Heroes S1.20: Five Years Gone

[hazelk]

The future is a grey harsh-grained place, very Wishverse complete with they all kill one another ending. I was spoiled for Nathan being Sylar but assumed he would be from the beginning so was thrown for a loop by the reveal that Candace was alive for at least the beginning of President Petrelli's term. Although when did the switch occur? It must have been after they began to round up ‘terrorists’ because future!Hiro mentioned Candace, DL and Molly as people he brought to Bennet for hiding. But then there was that long scene between the President and Mohinder at the beginning of which ‘Nathan’ knew about a conversation they’d had before deciding what to do about the special people. Which Sylar could have eavesdropped on with the super hearing he acquired from Dale.

So Nathan did give the initial order. Which is wonderful continuity because Nathan-as-Nathan did say if he were president he would lock them all up on an island and Nathan-as-Nathan does think his own power is useless and other people's scary. In which light Sylar's impersonation of the president was like his painting, a sinister caricature yet still recognisable. Equally creepily some of the Sylarisms (I know how things work) were things Nathan might say but mean less literally. The touching for emphasis with Mohinder was very Nathan/Peter like and I wonder what happened to Angela, was she another Sylar victim or did she die in the blast?

Everyone seemed to have lost someone in the explosion or its aftermath. Hiro lost Ando, Nathan, Peter (for all intents and purposes). Nikki lost son, husband, Jessica, baby and bathwater both. She took the Claude route pulling Peter along with her. Peter saw what his brother did with power and lost that aspect to his idealism, weirdly discovering Natahn was dead brought him back to life in some sense. Bennet kept Claire or someone who used to be Claire once, darkhaired and distant daughter. Matt kept his family on similar terms following orders in a suit like the one he wore for Linderman.

Linderman said loss would be healing, would bring the world together whole but the episode refutes that. They’re together sure, hardened, pared-down versions of themselves rattling around like marbles in a cage, not a society just a collection. The only one who seems unchanged is Sylar. Mohinder was right the cockroach will inherit the earth. I liked it a lot when future!Hiro admitted to Ando that “It was more fun with you.”

Comments

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

I thought the most fascinating character in this episode was Matt. He blamed all of his failures as a father, as a husband, and as a person on the bomb and, by extension, on other "special people."

That really is the most transparent look at his character to date, in my opinion.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Nods. I think the hardest thing was that Matt's always been one of the most approachable character but we have seen he can be angry (when he laid into the guy his wife had the fling with) and we have seen he can be tempted (with the diamonds). So it was hard but believable to see him given over entirely to anger and finding ever more objects to vent it on, anything but inward. Also now I know the context of the 'mommy and me' drawing from your vid :-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Re: the timeline for Sylar taking over Nathan's role, that's a fun bit of guesswork, because how do we actually know Candace was Candace when last seen? Because, consider: Future!Hiro names DL, Candace and Molly Walker as three people he brought to Bennet for safety. DL and Candace BOTH were definitely killed by Sylar. However, why would Candace need Hiro or Bennet to hide to begin with? She doesn't need anyone. She could be anyone. So "Candace" could already have been Sylar, out accumulating more victims before he had Matt delivering them to him free of charge.

(Sidenote: a lot of people during the first broadcast missed what kind of deal Matt and Bennet struck, i.e. that Bennet could keep the "harmless" specials but would deliver all the "dangerous" ones.)

My own guess as to the when and how etc. was firstly that Nathan didn't become elected directly (even with an instant boost of popularity post explosion, rising from junior Congressman to President in five years is a bit too much), but that he was someone's Vice President and that that President then died; also that Sylar didn't take over while Nathan was still in Congress (can't see Sylar doing Congress work), but did take over shortly before Nathan went from VP to President (simply because of the security question; the one for a President is so tight that he'd hardly get Nathan alone in order to make the switch). Which, yes, means real!Nathan would have been culpable for the explosion cover-up (naming Sylar instead of Peter), would have been part of the legislation afterwards (called the Linderman bill, after all), and would have been part of the administration proposing the initial round-up. Which yes, all ties with the earlier tidbits you name; 5YG is the worst extreme for most characters (not Bennet, but most of the others), and that was Nathan's worst.

I hadn't been spoiled, but cadesama when watching the trailer for this episode, which showed "Nathan" telling Claire "I'm the most special person there is" AND with Sylar's President Petrelli painting in mind predicted that Sylar would be Nathan via Candace's powers, because that statement was pure Sylar, not Nathan. (Who has an ego, but not that particular kind.) So I wondered whether she was right; what settled it for me before the big reveal was "Nathan" using the touching for Mohinder. Because being obsessed with Mohinder is Sylar's thing, not Nathan's, and Nathan uses that kind of body language only for family members (and Hiro).

Peter saw what his brother did with power and lost that aspect to his idealism, weirdly discovering Natahn was dead brought him back to life in some sense.

