24 Questions for Season 4, Week 19
CBR: The big Heroes For Autism event is coming up. Will you guys be in attendance?
Joe Pokaski & Aron Coliete: Heck yeah! It’s for a great cause and The Band From TV rocks. Watching Greg Grunberg on the skins is well worth any price of admission. Of course, it might be an early night. Unlike our actor co-workers, we have to work the next day – and if we can’t get some scripts written, then they just become “The Band.”
We had a lot of questions this week, coming from all different angles on the return of Hiro’s ability, or is it abilities? What can Hiro do now exactly?
Hiro can freeze time. That’s it.
Does Hiro have to continue to be in contact with Baby Touch-And-Go, will he lose his “charge” over time or is it now permanently “on?”
Hiro can freeze Time. That’s it. But he doesn’t need to be touching the baby any more. Because then he’s be some sort of time freezing baby-touching guy. And well, ewww…
Since Hiro’s power was “removed” by Papa Petrelli, would Baby Touch-And-Go’s power give other people abilities or does it just restore powers that were removed?
Nope. Hmmm…what’s the right analogy for this crowd? Baby Touch-And-Go is the “Scythe” and he/it only works on potential Slayers. Anyone?
Is the fact that Hiro did not get his full range of abilities back a shortcoming of Hiro’s (much like how Peter just gained the ability to have one power at a time), or is it due to the baby’s age?
We’re going to go for the former.
Things didn’t seem like they ended well with Matt and Janice, why name the baby after Matt after all?
What people say and how they actually feel often diverge. We’ll get a sense of how Janice really feels in episode 24 this season, “I am Sylar” – but don’t let the title fool you. She’s not really Sylar.
Elixir95 thinks a rule has been broken:
“Now correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the ‘Rule of Ted’ apply to Tracy? At the beginning of this season, Nathan stated something along the lines of ‘Your hands aren't even cold.’ If she wasn't immune to her powers, she wouldn't have frozen over.”
“The rule of Ted?” – who makes these things up, E95. Oh. Us? Hmmm…. Well, thanks for paying attention. We guess.
We think in this case, that rule is over-ridden by the “grandma lifting the car” postulate, which is the foundation of the show on some level. It posits that a human being, any human being, will do whatever it takes to save a loved one. Even break the rule of Ted…
Brian Lewis doesn’t care about the Sylar/Peter showdown, there is another one he wants to see:
“Will we get to see a Matt and Danko showdown before the end of this volume? After all he strapped a bomb to him, murdered the woman he loved and let's not forget threatened his infant son and ex-wife.”
Brian Lewis, boy are you are going to love episode 22 next week, where that very thrilla will be delivered. In a manila envelope. And by manila envelope, we mean Matt is going to have an awesomely cathartic scene.
Joey Stabile has a different showdown in mind:
“Throughout the three seasons so far, Sylar and Nathan have never had an onscreen interaction; is there any plans for this to happen in this season or the next?”
Joey. Please remember you said this. Please remember it for exactly 4 weeks.
Caleb Warren wants to know about the Unknown:
“A while back, you or some other writer mentioned that The Nine Unknown Men were part of the inspiration for ‘Heroes.’ Should we still be watching for some of those themes in the storyline?”
Absolutely – but we swear to our gods that we want to use them in a more explicit way – maybe next season. We hope. We pray.
“Along those same lines, Li'l Matt's power of System Activation is really cool, but it got me thinking. He can turn things off, right? Does that include people? Meaning he could just kill someone with a touch, kind of like one of the afore-mentioned Men or turn off someone’s ability like the Haitian?”
Wow. A person-killing Baby? Did you just pitch that, Caleb? Seriously? We’re just getting to know Baby Touch-And-Go. And we promise some great screen time for him going into next season.
Blaze is hoping that Heroes goes even more global:
“’Heroes’ is definitely a global phenomenon; I've been lucky enough to travel to many places in the world and it seems like everywhere I go, you can find people who are really into the show. The show does a great job representing the world as well with characters from Japan, India, South America and even Africa. When are we gonna see some Chinese influence? You have to figure with the world's largest population, China has to have some people with powers just hanging around.”
We couldn’t agree more. We’ve been looking for an opportunity to tell a China story for all of those reasons – and for all of those reasons, we want to do it right – with enough time and space to tell a story befitting of the amount of people there. So stay tuned.
Cory wants to know the spin:
“A guy walks into Washington DC with a bomb strapped to him, and it's caught on Television cameras and helicopters. In my experience, news agencies try to follow a good story. Parkman is in a room in building 26, not in any sort of a jail. Wouldn't the news agencies be trying to follow this story? People that committed a terrorist act on National TV don't get shipped off the face of the earth to Guantanamo without some reporter noticing he's gone because they want to follow the trial. How is it explained that he's not in prison, he's not on trial, and he's nowhere to be found?”
