Elle = PIE HO.

Yes, that was a plug for Pushing Daisies.


Originally inspired by katiria and re-inspired by hebei, I bring you:

HEROES: Villains, A Recaplet For The Uninitiated (With Pictures and TL;DR Galore)

This was brought about because I felt the need to share with everyone the moral lessons imparted by this episode, namely: If you follow orders, you will become a villain; if you spaz out and set a train car on fire, you will become trailer trash.


: What makes a person turn from the light into darkness? What is it that makes a man a hero, or a villain? What are the--

: Silence, narrator-man. Hark, and I will tell you. For you see, I have a superpower. Yes, yes, I can paint the future. But more importantly, I am very skilled at making sure the story stays convoluted enough that it doesn't get boring.

: Enlighten us, African!Isaac!

: Because you refuse to use your superpower and travel back in time, Hiro, I will force you to. But first, eat this magic totally harmless paste.

: OKAY :D ... I feel funny.


ONE YEAR AGO

: Hello, my name is Arthur Petrelli. I am very rich, and have a very lovely wife and three two very lovely sons. I love them all very much and would never hurt them.

: Hello, my name is Daniel Linderman, Arthur's business partner. I am innocent until proven guilty, and have a very lovely gaggle of hit men tie. See, isn't it a nice tie?

: My name is Nathan Petrelli, I'm an ADA and I will make it my mission to bring Linderman down. I mean, it's not like my very public efforts to bring down a well-connected white-collar career criminal are going to get me and my wife in a terrible car crash and paralyze her from the waist down or anything!

: Nathan! You've been in a terrible car crash and your wife is paralyzed from the waist down! Oh, are we doing introductions? I'm Peter, the younger Petrelli brother. I'm a humble nurse, but lately I've been dreaming that I'm destined for something more... like I have a superpower... like, a sexy hair flip. See my hair? See it flip?

: Arthur, did you try to kill the oldest of our three two sons and his wife?

: HAHA you make the best jokes, darling! I love you for your sense of humor!


ONE YEAR AGO

: Hello, my name is Gabriel Gray. I recently killed a man and stole his superpower of telekinesis, and I feel very bad about it, so I'm going to hang myself.

: Hi, Gabriel. I'm Elle and I'm here to save your life with the awesome power of electricit-- I MEAN LOVE.

: You're my guardian angel! There's no way this conversation could become bitterly ironic later, right?

: Of course not, sweetie! I'm just gonna go jump in this suspicious van, but you shouldn't be suspicious because it's just a paper company van. And I keep pies in it. You like pie, right? How about peach pie?

: Oh Elle, it's not creepy at all that you know what my favorite pie is! Have my futuristic lovechild!

: Hello, my name is Noah Bennet, but you can just call me HRG. I work for this paper company. Except it's secretly an evil company, and my mission is to study Gabriel and see how his ability works.

: Wouldn't that involve watching him kill someone?

: Yes. But what's the death of one goth kid compared to the greater good evil moral grayness?

: But Gabriel wears sweater vests! We can't turn him into a murderer D:

: You wuv him, don't you? Awwww, you two are such adorable ickle psychos! Elle and Gabriel, sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! Actually, that's good. We can use his sweet, innocent crush on you to manipulate him into killing someone.

: I and my future lovechild don't like there where this is going :[

: Too bad. You need to follow orders, because if you don't follow orders, you won't be a villain agent. You'll just be a decent human being waitress.

: Okay, but explain why we're doing this again?

: WHALES.


STILL ONE YEAR AGO

: Hey Flint, let's hold up this convenience store with the awesome power of FIRE!

: WHEE! I love FIRE, Meredith!

: Hello. My name is Thompson and I work for this paper company. Well, actually, it's an evil company. Arthur and Angela Petrelli, Daniel Linderman, and Elle's dad Bob run the place. Our mission is to track down people with superpowers, and either study them, lock them up forever, or recruit them. It really depends on what mood I'm in. Sometimes I just want to see the blood flow... I'm totally kidding guys! Who wants to be a company agent?! We'll be the best of friends! :D Unless I kill you in your beds...

