Heroes - Company Man

[Boswell]

Absolutely awesome episode, Jack! Now I know why it took 15 days to film it. Spectacular job and good to see you in the scenes for the next show.

[ghost]

Agreed! I was worried for a moment that they were writing you off! This show gets better and better!

[devildm]

That was a great episode. It was great to finally know the backstory of HRG (Jack, you are one of my favorite characters). I was very shocked at the beginning to see the invisible guy show up in the first flashback and also to see Sulu as one of the Company bigwigs. I have two questions though:

1) Did we ever find out who the Invisible Man was hiding from the company...was it Claire (I may have missed this)?

2) It seemed that for a while HRG or the Haitian or somebody had the power to suppress the power of other heroes (blocked Parkman from reading HRGs mind, prevented Eden from suggesting things to HRG, catching Sylar, etc.). I wonder why this trick was not used to stop the atomic man?

Anyway, I couldn't wait until next week to find out who Linderman is, so I did a quick search online. I don't want to post it because I'm not sure if people want to find out. If you do, just google for it and you will find it. I will be happy if the reports are true as I really like this actor. If you can't find the answer and still want to know, send me a private message and I will tell you what I found out. Again, I'm not sure if it is true, but I hope it is.

Go Heroes and Go Duke

[riverside6]

Echo the sentiments above. Certainly the best episode in some time, and somewhat "Lost-like" with the flashbacks.

Can we assume invisible man was shot in the same place that HRG guy was? It would certainly seem like that was the case.

Also, I agree the Hatian kept Parkman from reading HRGs mind, why couldn't he keep the guy from blowing up?

The scene with Claire walking out of the house was really cool.

[elvis14]

I couldn't agree with you guys more. 'Company Man' was a great episode. I was shocked when the invisible guy showed up in the Company office. I look forward to learning more about the company. When Hiro showed up with his dad on THAT roof top I was tripping out. Too cool. Saying that this episode was Lost-like is right on the money. Just as a couple of questions are answered, even more questions crop up. I'm already looking forward to next week's episode.

[billybreen]

Awesome stuff, but I don't think it's just like Lost. It's like Lost with a sense of direction. Lost with an understanding of how to dole out the payoffs. Lost without getting totally bloated as the studio milks the show for season after season.

Heroes is everything I expected Lost to be after the first season. I love this show.

[BluDvil03]

Heroes is everything I expected Lost to be after the first season. I love this show.

In fairness, Heroes is barely through half a season. Let's see how long they can keep it running.

I also think part of the problem with Lost is that they do have a plan for the general timeline, so the pace is naturally slower. Heroes can't keep up this kind of momentum without getting 24ish in terms of outlandish plot twists.

That said, this was the best episode of any tv show this season.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Absolutely awesome episode, Jack! Now I know why it took 15 days to film it. Spectacular job and good to see you in the scenes for the next show.

Completely agree with everyone as to how great an episode this was. And again, I chose to watch Heroes in real time and 24 DVR delayed. Good decision, although 24 was much better this week than last. I actually watched the first half hour of the new show, The Black Donnelly's (sp?), before switching to 24 and getting to bed at a half reasonable hour. I'll have to get back (I DVR'd it too) and watch the last half hour of TBD's - the show about 4 brothers has some interesting characters, but it is not very believable that all 4 are still alive as much trouble they get into.

I was surprised that after the house fire that Partman was "taken into custody" by the company along with torch guy and both were on the lab tables under sedation. Why were Claire and the Haitian still roaming free and HRG had to go get them after the fact? Why didn't they run and hide somewhere?

HRG as a good guy. It boggles the mind!

[JasonEvans]

Those of you who bother to read my endless posts know I have long maintained that Heroes was not in a league with Lost. I must say, I am coming around.

Heroes promissed some thing and it actually delivered on those promisses. It made us see characters in a new light and revealed significant details while not giving too much away. It still feels like Heroes actually is going somewhere. Lost is -- well -- lost right now. I think they had about 2-3 seasons worth of story and now they are trying to make it last 5 (or god forbid even more) season. I actually root for Lost's ratings to continue erroding a bit because I think that will convince them to not keep it going longer than it needs to. Pick an end date and get us moving in SOME DIRECTION THAT MATTERS!!!!

