Heroes S1.15 Run!

[hazelk]

Run and the pace accelerates but I found the episode more notable for its character reversals. Most literally Nikki with Jessica now in charge but Matt was looking good too, smart with it and yet still unappreciated. Ando, whose lack of power has always put him in the Sancho Panza role, played Quioxte to a trashy Vegas fatale, the true Hiro had better taste in windmills. Meredith who last week seemed so worn and frail revealed a much steelier aspect, an eye for extortion, but the actress still managed to hold audience sympathy. She’s no longer young and she needed the money, Claire can afford to care less because that much at least Mr Bennett provided for her but at what a cost? Last week, momentarily wrong footed, Bennett’s memory wiping felt wrong but relatable. This week back in power his non-reaction to the state of Sandra was utterly chilling. Did he not know, hasn’t he noticed the changes in her over the years? Who was she when they first met? There are such clear physical similarities between her and Meredith, who life has worn down but Meredith remains an adult, still has fire, while poor protected Sandra babbles like an infant. selenak if you’re reading this, is there fic about when Sandra and Noah were young? Who was she, did she choose this? Shallow cut by shallow cut, did she trade in her memories for the hissing of summer lawns?

Bennett contrasts with Angela Petrelli, also a controlling parent but the kind to throw her sons in at the deep end and force them to swim rather than keep them from water. Nathan calls her cold.

I wonder about the Haitian’s power, whether the memory wiping is a more targeted form of the power suppression given the way the powers express who the characters are and memory is part of what makes them that person. Also (and a show has its hooks in me when the crack biological theorising begins) if Nathan/Meredith=Claire but Nathan/Heidi= children lacking abilities the inheritance of the trait could fit a fully recessive model, which would be more elegant than dominance. However, although the Suresh’s discovery of a genetic marker implies standard DNA based transmission, as we clearly (with Sylar and Peter) talking about something that encompasses DNA modification it may not be genetic in the traditional sense at all. Maybe something more like a sexually transmitted disease (but with a significant genetic susceptibility component to it)?

A final reversal, I thought Mohinder was cool. Possibly just for being better shaven but for the first time he did come across as having a genuine scientific passion for the research. Sylar on the other hand is much more the engineer, all about how it works (and what it can do for him) not why. Plus psychopath.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Answering from the Frankfurt Book Fair and thus not on my own laptop, so I can't make links, but if you use either the "heroes" or the "fanfic recs" tag at my lj, you`ll find an entry where I recommend a Sandra story called "Canons and Fugues", which is terrific.

(My own most extensive take on Sandra is in "Trioditis", which is about Claire, Sandra, Meredith and Angela, but that reads better once you`ve seen "Company Man" for Sandra and ".07%" for Angela.)

I think Noah B. actually believes it, at this point, when he tells Claire "your mother is a gentle soul", and that she should not have to know about "such things". It's self justification but also the way he lives with what he did to her. In "Parasite", which is your next but one episode, there is a scene between the two of them that says a lot about their marriage, but I´ll come to that once you´ve seen it.

Re: genetics, we don`t know yet whether or not the boys, Simon and Monty, have powers, but my own theory is that if the parents are one superpowered and one not, the chances are 50 50. Definitely all combinations of two superpowered people resulted in a superpowered child - Claire for Meredith and Nathan, Micah for Niki and D.L. Which made me assume even at this point that both Angela and the late Mr. Petrelli must have (had) powers because with not one but two sons having the gene, what are the odds?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I recommend a Sandra story called "Canons and Fugues", which is terrific.

Yes. Thank you.

And I look forward to the coming eps, especially Company Man but the seeds are there already, the rationalisations but underneath it all love. Love is a terrible thing.

Which made me assume even at this point that both Angela and the late Mr. Petrelli must have (had) powers because with not one but two sons having the gene, what are the odds?

If it were a single dominant gene then one parent at least would have to have mainifested powers and would then have either a 50 or 100% probablitiy of transmission. So two out of two would have odds of at least 1:3 Small family sizes one of the many problems human geneticists have to contend with.:-)

I do like the idea that both parents being superpowered guarantees (100%) superpowered children (ie that the gene is recessive) because it's then easier to expalain the sudden appearance of 36 new supers who seem unlikely to all share a single (founder) parent. The idea of such a profound qualitative change being due to a single mutation is still somewhat counterintuitive but I'm working on it :-)

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

the true Hiro had better taste in windmills
That's the coolest line I've read on LJ in quite a while.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[yourlibrarian]

whether the memory wiping is a more targeted form of the power suppression given the way the powers express who the characters are and memory is part of what makes them that person.

What an interesting idea!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I don't think it quite makes sense except metaphorically but metaphorical is still fun :-)