(no subject)

[skygiants]

1. DUDE HOW MUCH DID I CALL IT?

Okay, so it's Peter who has unconditional love for the whole world instead of Hiro. STILL. Charles Deveaux gets a free pass on verging perilously close to Shati's Book icon because I was still screaming about that. And Mohinder and Molly with the whole "it's my blood that protects her!" thing (hi, literalization!) and Claire's "I already have a family" when the Petrellis are doing that slightly skeevy Petrelli closing in and Hiro trading everything to protect Ando and being faster than Sylar because the life of a loved one was at stake (HI ANDO I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE ALIVE AND AWESOME) and the DLikah family, which was pretty much all set up in the last episode too but whatever awesome (HI DL SO GLAD YOU ARE ALIVE AND AWESOME TOO.) Overall: YAY.

2. I loved Team Take Out Sylar. Admittedly, I also found it kind of hilarious, in a Final Fantasy-style video game way - now Matt uses his +10 Gun Power! Oops, it's deflected! Now Peter takes a swing! Now Niki takes a swing! - but so much better than Peter grimly facing down Sylar mano a mano. So, so much.

But I really wish that either Ando, Audrey, or especially Claire had gotten a turn. (Audrey where aaaaaare you!)

3. I realize this is sacrilege to much of my flist, but if anyone had to die . . . I'm glad it's Nathan. He went out in an awesome and redeemy fashion, his death does not ping any sketchy gender/racial issues, and he's not HRG I mean Noah Bennet (HI NOAH LIVE A LONG LONG LONG TIME FOR ME BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE FANTASTICALLY AWESOME. ETERNALLY.)

I also hope Candice is alive and around for S2. Also Matt. For an increasing sarcasm-ometer and Clever Use of Skillz, and yet also for continuing to take the Well-Meaning Stupidity Award every time. "He's a bad guy. I'm a cop." Oh, Matt. There is also the fact that Matt and Mohinder as Molly's two dads = HILARITY. As for Sylar . . . on the one hand, in a story-arc way, I am kind of disappointed that he's alive, because it would have been so pleasantly surprising to wrap it all up. On the other hand, in a story-arc way, Sylar and Mohinder never got any kind of wrap-up, and I would have been very disappointed if he had died without that. Also Sylar is fun to watch. So I'm okay with the Symbolic Cockroach of Sylaritude Living On.

And now, summer hiatus. Won't you be fun.

Comments

[shati.livejournal.com]

Er, by which I mean, I agree they wrote with the intention of themerizing unconditional love, but they should have been writing with hope as the theme.

[skygiants]

*thoughtful*

I think it could be read that Nathan's love for Peter - that is, refusal to have him take on the fairly impressive burden of the death .07% of the world's population - is in part what saved the world too. But it's a stretch. I mean, if that's what they were emphasizing, and I think they were in part as well as the whole 'future is not set in stone' thing, they should have written that final scene differently, I agree.

(Also, I have now totally fanwanked Angela Petrelli's insistence on the explosion based on the hypothesis of her having prophetic dreams, which will totally be Kringed when it turns out that her real power is mpreg or bellydancing or something. But I digress!)

But what I mean is that I think Peter's unconditional love for the world might not have been relevant now, but will be in the post-...lack-of-explosion? New York. Like, we have all these broad hints that the world still needs saving. "I didn't know it was sick," Micah says, but all the older generation clearly thinks it is. And that someone needs to play a big role in that, explosion or no explosion.

[shati.livejournal.com]

That would make sense of Charles Deveaux's "I think Linderman is betting on the wrong brother," if Peter is the one who does post-explosion works of goodness. But . . . there was no setup for what did happen. Or there was some, but I want more attention to the climax of the season in the season finale!

(I don't think the world is sick, or supposed to be sick, though. I think the show agrees with Micah, considering all the people who say "the world is sick" are EVIL, and turn out to be wrong about the cure.)

Prophetic dreams would make a lot of sense, because Peter did explode. The explosion did happen. She was right.

[skygiants]

A valid complaint! My guess is that they were trying really hard to set up a lot for next season in the season finale, and, um, forgot to do the proper buildup for the end of this season.

(The people who say "the world is sick" are clearly wrong about the cure, but everyone from Generation X-1 or whatever we're calling it worked together at some point in the past - my bet is that there is some reasoning behind the "world is sick" thing that we haven't gotten yet. Or at least I really hope there is because it would make everything make a lot more sense, and also provide a cool arc.)

*grins* Well, yeah - and prophetic dreams is not a new hypothesis - I think it was actually first from you that I heard it! I am now trying to make it fit into a much more grim version where everything she sees does happen as she sees it, which is the difference between her dreams and Isaac's paintings, and so she thinks she can't change it and la la la characterization. There's meta in there too about how maybe the fact that Isaac is painting the future is interacting with her dreams and altering what she sees so it can be changed now when it couldn't be before but she doesn't know that, but, um, it's late so I don't think I can make it coherent.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Yes. *pats them, sighing* I just wish I could take the awesome from "Fallout" or "Company Man" or "Five Years Gone" and switch it with this one, because I want the last episode of the season to be better than the show's average!

