(no subject)

[charloween]

1. In which the prince rescues the princesses, but finds his true love in a different form. Really. Why do the fairy tales have to be so straight all the time?

2. Dear Self: Writing a paper does not reading fic, unless your paper is about fic. Yours is about Help!. Help!, while fun, is not fic. Now then. Also: Help! has nothing to do with Heroes, Good Omens *or* Dead Poets Society, so it would be advantageous to STOP READING FIC and START WRITING THE PAPER. Love and kisses, Me. (ps: Yes, the “Intermission” sequence in Help! is sheer brilliance. No, you probably won’t be able to work it into your paper.)

2a. Memo to Self: Why, when picking your topics for these two papers, did you choose films with wacky names that are bothersome to type? Help! and If… are the punctuation twins, and If You Love This Planet and Not A Love Story are the unabridgable wordy names from hell. Way to go.

3. Anyone have any handy references about the figure of the clown in British drama? I’ve tried keyword searching at the school library and keep coming up blank. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

4. Hey, a teaser before the previouslies. Haven’t seen that before!

Whoops, I missed how to spell Claire’s surname again - one ‘t’ or two?

Isaac is going to get Peter killed.

Ooooh, was that a look, Mr. Haitian.

HAHAHAHAHHAAHA Peter can heal. That gun doesn’t scare me. *cuddles laptop because I’m scared for Isaac* I mean, if there’s a gun involved, someone’s going to get hurt and I’m pretty sure it’s not the guy who can heal. But maybe not if he’s not expecting it, because he was thinking about Claire before he got impaled on that taxi. Gunshots to the head might not give him that chance he needs to load the healing file, or whatever it is he does.

[Awesome that The Black Donnelleys is going to be on right after Heroes... I like getting NBC!]

Heyheyhey. I hope Baby Matt can, like, shoot electricity from his fingers.

I love Sylar. “I’m not just saying that because you’re Indian”. *snerk*

HA! That’s how they got the DNA samples. philthe25th and I were talking about that this morning. And it’s awesome that Dane is on to Sylar. I also like how they’re filming this scene, with the fuzzy bits at the edges of the frame.

Love Hiro’s “... Pal” He’s got so much dignity.

That’s a HUGE frakking gun, Isaac.

HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAA. Tough love, indeed. AND CLAUDE’S GOT ANOTHER STICK. There needs to be a special webisode of just the Claude and Peter training sessions. Like, an entire hour of Rocky-style montages of Claude yelling at Peter to manifest some kind of power and Peter half-trying to run away. Man, Peter is really some kind of masochist.

Oh, he’ll find Peter, Simone. Find Peter and shoot him in the head. Aiiie.

Gaming commission man had better not be foreshadowing killing Ando. I LIKE Ando. Damn you promo monkeys for making it so I can’t watch the episode because I’m looking at every twitch as a potentially fatal situation.

Poor, oblivious Mohinder. Sylar’s really creepy. This is awesome. *love* I also like how Mohinder isn’t being kept oblivious for much longer.

Ooop. Poor Claire. She’s having one hell of a week. Hey! Spilt milk!

The pigeons are his family. HRG transfigured them somehow.

HRG: Heh. Heh. I have tasers.
Claude: I am le tasered! *falls*
Peter: I refuse to be tasered, bitch! *telekinetic-s*
HRG: Buuuuh?
Haitian: I’m just here, with the goggles. Yeah. If I spoke (*chortle*) I’d sure say something.

AND THEN THEY FLY AWAY TO FREEDOM! Where they can live happily together, and Claude can hit Peter with sticks and Peter can “do something unexpected”.

Matt’s baby, that’s a superbaby. It grew fast. How long has it been since last episode?

Ooop. Peter just went evil.

I totally hope that Peter’s hiding in a corner, invisible. If Peter and Nathan don’t meet up by the end of this episode I’ll be sad. Peter really doesn’t have anywhere else to go now that Claude ran off.

Yay! Cartoon villains eliminated thanks to Hiro’s powers! Unexpected!

[And Claire’s in a Neutrogena ad. *boggles* Isn’t that, like, false advertising?]

Technically, it is a result of ...ooop! Claire got there first.

Ted and Matt, that’s a new one. I like Ted. “Ted! You’re radioactive by nature!” *dies* It’s neat, all these different definitions of heroes.

