Brand Spankin' New Heroes Goodness

The wait is over!! Last night saw the premiere of season 2. Let the massive over-analysis begin! **Spoilers below**

#1. Raising the Stakes. There is now mention of a super-plague that hones in on heroes and saps their powers, then kills them. The krypto-virus will bear scrutiny.

#2. Trimming the Fat. Secondary and Tertiary characters are brushed off without a second mention. We can essentially not expect to hear from certain people again. Namely Matt Parkman's pregnant wife (guess the baby wasn't his), also Nathan Petrelli's entire family. Likewise, we probably won't see Claire's friend Zach again any time soon. Pity.

#3. New Mysteries. Quite a boggling set of questions to be answered. Who is after the senior members of the Company, or the Old Firm, or whatever they're called? HOW on earth did Nathan Petrelli survive a Nuclear Exploding Man? His brother knows how to recover. What's Nathan's excuse?

#4. New Characters. Maya and Alejandro, a pair of siblings from the Dominican Republic, bound for America and NYC. Bob, a veritable GoldFinger, with an offer from the Company to Mohinder. (Bob's played by Stephen Toblowsky, who has made a career of playing harmless-looking people that are a bit more dangerous than they seem. Woot.) West, a Flyboy who takes an interest in Claire at her new school. Takezo Kensei, a gaijin scoundrel in Feudal Japan that's far less impressive than the legends make him out to be. WOOT.

#5. Theories. ~~~Peter, alive and well, is found chained in a box in Ireland. He has no idea who he is, and displays new mimicked powers. My take: Peter's memory loss was possibly done as a preventative measure. When it isn't a reflex, he uses powers by remembering the people that originally had them. If he can't remember Mr. Nuclear, he would no longer be a threat. Did the Haitian have a hand in this?

~~~Maya and Alejandro are on the run, and desperate to stay together. They're separated, and Alejandro later finds her in a truck full of dead emigrants. Everyone's died by way of massive hemorrhaging. Does Alejandro have a power? Is it to keep his sister's powers in check?

The new season promises to be an interesting one. Can't wait to see the next one.

Find That Package Boy!

**Heroes Spoilers Below**

Saw the new episode of Heroes and gotta say, I enjoyed it. Lots of new interestin' developments. If any of you are big fans and have not yet read Watchmen, go read it. Seriously. The references to it are impressive.

Specifically? The notion that the destruction of half of New York could be a good thing.

Three things real quick-- Linderman's acquired the techno-wizkid Micah. The only reason why that I can think of would be to fix the elections? The counting will be done on computers, and the boy's proven he can do pretty much anything he puts his mind to when it comes to technology.

Thing #2-- Isaac (rest in peace) was confident that he had told the good guys how to defeat Sylar once and for all. We haven't seen any paintings at all to suggest anything of the kind. What we did see was Isaac handing his sketchbook to a package boy who's confessed to being a big fan of his work. We don't know what else is in that sketchbook. Deliver us, Package Boy!

Thing #3-- A time traveler's best friend may turn out to be himself. Hiro encounters a future version of himself, sword drawn, at the episode's climax. Ever read The Time Traveler's Wife? It's one of my all time favorites. One of the best scenes takes place in a museum, in which Harry DeTamble takes his five year old self on a tour, after-hours. Over the years, he teaches himself how to fight, how to pick locks and other handy skills for the person occasionally-naked-in-middle-of-nowhere. The definition of self-taught.

Anway. Very cool ep, very cool stuff. Neat.

While We're On The Subject

I've listened to the closing theme of Heroes a few times now. It's a unique bit of music, especially for something only 33 seconds long. This not being the first time I've analyzed super hero music, let's get going.

If I had to sum it up? "Strange little steps." Something punctuating each beat that could be an oboe or a bass clarinet, matched w/ a xylophone. Who knows. In any case, on synthesizer is a number of chords which start out dissonant but end up in harmony.

Gee. Small, interesting steps leading to a resolution in which previous segments are brought together to resolve nicely together. One can only hope that that's what they have in mind for the season finale'. In any case, it's a damn appropriate capper to a consistently splendid show.

'Nuff said.

To Nitpick...

I've been watching old episodes of Heroes online, as NBC has been kind enough to put them there, free of charge.

At the end of Ep 4, Future Hiro visits Peter Petrelli in a subway car, frozen in time. He says "You look different without your scar."

This is a fairly ominous forecast, suggesting pretty directly that at some point in the future, Peter's gonna get banged up. Likely in the face, since that's all Hiro can see of him.

There's a snag, though. In a short amount of time since this visit, Peter's become very adept at using the skills he's borrowed; compared by someone else to "a rolodex of cards to flip through" (I'm paraphrasing). One of those is the ability to heal from grievous injury. Instantly.

The writers have claimed that they have plot outlines for the next five years. How does someone who knows how to recover from deadly wounds in a matter of seconds get a scar?

*Although*

And this occurs to me on the fly; if Hiro is coming to Peter from the future, a future perhaps when he didn't 'save the cheerleader', he might never have spent enough time with her to acquire/copy/whatever her power in the first place. Without which, any big bad bang-up would have left a serious scar or two.

Okay, nitpick rescinded. The writers are still brilliant. HAH.

For Lack Of A Better Word, Tall British Yoda Is A Dick.

**Heroes Spoilers below. Y'all have been warned.**

Heroes: Great show. Brilliant stuff. Peter Petrelli, the power-leech has sought the services of Tall British Yoda, played by Ex Dr. Who Christopher Eccleston. Tall British Yoda is a recluse, enjoying his stint as an invisible man. Petrelli comes to him for help controlling his powers, over which he has none.

TBY's first theory is that Petrelli needs to stop caring about family, friends, and other loved ones. With no success in this at all, his next motivational tool is to throw Petrelli off a building. Thirty stories up. In order to get him to fly.

Dick.

Petrelli doesn't. So well. He destroys a taxi cab, impaling himself with bits of the car's top. Then he gets better. He uses a once-borrowed power to recover. Mostly.

Through completely unsafe, untried, potentially fatal means, Tall British Yoda gets results. After which he punches Peter in the face, knocking him out.

Dick.