: I don't like the company.

: I'm sure there's a record of this somewhere, but I'm too lazy to look it up so I'm just gonna ask you incessantly: Why don't you like the company?

: *is taciturn and stoic*

: Well, whatever the reason, you're working for it now! And you need to follow orders. If you don't demonstrate unconditional loyalty, you won't be a villain agent, you'll be a hero prisoner.

: *kicks some righteous ass, company agent-style*


ONE YEAR AGO

: Hey Angela. How're things?

: Oh, fine. Fine. It's not like my husband is planning on killing the oldest of our three two sons and has been mind-raping me for years.

: You know, I can heal things. Let me heal your mind.

: Gasp! My husband is planning on killing the oldest of our three two sons and has been mind-raping me for years?! Oh honey!

: Is the soup ready, dear?

: Yes. And I've included your very favorite ingredient: cyanide.

: (No one ever expects unexpected!Haitian!)

: My life sucks. Oh well, it could be worse. It's not like my dad'll drop dead of a heart-attack tonight or anything.

: Nathan! Dad dropped dead of a heart-attack tonight!

: It's very tragic, really. So tragic. I'm crying. But on the inside.


ONE YEAR AGO

: Pie?

: Ziti?

: Assorted vegetables?

: Pinot Grigio?

: Art nouveau?

: Hey, that's not a food, you're cheating! But I wuv you anyway!

: I wuv you more!

: No, I wuv you more!

: No, I wuv you more!

: *headdesk* Please get him to kill the goth boy already. All I've got to eat in this surveillance van are pies, and I'm starting to crave real food.

: Hey, so I invited a guest to our quiet romantic dinner for two. That's not weird, is it?

: Actually, it's very weird.

: Well, he's special. He can shoot stuff with his fingers. Like a gun! It's very special. He's the specialist special there is! *totally orgasms over the sight of a goth boy shooting a glass with his finger*

: Shut up! You're threatening the deep abiding love we've shared these past couple of days! He's not as special as me! Look! I can cut his head open with my finger!

: No! Don't do it! I've had a crisis of conscience even though I've never displayed anything remotely resembling a conscience before! If you kill him you'll be a villain!

: Wait. So you didn't just happen to show up while I was hanging myself and then turn up again bearing a delicious delicacy in the form of my favorite pie that you intuitively knew was my favorite? And that mysterious paper company van that's always parked outside my store and the suspicious-looking middle-aged man with a comm device in his ear weren't totally innocent? HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?

: *runs away because really, she has nothing to say to that*

: Nifty! He exposes the brain!

: I'm gonna gag and pretend I have a soul.

: Because I was heartlessly betrayed by a girl I met a few days ago and killed a second person, I've gone batshit insane and want to kill everyone with an ability. No longer am I mild-mannered watch-maker Gabriel Gray, now I am...

: SYLAR >:[


TWO YEARS AGO ...PSYCH! REALLY ONE YEAR AGO

: Flint! We need to run away from the company!

: I like FIRE :D

: Here, have a Taser^TM instead.

: No! You'll never take us back! This train car will take us far away from the company, to Mexico!

: I'm afraid I can't let you do that, because then you might bump into Maya. Her superpower is draining all the awesome out of every character she meets, and you've still gotta do all the awesome things you do in the beginning of Season 3.

: I'd rather have Maya than you! Thus, I will set the train car on FIRE!

: I LIKE fire :D

: Okay, now that we've started a massive wildfire in midland Texas and killed a lot of innocent civilians, will you tell me why you hate the company?

: They killed my daughter Claire. They tracked me down and there was a fight and Claire died in the FIRE.

: [insert Of Mice And Men reference, because Flint really reminds me of Lenny]

: Hm. Really? They told you Claire was dead-- I MEAN I GRIEVE FOR YOUR LOSS. Here, I'll even let you go because I feel so bad that your daughter is REALLY TOTALLY dead.