As for last night's Heroes, there are some things that bother me a bit. I don't like that the movement to learn about the "people with powers" has been going on for 15 years. That seems a long time when you consider that every single Hero we met earlier this season was someone who had gotten their powers VERY RECENTLY. I mean, who were they researching 15 years ago?

I also want to know how the Company fins people with powers. for that matter, how does Professor Suresh find them? If we are to believe that the powers are a form of genetic evolution then how on Earth can anyone know where they are going to crop up? Aside from offspring being passed the mutated gene, there really should not be any way of tracking it.

I agree that the Haitian should have just supressed Ted's radiation power. I was sure that is what they were going to do and found it offputting that they did not try that on him (it would be simple enough to have it try and fail because the Haitian could not get close enough or because supressing Ted would mean also supressing Claire and that would put her in great danger).

Finally, I hope the show make some reference to radiation posoning or something as a result of HRG's family and Matt hanging out so much with radioactive Ted. Their prozimity to him when he was radiating should have been enough to cause some serious medical problems. It killed his wife-- there needs to be an explanation for how everyone else survives.

Still, I enjoyed the episode a ton. I loved the way HRG was turned into a much more sympathetic character and I enjoyed his work with Matt ("left hook coming!"). The Company is going to make them a team, for sure.

-Jason "I have heard through the grapevine that Lost will be answering some big Others questions in the next few episodes-- episode 11 is supposed to be KEY!" Evans

[billybreen]

I also think part of the problem with Lost is that they do have a plan for the general timeline, so the pace is naturally slower.

My understanding is that they had a plan to get out in 2-3 seasons (oft quoted by Jason Evans in these parts), but the studio convinced them to draw out the suspense to keep milking the high ratings. Of course, that plan backfired and left the show aimless, leading to the collapse in ratings this season.

[Tom B.]

Spoilers below:

I was surprised that after the house fire that Partman was "taken into custody" by the company along with torch guy and both were on the lab tables under sedation. Why were Claire and the Haitian still roaming free and HRG had to go get them after the fact? Why didn't they run and hide somewhere?

It was a little confusing, but I thought HRG's cover story after the fire was that he didn't know about Claire's ability because the Haitian (who disappeared after the fire) had been "hiding her in plain sight." HRG's boss then asked him to "bring Claire in," and he said he'd go get her -- that's when he took her to meet the Haitian, and together they made it look like someone had ambushed HRG and taken Claire. For good measure, HRG had the Haitian shoot him (to make the "ambush" look authentic) and erase his memories of Claire, so the Company wouldn't be able to use his memory to track her down.

Long story short -- HRG needed a cover to explain why he hadn't turned Claire over to the Company sooner, and to divert suspicion away from him after she disappeared.

[Udaman]

I liked last night's episode as well...but not as much as the one from last week.

I agree about the questions:

1) Why didn't Haitian man suppress the radioactive guy (he did it earlier with Matt and with Syler, I believe)?

2) Why wasn't everyone else getting radioactive poisoning?

3) Why did they have to shoot HRG guy at the end - couldn't they simply knock him over the head and then erase his mind? The whole point was to make it look like they stole Claire - guess shooting him is pretty convincing - but still.

4) Why did Invisible guy not die at the beginning? He got shot twice. How could he have survived that - out in the middle of nowhere?

5) If Hiro's dad is part of The Company - why would he let Hiro go? Does he not realize his own son has a power?

But still - overall just a really good show leading us to a neat finish.

I do worry about next year, however. Lost was pretty damn good in year one as well - and then they seemed to run out of ideas.

[BlueDiablo]

Fantastic episode. I thought the flahsbacks were particularly effective. And I thought the hostage scenes were very well executed.

I don't understand why "Heroes" fans feel the need to trash "Lost" so much. I love both shows (though I think "Lost" is still better in terms of writing and acting, even if it requires more patience). Even if you prefer "Heroes," I think it's worth noting that "Heroes" couldn't do what it's doing if "Lost" hadn't done it successfully first.