HRG... it’s no use trying to deny it anymore. This will never happen again? YA RITE.

Welp, there’s a corpse for us. Even more Zachary Quinto love. Actor pretending to be Sylar who’s pretending to be Zane, who doesn’t know about Sylar but then Sylar is having slight issues integrating this latest power... and it’s all there, and it’s all in a few seconds, and it’s all clear. Marry me, ZQ. Marry me.

Hiro: Ando, I wuv you too much to see you get hurt.
Ando: But... I bought all that stuff you said about being a hero!
Hiro: *stoic face*

HA! STAN LEE BUS DRIVER.

Hee! Unexpected. Matt goes dark side. Or, dark greyish side.

I really like evil!Peter. Ooop. Except when he hurts Isaac. This is why you don't piss off the emo ones, folks. All that mope can be transfigured to some pretty serious rage.

Huh. Unexpected! That’s one way to solve a love triangle. I guess that’s why they never bothered to develop Simone’s character. Kind of a cheap way out, but I can dig it.

... so I guess now we’re taking bets on the major character that dies in two weeks?


5. I guess it’s finally time to post this song: “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”, by The Flaming Lips. It fits the moral ambiguity surrounding the choices these heroes have to make about their powers. What would you do?

Comments

[alexmegami]

Erk, that first link doesn't work.

Also, it's a very cheap way out. Except for me, I owe someone ten bucks now.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Erm... fixed! Darned smart quotes. Typing entries in Word = inadvisable.

If by cheap way out you mean the Simone thing, I've got to disagree. She hadn't shown up for a bunch of episodes, and all she was bringing to the table was naive missionary zeal and something/one to come between Isaac and Peter. Her zeal was a liability, she wasn't being developed, and Isaac and Peter can fight over her whether she's there or not. Like they were doing right before she got there. I liked her, but I won't miss her. Too much.

[alexmegami]

Yeah, but... it's a cheap way of getting out of not having written her character. I'll agree that she was dead weight, but there are others who have done that too, and have been taking up more screen time. *shrug* I like the idea of normal people in the supers' world, and getting rid of them takes something away, I think. I think a lot could have been done with Simone blowing the secret out of the water, for example. Would we get X-Men or Superman? (Really, we'd likely get Astro City...)

But, yeah. It seems a little contrived - "here's how we're going to write out characters that don't matter any more!" Can't people just move away?

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

I don't think they'd go public so soon in the series, because that's a whole other bunch of plot stuff that they'd have to start dealing with. It seems more like a second or third season thing to pull (or, like Farscape, fourth season), but since this is Heroes, I guess all bets are off. All I mean is they've got more than enough started now that starting something else that could be so very complicated is far more than I'd want to take on if I was trying to juggle all the bits of the show.

And I agree that it's slightly bad that they're getting rid of the non-powered characters (Ando going back to Japan, for example), but the show is really too complicated at times for all its characters. They're gearing up for the final stretch of the season, so I guess they're streamlining. It is nice that they aren't afraid to kill characters, though. It means the stakes are higher for everyone else (like at the end of Serenity); when they prove they're willing to let characters die, then everyone else is a potential victim. Agree to disagree? :D

[alexmegami]

No, that's true, but they could have kept her around until then. ;) I dunno. Something.

I will agree with you on all these points, except to say that the stakes would be higher if they killed off a powered character that had been around for a few episodes (Claire's mom, say, or the Haitian) - someone we were at least minimally emotionally invested in, you know? In a series of supers, killing off the mundies is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, ya know?

I will say this: I like that it was because Peter and Issac were fucktards. And I hope they learn something from it. Especially emo!Peter. ;)

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

We could also play the race card and ask why the black character was the next to go. At least she wasn't the first, because that would have been too cliched...

And yeah. Peter and Isaac were acting like total children. Idiots. Maybe this will make Peter remember he has a family that might be worried about him and go visit or something. Aiiiesh. Besides, it looks like Peter's got a better handle on his powers.

It is like shooting fish in a barrel, but it might also give everyone involved a reminder of the stakes they're fighting for. If New York explodes an entire city of Simones - all innocent bystanders - will be killed just as needlessly as she was.

[alexmegami]

Yeah, there's that too...

