said that the main villian on Expose was revealed in the fourth season to be someone you knew all along. I'm thinking Christian is that guy.
Also, did anyone else think that Jacob's voice sounded like Jack's dad?

PAD: "...this has been one of the best seasons of "Smallville" thus far"
Umm...PAD, are you enjoying that crack you're smoking?
This has been the season that has made me (and many of my friends) give up on the show.
I just could not take another second of the Lex and Lana show. "Justice" was pretty cool, but that's the one high note of the season.

On the Lost finale:

Anagram for Hoffs Drawlar (funeral home) = FORWARD FLASH

I was also a little disappointed in Peter not just flying into the sky, but I rationalized it as him needing all of his control to not explode. I was willing to spot them that for the emotional "logic" of Nathan giving up everything (his life, fame, the Presidency) for love of his brother. "No greater love" and all that...

As to whether Peter can use more than one power at a time, I'm pretty sure that he can. In the training scene where Claude beating him with a stick to prompt Peter into calling up one of his powers, Peter is invisible the whole time and still manages to use Sylar's TK to protect himself as well. Once again, I figure that Peter was too busy not-blowing-up.

The Lost flash-forward had me entirely taken in. Even when I had spotted "anachronisms" like Jack's phone looking like a too-recent model, I figured it was just a production glitch. That made the end a total mind-f***. I didn't even make the connection of all the Pacific maps scattered over Jack's apartment from his attempts to locate the Island. So, is Jack's father alive?

So, who was in the coffin? Who would have had nobody (not even fellow castaways) show up at the viewing? They would have had to literally drag Locke, Rose and Bernard off the Island, so I'm going to disqualify them. Everybody loved Hurley and he still had family so I can't really believe that he'd die so unremaked even he managed to lose his incredible wealth. Sawyer wold normally be a good guess, but I'm going to with the obvious conclusion that Sawyer is the "he" that Kate referenced, so I'm counting him out. Claire could have stayed in LA to raise Aaron, but Kate was way too dismissive of going to the funeral. Claire was too popular for that. Desmond might have managed to alienate everyone in his life again, especially if his role in helping Charlie go on a suicide mission came out. Juliet is my prime canidate. Kate in particular might have been unwilling to go to her funeral. Granted she's got a sister and a neice...unless Ben lied about the her being cured and faked the tape he showed her. I also had a brief moment to wonder if it was Michael in that coffin. He's got a mother and Walt, but if he managed to get estranged from them, I can see how none of the survivors would expend to effort to piss on him if he was on fire. Plus it could be an avenue to get Walt back in the series while explaining his growth.

Had a thought on the whole Peter thing. Unlike most of the Heroes powers, Ted's seemed to fluctuate with his emotions more so.

If thats the case, then Peter losing control as events got more charged makes more sense as does his brother being the one to save him, as he always seemed to be able to steady Peter down.

That led to another thing that bugged me. Given this was New York post 9/11, it seems curious that reaction was so calm to what was basically a backpack nuke exploding in the sky. There seemed to be a lot of paramedics available for what must have appeared to be some kind of shooting (we'll allow that Primatech still has enough connections to do some basic damage control).

Also, assuming Nathan is dead, I wonder how they will explain the Senator elect missing without a trace (Free idea to the writers - Peter survives and steps in to take his brother's place, secretly wracked with guilt.)

Jeff, it's a minor nit-pick but Nathan was "elected" to a House seat, not the Senate.

I've seen people speculate on the Television Without Pity board that Mama Patrelli, who is obviously still part of Linderman's organization, would use Candice to assume Nathan's role and exert influence that way.

re: Heroes...why didn't Peter fly off himself...

What part of "lost control of his power" is not being understood by people?

On "Heroes" - Did I miss it? Or has no one mentioned that when Hiro jumped to the past at the end of the episode - "Kensei" (the lone Samurai) - looked an awful lot like Daddy Sulu? Just how long has he been waiting for an heir to "ascend" - I think he said?

And what's with the cockraoches throughout the season?

And I think Sylar was dragged to the sewer. (To be with the cockroaches?) In his eyes - you saw Issac's power showing images up until Sylar's death. Wasn't that how Isaac's power worked? He couldn't see past his death? And when the future was changed by the stopping of Sylar - he no longer saw himself as "Nathan" in the White House.

And mark me down as one who thinks Peter - at least at this point - can only access one power at a time. At least until Dr. Who returns to complete the training.

Love this show!

HEROES: Two things practically RUINED the episode - Peter not using other powers and Sylar's body gone. Could have been fixed by having Peter TRY to fly, can't use a second power, now even makes shooting him doubtful (what if he's NOT invulnerable right now?) say, or indicate the powers weren't there. Heck a little bouncing in the air and flickering invisibility would have done it. Unfortunately the show was muddy at this point and that's VERY SAD. The whole scene was anticlimactic and wooden. Poorly directed, I'd say.

Sylar gone? Stupid. They would have at least made sure he was dead. I'm not objecting to the body being gone, I'm objecting to not even seeing our Heroes TRY to secure it...

LOST: Tons of good stuff here. Jack vs Ben, giving Ben the walkie-talkie, what an idiot, but at least beyond that point Jack gutted it out. Hurley, saves the day, OH YEAH! Others blown up real good, YEAH! Sawyer's "I didn't believe him" OH YEAH, YEAH, YEAH! Locke killing the girl was WEAK. So was telling Jack "you're not supposed to do this". Jack's response should be "WHY THE HELL NOT?"

The flash forward is fun, but I don't think it works long term. So getting off the island ISN'T the goal, the end all? Now, what, Jack needs a happy ending? I feel like I just got served a heaping second helping of something I was doubtful about finishing the first helping of.

Oh, and Charlie offed himself to insure the vision came true. He didn't have to die because it was unavoidable, he "had to die" to insure that the vision came true and the rescue would come off as "planned".

SMALLVILLE: Lana's not dead, noone buys it. And if Chloe healed Lois so much does some of Chloe's caring for Clark come with it? Bizarro Clark is great - I was actually thinking Eradicator before the Evil Clark showed up, but this is better. Here's hoping they don't just stick with generic clone villain and get more into the "damaged, alternate Clark" aspects possible with Bizarro.

Actually, in Heroes, I kinda appreciate that they don't always spell things out - at least, not right away. The episode where Bennet mentions the new tracking system that "doesn't use isotopes or satellites; it just finds you" - - it took me a couple days before it dawned on me: it's the girl who can find anyone! Of course, at the start of the next episode, the "previously on Heroes" summation makes it obvious, so the confirmation was nice.

Actually, for the longest time I thought both Peter and Sylar could each only use 1 power at time. I'm still of the belief that's true for Peter; Sylar has since demonstrated multi power use.

Comic-Geek Question: If Sylar did take Peter's power, would he only gain Peter's absorption ability, or would he also gain all the powers Peter has already absorbed?? :-)

Chloe's Kryptonite ability manifested itself in the finale; everybody seems to be overlooking this point. It brought Lois back from death, or at least the brink of death, and immediately Chloe became unconscious. Mayhap her soul or her mind was somehow transferred into Lois? This could help Lois become the reporter that she is "destined" to become, and it could also give her new feelings for Clark, that she is also supposed to be "destined" to have. Just a thought, I may be WAY off.

My guess as to who was in the coffin on Lost: It was Sawyer, and the "he" that Kate was referring to, is their son. His dialog last night hinted that he wouldn't exactly be a stand-up dad if Kate is pregnant. And if he does abandon Kate and baby after their rescue, she may well have avoided his funeral. Just a theory, though.

Charlie had to close the door from the inside because that was the only way it could be battened down. If it could be locked from the outside, Desmond would've been able to open the door, and he couldn't. Just closing the door wouldn't be enough against an ocean flooding into the place. If Charlie had done nothing, he still would've drowned; this way, at least, he saved Desmond and got him the critical info.

Heroes, I was disappointed in the finale- just didn't seem "epic" enough- and I thought the same thing about the flying as many you- didn't add up. Still it was good.

Lost however, I loved loved LOVED! I knew from the moment we saw bearded Jack on the plane that it was a flashforward- (but then I thought maybe it's a reverse backstory- bearded Jack is in the "now" and the ISLAND is the backstory. Course that wouldn't work because we saw what was going on with people when Jack wasn't around ...)

Either way, made it really interesting!

Per usual many more questions:

Who's the dead guy in the "future/now"? Why does Jack want to get back so desperately? Walt? Was he really there? Who does Naomi work for? Is or was Kate preggers? (Now we know why the others kidnapped those three at the end of last season don’t we? Ben was setting up the perfect storm so that one of those two would impregnate her!)

