"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Heroes Meets 12 Monkeys

Top notch Heroes last night - Season 2, Episode 7 - in which it becomes crystal clear that a deadly plague is this season's atom bomb in New York, and the only way to stop it is via time travel. Much like the general story of 12 Monkeys, the best time travel movie ever made. Time travelers and deadly plagues make for good stories.

The two heroes who can now time travel are Hiro and Peter (who absorbed Hiro's abilities). And maybe Kensei, who apparently makes a surprising appearance at the end of the episode, in the future (pretty much our time), as Adam, earlier identified as the leader of villains trying to kill the older generation of heroes. At very least, David Anders plays Adam as well as Kensei (who we thought died back in 1600s Japan in an explosion). The most likely explanation is Kensei, with something akin to Hiro's powers, time traveled/teleported out of the explosion in 1671 Japan, to the present in the United States....

Which raises some interesting questions. Did Kensei have this power all along? Does he have an absorbing power similar to Peter's? Did Kensei originate in the past or travel to the future, or vice versa?

As I've said before, I'm always in the mood for a good time travel story, and the combination of Hiro and Peter (individually) time traveling, and now likely Kensei/Adam, is enough for me start enjoying this year's Heroes more than last year's.

But there's other good stuff brewing. Claire's powers may once again be crucial to saving the day - this time, her recuperative power being the best antidote to a virus with no antidote. For some reason, I find this charming, not trite.

Matt has triumphed over his evil/misguided father, and freed Molly in the process. Niki's back in action but infected with the deadly virus. Nothing on Monica and her tv-mimic abilities last night, or Sylar and the deadly/cure brother and sister team. But with the overall story pulling together towards the deadly virus in New York - and Hiro at least back in our present if not yet in New York - Heroes is beginning to gather the irresistible narrative strength it began hinting at last year...







4-minute podcast of this Heroes review

========================================
If time-travel's your cup of tea, too, you might be interested in...




The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


Review of other Season 2 Heroes: Episode 2 ... 3
... 4 ... 9. How Immutable Are Fate and Isaac's Paintings? ... 10. Penultimate in Fall ... 11. My Predictions Last Week Were Right!








The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


more about The Plot to Save Socrates...

Get your own at Profile Pitstop.com



Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates
.... FREE!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Adam survived 400 years due to his regenerative ability, like Wolverine from X-Men. He did not time travel.

Paul Levinson said...

Good point.

But that would mean his regenerative capacity is not like Claire's, who apparently has aged at least from being a baby and a little girl.

For that matter, do we have any reason to think that Kensei's regenerative power could confer immortality?

(One point about Adam having regenerative power, though, is that Claire isn't the only one who can save Nikki etc from the virus.)

Anonymous said...

We've seen abilities develop, like Matt's.

But we've also seen Claire's ability develop. In Six Months Ago it took a day (or two?) for her hand to really heal, and by now she can cut off a toe and it regrows in a matter of seconds.

I wonder if one day her cell regeneration will be fast enough to keep her in optimal shape at all times, meaning that as soon as her body SHOULD start deteriorating (...is that the word? I think it is) it regenerates so that her cells stay young.

If that's so I think the same happened to Adam.

Capcom said...

Thanks for the great re-cap, I fell asleep watching it this week, dangitt.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the lack of aging in Adam (and possibly also in Claire?) has something to do with the body staying the same "age" as it was when the ability first manifested itself?

Paul Levinson said...

Good points, Lotte and anon.

But do we know that Claire's only recently kicked into play? If so - and maybe this was revealed last year, and I missed it (always possible with me) - then your explanation for Adam making it into the present makes a lot of sense.

But if Claire has had this capacity all of her life, then we would need something to explain why she and Kensei are regenerating into immortality at their specific ages....

Very interesting thread...

Anonymous said...

I just dug through the first season DVDs over the last couple weeks, so that's where I got the idea (Anonymous, above) of Claire's ability beginning to manifest at the time of the first season.

When she shoots the video of herself falling, runs into the fire, etc., it seems like that is the beginning of her awareness of her regeneration and she's trying to understand it. Theoretically one would think that something like that would be noticed if it had been happening for years.

The same with Adam - it seems logical that his ability had yet to manifest until he interacted with Hiro; surely a samurai warrior would have taken some sort of injury that would have regenerated and been noticed beforehand - so if no regeneration had been noticed, I'd presume none had happened yet.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add: Also, at the time of Clarie's handover from the Company to the personal care of Bennett, it is mentioned that *when* she begins to manifest, Bennett will have to return her back to the company. Therefore she hadn't had the ability since birth; but rather it developed at some arbitrary time, which appears to be for her around age 16, during the events of the first season.

Paul Levinson said...

Good points, Patrick - you've pretty much convinced me!

Anonymous said...

It could be that the regenerative power gets stronger with use. This seems to be true for most of the Heroes powers, Hiro, Matt, Claire etc... Kensei has used his power extensively. Just think of the battles he's been in that we haven't seen. He must have taken thousands of sword cuts by now. And look at what we have seen, he took a sword to the abdomen and just shrugged it off. It is very plausible that he could have lived 400 years due to his powers. The age that the evolved human with this power is at when they become immortal may be tied to when the come into the "full flower" of their ability.

Anonymous said...

As you all should know by now, they addressed how Adam stopped his own aging process in tonight's episode (9), I think they said from repeatedly regenerating or something, right?

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