Talk about Niki Sanders and her bad-girl alter ego here!

For those wondering where "Jessica" comes from, Greg Beeman first mentioned it in his blog, Beaming Beeman, for Episode 5, and then again in Episode 6.

Greg is a co-exectutive producer and also a director for the series. He mentions he directed Episodes 3 and 6.

Read: 6. Stolen Time (graphic novel @ nbc.com)

well then.. now we're on to something... why have a seperate name if she is really just Niki.

hmmm?

The thing that bugs me about Niki is that I'd like to just think she's someone with super powers and a severe psychosis but the fact that that tattoo only shows up when she's She-Hulk puts the kabosh on that idea. Somehow her dual-identity manifests itself physically, literally replacing the "real" Niki. I'm finding this little quirk to be leaning real hard against the outer limits of my ability to suspend my disbelief. It goes from a simply entertaining "unlikely" to a nagging "improbable" for me.

I'm real curious to see if Hiro's upcoming trip back in time is to save the gamblers from her and if Ando's presence is key to her not ripping him into hero bits.

He was "Jessica's" main client, if she was the one stripping online. Maybe you are onto something there.

just wanted to point out in beeman's blog, he doesn't claim that "jessica" is an actual name for the character on the show, he says "we call her jessica" as if the crew uses "jessica" to refer to nikki's other personality. it doesn't imply one way or another if there is a seperation or not.

actual quote:

"Then, her alter-ego is introduced ? a cool and in-control character we call ?Jessica.?

I wonder if "jessica" is a reference to similarities to jessica rabbit? unlikely, but it makes me smile.

The best name I've read for Nikki's alter ego is Ikkin

Nikki / Ikkin

Seems to make sense to me and it's pretty clever.



I always refer to "her" as Ikkin.

I don't suppose anyone here remembers either SYBIL or THE THREE FACES OF EVE? Both were docudrams based on famous cases of Multiple Personality Disorder. In the latter film, the woman had three names-- Eve White (her legal name), Eve Black (her libertine alter ego), and Jane (the fusion of the two that seemingly left her cured at film's end).

For a more comics oriented comparison, consider BILLY BATSON (a teenager) and CAPTAIN MARVEL (his adult, superheroic self).

I am sure that Jess has some kind of super strength.

1. in the comic she ripped a door off of a safe. Not an easy task.

2. the people she kills are all ripped in half and stuff.. stop your video for a second on the poker game scene.. nasty stuff and that wouldnt be easy to do at all.

3. She knocked a full grown man, DL, across the room. Anyone who has been in a real fight knows that would take some unreal kind of strength to just hit someone and they fly like that. I have knocked people out with one punch and they pretty much just fell straight back and didnt fly at all.

whatever her name is...that remains to be seen(heard) but like i"ve said before.. Ikin is in control. So where does that leave Niki

Ok Im just brain storming here.. ignore me lol

1. In the first episode, Niki borrowed 50k from Linderman to pay for Micha's school. Which she kinda paid back by setting up Nathan..but she doesnt know her alter-ego stole the money...which leads to ...

2.In this weeks comic, which happened in the past, she stole 2 million from someone, and says she is going to pay tuition for her son with it. Then kills DL's gang, in self defence, and buries them in the desert.. Sounds right..

3. She took the money to get laundered and there was a delay or something, that is why she had to borrow money when she already had some.. ok...

4. The suitcase full of money that she pulled from the attic was the one under the table at the poker game, so is that money not tied to either of the above transactions or was that the laundered money? If it was the laundered stuff.. why was it under the poker table and not in a safer place until Niki/Jess came to pick it up.

5. Im confused and forgot where I was going with this... Just trying to trace the money around.

I don't think Jessica stole the $50K from anyone. That was the loan. Jessica only stole the $2 Million from Linderman, which was what was portrayed in the comic. That was the job DL planned but backed out of.

As for the case, who knows. I don't have any theories there.

Tom

Yup that is what I meant.. Jess stole the 2 million but Niki didnt know so she borrowed the 50k from Linderman but both of them had the same ideas for the money.. to put Micha in school

If Jessica is aware of Nikki when Nikki is in control, Then it occurs to me that Nikki becoming aware when Jessica is in control would be the first step that Nikki that would need to take. Nikki seems to be the moral compass that Jessica needs.

Just a thought.

Reese

Can we agree that Nikki's split personality is not a power.