I cheered when Hurly stormed in in the VW bus, when Jack beat up Ben and Sayid snapped that guys neck (bloodthirsty chick, aren't I?)

So yeah, I loved this season finale! And now we gotta wait til Feb 2008 to get - well some answers at least.

Re: Smallville: I only WISH Lana is truly dead. She works on my nerves.

Re Smallville: Lana's fine. Not a scratch.

How do I know?

Come on. A truck "just happens" to drive past her car at the crucial moment, blocking Lionel's view. Can't be coincidence. Somebody grabbed her and put her in said truck. A coworker thinks it was Bart/Impulse, though I'm not sure how any of the Junior Lifeguard Association would know she was in any immediate danger.

Though I suppose Chloe could have contacted them and asked them to keep an eye on her.

Now, did whomever rescued Lana also put a body in the car in her place? Something appeared to be in there, and presumably the police wouldn't have arrested Lex for murder if no body had been in the car.

Unless someone on the police force is out to get Lex, that is.

Didn't know about Chloe's magic tears. Must have missed the episode in which they were introduced. However, when it appeared that Lois was dead (Jim), for a moment, I thought that maybe PAD would turn out to be right after all, and Chloe would assume the byline of Lois Lane. But that still left the issue (addressed some years back) of why her friends wouldn't call her Chloe in private. Plus, of course, it wouldn't make any sense, having introduced the real Lois and started her down the path of journalism.

But like I said, that thought that Chloe would take Lois place lasted just a moment, then the magic tears fell onto Lois, and

She's alive! She's alive! (he said in his best Colin Clive voice).

As to Chloe herself, who knows? She's not part of the original Superman mythos, so she is, to some degree, expendable.

The cliffhanger wasn't much of a cliffhanger, however. I'm not too concerned about what Bizzaro Clark will do. I'd have preferred to have seen Lex's army up and about. That would've made a better cliffhanger.

Re Heroes: Good overall. It would've been cool to have seen Peter and Nathan fly into the air and stayed with them, rather than watch from a ground-based POV.

As to Hiro, maybe I was right, and he'll turn out to be the legendary figure his father told him about as a child.

On the other hand, according to something I read, one of the person is already there in that field.

On the third hand, it could still be Hiro, just a future version.

If Hiro isn't this guy, he'll play a key role in helping him, perhaps he'll help him find the sword.

By the way, it's possible that both Nathan and Peter survived. We know that Peter survived in the other timeline, but how can Nathan still be among the land of the living? Simple. They get high enough up that no one on the ground is in danger and Peter tells him to fly to safety.

Did Sylar survive, or did someone drag off the body. Or, if he survived, maybe it was just long enough to crawl into the sewer.

And now it looks like (to use a Buffy term, Sylar was just the Little Bad. The Big Bad is yet to be revealed (Molly's reference to "someone worse.")

Re: Lost:

My first thought when I saw the bearded Jack was that it was a flash forward, especially after he reached for the newspaper. I expected to see a 2013 date or something like that. But then, when he told the other doctor to get his father down here to compare their relative states of drunkenness, I thought, O.K, it's a flashback.

But then, at the end, he meets with Kate, whom he didn't know prior to the crash. So, was Jack trying to pull off a major bluff? Was he so ought of it that he believed his father was still alive? Or, did the Island, in some way, resurrect his father? The last seems both the most and the least likely.

As to who's in the coffin, I'm going to guess it's Ben. But in a typical Lost twist, the "he" Kate referred to isn't Sawyer, it's Scott.

Or is it Steve? Whichever one's still alive. We've never had any indication that she's ever interacted with either, so in true ironic fashion, she's now in a relationship with one of them.

As to Charlie's fate, I agree with PAD that it seems odd that he'd lock himself in the room. The only character-based explanation I can come up with is that he feared that if he didn't surrender to fate, either Claire and Aaron wouldn't get off the island or, more immediately, that Desmond would die. Not sure how the former would be thwarted, since Charlie had already disabled to jammers, but no doubt he believed it was a possibility.

Jeff Lawson's theory also makes sense.

For the record, Supernatural was also good.

Rick

I took Jack's comments about his Dad as the actions of a desperate addict- but then when he said to call him and see who's drunker- I thought maybe the Dad never really was dead.

Rick- Supernatural was indeed good and I'm surprised more here don't watch it ...

HEROES: I found it a bit of a let down, mostly in the confrontation between Hiro and Sylar. Even knowing it had (?) to end with Hiro running Sylar through, I expected more of a fight between them before that point. It seemed over too fast and therefore anti-climatic. Actually, I would have liked to see more of the heroes gang-fighting Sylar (a fanboy moment) an then Ando end up being the one to stab Sylar. (The figure in Issac's drawing being not clearly Hiro to my eyes.)

LOST: Funny thing is, I thought the opening scene of bearded Jack on the airplane was a futre scene. I think it was the longish beard. But for whatever reason it wasn't until nearly half way through the two hours that I said "Duh! It's a flashback. They've all been flashbacks. What made you think otherwise?"

Soooooo glad Sawyer executed the other. During the Jack/Ben scene my wife and I were practically yelling at the screen for Jack to kill Ben. Why didn't he pick up the walkie and tell the others "Kill my guys and I kill Ben." Why didn't he just kill Ben right off. WHY does he even listen to ANYthing Ben has to say or believe ANY of it?

And why can't these people ever explain anything. Ben insists Jack is doing the wrong thing, but doesn't say why. Now for Ben, this make make some sense. He's a manipulative bastard who likes proving he's in charge and all must to as he says without him having to explain. (He should be President.) But Locke? Who can't bring himself to shoot Jack? You'd think he'd make some effort at explaining why, instead of murdering Naomi and threatening to kill Jack. He couldn't just yell "Stop!" and take a few moments to explain? They gave Ben five minutes. Surely they'd wait a moment to listen to Locke.

The series is much better than it has been, but that ending stil reeks of the creators having to resort to characters giving no reasons for thier actions because the creators haven't figured out what happens next themselves yet.

Jeff said: "I don't recall seeing her after, and in the 5 years ahead ep she wasn't mentioned, was she?"

Claire said to her father that her mother had left him. Also either Claire was given or took her mother's name.

As far as Peter not flying off, I think it was two things. He had the plan to be shot, that was it, that was as far ahead as he (and apparently a few other "heroes") thought. By the time Nathan got to him, I really believe he was too close to exploding.

I too think that Sylar was dragged off somehow. I think it very likely he is dead. I can't wait for the DVDs and I can't wait for next season.

Peter David: Only downside: The death of Charlie. Now I'm all for the notion of "Ha! We defied fate!" only to discover that, crap no, fate will have its way. But the way in which it happened made no sense.
Luigi Novi: Well, it depends on how you look at it. Look, it had been made perfectly clear to Charlie that he was going to die. He had to die. Not because this particular mission required it, but because, as Desmond put it, the universe did. Three times death came for Charlie, and three times, Desmond averted it. Both Des and Charlie understood that "the universe has a way of course-correcting itself", and that death would keep on coming for him. Desmond couldn't go on forever being Charlie's babysitter, nor would Charlie want one. For whatever reason, Charlie was "supposed" to die. Since the first Charlie flashback episode showed him to be a Christian, maybe Charlie came to feel that it was part of God's plan. So, knowing he couldn't escape it, he decided to let death take him, but to do so in a way that had meaning and purpose, on a mission that would save Claire and the others. Certainly doing so in this way had more meaning and purpose than getting hit by a bolt of lightning, drowning while unsuccessfully trying to save Claire (who, if I understood correctly, ended up not drowing through no action on Charlie's part), or getting skewered through the throat with an arrow from one of Rousseau's jungle booby traps. Remember, Des and that mysterious lady in Desmond's flashback knew that his visions could be averted, and Des did avert them, but Des told Charlie that Claire would not get on that helicopter if they did so this time. Thus, Charlie made his choice. He wanted to save his fellow castaways, and wanted to rescue Claire. Whether the blinking yellow button was pushed or not, Charlie may have felt that Claire and the others would not be resuced if he survived. So Charlie didn't die because there was no way to escape. He died because he chose to. Viewed in the context of that motive, it can make perfect sense, IMO.

>I took Jack's comments about his Dad as the >actions of a desperate addict- but then when he said to call him and see who's drunker- I thought >maybe the Dad never really was dead.