I mean seriously. It's like Reefer Madness but with powers, play with them and someone gets shot. *TSK* But yeah. This better be grow-up time for Peter and Issac, 'cause if it's not, I will be very displeased with the emokids.

This is so. And, that said, I'm glad that it IS small-scale first; people tend not to consider the fact that huge destruction is made up of individuals.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

*snerk* Now you've got me thinking about what'll happen when Heroes does a Reefer Madness: The Musical (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404364/)-style episode. With dance sequences, and 1950s costumes, and riddikulously campy music? OH MAN.

[piratefanatic.livejournal.com]

1. Love that. SO much.
2. Right there with you. Again.
3. Erm, what sort of reference? An example of the archetype? A dictionary of litereary stuff sort of reference?
4. I'll have you know that I now have Pepsi sloshing around in my sinuses. I happened to be takig a drink when I read "Ooop. Peter just went evil" and bad things happened.

And appropos of absolutly nothing, are you familiar with the (snappy), cracky, poppy brilliance that is High School Musical?

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

3. Yeah, something I could cite because the Beatles are kind of like the clowns in Shakespeare, who had this incredible freedom to say things about dominant power structures without consequences. I think something similar to that is going on in Help!, only it would be nice to cite something.

4. Sorry! *offers towel, and, um... nasal vacuum?*

And no, I've heard of it but I've shied away because it looked bad. So did School of Rock, so I guess I'm good at being wrong about these things.

[piratefanatic.livejournal.com]

3. I might actually have something usable, if you give me a minute to paw through a book or two. No promises, but I'm thinking I do have something.

4. Now I've got these wacko mental images of nasal vacuums, and boy am I glad no one's gotten around to inventing one of these torture devices things yet.

I'm not saying it's actually good. But the music? So much crack, but also painfully addicting. It's everything that's wrong with pop theatre. Only, I can't stop listening to it. For your enjoyment(?), I present Getcha Head In The Game (http://www.sendspace.com/file/q818ze).

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

3. Awesome! That'll be a great help.

4. I'm sure that someone, somewhere, has a Darwin Award with their name on it because of a misadventure with a nasal vacuum.

I've downloaded the song, I'll listen to it when I get back home tonight and I'm hoping it'll be close to Spamalot in kitschiness and intent. (They're... not serious, are they?)

[piratefanatic.livejournal.com]

Oh, Darwin Awards. I can't decided if they're disheartening (the whole "that's the future of humanity!?" mindset), or terribly uplifting ("well, there's one less fool in the gene pool!")

I can't really decided if High School Musical is like Spamalot in intent. Sometimes, I think it's a really well done parody (well done because it actually seems real), but I think that may be me reading too much into it. Alas, I think it's just a painfully bad show with pop music so soul-stealingly terrible that it's wonderful.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

pop music so soul-stealingly terrible that it's wonderful.

As is most pop music.

...I'm looking at you, "Sexyback".

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

Uh ... all I've got is that the sheriff in Much Ado About Nothing served to be the comic relief in that play and was kinda bumbling, but lovable at the same time.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that's good. I'll chase that one down. (...and it's official, I've been watching too much Numb3rs)

[aoshi.livejournal.com]

Ugh. With Simone being dead... I'm placing my bets on three of the following charcters based on recent events...

Jessica/Niki, Nathan, and Isaac. After tonight's episode, mind you, Issac seems quite in the running to be the character who might likely be killed off... however, we do not know what the next few weeks will entail. D: But zomg Isaac! I need to stop having such a crush on him! *girl*

Also... I also kinda liked evil Peter myself.

And roar! Your post is distracting me from writing my essay! But I wanna continue to discuss the episode, but gah! Essay! Gaaah!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

I hear you re: distractions (...heh, that was an episode title a few weeks back). I've got a midterm in t-minus 9 hours. Craaaaaaaaap.

NATHAN WON'T DIE. Can you imagine what that would do to me? Man, you'd hear my anguished cries all up to the 'Ham. I'm a little afraid after the preview that I saw that Matt might be the next to go.

First it was hott Evil!Sammy, now it's hott Evil!Peter... it's gotta be a Thing, you know?

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite Sylar quotes ever:

Dane: "What's that sound in your heart?" (Or something like that)
Sylar: "Murder."

