And so it ends…for now

Last night, I watched the Volume 2 finale of Heroes, and it was epic.

• Nathan gets shot JFK-style as he’s about to expose a lot of secrets, and Angela was in cahoots
  with the hitman.
• HRG forces Claire to stop her jihad and has to return to work for the Company. We may see him
  doing more abductions in the future.
• Sylar gets his powers back, xo we know he’s going to begin his brain-stealing spree again. (Maybe
  we can finally find out what he does to the brains!)
• Maya comes to her senses and gets shot, but Elle saves everyone from the Sylar-man. If the
  spoiler about Bob getting killed by Elle is true, I feel that she does it to get revenge on the
  way Bob treated her.
• Nikki was engulfed in an explosion. While the odds are grim for her, I feel Kring is keeping
  what happened a secret. If she does come back, she’ll probably be targeted by Sylar and lose her
  brain, which is creepy – super-hulk Sylar tearing apart anyone who stops him is evil.
• Hiro fights Adam, and finally decides to “lock him up” like Bob, only this time six feet
  under. I don’t think Adam will live for very long, considering that Jamie from Mythbusters almost
  got crushed by being buried alive.
• Even if Adam does escape by some miracle, he will realize that his virus plan is kaput since
  Peter wiped out the virus, so he’ll likely target Peter as well as Hiro.
• Peter finally controls his radioactive hands and no longer is in danger of “going nuclear.”
  Ted’s power is put to good use in vaporizing and eradicating the deadly stain…
• But where’s Caitlin? Did she suddenly pop back? Chances are she’s gone as there is no way to
  get to her now that the future has been changed.
• And what about West? Will he try to mend the relationship with Claire, and will Claire try to
  save her dad?

We won’t know until some time in 2008, hopefully March. Until then, there won’t be any Heroes-related blogs.

Truth and Lies…er, Consequences

Well, the season finale for part two of the Heroes saga is finally upon us, and as it comes closer and closer and my Advent calendars(I got one from Hallmark thanks to my dad, and I bought another at Walgreens because I couldn’t stand to not have the usual chocolate delights every day up to Christmas Eve) start opening their doors and I decorate my borrowed electric tree and the house with mini-lights, it’s time to look back at some of the theories I gave in the last Heroes post and what was proven right and what was proven wrong.

First off, the ashes. Bob’s the giver of the urn, but whether he is keeping up the facade or someone lied to him and Bob thinks Noah is dead too is up to debate. We’ll see in the season finale whether Bob knows the truth. As for the scene in the house, let’s give it up for Sandra Bennett! (whistles and stomps feet)

Speaking of the truth, I was semi-right about Noah being locked up by the Company. In truth, 90% of my mind was voting that Suresh regenerated Noah to life, and it was proven right. I really liked how Mohinder bit Noah’s head off, even as Noah was spitting accusations of treason and profanities at him. As I said in the post of Noah’s fate, his paranoia and violent behavior got the best of him. Sorry, Noah, but Mohinder’s tougher than your av-er-age scientist and won’t flinch at being called an S.O.B. Maybe you need a time-out.

Mohinder does his research, fuses the two blood samples, and creates an uber-blood that can kill Nikki’s viral cocktail…

…and then Sylar, who had recently stabbed Maya’s twin in the heart and ended his life and then proceeded to make out with Maya, creeps in on Molly when she’s asleep and calls Suresh up for help, meaning he has to delay his return to Nikki to get the antibody to her.

Not like she’s going to live for much longer, if the trailer for the finale hints at what I think Nikki’s fate is.

We get back to Peter and Adam, and Hiro does another time-travel trip to learn about the man formerly called Kensei. The dynamic duo finally meet Victoria Pratt, an ex-bio-geneticist who created a deadly mutation of Shanti’s virus capable of creating the bleak future that Peter saw, and thanks to Adam’s presence, Vicki goes all hillbilly on them with a shotgun. Thank goodness Peter got Claire’s ability or the whole plot would be dead in the water(no pun intended); Adam shoots first and Vicki joins Kaito in the hereafter.

Monica tries to steal back the backpack, gets caught. Moni, you are a total blockhead for not studying ways to avoid getting spotted. If you get raped, you have only yourself to blame. (No offense, Monica’s one of the few Blacks I really like. Micah is the other. DL was the third, but died a senseless death, and now Nikki…uh, nevermind.)