Just because we’re not showing the in-depth news on the show doesn’t mean it’s not happening. In the background of Episode 20, we saw lots of news coverage of the story – we hoped that would be our way of saying that people were interested in the story.
Blooregard Q. Kazoo, who is from the U.K. and not from a certain home for imaginary friends, asks:
“We've now seen Matt Jr.'s power, and it has been referred to by Hiro as ‘Touch-And-Go.’ My question is will this ability allow Peter to correct his power, and therefore gain back his ‘empath’ ability?”
That’s certainly one of several possibilities for the two characters. But not for this season.
Brainlock wants to know if he missed something:
“In the week 18 BTE, you said we would find out about Audrey's status. There wasn't even a mention of the FBI, let alone Audrey, what happened? One would think that the only 'civilian' to the cast who has dealt with Sylar would be a valuable asset to Danko, or does he think her connection with Matt has 'soured' her to his gameplan?”
I think H.R.G. is probably the resident Sylar expert, at least until tonight. The Audry line may have been cut from epsidoe 20, so our apologies, but we remain looking for the perfect time, place and story for Clea Duvall, who all can’t wait to work with again.
Brainlock also sent in about eight questions about Molly, so we decided to let one of them slide:
“Has Mohinder ever let Matt in on the fact he sent Molly away? There was a two-month gap he could have done it in between volumes, and Matt doesn't seem to mind her absence.”
Seriously? Eight questions? We’re starting to understand your nickname, Brainlock.
It is our understanding that Matt and Mohinder talked about it as soon as humanly possible. And they decided it as best to put her in India with Mohinder’s mom. So a tough decision, but we think the right on for both Suresh and Matt.
Tenshi thinks Rebel should meet his Employee Of The Month:
“Will Micah and Claire interact with each other? Seeing that Claire appears to be the biggest agent for rebel in helping out those who are like them, and Micah is rebel, shouldn't we see them helping out others together?”
You’d expect that, wouldn’t you, Tenshi? So that’s probably why we won’t show it this season – but wait till you see who Micah ends up meeting up with in episode 24. And hang on for the summer webcomics.
Erik Smith wants to see more Brea Grant:
“The incredibly heartbreaking Paris scene in ‘Cold Snap’ will stay with me for a long time. I really wanted Matt and Daphne to be together. Perhaps she could take over for Usutu as Matt's spirit guide?”
Daphne’s dead, baby. Daphne’s dead. We love the Brea Grant, we do. But if she comes back, then the Paris scene is a bit lessened isn’t it. Then we spent all that money on that set for nothing.
Scott Nguyen is tracking down an answer to his question:
“At the beginning of the chapter, we see David Lawrence XVII (Eric Doyle) ‘strung up’ in Danko's apartment in front of a window. We are led to believe that Sylar left him there as a gift for Danko to gain some sort of trust in him.”
Yes. Yes we are. Were going to learn a lot more about the Sylar/Danko gift in the teare of tonight’s episode: “Into Asylum.” Written by some hack named Pokaski and directed by our very own producing god, Jim Chory.
“My question is, if Eric Doyle was in Costa Verde, CA with Claire and Sylar was in the northeast region (I'm assuming), how did Sylar manage to track down Eric Doyle and trek him across the U.S. to Danko's apartment in Washington DC?”
Have you met that guy? He understands how things work. And he’s got a few arrow in his quiver. Plus – we don’t know where Doyle was headed at he left Claire.
In all seriousness, we wanted to tell the story of their meeting in episode 19 – but the budget and scheduling issues got in our way.
Katherine The Great thinks Rebel’s identity might not have been so secret:
“Was it just me, or did it seem like HRG and Angela already had a good idea who rebel was?”
It was just you, we think. Which is great, Katherine.
Michelle is curious if Traci might be changing her ways:
“When Traci called out to Micah at the end of the episode, it really reminded me of Nikki. Is Traci going to start changing her ways from now on?”
Traci is dead. Unless you can come back from the dead after slushing into the sewers.
TimeTravelJosh is curious if this is the first time we have seen Matt Parkman Jr.:
“Is Matt Parkman, Jr. the same kid as Matthew from Five Years Gone? Do they have the same power?”
Yes. And yes. You now have a sense as to why it was so important for Matt to work with H.R.G. to keep him safe. It’s a heck of a power. Awesome attention paying, T.T.J. - and look forward to next year as we see a man trying to protect his very powerful son.
Blingies has a question about bling:
“Are we ever going to see the helix symbol again? The last of it i can recall is when Flint had it cut into his face and blood coming out. And what about the Helix necklace? Can we please see the appearance of the necklace again as it was so cool to see the Haitian wearing it, although he did pass it on to Peter.”
We will see the helix and necklace again. Soon (enough) – and often. You have our relatively unreliable word…