People and guns really don't mix. *wibbles*

And dark, angsty Peter? SO SEXY. Disheartened Nathan? ALSO SEXY.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Sylar's a little in love with his own legend, methinks.

10-4 on the *wibbles*, and can you imagine what'll happen when dark, angsty Peter and disheartened Nathan finally meet again? WARNING: CRITICAL MASS OF SEXY.

And then Nathan will smile a big beaming smile because he was so worried about Peter and immediately drop the grin and go for the gruff-worried-why'd-you-do-that-to-me/us speech and then Peter would be all sad and distant and Nathan would ask what happened, all concerned-like and Peter would tearfully confess how he got the woman he loved killed... *a-splodes*

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

Either that, or Sylar's a little in love with Edgar Allan Poe.

There will be a critical mass of sexy, and my ovaries will a-splode a lot and there will be squeeing and lots of text messages.

And Peter will feel so guilty about his involvement in Simone's death, even though he wasn't the one that pulled the trigger or was even holding the gun. He taunted Isaac, put him on edge, when he should have known - used his telepathy that he got from Matt - to know that Simone was coming in, that Isaac was going to shoot.

Waitaminute. I work at the *Bennett* Centre for Student Services. CREEPY!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

It is nice to see a serial killer having fun, as opposed to the tortured-and-emo serial killer type. Sylar is fully aware of what he is and he's enjoying it so much. Oh Sylar. *pats Sylar*

I don't even think that Peter'd need Matt's power to tell that Isaac was going to shoot - I mean... he's a deranged ex-junkie passionate artist who's insanely jealous and there's a GUN involved.

I guess this is another example of Peter's recklessness: in the first episode he jumps off a building; in Texas he dives off that ledge with Sylar without considering his own safety; and then in this episode, knowing that he can heal, he freaking goads Isaac. Did he want to get shot, just so he could prove some kind of point? (Or did he go looking for a fight so he could get injured? That's a whole other thing.)

Maybe he just hasn't tried to use the telepathy, and he wouldn't have picked up on Simone. Or he was too wrapped up in himself to think to check for anyone else coming. I'm going to have to watch the episode again.

Oh, Peter. You poor kid. *snuggles Peter*

Are there secret labs/rooms beneath your work? Maybe you should check!

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

I think that Peter went looking for that fight, knowing that there was a potential for him to get injured. If anything, he was looking for that form of release - to be injured and get beaten up by an external force instead of being beating himself emotionally over what he had the potential to do to New York and the world.

Peter is a very reactionary character, and he will do anything without thinking of his own personal safety. The problem with this is that other people tend to get hurt, including Simone.

And I'm not saying that Peter would have known to use his telepathy to check if anyone is coming. I'm saying that he's going to use that as further reason to beat himself up emotionally. He's probably going to tell himself that he should have prevented Simone's death. And I don't think he's going to be able to go back and save her. There are no do overs. I'm not just saying that because of what happened with Hiro and Charlie, I'm saying that based on what I've seen of the show. There are no do overs in the show - only how characters deal with the aftermath of events.

People used to live in the maintenance access tunnels under the campus back in the 1970s...

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

If anything, he was looking for that form of release - to be injured and get beaten up by an external force instead of being beating himself emotionally over what he had the potential to do to New York and the world.

That, or he really missed Claude's stick-time. (I jokes, I jokes.) Poor Peter. He can be incredibly selfish, but that's exactly what his mother and brother were pushing him towards. He's been 'for others' for so long that when he takes on this responsibility he reacts with all the venom of a child who just got the training wheels off the bike and is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. Witness his extreme reaction to Isaac's meddling in his affairs. In any other situation, it would be perfectly acceptable to let him muddle through and assert himself, but we're talking apocalypse, and he needs all the help he can get. He can do it with a little help from his friends! (*poke poke* Read Lathe of Heaven, you'll get the joke.)

It's very Farscape-y in how the characters aren't allowed do-overs. There's a s3 FS ep where they fall back in time and try to fix stuff... and in FS, that's a Very Bad Idea.

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

In any other situation, it would be perfectly acceptable to let him muddle through and assert himself, but we're talking apocalypse, and he needs all the help he can get.

This is true, but with what has happened to Simone, I can see Peter retreating even further away from people. He's not going to want to get anyone around him hurt by their involvement with him, and he won't realize until it is almost too late that he needs his friends. That they give him power (and not just because he's an empath and can absorb their powers).

