Minor spoilers ahoy!
Oct. 7th, 2008 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI just like that this confirms my suspicion from episode two.
From E!Online: And in next week's episode, Claire and HRG have a showdown, as you might have guessed from the trailer, and Claire ends up bonding with Sylar while they fight the Vortex villain.
Called it. S'all I'm gonna say.
No, I lied, I have this to say as well: Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaalled it.
And this: Seriously, Claire is f'ed up. And I'm not mad about this--there's definitely more dramatic potential in her going a little sociopathic, much more so than the other bullshit rigors they've thrown at her (the attempted rape, the bullying cheertator, West, etc.). Because from the first moment we met Claire, we knew she had a death wish and a pain kink. It comes from being invulnerable, and there's the metaphor of her being young and all young people are like that. They drive drunk, get high, rough-house, jump off really high buildings and pop their bones back under their skin, and so on. Claire's invulnerability really plays well into that idea of fearless youth.
The only thing that keeps fearlessness from becoming foolishness is pain and the lessons we learn from it. Claire is now immune to pain as well. So her desperation is more pointed--she has to make up the physical void with the emotional one. Which is why I noted how creepily sexual her attack by Sylar was. It should really have been like rape--less about the sexual, more about power--but Claire made it about sex, too, because she needed the pain of both to have any drive in her life. Without physical pain, all she's got is scars on her brain. (Literally and figuratively.) How better to pick at those scars than to hang around the abuser and internalize shame and pain together?
And it doesn't hurt that Gabriel is apparently her uncle. Inappropriate Petrelli-on-Petrelli love? No, you don't say!
One other spoiler, also minor, just to prove (as I was saying to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gryphonrose) that the show has lost track of its continuity entirely:
We'll see the first time Sylar ever killed, in episode eight.
The first time Sylar ever killed was when he brained the telekinetic to steal his powers. We saw that. It defeats the drama of that moment and the creep factor of Sylar murdering a guy out of nowhere just to be powerful if it wasn't like he'd be doing anything differently if the guy weren't a super. It doesn't scan. Stop re-writing Sylar because you love Zach Quinto, stupid writers! I like him, too, but I'd sooner he were written off the show still in character than kept around like a defanged, neutered pet.
From E!Online: And in next week's episode, Claire and HRG have a showdown, as you might have guessed from the trailer, and Claire ends up bonding with Sylar while they fight the Vortex villain.
Called it. S'all I'm gonna say.
No, I lied, I have this to say as well: Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaalled it.
And this: Seriously, Claire is f'ed up. And I'm not mad about this--there's definitely more dramatic potential in her going a little sociopathic, much more so than the other bullshit rigors they've thrown at her (the attempted rape, the bullying cheertator, West, etc.). Because from the first moment we met Claire, we knew she had a death wish and a pain kink. It comes from being invulnerable, and there's the metaphor of her being young and all young people are like that. They drive drunk, get high, rough-house, jump off really high buildings and pop their bones back under their skin, and so on. Claire's invulnerability really plays well into that idea of fearless youth.
The only thing that keeps fearlessness from becoming foolishness is pain and the lessons we learn from it. Claire is now immune to pain as well. So her desperation is more pointed--she has to make up the physical void with the emotional one. Which is why I noted how creepily sexual her attack by Sylar was. It should really have been like rape--less about the sexual, more about power--but Claire made it about sex, too, because she needed the pain of both to have any drive in her life. Without physical pain, all she's got is scars on her brain. (Literally and figuratively.) How better to pick at those scars than to hang around the abuser and internalize shame and pain together?
And it doesn't hurt that Gabriel is apparently her uncle. Inappropriate Petrelli-on-Petrelli love? No, you don't say!
One other spoiler, also minor, just to prove (as I was saying to
gryphonrose) that the show has lost track of its continuity entirely: We'll see the first time Sylar ever killed, in episode eight.
The first time Sylar ever killed was when he brained the telekinetic to steal his powers. We saw that. It defeats the drama of that moment and the creep factor of Sylar murdering a guy out of nowhere just to be powerful if it wasn't like he'd be doing anything differently if the guy weren't a super. It doesn't scan. Stop re-writing Sylar because you love Zach Quinto, stupid writers! I like him, too, but I'd sooner he were written off the show still in character than kept around like a defanged, neutered pet.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-09 11:26 pm (UTC)I think they would have had far more success in keeping some of his personality intact if they made him more like Bennet - Still 'good', but definitely not nice. Sylar simply... makes better use of the corpses in his wake than Bennet.
I can even stretch my suspension of disbelief to allowing for Peter killing Nathan from 'the hunger'. If he's digging into someone's head for information, and some bit of his new power makes him want more and more information, then I can kinda almost accept him, without really realising what he's doing, literally digging into someone's head, as well as figuratively.
You know what's the biggest thing that I can't credit from this episode?
SYLAR
LOST
CONTROL
SYLAR
That is BULLSHIT. Sylar knows more about his powers than the people who originally had them and has apparently had years of mental exercises to keep himself under control.
His little kid getting killed, I expected Sylar to go to town on the guy and rip him to pieces, instead he EXPLODES. He gets a few moments of mourning, then goes from "Hey! He actually looks liky Sylar again!" to Nuke in eight seconds.
PETER, after having just absorbed Mr Nuke's powers, held them in check for ages, Mr Nuke, after KILLING HIS GIRLFRIEND manages to keep himself under control, but oh no, Sylar, who is better at it than any of them, can't keep himself from going Nuke. What a load of BS.
Also. The mexican standoff at the start of that scene. Why the fuck didn't peter just freeze time and get it over with? I know he's stupid, but really....
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 12:44 am (UTC)Yeah, Sylar doesn't lose his shit as stupidly as Peter does, that was pretty abusively out of character. There's also the fact that the show forgets any number of powers that might have served him well in protecting his son. The only reason not to use them would be if he didn't want the kid to see. Fine, but the second people are waving guns in the kid's face and they start using powers, Sylar and Peter both should have opened some whoop-ass all over this shit. Sylar's telekinesis is pretty strong, he probably could have taken Knox, even if Knox was powered up. Plus, he has, oh, dunno, ice powers, explode-y powers, melt-y powers, shout-y powers (assuming this future is contiguous with the present that Peter created)--any of which would have shut Knox and Claire right the F down.
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 12:52 am (UTC)Not to mention the fact that *last episode* Sylar took out Knox (powered up by a room full of hostages) & Shouty man easier than Bennet is awesome.
Future Sylar was neutered beyond all reason. Hopefully having Peter around to torment will keep him psycopathic? After all, I can easily imagine Hannibal-stle speeches from him directed at Peter "You can feel it can't you? You want to know whats in his head... go on... do it.. you know you want to... how long can you hold out...."
Oh, and mutating Mohinder... just stop the slow decline and show us the punishment for his idiocy in all its glory dammit.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-10 02:50 am (UTC)I am almost reassured by Peter showing up and provoking Sylar, since it was clear that Sylar is resentful that Peter has more control over his ability in the sense that he isn't driven by it. (Peter's also produces the same net effect as Sylar's but without the consequences.) However, given some spoiler-y pictures I've seen, I'm willing to bet Sylar continues on this character assassination plot line and tries to talk Peter down when he loses his shit instead of egging him on. That's too bad. Sylar was so wonderfully gleeful when Peter was about to explode in season one because it meant that Peter, not he, was the bad guy. And that was funny to him. I miss Sylar's sense of humor, twisted as it was. :(