But note...everybody looked at Jack like he was insane when he said that. At this point, i am far more prone to presuming that they know his father is dead, but his addiction, memories and desire to find the island again is confusing him.

>One thing that intrigues me about it is when Jack tries to fill the prescription. It's from his father's pad and the hospital pharmacy was >going to call his father's office. Does this mean his father isn't dead? The hospital pharmacy >would have known that he was dead but they were going to call his office to verify the >prescription? Hmmm.

I don't think that was the Hospital Pharmacy. I think it was a drug store pharmacy.
Reason: They did not notice a difference between Jack and Christian Shepherd. Jack had to point out that the second prescription was supposedly written by his father. I think in fact Jack forged it. If they don't know who the Sheperds are (and we were not given any indication she did recognize the name) they have no reason to NOT assume Christian is alive. Of course they will suggest they call him.

And going back to the other moment Jack brings up his father, why doesn't somebody say, "Fine Jack, let's call him"...taking Jack up on it doesn't seem like an option...the staff looks confounded that Jack is talking as if his father is alive.

Go Hurley!

Heroes:
Prior to the finale airing, I came up with a scenario whereby Peter could stop Sylar, but it was dependent on Peter's ability to use multiple powers: Freeze time, which he can do because he's met Hiro, then--this is nasty--use Sylar's own power on him, opening his head and extracting his brain.
Unfortunately, I couldn't recall whether or not Peter could use multiple powers simultaneously in the present, plus there's the fact that Sylar demonstrated that he was somehow able to resist Hiro's time-stopping power a couple of episodes earlier.

Since Mother Petrelli is clearly highly-placed in the Primatech conspiracy, and has shown herself to be particularly cold-blooded regarding her own children, it wouldn't surprise me overmuch if she did have Candice step into Nathan's place. She was willing to sacrifice Peter, I'm sure she'd have few qualms about letting an impostor move in with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

I think Sylar dragged himself into the sewer. The business with the cockroach in the holding cell, back when he was being held at Primatech, suggested that he might be harder to kill than we would have expected.

Didn't D.L. seem to be handling that abdominal gunshot wound remarkably well?

And, yeah, I would have expected more reaction to that giant explosion high over New York. Frankly, I thought 30 Rock's "Salute to Fireworks" episode depicted a much more realistic reaction to sudden pyrotechnics in or above Manhattan.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the hell out of the whole season and I'll definitely be back to watch in the fall.

As far as Charlie goes; drowning doesn't mean dead, dead. You can revive a drowned man easier than reviving someone with a bolt in their throat. Plus add in the island's mystery (Loche was shot.) and Charlie might not be gone.

Nathan isn't gone. Remember rule-if you don't see the body, he ain't dead.

It’s been a good week.

Heroes was a bit disappointing - Sylar should be dead. Letting him seemingly escape at the end really crapped up the finale for me. As much as I have loved Zachary Quinto’s work on the series, I just thought the first season should have a clear cut ending and both Peter and Sylar being taken out was part of that.

I think the setup should have been for Mama Petrelli to be the big bad villain in the second season - although that still may be the case. Also, if Sylar got away does this mean Mama Petrelli will use him to impersonate her son?

LOST.

Man, I was waiting for this! This was my must-see television for the week and from the start to the finish I was just compelled to watch.

Locke is back! Yes!

Mikhail?

Is he like Ben and Locke in that he has some special connection to the island that is one of the reasons why he is able to heal? Note Richard commented on the ability to recover (heal) from injury as being indicative of one‘s connection to the island. In this sense Sawyer doesn’t have much of a connection since he’s been very sick on the island whereas Mikhail and Locke have bounced back from a plethora of severe injuries.

I too was really sad to see Charlie die. At first I thought the reason Desmond might not be having any more flashes was because he was going to die - I love both characters to it was a lose/lose situation.

Charlie’s sacrifice just worked so well overall though. Yeah, at first I wondered about the whole locking the door and being on the wrong side of it but, he was locking Desmond out more than anything else and saving him in the process. You had the sense Desmond would be determined no matter what to see his beloved Penny and if Charlie hadn’t locked him out he would’ve died too.

Just another thing to make Mikhail the baddest mofo on the island in many ways. Shot Bea, shot Greta and Bonnie - he’s racked up quite the body count among the others themselves.

I knew five people were slated to get offed in the season ender, I just thought Sawyer would be one of them if only because his character had fulfilled the lifelong goal of bringing the man responsible for his parents deaths into account.

Instead it was Charlie, Naomi, Tom, Greta and Bonnie (plus a bunch of background Others).

I had a weird idea that at some point the reveal would be that Jacob and Jack are one in the same. Don’t ask me why, but there is something in the way Locke approached the whole thing with his comment about Jack and the satellite phone, ‘It’s not what you’re supposed to do.’

Overall, it was a great season for LOST. I know there had been a lot of noise about it jumping the shark but, aside from the Nicki/Paulo episode I found the season wonderfully entertaining and February ’08 seems way too far off!

Re: Smallville
Unsure of the JLA's involvement, but I do agree with Lana's death being faked.
In regards to Chloe, she is the one original character in this whole thing and I'd hate to see anything happen to her.
Besides, DC has said she is scheduled to join the Superman comic book continuity the summer after the series ends.

I just had an interesting Heroes thought. Sylar's real name was Gabriel Gray. I don't think that name is accidental. I think that Sylar's emmergence onto the world stage in Season One is the trumpet blast that announces the beginning of the Great Appocolyptic Battle that will come to a head in Season...Three.

I was a bit disappointed with Lost. I mean, it was really good, but the hype had led me to believe I was in for a "wow" ending, but instead my only response was, "What the %$@#?" By now, I really should know better than to listen to hype.

Heroes, on the other hand, was just plain bad, and now I can finally say that the show is not worth my time and put it behind me. I'm sick of the wooden acting, the one-dimensional characters (none of the characters feel real to me, except maybe Hiro and Ando), and the terrible writing in every other episode (ESPECIALLY the finale).

I had a lot of problems with it, but the thing that bugged me most was: why is shooting Peter in the head even an issue for Claire, when he can just regenerate? That was an incredibly lame climax. And Sylar's not even dead!

Strange that every new show this season turned out to be a big disappointment.

"Don’t ask me why, but there is something in the way Locke approached the whole thing with his comment about Jack and the satellite phone, ‘It’s not what you’re supposed to do.’"

When Jack said, "I know exactly what I'm doing!" I thought they were going to reveal that he's working for Naomi's people, and the flashforwards and the mysterious dead person would somehow connect with that. Now THAT would have been a shocking finale!

Robert Fuller wrote: Why is shooting Peter in the head even an issue for Claire, when he can just regenerate? That was an incredibly lame climax. And Sylar's not even dead!”

I think shooting Peter was an issue because he specified the spot in his head where the glass had gone in, “killing” him during his previous battle with Sylar (the same spot where the tree branch had gone into Claire’s head when Brody had attacked her. In both cases, they remained dead until someone removed the foreign object in their brains). They may have concluded that a bullet, which does more damage than either a shard of glass or tree branch, would result in irreparable damage. Their Achilles Heel, so to speak.

Again, Peter was very specific about where to shoot him. Whether he was right that it would kill him permanently remains unknown, but he believed it, and so did Claire.

Are we sure Sylar’s not dead? Yes, he could have crawled off, but someone else could have dragged away the body for “study.”

Rick

Smallville: Hasn't anyone noticed that they've written Martha Kent out of the show?

Linda

Ok, Am I the only one who thought Smallville seriously jumped the shark with this episode?

Magic krypto tears?

"I'm Like you, only more bizarre"?

My wife laughed out loud at that line. I understood what they were trying to say but god, worst line ever.

If next season does not pick up - Smallville will be dead for me.

"Why is shooting Peter an issue for Claire"

Because she's a highschool girl being asked to shoot, possibly kill, one of the few people in the world she trusts and looks up to?

There's one thing about intellectually knowing he will likely heal...then there's emotionally knowing.

PAD: I'm concerned over your lack of knowledge about American Idol.

Marvel just killed Captain America because he doesn't watch NASCAR...what will they do to you when they learn about this!!!

Didn't know about Chloe's magic tears. Must have missed the episode in which they were introduced.

Nope, you didn't. While they dropped the news that Chloe had a kryptonite-induced power earlier in the season, this was the first time we saw what, exactly, that power was.

To comment on a few previous comments regarding Heroes:

A friend of mine and myself came up with the theory that Sylar did NOT resist Hiro's powers...Hiro's self doubt caused his powers to wane, because he felt he could not kill Sylar.

