Heroes 1:17 Company Man
Nov. 4th, 2007 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkBelated Happy Birthdays to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raincitygirl andstarynightshade!
Also late thoughts on the Heroes episode Company Man although I've watched up to Parasite now.
Company Man
I had high expectations of this episode going in and it lived up to all of them.
Liked that the flashbacks weren’t just retro in their sixties stylings and monochromicity but also in hinting the thematic concern of older superhero comics (particularily the X-men) with the conflicts of interest between ‘Us’ and 'Them’ paramount. Although, arguably, such issues being something the current day Heroes are written as less attuned to reflects their relative isolation from one another within the story more than a meta response to cultural shifts away from collectivism or towards greater tolerance of diversity.
Liked that everyone was smart. Bennett thinking in Japanese (and just a little smug about it, he could easily be a working class kid made good as neither Ted nor Matt did). Claire and Bennett telling Matt to shoot her (and not knowing what each other thought even though Matt and the audience did). Ted figuring out the plot when he realised Claire could heal and both she and her father would have known she could. Even Lyle remembering to call the police.
Loved Sandra being better than smart, being wise. Her faith in Noah, which seemed to be based on something deeper than any single memory the Haitian might have taken, reminded me of an article in this week’s Grauniad magazine about a musician who’d suffered a catastrophic loss of memory function due to a viral encephalitis. Retrograde amnesia back to 1965, no memory of anything much later than that and loss of short term memory so severe that he can only recall a few seconds at a time, every time he blinks the world remakes itself. There are two things left that he can remember, music (he can still play whole symphonies on the piano) and his wife (although he can’t recall what she’s done, he knows who she is and what she means to him). The theory is that episodic memory is stored differently and is more vulnerable (to viruses or the Haitian) than emotional or procedural memory. Music and love then are things that you feel or do more than think, like walking they make themselves once learned.
Loved Claire. In Buffy terms she progressed from LMPTM through Helpless to Prophecy Girl in the space of one episode. The sequence of her walking into the heart of the fire and emerging blackened but still whole was very powerful. In a quieter way the flashback of her choosing her father’s eponymous glasses equally so.
Loved HRG in all his ruthless ambiguity. The show makes a lot of use of the phrase “What they can do” about its heroes. This week showed what Mr. Bennett could do with the merely human powers of understanding and taking action. The ending was karmic, shot down and memory wiped by his own command. Easy to read the “be done to as you have done” aspects as a form of penance but Noah doesn’t necessarily see it in those terms.
raincitygirl andstarynightshade!Also late thoughts on the Heroes episode Company Man although I've watched up to Parasite now.
Company Man
I had high expectations of this episode going in and it lived up to all of them.
Liked that the flashbacks weren’t just retro in their sixties stylings and monochromicity but also in hinting the thematic concern of older superhero comics (particularily the X-men) with the conflicts of interest between ‘Us’ and 'Them’ paramount. Although, arguably, such issues being something the current day Heroes are written as less attuned to reflects their relative isolation from one another within the story more than a meta response to cultural shifts away from collectivism or towards greater tolerance of diversity.
Liked that everyone was smart. Bennett thinking in Japanese (and just a little smug about it, he could easily be a working class kid made good as neither Ted nor Matt did). Claire and Bennett telling Matt to shoot her (and not knowing what each other thought even though Matt and the audience did). Ted figuring out the plot when he realised Claire could heal and both she and her father would have known she could. Even Lyle remembering to call the police.
Loved Sandra being better than smart, being wise. Her faith in Noah, which seemed to be based on something deeper than any single memory the Haitian might have taken, reminded me of an article in this week’s Grauniad magazine about a musician who’d suffered a catastrophic loss of memory function due to a viral encephalitis. Retrograde amnesia back to 1965, no memory of anything much later than that and loss of short term memory so severe that he can only recall a few seconds at a time, every time he blinks the world remakes itself. There are two things left that he can remember, music (he can still play whole symphonies on the piano) and his wife (although he can’t recall what she’s done, he knows who she is and what she means to him). The theory is that episodic memory is stored differently and is more vulnerable (to viruses or the Haitian) than emotional or procedural memory. Music and love then are things that you feel or do more than think, like walking they make themselves once learned.
Loved Claire. In Buffy terms she progressed from LMPTM through Helpless to Prophecy Girl in the space of one episode. The sequence of her walking into the heart of the fire and emerging blackened but still whole was very powerful. In a quieter way the flashback of her choosing her father’s eponymous glasses equally so.
Loved HRG in all his ruthless ambiguity. The show makes a lot of use of the phrase “What they can do” about its heroes. This week showed what Mr. Bennett could do with the merely human powers of understanding and taking action. The ending was karmic, shot down and memory wiped by his own command. Easy to read the “be done to as you have done” aspects as a form of penance but Noah doesn’t necessarily see it in those terms.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 06:33 pm (UTC)Liked that the flashbacks weren’t just retro in their sixties stylings and monochromicity but also in hinting the thematic concern of older superhero comics
My own thought was that it was the visualization of the "morally grey" theme which HRG in particular and the Company in general is associated with.
Bennett thinking in Japanese (and just a little smug about it, he could easily be a working class kid made good as neither Ted nor Matt did).
You're right, that background would make complete sense. (We're not told either way so far where he came from pre-Company days.) I'll have more to say on the interplay between him, Matt and Ted and the hierarchical structures at a later point in the show.
The theory is that episodic memory is stored differently and is more vulnerable (to viruses or the Haitian) than emotional or procedural memory. Music and love then are things that you feel or do more than think, like walking they make themselves once learned.
