Chapter 23 - "How To Stop An Exploding Man" - Discussion Thread 5/21/07

[David Rice]

Yeah DL should be dead from one bullet but Matt taking five and living is ok

Matt had a vest on.

He wasn't using more than one power at a time, though. He was "dead" when the glass hit him. He didn't heal until Claire pulled the glass out of his head.

 

[Mysterio]

My question remains... why were they able to stop it!? No single other painting has not come true, but now a couple haven't (Ando didn't die either). I spent this whole season convinced it would happen, and now that it didn't i'm just confused.

why are you confused? the entire season was about stopping the explosion and changing the future. the empty dialogue balloons in the final 9th world comic does suggest the future isn't completely known or finished; that is incomplete and able to be changed.

also, Isaac was never able to paint an event beyond his own death.

 

[Mr. Credible]

the one thing no-ones seems to have mentioned is the sheer amount of fallout an airburst nuclear bomb would cause. Everyone in new york would still die from radiation poisoning. It would simply be a more slow and painful death

well, supposedly the minimum safe distance is 10 miles... so, maybe they were 10 miles up? nathan i'm sure could've easily thrown peter that high, with the amount of momentum they had.

am i the only one that thinks hiro will somehow become 'kensei'? maybe the real kensei dies, and hiro takes his place, so as not to disrupt the space time continuum, or something?

i agree the episode did feel kind of anti-climatic. i wish they would have taken the time to explain more or what was going on, especially with peter not being able to 'turn off', and sylar someow surviving, and that flash of whatever in his eyes... and it upsets me greatly that peter is such a helmut when it comes to dealing with sylar.

what was the deal with peter's 'dream' with simone's dad? how did that happen? did simone's dad have some kind of obi-wan power that allowed him to speak to peter from beyond the grave?

peter looked cool as hell right before he and nathan took off. kind of like a a glo-worm.

peter and ando's last moment together was very touching, and very 'bad ass'.

um... that's all i got.

not the best episode of the season, but hardly bad at all. i think everyone that's hating on it is doing so because they were expecting it to have all the answers to the univers or something. they were hyping it up to be something greater than what it was meant to be.

 

[sethcohen]

why are you confused? the entire season was about stopping the explosion and changing the future. the empty dialogue balloons in the final 9th world comic does suggest the future isn't completely known or finished; that is incomplete and able to be changed.

also, Isaac was never able to paint an event beyond his own death.

actually he was able to paint beyond his death... up to five years according to "five years gone"
once he painted his own death, he became obsessed with it... fixated upon it... he couldnt get past it, hence, he couldnt paint past his own death

 

[3 Dev Adam]

I watched the episode again, and it got worse. The Peter/Skylar fight was even more anticlimatic. Great show, extremely lame season-ending episode.

 

[Mattchew]

i like the volume 2 thing but i kinda hope syler getting away is a nod to their comic book style, saving him for stories down the road, as opposed to him being a villain next season.

 

[Mysterio]

actually he was able to paint beyond his death... up to five years according to "five years gone"

what did he paint up to five years beyond his death? i can't think of anything. Five Years Gone was a possible future.

once he painted his own death, he became obsessed with it... fixated upon it... he couldnt get past it, hence, he couldnt paint past his own death

i don't think he became obsessed with it since he never knew what he was going to paint while in his altered state. he couldn't see beyond his death.


well after going through the writers Q&A archives, they seem to contradict themselves:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]In last week's BTE you guys said, "Also, did you see how many paintings Isaac painted of his own death? They were all over the place. Isaac couldn't paint past his own death, but hopefully he left enough clues for Hiro and the others to help stop Sylar." Does that mean he could never paint the future past his death or that as his death drew closer (no pun intended) he was only able to paint that far ahead?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Isaac drew Suresh injecting the Haitian, so it's safe to say he can paint beyond his own lifetime (You guys really like “Quantum Leap,” huh?). We imagine if you stated painting your own death, you'd want a second opinion, then a third, and it would be hard to focus on anything else. [/FONT]


but they also said Mohinder was two when his sister died, then the other night he said she died before he was born. so...

 

[Spidey Lover 10]

hmmmm....if voldemort from HP had a liutenent....SYLAR WOULD B PERFECT!