Her power is super strength.

So if Peter was in her proximity he would have super strength not a split personality?

Any opinions?

I have said all along I didnt think the split was her power. Im guessing its just a way Niki's brain deals with it.

But super strength alone really doesnt cut it either.. I also think she has some ninja or super soilder kinda thing going on too.

My Niki/Jessica theory

I think Niki A doesnt exist!

Well she does now but she didnt back then. Before she meet D.L. before linderman maybe. Along time ago. Niki was, lets say a bad person. An evil hero. With super strength.

But HRG and MBG found her causing devestation and captured he and for her own safety and everyone elses, they erased almost all her memory and gave he a new name and a new life. (thats why HRG wanted to take Nathan not Niki and why Niki's alter ego had another name).

But now her old memories are starting to come back to her (maybe its her supr strength) and its causing her to have 2 personalities. Her old self (jessica) and her new self (niki) and the real niki (Niki B or Jessica) wants to come out but niki A is trying to do the opposite. But niki A is weak so eventually Jessica will take over her own body once again and return to her old lifestyles of crime . There's a new enemy for you. An evil hero with super strength that the heroes have to face. But i still bet in the end they will end up turning her good. Maybe D.L. and Micah do that.

Look at it this way:

- Niki B is original Niki with only 1 power - Super strength
- HRG had MBG erase her memory for some reason (she was using her powers for evil maybe?)
- Now she's Niki A
- But (maybe cause of her powers) her old memories are returning which is causing her two have 2 personalities for now and and soon there will be no Niki A but instead Niki B will take over for good and will become another enemy that the HEroes will face.
- She will probably become a good hero again cause DL and Micah will help her understand what she is doing is wrong

And for crying out loud, She is NOT Sylar. I had to say it. Chances are that if i didnt there will someone to post that they think she is Sylar and thats just not true.


EDIT:


yes, if peter is around her he will get super strength and NOT a split personality.

Before I say anything, question...were the gamblers Niki took care of in Ep6 the same who rolled Hiro and Ando in Ep5?

If they are, then there IS a streak of decency in Jessica...the people she's offing are not the most savory people in the world and a lot of what she;s doing she's doing for the one person both Nik and Jess love, Micah.

Another way to face it, Showtime has a series called Dexter. Its about a CSI-type who moonlights as a serial killer.

Let's hope that neither Niki or Jessica are eliminated because when the day to face Sylar comes, the Heroes will need both Niki's moral clarity AND Jessica strength, cool, and 'tude.

First, I'm glad I'm not the only one here who watches Dexter

Second, some of the gamblers Jessica offed in Episode 6 were the ones that Ando and Hiro dealt with in Episode 5.

Tom

Niki did not borrow 50K from Linderman. She borrowed 30K (25K used as a donation to bribe the private school into admitting her son and 5K to pay for bills). When the goons came to collect the money, she ran from them. When they ambushed her upon her return home, they demanded 50K. She was furious because that wasn't how much she borrowed. And mustache goon says "..with interest."
Just had to clear that up.

What if Niki's power is having split personalities and Jessica's power is super strength? hmmm...

Oh yah.. thanks I forgot that lol

so your saying that they are 2 different people with 2 diffrerent powers? I dont think so. Split personality isnt her power. Super strength is

I haven't seen this posted anywhere else on the forum. But I found the original picture of Nikki the artist who creates the paintings and art for the show. I guess it had too many spoilers so they cropped the picture in the show.

I never thought of it from a different dimension standpoint.. Mirrors could be the gateway to the dimension..that seems to be when we see them 'split'..

That is something to think about and would explain a few things...

my theory:

ok, we saw jessica kill those mob guys in the garage, but we didnt see any blood on niki when she woke up, only on jessica when niki saw her in the mirror. and we saw that jessica is a totally different person than niki. my theory is that they both have super strength but because niki is kind of a wuss she has not actually tried her strength. i think niki and jessica are two different people living in different dimensions that can populate each others dimension. at one point jessica will be able to leave her dimension without having to take ove niki's life and then we would have super hero niki and super villain jessica.

again, this is just my theory.

What a good theory. That's why they didn't take her and they only took Nathan. It's because her mind was already wiped clean.

Anybody else think that the names Nikki and Jessica are really close to Nick and Jessica as in Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. I heard it said that Nick is the nice one and Jessica is the bad one. Hmmm. Look what happened to them.