[bhd28]

To answer one of Jason's questions, when Mo and S went to see the woman with 'super hearing,' Mo said that they found her because she had agreed after giving blood a few years ago to allow them to use some for the human genome project. Mo's dad was searching samples of people's DNA to see some tell-tale mutation that gave them powers.

In reality, of course, a mutation that affected hearing vs. one that affected memory would likely be in way different areas and different sorts of mutations (and I don't even know where to begin with where a mutation that allowed TK or flight would be). But the Human Genome Project was given as the 'reason' Dr. Suresh (sp?) found people.

[A-Tex Devil]

Still have to watch last night's episode, but I'm a spoiler junkie so I read this anyway.

I like Heroes, but I sometimes struggle to get through some of the hackneyed acting/dialogue. I am usually pretty patient with stuff like that (I LOVE 24 and it is very guilty of bad dialogue), but when I get Mohinder, Peter, Simone (gone), Eve (gone), Nikki's kid, Parkman's wife, that FBI agent played by Clea Duvall, the painter (to name the most guilty offenders) poorly executing bad dialogue, the overload gets frustrating. And this is why I think Lost is still superior.

I think the show is moving in the right direction adding actors like Jessalynn Gilsig (Claire's mom) and Peter Eccleston, and moving some of the worst offenders off the show or to the periphery. But as long as Peter and Mohinder are 2 of the most important characters, the cringe factor is going to remain.

Can't wait to watch the episode though.

[Blue Shark]

My wife (Devil in Disguise) & I have been totally hooked on Heroes since we saw an advance screening of the pilot at Comicon. Last night's episode was the best by far, IMO.

As far as everyone wondering about why the Haitian didn't stop the nuclear reaction, one theory is that the Haitian's powers only interfere/inhibit mental abilities (Parkman's telepathy, Sylar's telekinesis, Eve's power of persuasion). I don't know that we've seen him stop anyone with any kind of "physical" power (Nathan's flying, Claire's healing).

BTW, if you're a comic book junkie like me you'll already know about it, but the website comicbookresources.com has a weekly Q&A with two of the Heroes writers (Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite) on Mondays where they discuss the previous week's episode, preview this week's, etc. Good place to get a serious geek on, if you're that into the show.

[Exiled_Devil]

Man do I want to join in on the conversation...but work overwhelms.

One quick note - I went looking for the most recent web comic at nbc.com and found that they had the entire epsode up, with commentary. I think I may check that out tonight.


Exiled

[Tom B.]

As far as everyone wondering about why the Haitian didn't stop the nuclear reaction, one theory is that the Haitian's powers only interfere/inhibit mental abilities (Parkman's telepathy, Sylar's telekinesis, Eve's power of persuasion). I don't know that we've seen him stop anyone with any kind of "physical" power (Nathan's flying, Claire's healing).

I hadn't really thought about it before, but you might be on to something here. Off the top of my head, I can think of three instances in which the Haitian did not block or inhibit a character's power: Nathan flying in one of the early episodes (the one where Nathan was in Vegas and slept with JessNikki); Peter flying with Invisible Guy a week or two ago; and Invisible Guy's invisibility (same episode, same scene).

[Exiled_Devil]

I am not sure the Haitian has any blocking ability. Evil boss-man said he could pull memories...that's it. There is always the chance that some other company hero has the blocking ability, or some device in the paper factory.

I think radiation man may now have enought control to not poison people when he is not using his powers. But I agree- the exploding house scene requires some medical attention for the Bennet family.

I think that HRG shot invisible dude in the 'non-killing' spot that he so nicely explained later. Not sure about this, but it woud be interesting. Either that or invisible dude is just tough and bitter.

My guess is that Sulu knew abuot Hiro, and hid him. Just a hunch.

Jason asked about history - I think we are just being brought into the story along with these people who are just exhibiting new powers, but they clearly have a deeper universe of powered people here. They do need to show why noone has heard of this stuff, or historical figures who were secretly heroes (houdini? Rasputin?) my guess is that 'the company' will become a big deal in future seasons.

Speaking of, what's the over/under on a Hero-kidnapping joke at Dunder-Mifflin?

Sorry for the random jottings - suposed to be being productive.

Exiled

[Blue Shark]

Would you expect anything less from your fraternity brother & Oak Room companion? ;-)