That works for me. I'm not sure whether or not it works that way within the Heroes universe because of a recent episode, but within s1, your theory holds. Regarding Sandra being wise and her strength and faith in HRG despite all new revelations: it also means the excuse that she couldn't have taken the truth either about her husband or later about Claire is gone. Clearly, she's able to deal.
Loved Claire. In Buffy terms she progressed from LMPTM through Helpless to Prophecy Girl in the space of one episode.
Great comparison, and yes, she did.
The ending was karmic, shot down and memory wiped by his own command. Easy to read the “be done to as you have done” aspects as a form of penance but Noah doesn’t necessarily see it in those terms.
At that point, it's the most efficient way to protect Claire, but the location of the shooting, which he chose - it being the very spot he shot Claude - suggests he might be thinking of at least the irony of fate, if not karmic payback. Again, I could say more on his likely belief system, but it relates to future stuff.
Were you surprised to see Kaito Nakamura (and little Hiro), or were you already spoiled for that?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 03:43 pm (UTC)My own thought was that it was the visualization of the "morally grey" theme
Yes that too. Very much that. For some reason I always think of the sixties/fifties as grey/blue. The seventies are orange/brown and the eighties best forgotten.
I'll have more to say on the interplay between him, Matt and Ted and the hierarchical structures at a later point in the show.
Excellent, the power play between those with abilities and those without, working for and with the company are beginning to look fascinating already.
It also means the excuse that she couldn't have taken the truth either about her husband or later about Claire is gone. Clearly, she's able to deal.
In Parasite it seemed as if they were both on the verge of breaking through to a more honest way of dealing with everything. Sandra turning out to be Candice in the second scene was quite tragic.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 04:03 pm (UTC)In my heretical opinion this is the most interesting thing about Claude. (I'm not so enamoured of him as the rest of fandom.) This, btw, is the last episode (so far) we've seen him. Rather refreshingly, he meant it when he said he'd get out of Dodge.
One last thing about Claude: in the hilarious "Heroes Slash Manual", in which every possible pairing under the sun is discussed, the tongue-in-cheek justification for Claude/Thompson was "Because Claude was the Doctor, and Thompson was the Master". (Your Doctor Who casting joke for the day.)
For some reason I always think of the sixties/fifties as grey/blue. The seventies are orange/brown and the eighties best forgotten.
LOL. Writing fanfic for Heroes, sometimes involving backstory, made me realize that a) Nathan and self are of an age, and b) that means we were teenagers during the 80s. This made me remember them, inevitably.
Speaking of things best forgotten about the 80s, though, did you realize HRG back then looked like
this?
(Admittedly it took me until Company Man and seeing him without glasses to realize this was the same actor, and oh, my...)
Excellent, the power play between those with abilities and those without, working for and with the company are beginning to look fascinating already.
It's interesting that the Company pairs up one with and one without powers, isn't it?
In Parasite it seemed as if they were both on the verge of breaking through to a more honest way of dealing with everything. Sandra turning out to be Candice in the second scene was quite tragic.
Quite, though in the first scene she was definitely Sandra. (There is a fun detail for careful observers; Sandra has a cell phone with dog barking as her ringing tone, which you hear in the first scene; in the second scene, when "Sandra"'s mobile rings, it does so with normal ringing notes, which is a giveaway this is in fact Candice a few seconds before she reveals herself.) What I find most tragic in hindsight is that HRG says to Sandra "I didn't know I could talk with you like this". Because that means that through their entire marriage, including the years pre-Claire, he never ever talked to her as an equal, as a partner.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 06:19 pm (UTC)I suppose pairing up the haves with the have-nots makes sense practically since there's no reason that any given hero will also have any articular talent for secret agent type work. But you have to wonder what the intended social engineering aspects are. neither this episode or Parasite gave away much about what the Company's long term aims are.
What I find most tragic in hindsight is that HRG says to Sandra "I didn't know I could talk with you like this".
That exactly. I wonder if it didn't seem such a big deal at first (just as he didn't immediately care about Claire) but gradually family became more important than ambition only by then he was trapped (that cage he made so well).
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 06:38 pm (UTC)I once joked about a Grandma Bennet/Angela Petrelli showdown.*g* Also, I strongly suspect Noah never watched a single episode of Dynasty and hence doesn't get why every employee who ever worked under him in PrimaTech and Copy Kingdom alike sooner or later starts to watch the repeats in order to have a gigglefest for work relaxation. Sandra does it, too.
there's no reason that any given hero will also have any articular talent for secret agent type work.
Too true.
neither this episode or Parasite gave away much about what the Company's long term aims are.
We'll find out more about this, and why it was originally founded, in s2.
I wonder if it didn't seem such a big deal at first (just as he didn't immediately care about Claire) but gradually family became more important than ambition only by then he was trapped (that cage he made so well).
That, and I think he's the type to harbor the idea that he needs his family as the "innocent" haven from work from the get-go, and that the idea of Sandra as an innocent to be protected hails back to a pretty old fashioned view of women; much as he originally enjoyed the morally grey, he probably would have seen it as tainting his other world. Of course, Claire was PART of that other world by her very origins, and by definition that meant overlapping.
Once you've seen 0.07% I'll link you to a fanfic of mine which is about Claire and the three women in her life - Sandra, Meredith and Angela - which touches on that as well, but you need to have seen the scenes Claire has with Angela in .07% first.
Will you do a post on Parasite, too?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 04:06 pm (UTC)Since he's actually listed in the credits under this name, I don't regard this as a spoiler: no, he's not. Eric Roberts' character is named Thompson.