Also, I am subscribed to the newsletter that the show sends out, under the guise of Hannah? (The one who controls the electronic/wireless transmissions)...and in the email directly following the finale, she reveals something regarding Hiro's anscestors in that 1671 era. I believe she is alluding to the fact he is going to meet a long-ago relative (and my assumption/personal belief is that its that guy who was on by his lonesome against the army of warriors)

Michael

Jeff, Paul, THANK YOU. I was beginning to think I was the only one who'd noticed that little item.

At the VERY least, it would appear (to the world at large) that someone violated a bunch of international nuclear above-ground test ban treaties. If not an outright atomic attack on the U.S. Either way there'd have to be some serious, er, fall-out from that. I hope they don't just sweep it under the carpet and hope it goes away next season.

I thought they spelled out pretty clearly why peter couldn't fly. When nathan came up to him he said something along the lines of "I can't think of anything else". Back in the episode with the invisible man when he first started using powers of people he wasn't near I thought there was a line or an indication that he had to think of the person with the power to be able to conciously use it. (some powers like claire's regeneration or the dreamtime power he seems to use unconciously)

Comic-Geek Question: If Sylar did take Peter's power, would he only gain Peter's absorption ability, or would he also gain all the powers Peter has already absorbed?? :-)

Comic-Geek Answer: Depending on what was needed for the story, either way. Rules are rules until they get in the way of the tale.

Nytwyng,

Well, I missed the episode in which viewers learned Chloe had Kryptonite-induced powers, which pretty much comes to the same thing. That she had any special ability caught me by surprise.

Though, in retrospect, it shouldn't have. Any denizen of Smallville could conceivably turn out to be a latent "meteor freak." That doesn't mean I like the idea, however.

On another note, in my first post, I wrote: "As to Hiro, maybe I was right, and he'll turn out to be the legendary figure his father told him about as a child.

"On the other hand, according to something I read, one of the person is already there in that field."

That, of course, should have read, "that person is already there in that field."

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Cowboy Pete thread, already in progress.

Rick

Hiro jumping back three hundred years really does seem to be underscoring the idea that he's under the control of some sort of unseen hand of destiny, moving him around to various points in time where he's needed. I wonder if we'll ever actually see that hand.

Hmm, anyone else getting a Quantum Leap vibe from this thought? "Hiro Nakamura, theorizing one could travel through time, concentrated really hard... and vanished! He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing a civilization not his own."

This comment has a "put right things that once went wrong" factor of 3 out of 5...

Between the Heroes homage(?) and the NBC rip-off Journeyman that is set to debut this fall, if anyone wanted to do a Quantum Leap style series, why not just revive the original?
BTW: Any idea what happened to the Sci-Fi Channel produced reunion movie with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell that was supposed to wrap up the original series and set the stage for any potential continuation sequels?

Some thoughts:

HEROES: A decent ending. I had predicted (and someone with *way* too much time can look through past posts here to see my having said it) that Nathan would help by flying Peter off to safety (though I had thought the distance would have mitigate the power absorptions). I wasn't bothered by Peter panicking: He had been in a total panic as soon as his hands started glowing, and he was probably focused so much on "holding it in" that he didn't think of flight. My money says Nathan survived, as he could have easily flown away. (BTW, does Peter now have the powers of Molly and Micah, since they were near him? Or Jessica's super strength? And what about Sylar's power? Remember, initially his power seemed to be figuring out how to solve a problem: He knew instinctively how to fix watches, and he knew instinctively how to take out part of the telekinetic's brain to access his power.)

I was a little disappointed that Hiro just ran up to Sylar and stabbed him. Did Hiro slow time enough to move before Sylar could react?

LOST: So we're back to the future! Overall, a good episode. Quite a few regulars were killed, plus we now have a new potential menace on the horizon. (Though even if the helicopter wasn't sent by Penny, who does that make them evil? Ben doesn't want anyone leaving the island, and the Dharma Initiative already knew where the island was.) It was great to see Hurley taking initiative instead of being the fat comic relief/punching bag again, and Charlie's death was really heroic: He knew what was coming, and he sacrificed himself instead of getting Desmond killed. Even his final act was to pass on information to help the othe-- er, his fellow castaways.

SMALLVILLE: I agree with PAD: Barring people leaving due to contract disputes, everything will be back to normal in a few episodes. That said, was Chloe's big mystery meteor freak power was to save someone at the cost of her own life? And it's ironic that with Bizarro, someone finally figured out to bring kryptonite against a kryptonian -- and it backfires. D'oh!

mister_pj

Overall, it was a great season for LOST. I know there had been a lot of noise about it jumping the shark but, aside from the Nicki/Paulo episode I found the season wonderfully entertaining and February ’08 seems way too far off!

(just using your post as a touchstone here...nothing personal)

I wonder if the people who are didn't like the Nicki/Paulo episode of LOST people are the same people who didn't like the Jonathan episode of "Buffy"?

For the record, I thought both were a hoot.

I haven't read any of the other comments yet, but I did have a question about Lost. A coworker of mine said that the woman in the car accident on the bridge where Jack was was acxtually Kate and the boy with her was her son. I didn't get that out of the episode at all. Can anyone confirm that?

Also, another coworker said that the person in the coffin had a J at the beginning of their name. It could be James Ford (Saywer), John Locke, or Jin Kwon. Any theories?

My roommate posed this theory for a possible Nathan survival:

The last person's power that Peter absorbed was Niki's, and the show has been vague about how the Niki/Jessica dynamic works. If Jessica is just a split personality, then that's one thing. But what if Niki's real power was abosrbing the essence of her dead sister (who herself had the potential for super strength), king of like the way Rogue had completely absorbed the powers and personality of Carol Danvers? Probably not, but would be interesting if we see Nathan start looking back at Peter in the mirror.

Will, can't be because Kate showed up at the end unharmed- I don't think the timeline advanced THAT much by the end of the episode, because the lady in the car was very banged up ...

I agree Peter was just too confused to use his power to fly, but they could have made it clearer (and should have).
I vote for Sylar's corpse being dragged into the sewers, rather than crawled.
The person I'm surprised survived was the illusionist holding Micah. I figured Jessica would remove her head when she found out.
Generally a great episode.

Smallville: Haven't seen the ending, but Chloe isn't a dispensabe character, she's the main reason I watch. Why Clark would pick drippy Lana over her, I cannot fathom.

As for the Lost Funeral scene, I missed the "J" bit, but the best theories I have come up with so far are:
1. It was the funeral of John Locke or
2. It was the funeral of Michael

If every surviving castaway makes it off the island in the next few seasons, the only people who have lost the love of their fellow beach dwellers are Michael and Locke. Any other death among the survivors ...someone would have made an appearance at the service.

John and Michael both seem to have no family, that is if something happens to Walt.

Jack seems to be the type of guy who would have been there for either, as he likely feels as if he failed them, in some way.

Kate's reaction "Why would I go" (to the funeral) seems to say she had no love for the deceased.

Biggest giweaway here is that Jack (who was earmarked for death in the Pilot episode)and Kate will indeed have 3 more seasons without the threat of getting whacked... No more cliffhanger endings that will be believable if they are involved.

Heroes.... kind of a let down, but as the last few episodes played out.
1. Ted being knocked off by Sylar, opens up a new and exciting career opportunity for the actor....I hear they are doing a Geico Caveman
sitcom.
2.Maybe, just maybe Greg Grunberg's Matt Parkman may survive, unlike his pilot character on Lost.
3.Maybe the Eclipse we see in the teaser for Season 2 is the birth of the Genetic changes we know are coming.
4. Did anyone else think for a split second that the body falling into the grass at the end was Peter Petrelli?

Last thing I can say on both shows....It's gonna suck waiting to see what happens next.

Ps. quick question for Mr. David......I have seen some names that I recognize doing work on the Heroes online graphic novels. Any chance we'll see your name on one of them?

Thanks,
Pete C.

Was the Petrelli brothers' detonation in the sky, creating a sun in the middle of the night, intended to be a counterpoint to the Heroes eclipse motif?

Pete C: Biggest giweaway here is that Jack (who was earmarked for death in the Pilot episode)and Kate will indeed have 3 more seasons without the threat of getting whacked... No more cliffhanger endings that will be believable if they are involved.

