Isn't Nathan an Alcoholic? Long beard and drinking at he beginning of season 2 right? I can't believe that he would even think of getting into a drinking game to get money when he could sell or pawn his watch. What am I missing here?

you are right , i kinda thought this exercise in machoness was kinda silly in light of what we are supposed to know about the character

Hey, you do what you've gotta do. lol

Angela told Nathan to get in a program, but it was never official he was an alcoholic, just that he went on a one to two week drinking binge in a deep depression of sorts.

Well, if you follow the timeline they ended up going with, he'd only been out of his coma for about two weeks (apparently he has exceptionally productive follicles), at which time, being in a scenario where he thought his brother may be dead and (in his mind) it was his fault, he'd lost his congressional seat, and his wife had left him and put a restraining order out so he couldn't visit his kids, he descended into drunkenness and slobbery. We only actually saw him drinking about once, and there was one reference by Angela to the idea of him going into a program (he obviously didn't, given all the stuff he proceeded to do for the rest of Season II). Essentially, as far as we know, he had a brief, intense period of binge drinking due to severe depression just before and during the beginning of Season II- there hasn't been any reference to him having a drinking problem at any other stage of the series.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

Never thought of Nathan as a full-fledged alcoholic.
Let's see...he's with his teenage daughter. There are late teens/early 20s guys drinking. He not only wants to prove to his daughter that he is "cool", but he wants to prove more to himself that he can keep up with the youth. He was sooo sure he would win. He was trying to relive his younger days. And, after losing almost everything, he just wanted to go on a bender that day/night. lol

It's been a bad couple of days for Nathan.

I think he has a problem with running away from his problems in general. Alcohol is one way for him to do that. I really do think that he has a problem with it, and the fact that he totally lost it in this episode shows that.

I think the whole thing was to film long scenes to buy time while the rest of the crew was busy filming other scenes with Hiro, Ando, Matt, and Suresh.

You had the long talks between Claire and her father, Peter and his mother, Saylar and Danco. This episode didn't have many effects or action.

That's what I thought when I saw the scene.




So it had nothing to do with character development?

I actually think there were many effects. The main one being the deeper connections of Claire, Nathan, Peter, and Angela. They really need to come together and work together as a team to slow down/stop Sylar. There has been too much conflict between those four. I think this episode was needed to show that their love and commitments to each other will be their strength in the "end".

If you have constant action...you lose the building of the characters

These are also good points. I'd say not only that he wants to show her his "coolness," but also to maintain his sense of competence and control over the situation, in addition to establishing his role as the kind of experienced, protective and world-wise fatherly figure in his relationship with Claire, rather than letting her do all the bread-winning, which would make him feel helpless and useless.

And in terms of its purpose from a story perspective, getting Nathan drunk was a good way to have him open up to Claire and show some of the inner feelings and traits he keeps so carefully hidden in his closely-controlled sober persona. There needed to be a sort of emotional ice-breaker between them for their relationship to develop, and Nathan as his normal, tightly-wound, inscrutible self opening up that way would feel out of character; having him get drunk in his no doubt emotionally-disheveld state created a plausible scenario for him to give Claire a glimpse of a lot of his inner self that she's never really gotten to know.

Exactly! Excellent points.

He didn't just jump off the bandwagon; he took a flying leap off of it.

It just goes to show that when time's are hard Nathan hits the bottle and he does not know his limits.

Nathan wasn't an alcholic, he was a drunk. There's actually a large difference.

An alcoholic drinks because he has to- he's literally addicted to the stuff.

A drunk drinks only because he wants to get wasted. Usually from depression.

Well, you also can't forget that he was an 'alcoholic' in season two, and the writers like to pretty much forget that it even existed, so...

Come on the guy is in Mexico on the run for his life, a night of Shot-fer-shot isn't going to ruin him. It's just a binge, he'll get back on the ol' straight and narrow. 12 Steps are NOT the only option.

^^Like Synch said I guess kinda

He drank for one to two weeks straight out of depression and then stopped when he had a purpose again - that's not an alcoholic. Just because Angela said he needed a program doesn't make it true. I agree with Synch.

Drunks tend to turn into alcoholics rather quickly.

Even if he is a full fledged alcoholic, he's thinking about drinking all the time, and would likely jump at the chance to get drunk, especially if he thought of a "good reason".

No.
Some drunks become alcoholics. Not all. Not even a majority from what I've seen.

Nathan got wasted because he was depressed. He sobered up when he had a purpose.

He went on a two week drinking binge. If he was an alcoholic he wouldn't have been able to stop.

I never said "all of them". Note the words "tend to". From what I've seen, most people who regularly, and continually, drink excessively become addicted, just like opiate users, or tobacco smokers.

was trying to make money. and was trying to stay under the radar from the government which means no credit cards.

He's not an alcoholic and never was. Only thing indicating to it, was Angela's statement. I think she was exaggerating.

He did have a drinking problem, trying to supress his grief with alcohol. But alcoholic he was not. It was never referred to again after this sentence of Angela.


Huh? I guess everyone who doesn't have regeneration would have been totally wasted after over twenty shots of tequila.