 

[sethcohen]

what did he paint up to five years beyond his death? i can't think of anything. Five Years Gone was a possible future.

i don't think he became obsessed with it since he never knew what he was going to paint while in his altered state. he couldn't see beyond his death.


well after going through the writers Q&A archives, they seem to contradict themselves:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]In last week's BTE you guys said, "Also, did you see how many paintings Isaac painted of his own death? They were all over the place. Isaac couldn't paint past his own death, but hopefully he left enough clues for Hiro and the others to help stop Sylar." Does that mean he could never paint the future past his death or that as his death drew closer (no pun intended) he was only able to paint that far ahead?[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Isaac drew Suresh injecting the Haitian, so it's safe to say he can paint beyond his own lifetime (You guys really like “Quantum Leap,” huh?). We imagine if you stated painting your own death, you'd want a second opinion, then a third, and it would be hard to focus on anything else. [/FONT]


but they also said Mohinder was two when his sister died, then the other night he said she died before he was born. so...

you just proved my point

 

[MakeMineMarvel]

Wow, no one thinks that Uluru may have pulled Sylar down into the sewers, huh? Maybe I'm the only one that thinks so ...

Personally, I liked the episode. Every supposed inconsistency that has been pointed out can be explained away, if not through reasoning, than probably through season two. Regenerating ability of Peter or not, it's still tough for a 16 year old girl to shoot someone close to them. Peters overloaded on powers and can't control them, so flying is out of the question (do they have to spell out everything?) Did Hiro "press pause" to stab Sylar? I'd have to watch it again to be sure, but possibly. Why did Nikki smack Sylar with the meter? Um, two guys are fighting and one just took a shot from a parking meter and the guy who did it is aiming for shot number two - who do you think the bad guy is? As far as DL catching a bullet - depending on where he's actually hit and how much blood he's lost, he's still potentially able to do quite a bit - moreso because the bullet is still there, keeping bile and other things from rushing into the open space.

Yeah, I would have liked a better end-fight between Sylar and Peter, but as was mentioned - it's an hour long drama ... 42-45 minutes without commercials. You can't get the story out and spend 10-12 minutes of the show fighting.

 

[hippy fascist]

ok I can't be bothered to retype all this so I'll just copy and paste a conversation I had about this with someone else:

it wasn't about saving pete, it was about saving everyone else.

also peter told claire to shoot him in the brain. Remember what happened when someone shot ted in the chest, just made things worse.

Pete would have died if claire shot him as it would take out his healing ability as well as the radioation manipulation.

Also, haven't the producer's ever heard of the concept of radioactive fallout
An airburst would kill just as many people as an explosion. It would simply result in longer and more painful deaths...

shooting peter in the brain, i figured would just make for a moment liek with Wolvie in X2.

no, take out the brain and it all goes. Remember when pete faced sylar and got that chunk of glass stuck in their. Someone had to take it out before he could heal. A handgun from that range would have hollowed out his skull. There'd be no brain left to pull the bullet out of

one theory I heard with regards nathan is that it was meeting claire that made him change his mind. In the alternate timeline he never met claire. Hence the line, you saved the cheerleader so we could save the world. He's always viewed his powers as an embarrassment but to see his daughter with powers and what all this meant to her changed him in some fundamental way.

the explosion was down to the fact that this was his first encounter with mikah,dl, molly and jess. 4 sets of powers suddenly being absorbed on top of his already unstable nuclear ability. Think of it like a power surge causing a fuse to blow. He was already having to work damn hard to control it, so the sudden influx of powers threw him. If I remember right he actually passed out when he came into contact with sylar for the first time for exactly the same reason.

Hope this solves some of those "plot holes"

 

[db85usa]

i believe the creators of the show said the characters we love will cycle OUT of the show, while new characters would cycle IN. now, this doesn't necessarily mean that these characters we love die... perhaps they leave us with the question... are they dead? if not, where are they? i believe some characters stories are complete and they purposely want to leave us with the question of WHERE ARE THEY? (Peter, Nathan, Parkman, etc.) I don't know WHO will return... But I believe there is always going to be that famous question... Where are they? Are they dead? Alive? We don't know.....

 

[Mysterio]

edit: nevermind

 

[The_Beav]

Since Peter was near Nikki/Jessica, perhaps he will become Peter/Nathan. God would THAT be annoying.

 

[Caliber]

i believe the creators of the show said the characters we love will cycle OUT of the show, while new characters would cycle IN. now, this doesn't necessarily mean that these characters we love die... perhaps they leave us with the question... are they dead? if not, where are they? i believe some characters stories are complete and they purposely want to leave us with the question of WHERE ARE THEY? (Peter, Nathan, Parkman, etc.) I don't know WHO will return... But I believe there is always going to be that famous question... Where are they? Are they dead? Alive? We don't know.....