(Oh, I agree. And if there isn't a reason we don't know yet . . . the entirety of the Blow-Up New York Brigade is insane, not morally ambiguous. I prefer the latter.)

Oh, I know. I just mean, her certainty that the explosion would happen was right, and explained a lot of her attitude, so: more support!

Isaac also believed the future couldn't be stopped.

[skygiants]

I still maintain that "Company Man" is one of the best episodes of television not just for this show but in ALL OF EVER. *hugs it*

(Moi aussi. Insane is so much less interesting! Even if it involves pot pie.)

Yes. :D And - yeah, but Isaac's paintings have also been clearly shown to be wrong for this timeline. Witness: Micah trapped in the burning building. (Although I guess that could still happen, in theory. A different burning building! Future plot point!) Also, New York exploding.

[shati.livejournal.com]

I so. very. much. agree. Also, if I am ever set to blow up New York? Start playing "Company Man" and "The Body" on a widescreen and I will be too busy sobbing hysterically to explode. Just in case you don't feel like flying me away or shooting me.

Weird thing about the climax: having rewatched and thought about it -- Nathan didn't do it to save the world. There's plenty of possible reason for Claire shooting Peter to be a very bad idea, but from the acting and dialogue all I'm seeing is Claire getting ready to kill Peter permanently and hating it. No one's saying, "Claire, that's not going to stop him." So Nathan's just trading his life for Peter's, not for New York's. This is deeply confusing.

Yeah, but Isaac doesn't know that. I was assuming that Ma Petrelli's hypothetical prophedreams were the same kind, and she was right about the inevitability of the bomb, but definitely not how it happened. ('Cause. Nathan.)

[skygiants]

*makes mental note to bring copies of "Company Man" and "The Body" to Chicago, just in case.*

. . . yeah. *thoughtful* And - depending, because it's very fuzzy as to what exactly everyone believes about what will and won't kill Peter permanently, but he's not even necessarily trading his life for Peter's so much as he's trading it for Claire's continued identity as The Girl Who Didn't Kill Her Uncle. He's taking on the paterfamilias-type responsibility that Peter and Claire (especially Peter, but Claire clearly thinks that he should be taking it on and just doesn't trust him to) keep trying to get him to. Whatever the definitive act is, he's doing it instead of passing it on to younger relatives.

(Alternately, you could see it as the definitive final battle in the incest 'ship wars. Nathan defeats Paire once and for all and steals Peter's final moments!)

I am basing this off possibly erroneous characterization here, but I feel like Ma Petrelli is the kind of person to know exactly the limits of her powers and to have tested them many, many times. *thoughtful* If they gave as much wiggle room as Isaac's paintings do, I want to say she'd know about it.

[shati.livejournal.com]

I said this to John in my LJ, but if Nathan's doing this to make it so Claire doesn't have to kill Peter -- well, he's making it so Peter will kill him.

(I think that is the most hilarious interpretation I've seen yet.)

Well, this is a special case -- Hiro's time antics, visiting Peter on the subway and coming back from the future, change the future. Maybe she has tested them, and it's just that the future's never been messed with before. Or it has, but in such a way that she doesn't think it will be again.

Either way, we have more reason to think that she expects New York leveled and Nathan alive than not.

[skygiants]

*pats Nathan* I'm not saying it's a sensible choice. And . . . now that I think more about it, actually, I'm not sure I like it as a thematic choice - Nathan as Head of the Family, taking on the Bennet role. "You have a plan, right?" Fulfilling His Responsibilities and protecting his fragile teacup daughter's psyche. I mean, I love Bennet, but we're shown pretty clearly through his storyline that this is a bad choice. And Claire should get to be responsible for herself.

(I am sure the explosion - if I may so call it - of Nathan/Peter Final Moments fanfics in coming weeks will support my hypothesis. *cheerful*)

True. So maybe it's Hiro's ability, rather than Isaac's, that makes it so the future is mess-able. Which makes Hiro the savior of humanity! Which is a thing I can live with. :D

[shati.livejournal.com]

I just don't think it's one Nathan would make. He cares about Claire, but he cares more about Peter; I think sacrificing his life for Peter's makes more sense than sacrificing Peter's emotional health for Claire's. But yeah, re: fragile teacups. On the meta level, at least, Claire and Peter have both been pushed up to the brink of killing and then -- not, and even Hiro apparently didn't succeed in killing Sylar. (Also, Claire's attempted homicide before, though crashing her car with the guy who tried to rape her in it is different from shooting Peter.) I like killing being a Big Thing, so I'm not entirely displeased.

Hiro is totally the savior of humanity.

[skygiants]

- Peter, Claire, Hiro and Mohinder, actually, have all been on the brink of killing someone and then not actually doing it, now I think of it. And I do think that the show thinks of those four as its major characters, at least at this point, so . . . hm. Interesting.