Finally, I see something I hate – Hiro decides to go medevial on Peter and he even says “You have chosen the wrong side” without even talking about the virus! Hiro, this is the only time I think you are a douche. >_<

Very awesome episode, and hopefully the finale will be crazy and end in a bang. From what I saw, the virus is about to be released by some butterfingers, and from a spoiler I read on 10th Wonder’s forum(I know it said spoilers, but I thought they wouldn’t post the spoilers in the message! Stupid me), Nate and Matt are going to be infected with it. Not only that, but Nikki will be turned into a scorched skeleton by an exploding diner. Again, this is just speculation on my part.

NOTES: I was wrong so far about Adam and Peter and it seems HRG is going to escape and make a deal to protect his family from the Company, and he’s going to shoot Bob and Elle is going to turn on her daddy-kins and give him the same fate he gave Caitlin’s brother. Ouch.

As for the Haitian, he didn’t appear in this episode either, but Claire was about to summon him. Good thing West stopped her or else she would learn how the Haitian’s ability worked and get really humiliated and break down again when the memory came back. However, about that confrontation with Elle…need I say it…? “WAY TO GO, CLAIRE! MARRY ME!” (Gets beaten up by the other Claire fanboys. O_o)

Well, tomorrow I’m going to try to get Super Mario Sunshine so I can start putting videos on YouTube like cloud8745 and Nintendo Central.

The calm after the storm

This is a bit soon after my last blog, but the latest episode of Heroes has aired and I’m going to be busy today cooking food for an early Thanksgiving feast for me and my parents(who are going to have a traditional feast tomorrow, Happy Turkey Day to everyone reading this blog!). I was going to just watch the G4 airing of the episode on Saturday, but recently I started tuning in to the normal airing on NBC(KOAI where I live), and this last episode confirmed my fears about HRG’s fate. More on that later.

If I could put a theme on this week’s episode, it would be “Fathers.” The two major plots running through this episode, and the sub-plot with Matt the telepathic cop(oh, sorry, he’s now a detective, my bad), clearly focus on “daddy issues.”

Hiro tried to rescue his dad from his death, only to be told off by said father. After revisiting his mother’s funeral and meeting his younger self(which clearly means that the “you-can’t-visit-your-younger-self-or-the-universe-will-blow-up” clause from Dr. Who is completely false, at least in this world), Hiro realizes that Kaito knew he was destined to die and saving him now would be pointless. At the end, his voice is the background narration to a montage of scenes.

Matt learns he can do the Jedi mind trick and uses it to not only get another interrogation with Nathan and Peter’s mom, but also forces her to tell everything about Adam and learn what Peter did and what Hiro discovers to his shock – the guy who took the name “Takezo Kensei” is trying to take out the company. More on that later too.

Finally, the major plotline…the events leading up to HRG’s fulfillment of the final painting of the octet. Him lying in a blood of his own blood coming out of his the lens of his glasses which was punctured by a bullet from Mohinder, with Claire screaming hysterically as West holds her back. I had a feeling West was the man holding her back in the painting, because West had worn the same costume to scare Debbie ****less.

HRG is dead…or is he?

The final scene of the episode really shocked me. I knew that Claire’s blood, which Bob stole from her, probably had the healing properties that Adam’s blood had. After all, both people had the same superpower. However, when I saw who was being healed, I had the same reaction HRG had when he woke up.

Holy ****, indeed.

But now that that’s over with, we have to wonder what the final two episodes of Volume 2 hold. Here’s my theory, which is probably completely going to be disproven next Monday.

First off, from the screenshot I saw on the 10th Wonders forum, it’s likely that whoever saved HRG(Mohinder or Bob) will send a fake jar of ashes to Claire for her to “bury”, similar to how Mohinder put his father’s ashes to rest in Episode 7 of the first season, but the Company will keep HRG locked up like they did Peter(probably in the same cell) to silence him. They won’t need the Haitian pills since HRG isn’t a special, he’s a completely non-threat at this point.

Adam and Peter might learn about HRG and break him out, offering to ally with him in taking down Bob. After all, both Noah and Adam have the same goals – the obliteration of the Company. Peter will offer his help since he knows what the Company does to specials. The three will seek out the Haitian to join their cause, making it Bob and Elle(Mohinder may decide to remain neutral after what he’s done, realizing that saving the world isn’t worth killing someone, but I’ve been proven wrong before) versus HRG, the Haitian, Adam, and Peter, 75% of the group having powerful abilities.

