Gang Members Get New Suit

No, not clothes. The city of Fort Worth has filed a lawsuit against one of the city's gangs. Read the entire article here: http://www.nbc5i.com/news/13388639/detail.html?rss=dfw&psp=news.

Honestly, I'm having a little bit of trouble following the logic here, so maybe someone out there can enlighten me. I've got two basic assumptions going into this, and either or both of them may be incorrect, so I'll let you check them out:

1. It seems to me that when you file a lawsuit, you have a basic assumption that both parties involved are going to obey the terms of the ruling. Basically, you assume at some level that everyone involved intends to follow the law and that some disagreement over how that should happen needs to be resolved by a judge. Of course it's true that one of the parties in a lawsuit has broken the law, but their defense will be that they haven't or that it was justified.
   
2. On the other hand, I also assume that members of a gang generally intend to break the law. They knowingly and deliberately violate statutes both as entertainment and for initiation. Their general objective is to become their own law enforcement in the area where they reside and they flaunt the fact that they don't have to follow the rules of the establishment.
   

Given that both of my assumptions are true, then what's the point of a lawsuit? Does anyone really expect the gang members to abide by the decision that is handed down (like we can't already assume that it will be in favor of the city)? Why are tax payer dollars being spent to fund a case that can't possibly go anywhere?

Based on the information provided in the article, it seems that the best case scenario is that the judge will rule that the gang has to reduce street crime. The gang is not going to care about that ruling any more than they cared about the laws that were already in place in the first place. So now the police are still trying to enforce the same laws that already existed before the lawsuit.

It seems to me that a better course of action would be for the city to spend money and resources on either creating or improving the statutes that will allow law enforcement to better police the gangs and increase conviction rates. Or to spend money on increasing the police presence so that arrests and convictions can be made. A lawsuit against a gang is just silly.

Help! I’ve Failed, and I Can’t Walk

I'm sure that most of you have heard about the big stink over the Texas seniors who have failed the TAKS test (sometimes more than once) and now are not going to be allowed to walk the stage with their class. Just so you know, I don't agree with the current implementation of the TAKS test system, but it is the rule right now. Therefore, although I feel bad for these kids that have waited all of their lives graduate, I cannot condone allowing them to walk the stage in mockery of the students that actually applied themselves and completed the requirements for graduation. It's disrespectful to the teachers, it's disrespectful to the students that are eligible to graduate, and it's completely inappropriate to say that you get to walk the stage just because you went to school. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well start letting juniors that don't want to wait another year walk the stage. Why not? They haven't earned the right either, they just want to.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, I think the best part of the story is summed up in a picture that I found associated to a news article (http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa070524_wz_taksprotest.6fe879b.html). Apparently, the students figured that the best way to get the administration to change their minds and allow them to walk is to stage a picket line. "It's how intelligent people protest. It works for unions. It works for GreenPeace. Surely it will work for us," they must have thought. I can't really imagine why the administration has not been swayed when they see the intelligent arguments presented in black and white on the picket signs. I mean check this picture out and tell me if you could in good conscience say that this person doesn't deserve to graduate:

Now let the comments roll in!

Origins

For those of us that don't want to have to wait until the fall to see more of the Heroes universe, we're in luck. There is going to be a short, six-episode mini-season over the summer. It will be called Origins and it will deal with other characters from the universe. They say that it won't tie directly to the main storyline, but one of the characters introduced may carry over to season two.

Also, I know that some of you are wondering if Sylar has Claude's power or not since it seems like he might have been invisible at some points in the past couple of episodes. I still believe that that would have been a major plot development that they would have shown more directly, and as it turns out the show is in negotiations with the actor that plays Claude to bring him back next season. Unless they are only going to show him in flashbacks, then it seems that Sylar still hasn't killed him.

See all details in this article:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news07/070523i.php

How to Stop an Exploding Man

Well, the season ended with a bang, and now we've got the long summer wait until we see what happens in Volume 2. Highlight below for my thoughts through the end of this season.

D.L. lives on. Is it just me or is anyone else wondering what kind of degree Mohinder really has? He's supposed to have been teaching genetics at the beginning of the season but the last four or five episodes he's been more of a junior M.D. Last night he was even patching up D.L. in the hallway as if he's even got some paramedic training. I'm sure at most universities being able to draw blood, diagnose diseases, treat the sick, and patch up gunshot wounds in the field are prerequisites for doing genetics research, teaching, and writing books. I guess it's just TV land and they figure that most people won't realize the difference in types of doctors.

Candice tried to fool Niki, but Niki finally saw her own reflection and realized that it was an illusion. That seemed a little odd to me since Niki and Jessica have never spoken to one another except through a mirror. I would have figured that Niki would realize that it wasn't Jessica from the very first instant. Oh well. It was kind of cool, though, that Niki finally took control of the power and put a beat down on Candice. Surprisingly, Candice's body appeared the same as we normally see her when she was unconscious, so either she's convinced her subconscious that that is what is she really looks like so that she can maintain the illusion even while asleep or my theory from last week is incorrect and that's really what she looks like. Now that Linderman is dead, though, will Candice continue to be a force for evil? My guess is that she will just start working for Mama Petrelli.