I disagree. You're assuming that next Season of Lost will pickup after Jack made his call to the Not-Penny's-Boat. I submit that next season will pick up off the Island and focus on Jack's and some of the other Castaways' efforts to get back to the Island. It's a way to bring run the clock forward to where the characters have aged as much as the actors (especially Walt). They did it with Battlestar Galactica; why not Lost? They could keep their Flashback motif to give all sorts of interesting backstory about what happened in the time between the rescue and the "Present-Time" of the series. I really think that this is the where they're going with this.

I'm trying really, really hard not to read the Lost spoilers, since it's still sitting on my TiVo, but I have some input on Heroes:

For weeks, I've been predicting that Sylar would live (he's too good a villain to lose), until FinderGirl said there was someone worse. Then I figured we could lose Sylar. I'd have much rather seen a hint that somebody else dragged him off, rather than crawling off like the roach he is. Of course if he can concentrate on his TK power, he should be able to hold his guts together, right?

I also predicted that Peter had to die -- how many Marvel and DC characters have had to be written out (or at least sidelined) because they have the "I can do anything" ability. It's just too hard, from a writer's point of view, to come up with scenarios that Peter can't just fix by himself. I don't buy that Nathan had to fly him off though. Lame.

But. Peter could survive (I'm reminded of Hulk Annual number *cough* "Bah! Hulk has fallen farther"). Has Peter been around Linderman, who can heal... would Nathan mention that on the way up, letting him keep his brother alive? For that matter, Nathan can go waaaay up, drop Peter, then skedaddle out of range, before he goes boom, right?

Is Heroes trying to say that these people (at least their families) have been tied together for centuries. The logo on the flag that the solitary rider has at the end of the show matches the logo on the sword shop advertisement in the yellow pages where Hiros father was. It was also the same design as the tatoo on Nikkis back when she was present.

"A coworker of mine said that the woman in the car accident on the bridge where Jack was was acxtually Kate and the boy with her was her son. I didn't get that out of the episode at all. Can anyone confirm that?"

From what I got out of it, was that the woman is Juliet's sister and the boy (her miracle birth) nephew.

"Also, another coworker said that the person in the coffin had a J at the beginning of their name. It could be James Ford (Saywer), John Locke, or Jin Kwon. Any theories?"

The obituary (which you can see here: http://bp0.blogger.com/_RrObyQ3XzcY/RlUe-1YihSI/AAAAAAAAFkw/ucINFuG1jfo/s1600-h/newspaperclipping2.jpg) is for J. Bentham (Jeremy Bentham, the name of the philosopher who designed Panopticon)

"The last person's power that Peter absorbed was Niki's, and the show has been vague about how the Niki/Jessica dynamic works. If Jessica is just a split personality, then that's one thing. But what if Niki's real power was abosrbing the essence of her dead sister (who herself had the potential for super strength), king of like the way Rogue had completely absorbed the powers and personality of Carol Danvers? Probably not, but would be interesting if we see Nathan start looking back at Peter in the mirror."

Great theory!

Pete C.:As for the Lost Funeral scene, I missed the "J" bit, but the best theories I have come up with so far are:
1. It was the funeral of John Locke or
2. It was the funeral of Michael

I'm tempted to go for Locke. Flashfoward Jack seemed to be convinced that they should have stayed on the island - exactly what Locke wanted. I'm wondering if Jack getting them saved in spite of Ben's meddling, and Locke's protest resulted in, among other things, Locke's decline. That would give Jack something to be guilty and remorseful about, even if nobody else particularly cared. Obviously, there'd have to be a lot more going on, but news of a death he might have been responsible for could certainly have been one straw too many.

I kind of like Luigi Novi's explanation of Charlie's death. Sure, why not. (Do they still give out No-prizes?)

Re: Heroes - dug it a lot. I don't know - I guess I didn't have a problem with be Peter being unable to fly. As far as I recall, that was one of the harder ones of his abilities to access, and like others have said, he was trying his damnedest just not to explode.

Also - anybody watching the commentary tracks on the Heroes website? They're pretty entertaining/insightful.

I don't think Peter has ever used more than one power at once in an effective fashion. Even if he is able, it would take all of his concentration to try and contain his nuclear power, so activating a second one might not be feasible. Plus, the kid was just too scared of exploding. I don't think he was thinking straight.

Sylar is a different case, I suppose, because he was shown to have much more control over his acquired powers than Peter.

The other thing I think people are misreading: it was understood between Peter and Claire that blowing your brains out would prevent regeneration, since the power is in the brain. That was what all the angst was about between the two of them. Peter wouldn't be coming back if Claire shot him. And Claire couldn't get the nerve to kill Peter permanently. Plus, he could have exploded if shot! I don't think that was ever a good plan in the first place.

It's interesting how some people are speculating that Sylar was dragged away, when there was never any doubt that he dragged his own sorry ass into the sewer. The producers have obviously made a point of making some kind of link between Sylar and a cockroach, considering there was a deliberate shot of a roach when he was held captive in the lab, and just in case we missed it, they had a roach crawl over the final title for the end of book one. From a production standpoint, the amount of work it takes to capture a cockroach on camera for a single shot is pretty considerable; enough that it had to be hugely deliberate to place one there.

"I had a weird idea that at some point the reveal would be that Jacob and Jack are one in the same. Don’t ask me why, but there is something in the way Locke approached the whole thing with his comment about Jack and the satellite phone, ‘It’s not what you’re supposed to do.’"

Brilliant idea. There was a whole Moses motif going on in this chapter with Jack + Jack's tattoo -- for him to be Jacob makes perfect sense.

Heroes:

I enjoyed the season finale, but it seemed to suffer from some of the childhood diseases that afflicted it early in the season.

1) Annoying, time wasting voice overs by Mohinder, as well as other overly dramtic lines and scenes that did not realy further the plot.

2) Difficulty finding time for all of the characters.
It felt as if they were trying too hard to get all of the heroes to do something heroic in the final chapter, while wrapping up dangling threads, and the result was a rushed feeling while neglect of some character development.

- After all the effort he went to, Hero's battle with Syler should have had more to it: a better demonstration of his samurai skills and powers, instead of stabbing and being (literaly) tossed away. I think it would have been a good idea if, while training with his father, Hero would have slowed time in order to give him sufficient training time.
- I think Claire also got cheated of her heroic moment. Ever since she left Texas, it seems thatshe has become very passive, being dragged around by other characters. She used to be one of the more pro-active characters. And then, at the moment she's been preparing for, all she could do was stand there until Nathan swooped in out of the blue.
- Nathan also got cheated, I think. His decision to come save the day felt sudden. I also regreted seeing him sacrificed -- dying for his sins -- just when he has reached the pivotal moment in his character development. Maybe it would have been better if he swooped in too late to prevent Claire from shooting Peter, leaving him with regret and a task as a father to help his daughter deal with the consequences of her actions. His own 'with great power comes great responsibility' moment, if you will. I would have liked to see him in the next season.

- The attempt to wrap up the Nikki storyline, resolve her split personality issues and allow her to claim her super powers, while also letting her in on the big battle also felt rushed to me. I think it should have been handled differently. I'm also not sure I like seeing Jessica go, she had a flare. Maybe it would ave been better to keep the resolution of that story for the next season?

- Peter had to die, at least temporarily. He had to much power. He also had the self sacrificing personality. But being wisked away, followed by an explosion with no body, seems like a crude way to do it. I dd not have a problem with the fact that he didn't fly away since it is easily explained.

- I also felt that Peter's time travel was a little wasted. Mr. Devaux should have given us more than a peptalk. A little hit about the organization maybe.

- I agree with PAD that creating the impression that Syler survived somehow undercuts the whole struggle of the season. Had they established that his body was taken by some mysterious party, that would have been more satisfying.

Still, there were also several satisfying moments in this finale. Bennet revealing his first name. Claire jumping out of the window. Nathan struggling with himself. Hiro saying goodbye to Ando. Hiro and his father. Matt Parkman's role (I hope they don't kill him).

Future Peter had a scar on his face. If he could always heal, how'd he end up with a scar? Claire was autopsied and healed from that. Claire and Peter always completely healed from their injuries so Peter should have healed any injury to his face.

Joe, I think the cockroach was a metaphor for the show in general (evolutionary survivors), not for Sylar. Cockroaches have been shown several times with no connection to Sylar.

I also felt that Peter's time travel was a little wasted. Mr. Devaux should have given us more than a peptalk. A little hit about the organization maybe.

I'll confess that it got me all teary-eyed, and the scene with Ando and Hiro in the office too. Under peril of looking like a totally uncool, uncynical simpleton. I just love it when the underdog outsiders get validated as heroes.