(However, I think the Haitian will be useless here. If his ability-muting power affected ALL powers, or at least Elle’s, why didn’t HRG have him hiding in the background to stop Elle from zapping Claire and West? Nope, I think the dark-skinned one only mutes “psychic” powers like telekinesis, phasing, and mental stuff. Offensive and defensive abilities cannot be negated by his aura.)

Hiro might end up siding with the Company, unaware of the fact that once Bob learns about his time/space bending powers, he’ll knock the Jap-boy out once they win and stick him with an IV of cocaine to mute his powers while they study him. After all, I read that the trailer shows Hiro fighting Peter to get to Adam, now that he knows Adam killed his dad. Bob might use this to good use.

Then there is Nikki. Why did Bob let Nikki go? If Nikki had been called in as backup, Bob would have won and forced Claire to surrender, killing both the men she cares about. And there’s nothing Claire could do to stop Nikki – Bob could have ordered Nikki to break Claire’s arms and dragged her away again! Of course, Bob would have had to concoct a lie to get Nikki to do that, since Jessica is gone and this Gina personality seems like a wuss, but still, super-strength is really powerful. Bad move, Bob, letting Nikki go. You relied too much on Elle and almost got killed for it.

 Either way, I see Adam recruiting HRG to help him out by, at least, spilling the beans on the locations of the Company and thwarting any personal motives Bob has before killing him. After all, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As long as Adam keeps feeding paranoia into HRG’s head and avoids doing something with Claire that would get HRG mad, like pull a “Bowser” and kidnap Claire to replace Yaeko as his princess, they will be strong allies.

Again, I’m just thinking about things that might happen in the next two episodes, this is all speculation. I could be 100% wrong when the final two episodes(I heard the season finale is called “Powerless”) air. Tim Kring is a writer, but he can’t read minds like Matt does and I can’t make Tim do what I want, like Matt did, so I have to trust Tim’s judgement. Either way, the last two episodes will be epic with the virus and the clash of heroes.

Sylar’s back, which may force the Company and Adam into a shaky alliance to get rid of the superpowered thief, especially if Sylar finds a way to get his powers back.

 All in all, the last episode got tense to the climax, then wound down into a poigant tear-fest. I almost felt like crying when I saw Claire being held gently by West while she cried herself to sleep, then gaped as HRG was revived. I can’t wait to see if he tries to escape and inform Claire that “I’m not dead!” ^_^

BTW: I seriously doubt that Micah and Monica are going to get involved with the upcoming battle as long as the conflict remains in New York or California or wherever this fight will be. If Bob asks “St. Joan” for help, we may see Monica get involved, but I doubt Bob will want to involve her, because he knows that might make her stop trusting him.

BTW: Will Caitlin ever be rescued from the future she was stranded in? Will Maya and Alejandro be free of their cursed powers? Will Sylar get his powers back and become a threat to everyone? Stay tuned!

A storm is coming…

“A storm is coming, and Claire is the key.”

Those words, uttered by Bob at the end of the Heroes episode, “Out of Time”, after Mohinder claims moral ambiguity and confessing to his working with HRG to take down the Company, give a chilling foreshadowing of events that might come.

Another foreshadowing were the last two pictures in the octet of paintings from Issac Mendez that foretold events after the artist’s death and the nuclear explosion in NYC. So far, all the paintings have come true in some shape or form.

Except for the last two – the one showing Mohinder with a smoking Company-issue gun in his hand and a look of rage on his face, and another where a girl was being whisked away by a figure in black as Noah Bennet lay on the ground, a bleeding bullet hole in the left lens of his infamous glasses and a look of agony on his face.

I recently came across a screenshot of a possible future episode. In it, Claire is crying while holding an urn of ashes, and Mrs. Bennet, her son Lyle, and West are in the blurry background with sad faces.

If you recall, the urn of ashes appeared before – the urn was given to Mohinder and he went back to India to deposit its contents in the waters, the ashes of his dead father Chandra.

The last painting and this screenshot both point to a grim future for Claire – her adoptive father shot dead and his body cremated for burial. Now, a comment the actor Jack Coleman(who plays HRG) said retorts otherwise, that HRG won’t die. But who knows how long ago that comment was made? The evidence is becoming more and more conclusive.

HRG’s days are numbered.