Speaking of Mama Petrelli, I have a theory about her. I think that she has a power, and I think that it is precognition. I think that she dreams about the future, and that she originally told Linderman about the bomb and that because of her dream she believed that it was inevitable. I think that's also part of the reason that she knew about Nathan and Peter's powers before they did and that's how she continues to stay one step ahead of everyone. Besides, she's the only character that we know of that Peter had contact with before his first dream where he saw Nathan fly, so I think Peter got that power from his mother. My guess is that we'll find out a lot more about Mama Petrelli next season when she's trying to deal with the aftermath of the failed plan.

Parkman is a freaking idiot. "I'm a cop, he's a bad guy. I'm going after him." What a moronic statement. They just left out the follow up line to that, "Oh and by the way, when I do go after him, I'm going to be sure to not wear any Kevlar or take any backup because there's no way that a guy that has the power to cut people's heads open and then do whatever he does to their brains would ever try to kill me." What an imbecile. He deserves to die regardless of what that sappy little kid thinks. Besides, Peter's got his power now, so we don't really need him running around looking like he's constipated every time he hears someone's thoughts anymore.

Molly and Micah sitting in a tree… Anyone else thinking that we saw the first spark of juvenile romance on the show when Micah called the elevator and became Molly's new hero? She'll get over Parkman soon enough as long as Micah is around to be her prince charming. I just hope that neither of them gets too much screen time next season. They're cute and all, but this show is not about cute, it's supposed to be fairly serious adult drama and kids don't play into that very well.

Claire is supposed to be Nathan's daughter, but I'm wondering if she's not related to Parkman. For a moment there it was like a flashback to the first season of 24. Remember back in the day when Jack Bauer's wife and daughter did everything they could think of to make sure that they were going to be kidnapped? What the heck was Claire thinking when she left Peter? And then she stayed with Grandma (who looked very much like a wicked witch at the time)? And then she disobeyed HRG and ran back into the fire? I hope that she grows up some next season. That whole deal last night just seemed too contrived as a way to get her to see Nathan one more time and let him know that she would sacrifice her life to stop the bomb.

Hiro managed to save Ando and drop him back at work, and he left him the sword so that he'll have to go back. Of course, right after that he told Ando that he didn't need the sword anymore, so maybe then he won't be back. Who knows? The point is that he ended up saving Ando and stabbing Sylar. Right after that, Sylar threw him through the air and Hiro teleported away. Interestingly, he seems to have gone back in time to see Kensei fight, and I have to say that Kensei looked an awful lot like Mr. Nakamura. Do you suppose that Mr. Nakamura is Kensei? Do you suppose that he something of an immortal and that he's been waiting for centuries to find Hiro? Do you suppose that that's why he told the stories to Hiro as a child? And do you think that that's how he knows about sword fighting? I think we're going to find out all about it early in the next season.

Now to the best part. Peter somehow talked with Mr. Deveaux and found out that his mother wanted the bomb to go off. He also found out that Mr. Deveaux believed that the world would look to Peter and not Nathan after the explosion. I have no idea how Peter managed to have that conversation. Next, Peter realized that he had to stop Sylar.

Last week, I wondered about whether Peter would absorb all of Sylar's collected powers when they met or not, and in the "scenes from last week" at the beginning of this episode I realized that we already know the answer. When Peter was training with Claude, he displayed the ability to control objects with his mind just like Sylar. He obviously got that power after meeting Sylar at Claire's school, and that is one of Sylar's collected powers. So why didn't he get the rest when they met in Mohinder's apartment? Or why didn't he use them?

Then, in this episode, when he finally met up with Sylar, he started to go nuclear. He said that he was absorbing all of "his" (presumably Sylar) powers and that he couldn't do anything. That seems like a bit of an inconsistency to me. He should have already had basically all of Sylar's powers except the one that he took from Ted, which he already had because he had met Ted. How could that have overloaded his system? Why didn't it overload him before?

Nathan did end up having a change of heart, and like we theorized back at the beginning of the season, he flew off with Peter to save the city. Presumably Nathan is now dead and Peter will survive because of his ability to regenerate. I'm sad to see Nathan gone now that he's changed his heart, but only having the ability to fly isn't really all that special anyway.

Sylar got stabbed, but it seems that he's not completely dead based on the bloody trail leading to the sewer. I really thought that they should have killed him completely and created a new villain for next season, but I'm not too disappointed as long at Peter and Sylar get to have a few more showdowns.

Looking forward to next season, it seems that Niki has gotten control of Jessica and will be a good guy. D.L., Parkman, and Peter will probably live and be good guys. Hiro, Claire, Micah, and Molly will all be good guys. Ando, Mohinder, and Mr. Bennett (Like the first name Noah? He's trying to save the ones with powers from a flood of evil men?) will be helping the good guys.

Sylar and Candice will live and be bad guys. Mama Petrelli will take over where Linderman left off and try to get control of the company and will be trying to lead the bad guys.

