norwich36 | Heros 1.05: Hiros

You know you're in love with a show when you get up at 5 a.m. to watch it after a late meeting the night before prevented you from seeing it.

Spoilers for 1.05 behind the cut.

I think I predicted last week that this show, like Veronica Mars, was going to make me end up liking the characters I had previously hated, and I was correct. Last week I hated Nathan; this week I couldn't help but like how well he resisted getting kidnapped. I loved that he threatened his kidnappers with death, and then when he had no other choice, flew away. Damn, that was a great scene. And I was impressed at his aplomb when he had to walk into the diner wearing nothing but pajama bottoms; he's going to be a great politician. I also really liked how he turned the table son his blackmailers and made them give him more money! And his scenes with Hiro and Niki were also fabulous. I liked the fact that even though he obviously thought Hiro was nuts, he still gave him a ride back to town. And I also liked the fact that his night with Niki seemed to really mean something to him, at least before he found out about the blackmailing.

Ok, I give in. I officially like Nathan now.

And while I can't say that I actually *like* Peter yet, I am a lot less bored with his subplot than I have been lately. It's interesting that he's replacing Mohinder as the true believer. I wonder where that's going to leave Mohinder, actually, because he doesn't have a power himself, as far as we know, so if he's not coordinating the heroes, what is his role going to be?

The Hiro/Ando interaction continues to be the best part of the show, for me. I appreciated future-Hiro's warnings to Peter, which suggest some consequences for time-bending (thank goodness, because otherwise there would never be any problem he couldn't solve), but I continue to love present-day geeky Hiro most of all. His his blatant awe at Nathan's power of flight made me smile, and I thought that whole long scene in the diner--"Waffles!"--was ultra-cute. I also loved his little spat with Ando--those two are SO together, even if Ando gets all huffy and tries to meet up with his internet girlfriend instead. And wow, that was a terrific scene. From the broader storytelling perspective, I'm really glad that they made contact, but I also loved Niki explaining the facts of life to Ando.

I was intrigued by Matt's storyline this week, because it (combined with the Claire subplot) made clear that power-suppressing guy isn't actually power-suppressing guy, he's memory-sucking guy. So which of Matt's memories got suppressed? Just the ones concerning Sylar? He remembers he's working with the FBI, but he does seem kind of vague about that. If it was his memories of Sylar that got erased, that would tend to reinforce the theory that Sylar is somehow working with or for Mr. Bennett. (Why does that have to be his name, btw? Am I the only one who keeps thinking first of Pride and Prejudice and finding that reference deeply wrong?)

I read some interesting Sylar theories this weekend linked off of

ninth_wonders. My favorite (mostly since I'm not a big Peter fan) was that it was Peter, since the way Sylar was able to defeat all the other heroes was by sucking their powers. This week seems to undercut that theory, though I still think it would be cool if it did turn out to be Peter. But that leaves unresolved what Mr. Bennett is doing: working with Sylar? Working for the government? Both? Does Mr. Bennett have powers of his own? He certainly seems to be able to travel around the country very quickly--unless, as some commentary I've seen has suggested, not all of the heroes are actually in the same time frame.

And I have to say, even though I still think Mr. Bennett is evil and acting as much in his own interests as in Claire's, I did love that he had that little punk rapist's memory wiped. I thought at first he was going to kill him, but this punishment seemed better, somehow. And yet at the same time I was very glad we got to see Claire confront the rapist and try to talk to him, and recognized that her choice of revenge was wrong. (Just like Hiro recognizing that using his powers for gambling was going over to the Dark Side. Oh, Hiro, I love you SO MUCH).

Heros 1.05: Hiros

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