Now, as I said before, I’m no pessimist, but HRG’s actions and behaviors are all pointing to paranoid over-protection of Claire. His worst nightmare is about to come true – the Company will take Claire away and use her blood for research, she’ll be dissected like an alien. His paranoia has elevated to dangerous levels, and Claire is getting sick of it.

When Mohinder confronts HRG and asks for Claire, he will most likely respond with violence, deaf to the plea from his treacherous partner that Claire’s blood can save Nikki’s life. He doesn’t care about Nikki, probably has never seen the woman, so why should he hand over Claire to a company who would likely lock her up like they did Peter?

He won’t have it, and that will lead to his death.

We knew that this would happen. HRG got too attached to Claire, and now that she is old enough to give a piece of her mind, she is alienated from him and feels alone. HRG did something bad to her boyfriend and now she lost West, and now HRG is trying to isolate her, keep her hidden like some dirty little secret. No wonder she wanted to be normal in Season 1.

Bob’s word ring very true as we approach the ninth episode, “Cautionary Tales.” A storm is coming, and it will claim HRG’s life, and maybe others. Storms are violent vessels of destruction, and even if nobody dies, damage is done. The storm is the inevitable confrontation between Noah and the Company over Claire, and the damage will be great…Noah should have never gotten involved in the Company to begin with, but now he must face the consequences of his actions.

Sorry, Noah, but your princess is in another castle, and you lost your last life from falling into the bottomless pit of paranoia.

Interesting theories about Adam

In my last post, I talked about the events in the latest Heroes episode, “Four Months Ago” and my confusion over who was the bad guy – Adam or the Company. Well, I read this message on the 10th Wonders forum by a poster called “Gabrial Grey”(Sylar’s true name):

I have this wild and completely unsubstantiated theory that Adam arranged for Mr and Mrs Petrelli to have Peter much in the same way that Linderman did with Nikki and DL. It makes sense since Linderman was Adam’s disciple. He could have learned this tactic from Adam. Adam could have known they would have an offspring that was an empath and he would have his new “blunt instrument” to use for his revenge. Plus to use a son or daughter of his former partners would add insult to injury. I don’t know. I’m probably wrong…

That got me thinking…could Chandra Suresh have had a grandfather who was studying genetics, and Adam worked with him, like how Gabriel Grey worked with Chandra? Perhaps Adam cracked the genetic code long before Mohinder did and found that one can manipulate the powers a person is born with by having him be born with certain parents?

If this was the case, and if Adam discovered that Kaito Nakamura was the father who conceived the man who ruined his early life, why didn’t Adam just break up Kaito’s marriage before Hiro was conceived and erase Hiro from existence? Perhaps Adam didn’t realize that Hiro was the son of one of his “disciples” until it was too late, U dunno.

If the theory’s correct, Adam could have forced Niki and D.L. to bear Micah, knowing that his power would be machine empathy and have Linderman kidnap the boy and turn him into a tool to ensure Nathan’s election, and was then planning on using Micah’s power again to ensure Nathan’s election into the White House, which is why Linderman refused to let him go after Micah did his “dirty deed.” Micah was a powerful sword to Adam.

Likewise, Nathan was a powerful sword because of his flying powers – he wouldn’t need to spend money on a private jet, he could be a Superman clone – up up and away! And Peter was obviously the “one-man-army”, with every power in the bag.

Who knows how many kids he had arranged to be born? Hana? Candice? Maybe even Claire! Adam is a crafty fox…if the theory is correct.

We won’t know until the next three episodes air. *shrugs*

Review: “Four Months Ago”

I’ve just gotten into the hit drama “Heroes”, which I like because of some of the characters(Hiro Nakamura is my favorite) and the sci-fi plot of people gaining superpowers and their lives changing because of that. That is why I named my blog “Shrine of the Sacred Eclipse.”

I know I’m really out of the loop here by reviewing a second-season episode of “Heroes” without reviewing the last 26+ episodes, but honestly, there are podcasts that discuss those episodes already. Maybe if I get some time, I can do a big recap of the first season and the first seven episodes of the second. Be patient, okay?

WARNING: Spoilers for the episode are below. If you haven’t seen the episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled, look away!

 If you’ve watched the episode “Six Months Ago”, when Hiro goes back to April 2006 and finds out that he went back too far, you will get scenes on the other characters and their backstories; Matt flunking his second detective test, Claire getting into the cheerleadnig squad, Nathan and Peter’s father committing suicide, and so on.