It felt as if they were trying too hard to get all of the heroes to do something heroic in the final chapter, while wrapping up dangling threads, and the result was a rushed feeling while neglect of some character development.

I agree, to a point. Too many characters, too little time, it has always been Heroes' problem. I read that next seasons will be different, they'll do shorter story arcs and more episodes focused on indivual characters.

But you know what impressed me most about the last episode? If you re-watch the first two episodes, there is an almost eerie thematic continuance between them and the finale.

LOST: just fantastic. This show has been riveting since mid-season. Incidentally, I missed most of season 2, and don't feel like I've missed anything. A couple of points:
1. I bet it's Sawyer in the coffin. They're already starting to show a grudging mutual respect between him and Jack, though they would not be called "friends", and thus Jack described him as neither friend nor family. This also explains why Jack expected Kate to be there. Why wasn't she? Some falling-out they have in the future, I'd guess. And when she says "I have to get home to him", I suspect it's to her and Sawyer's son, who Sawyer abandoned in this as-yet-unrevealed future. Also, a freeze frame of the death announcement clearly shows a name starting with J..."James"?
2. Random nitpick: Jack is surprised that his oxycodone is out of refills. He shouldn't be, and the pharmacist comment is similarly misguided; oxycodone is a schedule 2 drug, and never, EVER has refills--you need a new Rx every time.

About Charlie: you are forgetting one major thing about underwater containers with holes in the bottom. They do not flood because of the pressure. If you blow open a hole in the side of the container, the water will come up through the bottom and flood the inside up to the level of the hole.

Charlie may have closed the door thinking to prevent the main area from flooding, thereby saving Des in the process. Assuming he knew physics as well as Beach Boy tunes, that is.

"I read that next seasons will be different, they'll do shorter story arcs."

That would be a huge mistake. Look what happened to Veronica Mars/

"I read that next seasons will be different, they'll do shorter story arcs."

That would be a huge mistake. Look what happened to Veronica Mars/"

Totally different situation. "Veronica Mars" went to shorter story arcs because it was never a ratings success to begin with and they did it that way to try and improve ratings. "Heroes" *is* a ratings success and they're discussing shorter arcs as a different way of telling stories.

PAD

"Posted by: Peter David at May 26, 2007 07:24 AM
"I read that next seasons will be different, they'll do shorter story arcs."

That would be a huge mistake. Look what happened to Veronica Mars/"

Totally different situation. "Veronica Mars" went to shorter story arcs because it was never a ratings success to begin with and they did it that way to try and improve ratings. "Heroes" *is* a ratings success and they're discussing shorter arcs as a different way of telling stories."

I understand the difference. But it seems to me that in both cases it would take away from the shows one of their strongest aspects. In Veronica Mars's case they were desperate to find a way to get more viewers but acheived the reverse. Heroes is doing well, so I don't know if the risk is worth it. The experience with Lost taught us that even successful shows shouldn't take their success for granted. From a storytelling point of view I understand the wish to have character focused stories or shorter arcs, but I think they should strive to do it while maintaining the larger arc. Jos Whedon was pretty pretty successful with that in Buffy and Angel.

Re: Lost

Lost definitely returned to form in last few chapter after seemingly loosing direction, purpose and focus for most of the season. That's great. But it did cause me to hold a certain distrust toward the show. When I saw the flashback that urned out to be a flashforward (I figured that out pretty fast), my first reaction was to groan. I still am a little suspicious with the way that the show prefers to add more and more twists to the plot instead of addressing past questions. But nevertheless, after not caring much about the show for most of the season, now they got me interested again.

I was happy to see Hurley save the day and sorry to see Charlie sacrificed. I like the underdogs.

I think the problem with Charlie's scene was more in the direction. I think the idea was that he had only a moment to seal the hatch and save Desmond, and he couldn't step out. He was supposed to seal the hatch just as the explosion occured. Luigi solution is also good: that Charlie couldn't close the door from the outside.

I was also sorry to see Naomi die. I like people who are not part of the in group.

I think they were deliberatly trying to be ambiguous about Jack's father. Jack's reference to him may have been simply a statement that they allowed Christian to work while drunk when he was alive. But they still have the option to go with the supernatural solution.

The show sure left us with a lot of questions a speculations, and that's a sign of its success.

- Is Jack the only one to react badly to their leaving the island? Kate's face was covered with a lot of makeup, which is sometimes shorthand for corruption or trying to hide problems.

- Who is the person Kate wad refering to? From her tone it sounded like a boyfriend or husband who might be unhappy about her meeting with Jack. It also seemed as if Jack was not supposed to contact her. Why?

- Who was in the coffin and why didn't other survivors attend? Was it because this person was disliked (Ben, Locke, Sawyer)? Or maybe a general reluctance by the survivors to have any reunion? Maybe guilt on taking off the islan d somebody who wanted to remain? Maybe all of above? It also seemed that the funeral occured in a poor neighborhood, and that the deceased was lonely. sawyer or Locke seem like the obvious choices, but you never know.

- What is the story with the rescue ship? Ben seems to have lied when he said that the company looking for the island will kill the survivors, since they were taken home. Or he could have been talking figuratively and refering to the effect of leaving the island's influence. Naomi didn't strike me as working for a nefarious organization.

- Why did the communication system of the mirror hook up with Penny immediately when it was disconnected?

There will be enough time to mull about that until Lost returns. I'm happy I want to see it return.

------------

About 24. I pretty much lost interest with it after season 2 and didn't watch the current season. The formula felt tired for me and repetitive.

Re: Smallville

This season I caught up to this show by watching daily reruns. It is not a great show. It depends on cuteness: cute actors, cute characters, cute character chemistry, cute storylines, cute references to the Superman myth. But it is enjoyable dispite weak points.

This season was good for the most part, but I felt a little disconnect between the major themes of the season: JLA, Lex's secret experiments, Kryptonian criminals, and the way they were all combined together in the character of bizarro. I'm not sure why. I am happy to see bizarro. Maybe I don't think of him as a major end of season villain. It's just an impression.

Lana's death seemed very suspicious, and Chloe's also. It is difficult for us to even consider it a possibility. But maybd the show felt it is time to release Clark from his connection to Lana and/or Chloe, and push Lois forward even more. Maybe this time the deaths are real? I will regret a little saying either go, but the Lana storyline has been streched way too long. On the other hand it would be interesting to see Lanas as part of the in group.

"in this continuity, people will take one look at Superman and say, "Hey, that's Clark Kent" unless he manages to totally change his face somehow."

Yes, I don't know how they can solve that. The show works so well. The character of Lois, which I was dubious about, fit in perfectly. Yet as the show goes along it undercuts the basic premise of the Superman myth.

I understand the difference. But it seems to me that in both cases it would take away from the shows one of their strongest aspects. In Veronica Mars's case they were desperate to find a way to get more viewers but acheived the reverse. Heroes is doing well, so I don't know if the risk is worth it.

Actually, even though Heroes still did very well, the long break that came before the last 5 episodes has hurt the ratings a little.

And from what I've read, we'll still have long story arcs, just not season-long ones. It will be more like 2 or 3 "mini-seasons" per year. The next story arc, "Generations", will be 11-episodes long, if I'm not mistaken.

And just from the way Season 1 ended, I suspect Heroes will always be extremely serial in nature. Even when you enter a new storyline, it will still be heavily built over what came before. I just don't see Heroes as the kind of show that has a status quo they'll keep getting back to, you know? That is pretty much impossible in Heroes.

RE: "24". Did no one catch the finale's nod to ALIENS? Buchanan as Bishop - cool!!

I liked the heroes finale but i agree there were some weaker points to the episode. i often wonder what happens in the writing process that makes a writer decide to go with a given resolution because surely they see the gaps as well as the watchers at home?

I interpreted the whole thing as Peter not being able to fly because he was focussing solely on not exploding. Concentrating on another power would have made him instantly lose control. However i wanted them to just shoot Peter. Peter is invincible, shoot him and pluck out the bullet from his head in a remote part of the desert and he'd be right as rain and no one would be in danger.

Still i feel the primary climax of the finale was not so much Peter exploding but Nathan's redemption. For the most part during the series we've been wondering what side he'd eventually choose. Nathan is an antihero, he doesn't want to be a hero and yet in the end he did what he had to in order to save millions of lives and to stand by his brother. That was the moment that emotionally grabbed me the most.

About Sylar, not sure how i feel about him potentially escaping. While i'd hate to lose the actor it kinda lessened the impact of his supposed death and subsequently Peter and Nathan's sacrifice.