The only ones we're not sure of is Peter and Nathan. Sylar got away but Peter should come back since he can heal. Nathan is dead because unless he has super strength then he could have survived. I doubt they would start off with completly new character without the older ones around. Parkman looks dead and somehow DL didn't die.

 

[Mysterio]

I know the writers have said they want to have the character back, so I'm just throwing it out there, but how do we know Sylar got away? Everyone was at the plaza. Don't you think someone would've noticed if he just disappeared?

 

[The Lizard]

I think Sylar was dragged away, not that he escaped on his own. He's supposed to be dead after all, so I just assumed his body was removed for further study by persons unknown.

OK, so we've established that Peter couldn't fly away on his own while going nuclear because that would have been using two powers at once. I think the only thing that kind of disappointed me a bit was that the whole Peter/Sylar throwdown wasn't as great as it could have been. I realize that there are budget limitations on TV shows, but there really should have been more of a payoff in terms of Peter and Sylar using lots of different powers on each other, as well as more involvement by the other heroes present besides that one parking meter bashing from Nikki.

Still the best show on TV however.

 

[Superman79]

I'm just glad to see that Nate was vindicated and came back to the right side. Too bad he's probably dead

Unless he flew so fast as to "throw" Pete into the stratosphere and thus escape harm himself, but I doubt it...then again with Kring who knows.

Sylar better damn well be dead. I want a new villan. I like the theory he was Dragged Away...

Wonder if we'll see HRG and Claire again, or if they will just be assumed to be living "normal lives" now...or maybe they'll be gone for a while and drawn back into the action halfway thru next season...

As for the Nuke fallout from Pete. I figure he was taken high enough into the atmosphere so as to negate the impact of the fallout (the ozone layer DOES act to protect us from radiation)...I'm no science guy, but that's my theory...

Damn I hope Pete AND Nate come back...

 

[The Question]

am i the only one that thinks hiro will somehow become 'kensei'? maybe the real kensei dies, and hiro takes his place, so as not to disrupt the space time continuum, or something?

Am I the only one who noticed that Kensei was played by George Tekei?

 

[Superman79]

I'd love to see the Petrelli brothers both return next season to go head to head with the villian their mother seems to have become...that would be some serious greek-tragedy type stuff!

 

[samurai black]

I'm not going to rant all about the season finale and how it was anticlimatic. In terms of storyline, it tied up everyone's journey. There wasn't anyone who we were left saying, What happened to him? Yeah, we don't know what people are doing next season, but that's the point of watching season 2 isn't it? I think they did a good job of setting up for next season with the apparnet non death of sylar and the new "Bad Guy". I've seen some people talking about some rock monster, but i highly doubt that this show would explore that far into sci-fi territory as to have the main villian be a totally computer animated monster. Our new villian will probably be more of a genius than a brute, which makes for much better story telling. And yes,i thought that we were going to see more of Peter vs Sylar 3, but if both characters are alive next season, then we can have rounds 4,5,6 and so on(which is what i would much rather have). And i think it's been made official that Peter can't use mutliple powers yet bc he doesn't have the training, so hopefully during the break in episodes, we learn that Peter and Claude reunited(now that he can track anyone) and he learns how to master his powers.

 

[SouLeSS]

the one thing no-ones seems to have mentioned is the sheer amount of fallout an airburst nuclear bomb would cause. Everyone in new york would still die from radiation poisoning. It would simply be a more slow and painful death

Thats one of the things I at. It would a) Start a huge war. b) Destory the Ozone and climate for the area, and c) Fallout from the explosion would kill all the people anyway due to prolonged radiation exposure.

You know, unless they're going to say that "They flew into outer space". In which case, theres no way either of them could return for next season. I mean, if the bomb was going to wipe out half of NYC on the ground, it would be pretty powerful, to where it would have a huge effect on things.

 

[marcofthebeast]

Am I the only one who noticed that Kensei was played by George Tekei?

I noticed that aswell, His eyes are very recognizable.

 

[GNR]

Pete and Nathan will come back next season.

 

[AssMan]

I would not be surprised that while Peter is falling from the sky & stuff he remembers that Hiro can TELEPORT because he saw Hiro appear out of no where behind Sylar & Peter will TELEPORT to safety