Heroes: Five Years On

[norwich36]

I was completely fooled by the Sylar-Nathan thing. I was a little stunned by exactly how dark Nathan had gone--contemplating genocide seems like something of a leap, even though I didn't find it entirely implausible, and if Nathan had indeed embraced Lindermann's perspective I could certainly see him rounding up the other heroes while protecting his own family. Still, I cheered when I realized it wasn't really him, since I'm sure we're not getting that future. Some other depressing future, possibly, but not that particular one.

I also felt vindicated in my Hiro-Ando OTPness. Without Ando, Hiro becomes embittered and obsessive. *Pets him* I'm a little afraid that Ando's going to end up dying anyway--that's my guess as to the secret future Hiro whispered to him--but I was happy to see how important he was to Hiro. And Hiro's reactions to future Hiro amused the hell out of me: I scare me! Hee!!

I hated Matt with a fiery passion, but we were supposed to, and his actions certainly seem like a logical outgrowth of the path he's on now, especially if he played any role in the transfer of Ted's powers to Peter and the explosion that blew up the city. I can definitely see him rounding up the dangerous ones, and the deal with Bennett to let the harmless ones go is very interesting indeed. (I HATED Bennett's new glasses, btw, even though I realized they were there to emphasize the passage of time. I kind of loved he was running the underground railroad up until the point I realized he was deliberately turning some of the heroes in so they'd turn a blind eye to him, and then I was very disenchanted.)

I suspected Mohinder was going to get to be the one to save the day, and I suppose it was nice that he got to be the hero for once--but mostly I was very amused at the way Sylar had been playing him the *whole* time (and possibly sleeping with him in Nathan's body? Was I the only one who went there? Because physically that does it a lot more for me, and also the mindfuck factor is just incredibly creepy and wrong and kind of hot).

And speaking of creepy and wrong and kind of hot: I notice that Peter ended up with Nathan's ex-lover, in that classic "two straight male protagonists triangulating their desire for each other symbolically by having sex with the same woman" kind of way.

I suppose, if I were to think analytically rather simply reporting my emotional responses, I'd say what this episode revealed was that after extreme loss, most of the heroes either (A) reverted to their old patterns to cope with life (so Nikki is still stripping, even though she clearly is the boss of the place she works in; Matt has returned to law enforcement and rounding up the bad guys with a vengeance; Mohinder has slipped back into the role of research scientist and consultant) or else (B)they've embraced caricatured visions of their ideal selves (Nathan, the president, protecting the world, but in this case from monsters he created himself--and I suspect Nathan did play some role in that before Sylar took over his life; Hiro as a hardened killer desparately trying to unravel the past; Peter still protecting people (Nikki) but basically a drop-out from life; Bennett still acting as protector, of Claire and others, but betraying as much as he protects.) I wonder if any of the character things we've learned here are going to end up being significant, now that the reset button has been pushed?