I assume that was nathan that garbed peter after he fell of the building
but my question is...why?
well i know, he doesnt want peter dead, but still...
and i hope they didnt take notice
or nathan just made a terribly fatal error.

Well, I thought Nathan was clear, that he doesn't want them dead. Just contained to save the world, because they are dangerous. And he took him to his mom, maybe he thought she'd straighten him out or something. Or maybe she requested Nathan to save him, for what is to come.

His authority was undermined by an underling. No Alpha Dog, especially not a US Senator, puts up with that.

Nathan has made it pretty clear that he thinks he can contain the people with powers long enough so that they can create a formula that would take away their powers, and that he doesn't believe them to be terrorists but believes in locking them away for their own good the way you would lock away someone who is insane in an insane asylum. His logic is flawed, but that's what's going on in his head.

You need to ask why Nathan would save the brother he's spent half the series protecting, rescuing and bailing out of trouble, starting with the very first episode?!? It's probably the central cornerstone of the guy's character that, though he doesn't always fall into the classical hero model and has some moral and/or judgmental flaws, ultimately he loves his brother and is devoted to him to the point of death. If they'd had Nathan deliberately let Peter die when he could've prevented it, he would have been more or less dead to me. When push comes to shove, whether it's his political ambitions, his personal crusades, or his own life, Nathan would give it all up to save his brother. That was an issue they were playing subtlely throughout most of the first season (Where do Nathan's true loyalties lie? Who is he at his core?), and it was resolved at the climax of the finale when Nathan made his (ostensible) heroic sacrifice.

This is one of the reasons Nathan is my favorite character; I absolutely loved his story arc through the first season (he was good in Season II as well, but was a little more in the background for most of it). It's a lovely illustration of the power of redemptive love overcoming all evils. Here, in Season I, we have a guy who is clearly not depravedly evil or a psychopath or somesuch, but at the same time is hardly a paragon of scrupulous conduct or (at least immediately evident) wholehearted devotion to some good cause. He's more or less trying to balance his actions to serve a number of different goals and loyalties, eg. his social/political ambitions, his family, his personal indulgences, and somewhere down the line, the "greater good" of humanity.

As is the case with most people you would meet in real life, there are numerous things he values and tries to invest in, and it's difficult to know precisely what is "the" thing that matters most to him. Rather than being a superhero or villain who spends his days and nights fighting wholeheartedly for some black-and-white cause, he acts often ambiguously as a result of a number of different motivating goals and impulses, which tends to prevent him from investing too completely in any one of them; he loves his brother, but he's willing to do him a little personal disservice for the cause of his campaign (the "my-brother-is-mentally-ill-and-attempted-suicide" speech), he cares about his campaign, but he's willing to take a little risk on its success for the sake of a highly-attractive personal indulgence (the Nikki/Jessica encounter), he cares at least a little about the greater good/general welfare (various small acts of good), but he appears willing to rationalize/compromise for the sake of his ambitions, etc. He spends his life weaving through morally grey territory, going out of his way to avoid choosing between his multiple priorities and continue his balancing act, and you're never sure what's first and foremost in his heart. Then, this rather realistic human being is finally presented with a comic book, "good-or-evil"-style choice: he's guaranteed power, fame, glory, and the promise of greatness, but only if he betrays his brother and deliberately allows 4,000,000 people to die.

Thus we see his selfish characteristics- his personal and public ambitions and often flexible and selective morals- pitted directly against his nobler self- the devoted brother and well-meaning human being. We see him struggle, waging an inner war, and we find that ultimately, sacrificial love overcomes all his faults and proves the necessary key to saving the world and achieving redemption. In a way, it can be seen as a very Christian message.

To some extent, that story would perhaps have been more ultimately powerful and resonant had Nathan actually died, instead of surviving and going on to further personal and moral struggles. That said, since his choice at the end of Season I, Nathan's core traits and motivations have been clearly defined. Although he has had some further personally-altering experiences in recent times, there has been nothing thus far which would constitute such a complete restructuring of his character as to see him cold-bloodedly allow his brother to fall to his death. As we saw tonight, when it all comes down to it, Nathan will still say "Screw the project- I'm saving Peter."

In other words, Nathan is a democrat and Danko is a republican... AHHHH *runs and hides*

TrentSteele said it all!!

Love your post

You read it?

Anyone else went "What?" when Nathan told Noah that Peter can hear thoughts. Did Peter telepathically tell Nathan something before or did Nathan just assume Peter had telepathy now because he stood right next to Matt? If not, something stinks here!