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

There are a number of reasons I want to see Peter happy and surrounded by his family and friends. One of them is the parallel I see between Nathan and Peter's growing estrangement and the fact that my father and his brother Peter hadn't spoken for over a decade when Peter died. And even before that happened, Dad would tell stories of his childhood as if he was an only child, like Peter never existed.

I don't even want to consider that the Petrellis won't get some kind of happy ending. TV's supposed to be an escape, and a place where problems in daily life are neatly solved in tidy packages. I know I have such an investment with the Petrellis because I want to see them not screw up as bad as my family.

While, realistically, I know that they only way Peter will meet Nathan is if he's forced to (Nathan himself isn't out looking for him, and Peter's been brushed aside by his brother far too many times to make that move himself), I still want them to hug it out (bitch!).

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

I think that the bridge between the two brothers will be either Claire or Mama P. I'm leaning towards Mama P. She's worked so hard to keep her family together and to keep their secrets to have things crumble on them.

Which makes me wonder ... did Papa P really die? I mean, Nathan lied to Peter about it. What if Angela lied to Nathan? Papa P could have gone underground, knowing that his sons were going to "back stab" him to help the Feds get at Linderman. Maybe he thought he'd save himself and his sons from having to oppose Linderman by faking his death.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

I think now that Claire has found her grandmother, those two together... unstoppable. Potentially unstoppable. I think Claire's been constrained for so long and from so many sides that she might not take Mama P's controlling ways all that kindly. Mama P is more concerned with Claire's safety than Claire is (Claire thinks that she herself is unbreakable); Claire wants answers (and Peter) and Mama P's not exactly been good with the transparency. On the other hand, they might hit it off and be a real force to be reckoned with. (I'm thinking like Maeby and Lucille, but probably with more explosions and less alcohol.)

From what I can see, Mama P wants what's best for her family (Claire included) and wouldn't be above convincing or manipulating Claire into helping her achieve that. Claire might not care so much about getting the brothers back together, because even though Peter is her hero/savior, Nathan is the rich father from the city who abandoned her (twice, at that). She might not be too eager to help Nathan as much as she would Peter (until Pasdar turns on the ACTING and melts her frozen, bitter heart). Peter's the lost one, and to get him back, Claire would have to get onside with her father and grandmother.

I'm okay with Papa P being dead (by whichever cause - his own hand, Linderman, the Company, Mama P...), mostly because there are too many characters already to take care of. I'm willing to have him stay dead. Plus, they'd probably held a funeral where Peter and Nathan could see the body (especially for a prominent citizen like Papa P, it would be odder not to have a viewing, etc). And if the story was he'd died of a heart attack, there'd be no reason to keep the casket closed. He could have faked it, but it would be exceptionally hard to do so without help, and when you need help, there'll be witnesses, and it gets horribly complicated.

Of course, the first episode back will show us how Papa P's still alive and living in Switzerland, or something.

[underhand-glory.livejournal.com]

If my cheap you mean EXCELLENT, then YES-- IT'S A CHEAP WAY OUT.

AHAHAHAH SIMONE. YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY FLATIRON THEIR HAIR. AHAHAHHHHAAAA!

More or less objectively speaking, what does this mean for Peter's visions-- or Isaac's? Peter saw Simone there on blow up day and now she's dead and Isaac painted them on the rooftop as the city burned-- could other parts of their prescience be fallable? Ooohh-- mystery!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

It's sad that she seemed to have so much potential as a character and then she gets caught in the middle of someone else's fight... it's very Pendrell of her.

As for what that does to the visions/premonitions... not too sure. It is possible that not everything Isaac paints is a 'true' painting, and Peter's fever dream could be part hallucination. However. If Claire was the cheerleader they were supposed to save (as in, Jackie wasn't The Cheerleader, just A Cheerleader) then they've already succeeded in changing the future. Also however: Heroes's PTB have proven themselves fallible, too... according to philthe25th and alfadir, the whole Charlie-Hiro thing is entirely impossible. They spend too much time thinking through time travel paradoxes, if you ask me. But because of that, I trust them.

Of course, there's also the problem of tipping their hand way too soon if they were going to hint at her death five or six episodes in advance by having her conspicuously absent from the visions.