This episode does the same thing, only it fills us in on the events that happened between Peter going “boom” and him being found locked up, half-naked, and amnesia-stricken in a cargo crate in Ireland’s dockyard in the second season premiere. I won’t spoil anything here, but only enough to give my thoughts.

Niki’s behavior is understandable. I have taken medications before for my autism and it has really upset me enough to “forget” to take the meds. Niki thinks she can control her strange disorder, but sure enough, what Bob says comes true and another rogue persona of Niki’s surfaces and takes control…which leads to D.L. getting a raver angry enough to kill him. Without D.L. in her life to guide her, she ends up having no choice but to enter the Program…and now her veins are coursing with a fatal disease that ends up being the world-annihilating epidemic Peter had experience in the near future.

The other two stories explored are Peter’s and the Honduran twins’. The latter is less important, but reveals when Maya’s “black tears of death” first manifested and when Alejandro’s “healing touch” first manifested, and how they became fugitives. The second is more important in my eyes.

At the beginning of the second season, I thought that Bob was trying to undo the bad things that Linderman and Thompson did, but after seeing this episode, I’m not so sure that Bob is any better than Thompson. Sure, he doesn’t plan to dissect Peter and Adam, but he keeps them locked up for who knows how long, and plans to stick them with hypos when the vaccine(which I believe is the Shanti Virus) was perfected, taking away their powers.

I mean, Bob is so unreasonable. Even when Peter begs to get some fresh air and promises to take the drugs, and even says Elle can watch him, Bob says “no.” I’m wondering if Bob is nuts or not. Noah Bennet may have some truth in not trusting the company, even when Ivan said that it’s under Bob’s control and has “reformed.” Has it? Even if it was for the safety of the world, I think Bob is being too paranoid not to trust Peter. I’m sure he can get some references who would vouch for Peter’s honesty, but he doesn’t – he just locks Peter up like a common crook.

Right now, I’m feeling a bit like Mohinder at the end of the last episode; I don’t know who to trust. The Company might know something about Adam and Claire and how their blood can undo damage to tissue and might cure the virus(after all, when Nathan was given a dose of Adam’s hemo, he started to regenerate right away), but if it means putting Claire in the Program – after all, Adam has the same power and they locked him up – I’m going to be a little wary of them. Not enough to put a bullet through the Company’s head like Noah wants to do, but just enough.

On the other hand, Adam was once Takezo Kensei, and he was just as unreasonable when Hiro promised to leave as soon as the war was over so Yakeo would turn to him…and look what he did – he decided to change history so he was the Emperor of Japan, and even refused Hiro’s hand when he was engulfed in the explosion. I bet he killde Kaito Nakamura in spite. And now he’s using Peter…like he used Matt’s dad, perhaps? I’m still grey on his motives, but if his plan to save the world involves injecting his blood into Niki like he did with Nathan, then chances are Peter’s trip to the future won’t happen….

…oh my god, what about Caitlin? She’s still trapped in that future! If it changes, she’d cease to exist! Argh!

Hopefully the final three episodes will tell us all.

My thoughts on the trailer:

• Hiro goes back to the time of his father’s death and tries to save him…but as we saw, his attempts to rescue Charlie from Sylar ended up a failure because he learned that Charlie was going to die from a brain clot anyways. Will fate prevent him from saving his old man?
• Claire is in her cheerleading outfit, and we heard Noah ordering everyone to pack for a move. Do you think Claire convinced her adoptive daddy not to move? Not like it would matter anymore, since the Company will probably ask Molly Walker to find her, now the little girl is safe from the Nightmare Man.
• Noah is angry as heck and ready to shoot someone. Could this mean that the last two paintings are going to be accurate and Mohinder shoots Noah through the eye, killing him?
• And could Adam be the one who kidnaps Claire as soon as she sees her foster daddy dead? Remember what I said about Adam being the man in the hoodie who threw Kaito off the building? The guy who “grabs the girl” in the last painting could be the same one who killed Kaito, since they dress alike. Just a theory, but an interesting one. Now that we know that a person with spontaneous regen. is basically ageless and undying, Claire will probably end up never getting any older than sixteen and Adam probably decides to make her his new “princess.” Just a theory.
• Finally, the money question…WHAT ABOUT CAITLIN? DID THE WRITERS FORGET ABOUT HER AND PLAN TO ERASE HER FROM THE SHOW? ARGH!!!!

Whatever. Peace out.