There are cameras everywhere in that building Peter's posture and demeanor said that he was using telepathy to insert thoughts into the guards' heads.

I guess that's possible but I doubt anyone thought to look for that.

Nah, I disagree. That's what they do all day, looking at cameras!

I'm pretty sure Nathan does know what to look for especially with whole working with Matt season two; and Peter is using a similar posture to what Matt was using to mess with minds.

There's also that little encounter in the hallway, where both Parkman, and Peter were squinting their eyes at all 3 of them, trying to mess with them. Plus there's the noise incident in the computer room, where both Parkman, and Peter covered their ears, because they were using telepathy against those goon guards. Also there's the incident where Parkman "sacrificed" himself for Peter to get out of there. If he had flight, he would of grabbed Parkman, and bolted out of there. Nobody would of done anything, specially Nathan, he can't fly after them, with Danko there.

That's true, Nathan might notice if he thought to look at footage of Peter and Matt getting into the building. But I don't think flight would be useful in such confined spaces. You'd probably get out quicker by legging it. Just my opinion. But I can't think of anything to disprove Nathan noticing Peter tilting his head right next to Matt tilting his head.

I think the real question is how did he save peter. I mean really.. why was nathan standing on the street below the building. It would have been better if they made it more clear that Nathan just happened to see peter falling as he was approching the building.

I was pretty dissapointed because I thought it was peter who flew away. I thought that because the scene wasnt very clear. I actually stopped and watched it in slowmotion and saw it was Nathan before the commercials were over. So I was pretty annoyed. This show needs to be more clear and stop leaving us viewers constantly wondering how and why events are happening.

I didn't find the scene confusing at all. I assumed Peter would either recall healing or that Nathan would be there to catch him. And when I saw the flying I knew Nathan had caught him. The scene was pretty self-explainatory.

I thought this too tbh.

Not only was it self-explainatory, but suspense is what keeps a person watching! Get rid of that and you might as well just flush Heroes down the drain...

Why? I ask you would they need to that?! I mean they've already established that Nathan knows that Danko wants to kill Peter; and that Nathan doesn't want Peter to get killed.

i thought peter flew away and it made me flip out, in a sorta good way. i was sitting kind happy to see him badass, but disappointed that they would give him back his powers 5 episodes into "Fugitives". then the commercial break ended and it's subtley revealed that Nathan saved Peter, and i was like "hahah wow! they totally got for me for a second!" and the rest of that scene was spectacular.

all in all, i enjoyed the episode. the little mysteries of not knowing what just happened were exciting, yet NOT lame. i don't think they noticed... Danko has seen Peter fly before, so i think it's safe to assume that he just thinks Peter got away. HRG wouldn't rat on Peter or Nathan if he noticed, it wouldn't really be beneficial for him.

As the show aired, I also thought it was Peter who flew away and I was pretty excited about it. My boyfriend and I were both giddy thinking that Peter had figured out a way to harness multiple abilities at one time again. Honestly though, I cannot say that I was disappointed that it was Nathan. For many reasons, I was glad that Nathan had rescued Peter. See earlier post by TrentSteele (I love a well-written, carefully developed theory).

I have to wholeheartedly disagree with the latter part of this statement though. Much of the show's success relies on the writers' abilities to keep us wanting more. The only way to do that is to keep people guessing and throw us a curveball or two every now and again. If they laid it all out from the beginning, there would be no interest. If you knew how it would end and who was behind everything, would you still want to watch? All of the fun is lost as soon as the suspense is gone. Just consider this discussion board. If there was nothing to wonder or guess about, there wouldn't be too much reason to even talk about the show.

Personally, I hope that the writers continue to deliver these carefully developed storylines, with enough suspense and surprises to keep me guessing.

haha, agreed. But he sticks to his guns, I mean, if he says he doesn't want people dead, he doesn't. He's not acting out of fear or anything, just out of experience. He knows the "heroes" are good, just not in control. I mean, they almost blew up NYC by accident, almost released a deadly virus, the track record is pretty questionable for everyone as a group. But there is no question that Nathan would save Peter, like, ever. Lets be honest, the brother dynamic is at the heart of the whole show.

Didn't he openly claim that he would let Peter burn to death if the situation at the end of the Villains was reversed?

Yes, he did, but when you're that ticked you don't always mean everything you say.