Since I like Niki/DL/Micah storyline I hope she gets Jessica/Ikkin under control. If not my mind tells me she will always be a rogue hero. Maybe down the line she realizes Jess/Ikkin is a part of her that needs to return to 1 person.

Also, Nikki's actually a caring mother while Jessica let loose would be semi-frightening. For ALL involved.

That would be soo cool!

it's not slpit personalitly. it's a doppleganger.

I have looked at screen caps of the "Nikki" website and I just had to get this off my chest, but despite credits or whatever else, the fictional website does spell her name Nikki. Now maybe she did this to be more exotic sounding or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact.

Well, since I hate Niki's uber Lady half and I hate the name Jessica I guess the two work well together. The main Niki persona is okay though although she could quit whining one of these days.

I like Jessica, I think she sticks up for herself which Niki tries to do but doesn't get across very well.

The problem I have with her is the fact that she will kill anyone that gets in her way. So far she has been killing some very bad people onscreen but you can only wonder about the others she has killed in the past that have been collecting in that mass graveyard in the desert. A real hero would only kill when he or she would absolutely have to. Jessica kills bad people which I have no problem with but she is likely also to kill innocent people who rub her the wrong way too.

Those gamblers that Hiro was helping out were tools but they weren't necessarily bad and Jessica killed them all. If Hiro and Ando had made their presence known I'd bet Jessica would have killed them too. Then she attacked D.L. trying to kill him. D.L. may be an escaped con on the lam but he isn't a bad guy. Of course, D.L. is my boy now that he flexed his super phasing muscle and totally trashed Jessica. Niki may be a hero but Jessica isn't. Perhaps Niki will spawn some other super persona that I will find likeable but Jessica isn't one of them. She wears the name of Jessica well. I knew an evil girl named Jessica in jr. high and high school so that is why I don't like the name.

I am still on the fence about Jessica. She killed DL crew after they threatened to kill her. She killed the goons that were going to harm Nikki. But she just beat up the goon that threatened to hurt Micah. Then she kill people that could expose her to DL.

Perhaps her "death" will combine Nikki and Jessica. Nikki's Morals + Jessica's Strength.

Here's hoping

Just my thoughts:

Jessica is the dominant personality, Nikki is the secondary that Jessica pushes to the front to protect Micah from herself. Gotta see how this plays out, especially after the howl "DL killed me..." moment at the end of last weeks episode...

Hmm, well I see an established pattern.

1) Both Niki and "Jessica' care about their son Micah, and want the same thing for him. But one will go out of her way to kill 'if necessary.' The question is, why did 'Jessica' only beat up the guy threatening to kill her son? Why didn't she kill him?

2) 'Jessica' must have been the one who set up D.L. for the fall and land him in prison. I wonder if she thought that he was a dangerous person that should be kept off the streets. I guess so if Niki told the cops that he's a killer. I'm thinking that in some way, 'Jessica' convinced Niki that her husband was a murderer.

3) When the fog clears, Niki has absolutely no idea what went on. She's frightened when she sees the two guys killed in her garage. She wakes up in Nathan's bed, but he's gone. She has no idea how she got there.

What I'm seeing (and this is what happened last week) is that Niki has to deal with her mirror image 'Jessica', that she's been so frightened of. This conversation that she had with 'Jessica' proves it.

And with all this said, I'm thinking that Niki is 'Jessica's' puppet. Think about it. Why else is it that Niki can't always control her temper/actions after she's looked in the mirror?

These are just my thoughts, that's all.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I've always gotten the impression that Jessica can do what she wants, when she wants. The conversation she had with Niki also partially confirms this. In that exchange, Jessica talked about Niki as if she was the mirror image, not Jessica.

We also need to look at the times when Jessica has taken control on screen. In most of these instances, Niki has been awake and aware of what was happening and then bam, Jessica is in control. I can only recall two instances on screen where Niki was asleep or knocked out and Jess stepped in. Now granted, most the situations where Jess takes control have been stressful ones, but I think that this also confirms the Jess being dominant theory. Think about it. If you have a snivelling crybaby persona as a disguise, would you leave it in control when the situation got sticky?

Hey everyone! You remember the comics DL and Micha are looking at? Well the last one has a monster on it that looks like it could be Nikki/Jessica:

Go here to see my screencap of it:

http://teamlena-heroes.blogspot.com/

This is the hardest charactor to figure out.