That made sense to me, because the moment he discovers that this is Sylar, not Nathan, he a) instantly jumps to the conclusion that it was Sylar all along, which means he can go back to the old relationsship with his brother, only he can't, because he b) realizes this means Nathan is dead. Both bringing Peter's passionate nature back when previously he was numbed. Oh, and observe the priority statement. "You'll pay what you did to Nathan! What you did in his name!" (One would think planned genocide and tyranny before that would outrank one murder, but nooooo, not with the Petrelli brothers.)

Oh, and one little detail: when Sylar taunts Peter, he says "but we know what really happened, don't we, Pete?" The only one on this show to call Peter "Pete" occasionally is Nathan. No one else does. So how did Sylar know this was an intimate nickname, given that Peter obviously left Nathan shortly after the explosion? My own guess as to the answer was my very first Heroes fanfiction. (That's a very short ficlet; I later wrote a lengthy exploration of the 5YGverse, "Through a Glass Darkly", but that one has spoilers for episodes you haven't seen yet.)

Future!Hiro's statement to Ando: I will always love the show for showing Future!Hiro not as a desirable, "cool" state of existence for Present!Hiro but as someting to be avoided, something neither we nor Hiro want to happen. More on this in a Hiro-Ando conversation in the next episode.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Fun. I figured Sylar could have been ‘Candace’ at any point but I don’t think he/she could have been Nathan at the same time and Nathan being a public figure my guess would be that ‘being’ Nathan is a full time job. Also how do the illusions work on TV cameras? They seem to be focussed on creating illusions about Candace, I don’t think she could just snap her fingers and make people see a unicorn on the other side of the room (tries not to think too hard about the skience). So I think that regardless of when Sylar killed Candace (and it would make more sense for him to use being ‘rescued as a way to find more victims) killing Nathan must have occurred after her ‘disappearance.’ And I wrote this before reading your story and will now stop talking.

5YG is the worst extreme for most characters

It’s like a be-careful-what-you-wishverse, on paper many of the survivors are more successful post-explosion. Nathan obviously and Mohinder has all the resources he could want. Matt’s a player not a schlub and even gets the better of Bennet when he pulls Claire’s location from his mind. Claire gets the normal life she once wanted, a boyfriend, marriage. Nicki gets to be a porn star…

bringing Peter's passionate nature back when previously he was numbed.

Yes exactly. And even when the genocide/tyranny get alluded to it’s because they were done in his brother’s name :-) I liked the ‘Pete’ detail particularly because I’ve noticed one of my sons has just started calling his brother Mike, which no-one else does.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Also how do the illusions work on TV cameras?

Because they're physical, not mental. She's bending light and sound, much as Claude does to become invinsible. (Micah, bless him, geeks out about this and gives a comics-style "scientific" explanation in Landslide, which is where we get the most background on Candace.)

It’s like a be-careful-what-you-wishverse, on paper many of the survivors are more successful post-explosion.

Oh, good point there, and you can include Peter in this, as in this future, he has complete control over his powers, effortlessly so, something he never manages in the present. Similarly, Future!Hiro not only has his power completely mastered but is a warrior of the type Present!Hiro admires in comics, films and tv shows. And yet, all of them are completely screwed.

And the irony: not only are Linderman & Co.'s actions in the present based on a false premise - Isaac's painting doesn't show Nathan in the White House, it shows Sylar (they recreated that moment and posture in the Oval Office in this episode), and presumably Ozymandias plan or no Ozymandias plan, that's definitely not what Linderman & friends would have wanted - but so are the good guys'. Because Future!Hiro's entire action of going back to the past, telling Present!Peter to save Claire, is based on a wrong premise as well - that Sylar was the bomb. (Which is why a living Claire alone made no difference to the timeline, other than existing; her survival was irrelevant to the explosion.) And Sylar never was, Peter was. Which Future!Peter never told anyone until he told Niki. And now Present!Hiro and Ando are returning to the present still believing said wrong information. In short, trusting precognition really really makes things worse...

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Micah is much better than me (bless).All I had was some half baked idea involving alternate realities, which just goes to show why I was never a physicist. Claude of course.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I watched this last night, but am still behind. I do suspect that it will turn out that Hiro killing Sylar would somehow have ensured the explosion, and Sylar will end up at least partly preventing it, probably in a sort of unintentional Gollum-at-Mount-Doom way.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The scenes of Hiro and Peter killing the SWAT guys in the lobby rmeinded me a great deal of The Matrix, which I hope is a deliberate slap at what struck me as the somewhat terroristic mindsight of those films with regard to casually killing the relatively innocent.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You hope correctly. There is a follow up in "The Hard Part" with Present!Hiro and Ando discussing Future!Hiro's easy ways of killing. Again, this show does not present Future!Hiro OR Future!Peter as good odevelopments for their respective characters, especially in regard to these Matrixy actions.

[yourlibrarian]

not a society just a collection. The only one who seems unchanged is Sylar.

Probably because he refutes all collectives so the isolation suits him fine. This was definitely one of my favorite Heroes episodes.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I thought it was excellent although part of the reason it worked so well was the contrast with the present day heroes and the little snippets of forshadowing.