I figured Nathan had worked out that Matt couldn't have done it alone. Right now, I still think Nathan doesn't know how Peter's new powers works. He's seen him use flight, he could deduce that he's used mind-reading and -control, he was probably told Peter caused the plane to go down with freezing, so my take on it is that he thinks Peter is much more powerful than he currently is.

I think there's another possible interpretation to Nathan's "I wouldn't have done that" statement in Villains - I reckon he might have been saying "...if I were in the same position"

- ie: "If you had been persecuting me and others with powers, I wouldn't have gone out of my way to save you."



I was also one of the one's that thought it was Peter recalling flight in his hour of need - as soon as he fell I was thinking of Claude and the fall off the Deveaux building... There are sooo many references to Genesis in Fugitives.

I wouldn't set too much store by that Nathan quote. He was mad at Peter and wanted to hurt him. It set the mood for the start of volume four nicely. But as soon as we started to see Nathan becoming more and more unhappy with what he'd set in motion, I was pretty sure he felt extremely guilty about Peter. (And the others. Some. But mostly Peter.)

He also claimed he was going to let NY be nuked. But he always comes around the last second when his little brother is need. Bailed him out of jail, etc.

Nathan flew inches from Danko's face, and didn't seem to be going fast enough for them not to see it was two people, if not slow enough to recognize Nathan.

You're right, Danko saw him/them a lot closer than we did, but that also means they must have passed in even more of a blur. I could buy him not realising that it had been Nathan. On the other hand, Danko was already suspicious, but Nathan knew that, and that might even have worked in favour of his decision to send caution to hell and save Peter - he was counting on his speed, and he knew he was already in Danko's scope anyway.

He should have at least realized that there was too much mass to be just Peter. Bennet has to "make some tough choices" to gain Danko's trust. I wonder if outing Nathan might be one of those choices.

Surely at some stage of your life, either by your action or the action of a friend or family member, you've experienced the phenomenon of people in extreme anger saying hurtful things to those close to them which, in their right mind, they certainly do not believe. Given that Nathan has gone out of his way to save Peter's life and/or welfare time and time again since the first episode of the series and continues to do so even now, while Peter is fighting bitterly to foil his plans, would it not be reasonable to say we can justly interpret this as an instance of the aforementioned phenomeno? Actions speak louder than words and all that, no?

Well, yes- from what we've seen, as far as Nathan knows, Peter's just gone right back to his old self. When he first injected himself with the formula, Peter seemed to be able to fly before he touched Nathan (I figured I'd give the writers a pass on that instead of making a thread about it, though I guess you could make a rationalization that it was like Sylar with telekinesis or something- although, in that case, why does he need to keep touching Nathan to get it now?), and since then, the only times they've met again, Nathan asked Peter "What can you do these days?" but probably would've assumed that flight remained the only thing because Peter just wasn't hanging out with the other Heroes at the time. Peter told one of the other characters he can only keep one power at a time now- there's no reason to assume Nathan knows that, and if he doesn't, it would be completely natural for him to immediately think that Peter can read thoughts, since Peter has quite obviously been hanging out with Parkman for an extended time period.

Nathan must have noticed that Peter wasn't healing after he'd rescued him, even though he knew he had met Claire in the meantime - so he probably feels something's not completely back to normal, but he's probably rather lost as far as Peter's actual powers are concerned.

Interesting twist: Nathan thought Hiro still has powers, and he probably thinks Peter also has space/time manipulation now...

Hahah, I doubt he will do that. Maybe unless Danko threatens to hurt his family or something. But he seems to be in agreement with Angela, so I doubt he will do such a thing. Remember when Nathan told him that Peter can read his mind, he was telling him to tell Peter that Danko was going to kill him, which is what he did.

OR if he realises Danko is already so suspicious that telling him the truth would hurt Nathan far less than it might hurt Danko's trust for Noah. Angela probably is aware of Danko's suspicions. I don't think Noah would expose Nathan on his own initiative, but Angela might give him the go-ahead herself. Which I think would be a very interesting turn.

I'm surprised Danko hasn't accused him of being one of them, since it would be logical to assume. Because most of his family has an ability. But he was given the ability though, so it would be very funny and ironic if Danko does accuse him, and Nathan says he is not one of them, but he was given an ability.

I'm sure we've got a BIG scene coming up in which Nathan is finally exposed. They're holding that one back for a purpose.

Aww, yeah.
Nathan's awesome like that. =3

Nice character analysis. ^^