I hope they will wrap up the nuclear man storyline by having both peter and Sylar lose all the powers they had so far, peter to power burnout and Sylar due to being dead even for a while (but then how would peter survive and we've seen Sylar "dead" before without losing powers).
I'm glad we've seen Sylar fake death before or it would seem pretty lame that he did so this time around but it makes one wonder why he needed Claire's power to survive in the first place.

Anyway highly enjoyable even if not 100% perfect in execution.

Predictions for the next season:

*Hiro's dad is immortal and he is kensei.".. of all my children .."
*Jessica is not gone but possesses a new body (Sylar?)
*the illusionist girl takes Nathan's place as senator.
*Neither Peter nor Nathan is truly dead.

"Hiro's dad is immortal and he is kensei.".. of all my children .."

That's a really good idea. I like the notion that he has generations of Children.

"Jessica is not gone but possesses a new body (Sylar?)"

I don't think Jessica exists. Nikki is just a person with multiple personality disorder that has super powers.

"*the illusionist girl takes Nathan's place as senator."

Seems very likely.

"Neither Peter nor Nathan is truly dead."

That's quite possible. I think we are supposed to assume Peter is alive. But to keep Nathan alive feels like the kind of tired comics trickery we're always complaining about (see captain America). That was also why I disliked the way the resolved the story with a distant explosion and no bodies (see Lana Lang). I had an image of Syler and Peter's corpses kept by Primatech in some warehouse somewhere.

"Still i feel the primary climax of the finale was not so much Peter exploding but Nathan's redemption. For the most part during the series we've been wondering what side he'd eventually choose. Nathan is an antihero, he doesn't want to be a hero and yet in the end he did what he had to in order to save millions of lives and to stand by his brother. That was the moment that emotionally grabbed me the most."

I liked the transition in complexity of Nathan's personality, but felt that they killed him just when it would have been most interesting to explore him further.

"i often wonder what happens in the writing process that makes a writer decide to go with a given resolution because surely they see the gaps as well as the watchers at home?"

I sometimes wonder the same thing. I guess writing is (among other things) about choices: should the hero go left or right, wear one color or another, attack or retreat.... There are times where it seems that some writer or director picked the worst option instead of 10 really good options. There are other times where they pick the eleventh option I wasn't even thinking of, and I wonder how he or she did it. There are times in which there are several really good option, but I'm thinking to myself, what is the option that I'm not thinking of, the one that would be really surprising?

However i wanted them to just shoot Peter. Peter is invincible, shoot him and pluck out the bullet from his head in a remote part of the desert and he'd be right as rain and no one would be in danger.

The two times when Peter and Claire came back to life, they had something lodged into their nape area, sorta "disconnecting" their brains and deactivating their powers.

If Claire shot Peter in the nape in that moment, my understanding was that the bullet wouldn't just stay conveniently lodged there in the nape. A bullet shot in the nape would burrow through, either allowing Peter to regenerate instantly or causing damage to the brain itself that Peter wouldn't be able to regenerate from, the same way Claire couldn't regenerate if Sylar removed her brain.

That was what the angst was about between Peter and Claire. I don't think Claire would have that much of a problem hurting Peter if she knew he was coming back for sure. The problem was, she didn't know whether he was coming back from a bullet to the head, and neither was Peter. Remember that the brain is the area that control their powers. Messing with it isn't like just throwing a switch.

That's quite possible. I think we are supposed to assume Peter is alive. But to keep Nathan alive feels like the kind of tired comics trickery we're always complaining about (see captain America). That was also why I disliked the way the resolved the story with a distant explosion and no bodies (see Lana Lang). I had an image of Syler and Peter's corpses kept by Primatech in some warehouse somewhere.

On the one hand, my comic book reading experience tells me Peter, Sylar, Nathan, Matt, and D.L. will all survive. No dead bodies, no death.

On the other hand, Tim Kring has said some of the deaths in the last episode were for real. Maybe he is messing with us, or playing with words, though.

I thought the one most likely to die was D.L., since he has been shamefully underused most of the season(even though the way he killed Linderman was cool), but he was up and walking about by the end.

Matt, Peter, and Sylar are all obviously alive, though I foresee consequences. Nathan... I dunno. It would be dramatically apropriate for him to have died, but I dunno.

Rene: "The two times when Peter and Claire came back to life, they had something lodged into their nape area, sorta "disconnecting" their brains and deactivating their powers.

If Claire shot Peter in the nape in that moment, my understanding was that the bullet wouldn't just stay conveniently lodged there in the nape. A bullet shot in the nape would burrow through, either allowing Peter to regenerate instantly or causing damage to the brain itself that Peter wouldn't be able to regenerate from, the same way Claire couldn't regenerate if Sylar removed her brain.

That was what the angst was about between Peter and Claire. I don't think Claire would have that much of a problem hurting Peter if she knew he was coming back for sure. The problem was, she didn't know whether he was coming back from a bullet to the head, and neither was Peter. Remember that the brain is the area that control their powers. Messing with it isn't like just throwing a switch."

I don't know Rene. The splinter un Claire's brain was lodged pretty deep, and she was for all intents and purposes dead. So maybe the damage of a bullet is reversable. But my problem was mostly that Claire became redundant by not shooting Peter, while Nathan's death, unless reversed, removes him from the story just when he reached the climax of his character.

I agree about DL.

I think you're really reaching in your theory about why Claire didn't shoot Peter, Rene. There's nothing in the show to indicate that he wouldn't regenerate from a bullet to the head. It's not that Peter and Claire's brains were "deactivated" when something was lodged in them. They had a huge freaking piece of glass and a huge freaking piece of wood, respectively, stuck in their brains. They were dead. A bullet is not going to be any different (and, even if it were, Claire doesn't have any reason to think it would be).

The episode would have been so much better if Peter started losing control and Claire just walked up to him and shot him. Instead, we got a lame martyr scene for Nathan that was even sillier than Harry Osborn's.

There's nothing in the show to indicate that he wouldn't regenerate from a bullet to the head. It's not that Peter and Claire's brains were "deactivated" when something was lodged in them. They had a huge freaking piece of glass and a huge freaking piece of wood, respectively, stuck in their brains.

I've watched Episodes 3 and 4 a couple times, and the more recent ".07%" twice, and both times Peter and Claire had objects stuck more exactly in the back of their necks, more in the brainstem. Moreover, the objects were conveniently lodged there, stopping further regeneration. Would the bullet just stay there or burrow through Peter head and go out the other way? And then he would regenerate right there.

But that isn't my main objection to this absurdly harebrained plan, but more the fact that neither Peter nor Claire were going nuclear in the occasions they had objects suddenly stuck in their brainstems. Wouldn't Peter explode if he were suddenly shot?

It is a desperate plan, useful if Peter were going to explode *anyway*. But if there was a way to, say, safely remove him from the city fast, like Nathan did, that must be preferable to inflicting sudden, concentration-shattering pain to the guy that is just about to explode.

It was, of course, much better than doing nothing, but if there is a flying guy there to remove the bomb, I'm surprised that so many people think it would be smarter to just shoot the bomb and pray.

Instead, we got a lame martyr scene for Nathan that was even sillier than Harry Osborn's.

I understand that some people had a negative reaction to Nathan's melodramatic scene, but I think this is immaterial to how desperate and dubious the "shoot the bomb" plan was.

"Wouldn't Peter explode if he were suddenly shot?"

Why would he? He's a nuclear bomb, not a stick of dynamite.

"I've watched Episodes 3 and 4 a couple times, and the more recent ".07%" twice, and both times Peter and Claire had objects stuck more exactly in the back of their necks, more in the brainstem. Moreover, the objects were conveniently lodged there, stopping further regeneration. Would the bullet just stay there or burrow through Peter head and go out the other way? And then he would regenerate right there."

If this were all true, it would just prove my point even, which is that Claire has no reason not to shoot him. Her problem is that he might die permanently, not that shooting him wouldn't work.

"I've watched Episodes 3 and 4 a couple times, and the more recent ".07%" twice, and both times Peter and Claire had objects stuck more exactly in the back of their necks, more in the brainstem. Moreover, the objects were conveniently lodged there, stopping further regeneration. Would the bullet just stay there or burrow through Peter head and go out the other way? And then he would regenerate right there."

If this were all true, it would just prove my point even more, which is that Claire has no reason not to shoot him. Her problem is that he might die permanently, not that shooting him wouldn't work.