Landslide - Again

I finally got to see the episode, and it was great. I'm pretty pumped about the finale tonight. As always, highlight below to see my notes.

How many people are going to be left when this season is over? Four deaths in just one episode, and let's not even talk about all the cool guys that Sylar's killed in episodes past. If we keep going at this rate, Claire and Mr. Muggles will be the only returning cast members.

So, D.L. is apparently dead after confronting Linderman. Not to be outdone, though, Linderman is also dead after having his brain forcibly removed by D.L. What a cool move. The only lurking question here is whether or not that piece of Linderman's brain is going to heal D.L. Sylar gets power from others by removing pieces of their brain (and doing something with them) and Claire and Peter could only be stopped (paused not killed) by something embedded in a certain section of their brain, so there's a bit of precedent so far to allow the writers to keep D.L. around. Personally, I'm still hoping to end that whole storyline, I'll be happy to see him go.

Before his death, Linderman gave Nathan two gifts. First, he healed his wife so she can walk again. Ironic, I think, since Linderman is also the one that caused the wreck which originally took her ability to walk. Second, he rigged the election so that Nathan won by a landslide. A foolish move if you ask me, but it's TV land. Seems to me like it would have been more plausible for Nathan to win by a slim margin and avoid any probing investigations by the other candidates. As long as it was close to the predicted margin of error, things are believable, but his standings in the pre-election polls make a landslide victory very unlikely and very suspicious.

Nathan is apparently on board with the plan to let NYC explode and elevate himself to the White House. Even with a warning from Hiro, he doesn't seem ready to change course. Of course, neither Hiro nor Nathan realize at this point that it's actually Sylar who ended up in the Oval Office, which actually gives me some hope. In order for Sylar to have Nathan's power, he had to kill him, so I'm hoping that that foreshadows a change of heart from Nathan so that he joins the fight to stop the explosion and in the process he's faces Sylar. I hope that he is not killed, though, because I mostly like his character.

Peter got some cool new toys when he met Parkman and Sprague. First, he managed to get the nuclear power under control, and then he also picked up that cool ability to read minds. What occurred to me at that moment, though, is why didn't he also pick up all of the collected powers of Sylar when the two of them met in Mohinder's apartment? Did he just absorb Sylar's one true power – the ability to detect powers in others and then do whatever to their brains? I would think that he would have gotten them all, though. Give me your thoughts on this.

Sprague was another victim of Sylar's this week after a tip off to the FBI. How brash is that man, to actually stand there and talk to the FBI when he's the real threat? Anyway, in response to Caci's previous comment, I think he just walked away. I assume that Caci's comment refers to the fact that Sylar wasn't there when Agent Hanson turned around, but I don't think that he used Claude's power to be invisible. I think he just disappeared into the huge crowd of people. If he had the ability to actually become invisible, I think we would have seen that more directly like we did with Peter and Claire fleeing the scene.

Now that Sprague is dead, both Peter and Sylar have the nuclear power to blow up NYC. Sylar believes it's his destiny to be the bomb, so it seems most likely that he'll be the one to explode, but in the future, it was actually Peter that blew up. I still don't understand what's going to happen there. Of course, if Peter blows up there's the possibility that he would heal himself and survive. If Sylar blows up, wouldn't he just be gone since he doesn't have Claire's power? Why would he do that to himself?

On the other side of town, Parkman and HRG infiltrated the building where Micah and Molly are being held. They took out Thompson with a cool bit of dialog: "What am I thinking now?"/"Your last thought." And have now ended up in a standoff with Mohinder over Molly's life. Molly must be pretty confused since Parkman saved her life once and now he seems to be there to hurt her, but I think the situation can be defused pretty easily if everyone works together to just get her out of that building and let her work for the good guys.

Micah's usefulness to Linderman is over, but Linderman is dead. I assume that Niki will rescue him and keep all of the money, so here's hoping that they just retire to Vegas and lay low for a season or two or the rest of the series.

Candice raised an interesting point to Micah in this past episode, too. When Micah said that he knew someone else that ate junk food all time and they were overweight, Candice seemed to indicate that the familiar face we see might also be an illusion. She went on to talk about other people and hint at some self-esteem issues which makes me think that she was teased until she figured out her power and now she wants to get back at all the people that she perceives as being mean and unfair to those that are different.

Finally, Hiro and Ando met back up with Mr. Nakamura. Interestingly, Mr. Nakamura indicated that he had been waiting for someone to carry on the family legacy which seems to indicate that Hiro may be descended from a line of others with powers and that Mr. Nakamura himself may have some. Of secondary interest is the training. I've seen plenty of martial arts movies and done some martial arts in real life. I find it hard to believe that Hiro learned sword fighting in a single afternoon. I wonder if somehow they didn't spend more time in training that the amount of time that had passed in the outside world. Now that Ando is out on his own, though, Hiro is conflicted. He's got a mission to kill Sylar, but he also wants to protect his friend. Which will he choose?

They are all together in NYC finally, and the end is coming quickly. I can't wait to watch tonight and find out what happens.