Now I'm trying to think of non-villain characters that we've seen actually succeed in murderous acts in the present. Bennet, DL, Nathan (successful suicide counts!) and Jessica, right? Am I missing anyone?

[shati.livejournal.com]

Has Peter been on the brink? He hasn't even gotten that close as far as I can remember.

If successful suicide counts, Eden, Peter, and Claire are all in. *g* I don't think Nathan gets included.

Claude's an odd case -- he technically did murder Peter, but it wasn't permanent, and we don't know how sure he was that Peter would survive, and it was really funny. And there's Isaac, who didn't mean to kill Simone, but did mean to kill Peter.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Though if Nathan is actually dead, Peter will have killed him. I can't believe I forgot that.

[skygiants]

Darnit, I cannot theorize until I know which of them is or isn't alive/dead!

*sulks*

Anyways, I was thinking Sylar for Peter's attempted killing, even if he didn't actually get all that close. And by 'successful' I mean 'the kind of dead that took', so Claire and Peter are out. *grins* (And so is Claude, although there is no way in which I believe he's never killed anyone. Also, he totally gets a free pass for funny.) Eden's in, though, and she's dead (obviously). So is Isaac. Which leaves Bennet and Jessica and DL. Who are all defined pretty significantly in terms of their parenthood . . . hmm.

(Also, apropos of nothing: LOOK TINY OZ)

[shati.livejournal.com]

Well, even if Nathan is dead, it's a very passive kind of suicide, and we don't see him die, and -- I still don't count him as having successfully killed onscreen. (He was apparently in the Navy, though, and who knows.)

Bennet and Jessica have killed in not-self-defense, and Bennet and DL have killed in self-defense. *randomly splits them*

(OMG TINY OZ!!)

[skygiants]

Fair - and really I do not think I can count Nathan's Navy experience as anything other than repressed desire to join the Village People.

Have we seen Bennet kill in not-self-defense onscreen? I mean, he tried to kill Claude, but that was very clearly less than successful. I don't doubt that he has, but I can't remember if we've actually seen it.

Jessica's killings were pretty not-self-defensetastic, but the line "Everything I've done, I've done for them" is also fairly explicit in terms of the protection-of-family thing. Even if that is really not a good excuse for going on murderous rampages.

(SO SQUISHFACED AND REDHEADED.)

[shati.livejournal.com]

Oh. Yeah. No. Oh! Becca, Ted's killed. His wife. Not on purpose.

Also, I was thinking ".07%" and the finale for Peter, but he did get to the brink when he dragged Sylar off the stairs with him.

And Jessica kills a lot less than I expect, always. Aside from the desert pile o' corpses, which I think I read somewhere is established as at least semi-self-defense in one of the comics -- there's Matt's client; anyone else who wasn't self-defense?

(SO OZ-LIKE!! OH OZ.)

[skygiants]

Oh yeah! And . . . Ted's dead. Like Isaac. - in fact, exactly like Isaac; they both killed their love interests by accident and then got et by Sylar. Soultwins!

Well, she does kill all those people who are playing poker with Hiro and Ando - that's the one I tend to think of as Jessica's biggest slaughter. Admittedly it's in Hiro-and-Ando defense, but it's not like Jessica knows that.

(EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE AN OZ.)

[shati.livejournal.com]

Truth! As a random aside, I totally thought Bennet was a goner when he told Peter his name. I almost wish they'd saved it for when he really does die, assuming he does before the show goes off the air.

Ohhh yeah. I forgot about that! Never mind then.

(INDEED THIS IS TRUE. OMG BECCA I WANT OZ-HAITIAN ROAD TRIP. TO TIBET.)

[skygiants]

I was SO SCARED for Bennet all this episode. Everything - the name and the promise to protect and the saying goodbye to Claire - screamed "HE IS GOING TO DIE" and I am so, so glad that it was a scream of lies.

Maybe he can have an equally symbolic middle name to use when he really does die? Except he NEVER WILL. *proclaims this in Eden-voice*

(ME TOO ME TOO ME TOO. THEY CAN BE LACONIC TOGETHER.

.....THEM AND PARKMAN. FOR BONUS BUFFYESQUE MINDREADING. THE HAITIAN CAN HAVE MOLLY-VIRUS TO BLOCK HIS POWER FOR THE DURATION.)

[shati.livejournal.com]

Ooh, or he could learn the Haitian's name just before he dies! If he does.

(Matt, to the Haitian: "Is that all you think about?"
The Haitian: "Actually? ...Yes." *flees*)

[skygiants]

- before Bennet dies or before the Haitian dies? NOT THAT EITHER OF THEM SHOULD DIE.

(*cackles*

I want Telepath!Buffy-Peter-Matt fic now. For great mutual headache! With Oz sitting by and "Hmmm"ing.)

[shati.livejournal.com]

Bennet! The Haitian has no reason to die.

(ME TOO. So much.)

[skygiants]

. . . Bennet has no reason to die either! *clings to him*

(You should write it! You never wrote my Angela/Claude fic. :O This can be replacement!)