I think Peter's brain would regenerate if the bullet went through. It wouldn't be much of a power if they had to worry about brain injuries all the time. The chances of brain injuries in the life of a superhero is very likely. I can't see Claire walking around with a helmet all the time. It wil ruin her hair.

However, there is another problem. If the bullet stayed in the brain or had fragmented in it, it would require surgery to take it out. This would be a good way to put Peter on ice (maybe literaly) without killing him.

"But that isn't my main objection to this absurdly harebrained plan, but more the fact that neither Peter nor Claire were going nuclear in the occasions they had objects suddenly stuck in their brainstems. Wouldn't Peter explode if he were suddenly shot?"

Both plans have problems if viewed 'realistically.' Nathan's plan caused an explosion in the sky over NY, and Peter's plan wasn't guarenteed to work. But for two chapters they've sold us the 'just shoot him' plan, as the plan. Claire was all prepared for this role. Nobody said it was a bad plan. Her hesitation didn't seem to have been because she started questioning the plan. Yet then they switched plans. Why? To save her the trauma? To give Nathan the chance to redeem himself? To kill 9or remove temporarily) both Patrellis?

So the real question is not which plan is better technically, but which is better for the story: Claire being traumatized or Nathan being a martyr(as far as we know). I prefer the first plan, or a variation of it, both for Claire's character's sake and for Nathan's. But this is a matter of preferance.

I think Peter's brain would regenerate if the bullet went through. It wouldn't be much of a power if they had to worry about brain injuries all the time. The chances of brain injuries in the life of a superhero is very likely. I can't see Claire walking around with a helmet all the time. It wil ruin her hair.

However, there is another problem. If the bullet stayed in the brain or had fragmented in it, it would require surgery to take it out. This would be a good way to put Peter on ice (maybe literaly) without killing him.

"But that isn't my main objection to this absurdly harebrained plan, but more the fact that neither Peter nor Claire were going nuclear in the occasions they had objects suddenly stuck in their brainstems. Wouldn't Peter explode if he were suddenly shot?"

Both plans have problems if viewed 'realistically.' Nathan's plan caused an explosion in the sky over NY, and Peter's plan wasn't guarenteed to work. But for two chapters they've sold us the 'just shoot him' plan, as the plan. Claire was all prepared for this role. Nobody said it was a bad plan. Her hesitation didn't seem to have been because she started questioning the plan. Yet then they switched plans. Why? To save her the trauma? To give Nathan the chance to redeem himself? To kill 9or remove temporarily) both Patrellis?

So the real question is not which plan is better technically, but which is better for the story: Claire being traumatized or Nathan being a martyr(as far as we know). I prefer the first plan, or a variation of it, both for Claire's character's sake and for Nathan's. But this is a matter of preferance.

Why would he? He's a nuclear bomb, not a stick of dynamite.

C'mon. He is neither. He is a superguy with powers out of control. Look at it this way, we have a whole city in danger, and we have two plans to deal with it.

Plan A, that is Nathan simply flying Peter out of the city, is completely fool-proof and involves no risk to New York City whatsoever. The only life in danger here is Nathan's, and the only danger to the people around them is having to witness a soppy brotherly love scene.

Plan B, involves Claire putting a bullet through Peter's head just when he is struggling desperately with his nuclear powers. Read the last phrase aloud, think about how it sounds, and then thinks that there is a whole city in the brink of destruction if it doesn't work.

So the real question is not which plan is better technically, but which is better for the story: Claire being traumatized or Nathan being a martyr(as far as we know). I prefer the first plan, or a variation of it, both for Claire's character's sake and for Nathan's. But this is a matter of preferance.

Now we're talking. What is better for the story is a separate question and is also totally subjective. The dramatic consequences of what you say are cool and interesting to me (even as I suspect far many other people would find it anti-climatic and depressing if a series named 'Heroes' ended with a girl traumatized for shooting her beloved uncle, while his brother comes too late).

But from a pratical standpoint, Nathan's plan is flawless, safe, and foolproof. His life is in risk, but there is zero risk to the city. That is a no-brainer. Now, Claire's plan is all sorts of desperate and involves many "ifs" and "maybes". And there are millions of lives at risk.

Rene, from a purely technical perspective you may be correct that Nathan's plan was better. Although the boggest disadvantage of the plan is that it not prevent the explosion, only it's location. But it seems to me that the premise of the show was that Peter's shooting plan was the one that was thought through, while Nathan's plan was the last minute improvisation. Never did they suggest that Peter's plan wouldn't work, or that Nathan stepped in for that reason. The shooting plan also seems consistent with the idea that disabling the hero disables his powers. So, although when we think about it, Peter's plan was not so great, I don't think that's the reason it was discarded.

"many other people would find it anti-climatic and depressing if a series named 'Heroes' ended with a girl traumatized for shooting her beloved uncle, while his brother comes too late."

I don't know: traumatic childhood events are a recurring theme with super heroes. Maybe the trauma could have been reduced if Peter would have reached out with his radioactive hands and helped Claire pull the trigger.

In any case, they made their choice. I didn't like it, but I still enjoyed the chapter and the entire season, and am looking forward for the next.

I don't know: traumatic childhood events are a recurring theme with super heroes. Maybe the trauma could have been reduced if Peter would have reached out with his radioactive hands and helped Claire pull the trigger.

Now, wouldn't that be a cool scene? Strong, dramatic, even controversial. Particularly if, as you suggested, Peter didn't come out of it immediately, and had to have surgery or something.

But as cool as that one scene would have been, I'm still not sure about the long-term consequences. For starters, I suppose we'd have as many nitpickers complaining that a louse gunshot stopped the explosion, or something like that. After one year of waiting for the explosion, I think the episode would have disappointed many, no matter what they did (in the actual version at least the much-anticipated explosion happened, in a fashion).

If Peter came out of being shot alright though, I suspect it would have strengthened the bond he had with Claire, particularly if he told her she did the right thing by shooting him, saved the city, etc. Peter's ambiguous relationship with Nathan and Nathan's moral standing would have remained relatively the same I suppose ("Oh, you finally decided genocide wasn't cool and now you came? Too late to have helped your brother and daughter, buddy," etc.)

The one fault I can find in your ending is that it potentially doesn't change any of the characters that much, except it hardens Claire a bit. Whatever can be said of the ending they actually came with, it's truly life-changing event for Nathan.

"For starters, I suppose we'd have as many nitpickers complaining that a louse gunshot stopped the explosion, or something like that."

It's true. I have the advantage of being in the nitpicking camp and not in the actual writing camp. It's much easier. I bet the writers hate the nitpicking camp. I wish I had the will power to get myself into the actually writing camp. Well, so long as I'm in the nitpicking camp:

"After one year of waiting for the explosion, I think the episode would have disappointed many, no matter what they did (in the actual version at least the much-anticipated explosion happened, in a fashion)."

I think audiences would have been satisfied if Peter would have reached close to an explosion, like Ted did before, and would have already glowed and emitted radiation. That would have made Claire more important, highlighted her powers, and came close to Peter's own vision of the event.

"Peter's ambiguous relationship with Nathan and Nathan's moral standing would have remained relatively the same I suppose ("Oh, you finally decided genocide wasn't cool and now you came? Too late to have helped your brother and daughter, buddy," etc.)"

Peter sounds here a litte bit like a Jewish mother in a Woody Allen movie. ("Vat was so important that you couldn't come over and help your little brother before he explodes? I explode so hard all day and you don't care.") Seriously, I think if Nathan would have come to save Peter, but too late, it would have accomplised his redemption + guilt(if Peter would have still died or been incapacitated) + Nathan not dead. Some of the ambiguity of his character would have remained,which is good -- dead characters are usually less ambiguous than live ones -- but it would still have been a major transition in his character. I see him crounching next to Peter's body, arm aroun the weeping Claire. I think this would have been pretty dramatic.

"The one fault I can find in your ending is that it potentially doesn't change any of the characters that much, except it hardens Claire a bit. Whatever can be said of the ending they actually came with, it's truly life-changing event for Nathan."

I think this ending offers greater changes for Claire's character and Nathan's. By keeping Nathan alive i allow hom to opportunity to change. But I think the biggest fault with my solution is that I don't really have to do the work, just nitpick others. I don't know what I would have come up with if I had to think of everything myself.

I suspect that one of the reasons they want Nathan dead or missing is so they can persue a story of Candice or Syler taking over Nathan's life temporarily. Maybe the writers have an image of Nathan returning and confronting the doppleganger that I'm not aware of while I speculate here.

Ok, on shooting Peter in the head...

Claire was holding what looked to me to be a .45 auto, whic