Lena

what if now that DL stopped Jessicas heart (ie. Vision) NIkki will be in controll. oh and jus tto point out most strippers have a stage name to make them seem more exotic.. maybe Nikki is just a psudonym and there is only a Jessica

I love all the theories. I also love talking on these boards it's sooo fun!

Didn't I see?

didn't i see Jessica/Ikin (Ikin is the name being used on the nbc.com/heroes board) throw someone against the wall telekentically? When she was taking care of the two baddies who tried to rough her up for the money?

Here's my theory in short:

I think she is possessed (ala Jean Gray/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix). I'm not too sure we have seen her powers for real yet. I also believe she has telekenesis and other mental powers aside from her physical strength. but we will all see won't we :-)

ikiN has been the name used for Niki's mirror image bythe recapping site www.televisionwithoutpity.

It's official. The alter-ego's name is...







JESSICA!

Yes, her name is officially Jessica. Like, super official. I'm not sure if I said this, but I LOVE the theory about Jessica being Niki 1.

I wonder what is going to go down at the hotel? More super-human domestic violence? I wonder if Micah will step in.. Does a gun count as technology?

To be very brutally honest, I'm trying as hard as I can to stay interested in the whole Niki stoy at all. Sure, I hope she has some kind of "ability but right now, she's the only one with a mental illness (schizophrenia) intead of a "power".

She must be very important to the show, or else they wouldn't be comitting so much to her (she/jessica, D.L., and micah).

I don't know, at this point, I'm just kinda like, "Get on with it, PLEASE!"

Then again, maybe it's just my ADHD talkin...

Sweet, thanx for readin.

Nikki main battle is going to be inside herself. Good vs Evil. And the other side is definetly Evil. I'm not really digging one parent against the other.

Plus I wonder how they are going to work things out with DL having feelings for Nikki and she for him, but the only thing Jessica seems to care about is Micah. And last night if Micah knew he was talking to Jessica, why did he tell her where he was? I mean if he is super smart like they have lead us to believe, seems he would know that would cause Jessica and his dad to fight.

Everyone keeps bringing up how "stupid" it was for Micah to tell Jessica where he was.

First, he might not have given the actual name of the hotel. But even if he did, he doesn't really know that Jessica is "evil". He knows she is different and he knows she fought with his dad but he also saw his dad do something pretty nasty to his mom. Dad left mom on the floor to die! (at least that's what Micah saw). He loves his parents and doesn't want to believe either of them would ever do anything wrong. Just like most kids.

Now, Micah is a smart kid but you have to remember he's still just a little kid. He's like 9 or 10 years old and he's worried about his mom and he misses his mom despite the fact that he's with his father.

Calling his mom certainly wasn't out of the ordinary. He's a scared little boy who wants his mom. Once he discovered it was Jessica, he still probably figured he could communicate with his mom through her. (since he knows they are one person). Jessica told him she wanted to protect him and wanted him to be safe.

I feel for the kid. He's scared and confused and doesn't know what is happening.

Plus, DL told him they were leaving the hotel as soon as DL caught him on the phone so Jessica won't be able to find them anyway.

I think it's pretty clear that Jessica (as it was revealed last night that's what the alter-ego's name is) has superstrength -- which definitely qualifies as a power. Since it's the same body, Niki should have access to it too, but doesn't seem to know it's there as she can't remember things that Jessica does, while Jessica seems to know what Niki does.

In any case, superstrength has been established, both on the show and in the comic about the heist of the $2M.



I'm not sure I follow your logic here. I mean, the Hulk's dual identity manifests itself physically (he transforms from regular guy to green giant) and Mr. Hyde's appearance is also different from Dr. Jekyl's. Not to mention the whole werewolf thing. So there is precedent for the physical manifestation of an alternate identity in both comics and horror/fantasy fiction. The tattoo showing up when Jessica comes out is merely a significantly more subtle approach to the same idea.

Also, the signifcance of the tattoo/symbol has not yet been revealed. There's lots of speculation about it, but in the actual narrative it's meaning hasn't been revealed yet. We may yet (probably will) learn what it is which would then let us in on why it appears when Jessica comes out.

You have a really good point. Nikki is just a lot quieter when she changes.

I think Niki is a Chimera and Jessica is her twin that her body absorbed.