: Hey look! A burning train car! I'm gonna run into it! Hey, this would make a really cool pilot for a TV show... HOLY SHIT I'M ON FIRE D:

: Claire, don't look up or you might see your mom! Meredith, don't look down or you might see your daughter! And then my secrets would come out ;_;


ONE YEAR AGO

: I have to eulogize my husband at his funeral? Oh, okay. Arthur was a very... convoluted man.

: That's the best you can come up with?

: It was the nicest on a long list of words I have prepared for the occasion. I'll show you the list in a year, when you realize your father is SECRETLY STILL ALIVE and TOTALLY EVIL.

: *is secretly still alive and totally evil*


ONE YEAR AGO

: I feel really bad about what we did ;_;

: Um. I thought you were a sociopath.

: Pfft. That was so last season. Now I'm capable of empathy :D

: Hey, I need to get in this taxi that that emo kid just got out of. Wait, is that Peter Petrelli? He'd better not be planning on jumping off any buildings.

: *jumps off a building* I can fly! I can fly! I can -- aw, crap.

: Get into my taxi, friend, and I will tell you of the roads a man must walk and the decisions he must face. What makes a man choose the path of villainy above the path of righteousness? Must darkness be inherent in his nature, or must he have darkness forced upon him?


ONE YEAR AGO PRESENT DAY

: That was most enlightening, African!Isaac! ... African!Isaac?

: Sorry guys, I'm a bit headless.

: Peekaboo.

: HOSHIT.


TO BE CONTINUED...





My general thoughts, for anyone who watches the show:

- I was surprised how much I liked the Petrelli stuff. I'm not hugely invested in the Peter/Nathan dynamic, but I really loved them together tonight.

- Angela wins, as usual, but I'm beginning to get tired of Arthur. He's only scary when using his power, and now that that's lost it's shock value... Hmm. I think they need to find a way to make him creepier/more badass/something.

- The more awesome Meredith gets, the more likely I think it is that she'll die before the end of the volume. LOVED the train crash at the end, because I was kinda spacing out and suddenly it was Season 1 and my head was all "I go boom nao."

- HRG got the best lines tonight. Though I also liked Meredith's "God gave you a big sister instead of a brain."

- And Elle. O HAI THAR, OOC-ness. I'm justifying this storyline by saying that Elle rarely gets let out to play, and almost never with boys, so she managed to convince herself that she was in love with Gabriel, which fed into her fantasy of normality, and she wanted to keep playing house with him and that's why she was defending him. She had no genuine feelings for him.

Urgh. Tl;dr ahoy.

I don't think Elle's a real sociopath - someone probably told her she was, or she read about sociopathy somewhere, and decided she was one because she could use it as an excuse to pull a lot of crap that she couldn't otherwise get away with. So I think she is capable of empathy, but is so self-centered (see below) that she doesn't ever exercise it. If HRG had gotten her to take a polygraph test and asked her if she really cared about Gabriel, I think she would have passed, because she really believed she cared. But all she really cared about was the idea of a boyfriend, someone she could connect to.

And on the self-centered thing: probably the only person who genuinely cares about Elle and wants to look out for her well-being is Elle herself. Bob presumably never allowed her to form social attachments (since she's lived in the facility her whole life), and it kinda sounds like he kept trying to foist her off on other people to raise (grandma and shrinks as a substitute for an actual parent), so she doesn't have any friends or family looking out for her. So she looks out for herself. And on another level, she bags and tags people like they're animals for a living, and she's grown up watching humans be locked up in cages, so she's been conditioned to think of most people as less than human. None of which is really her fault, but it has left her pretty self-centered.

UH. But back on the topic of tonight's episode... I thought she came off as awfully sweet and caring, and not just when she was putting on an act for Gabriel. Maybe the writers were trying to say that the Gabriel thing is what turned her into the psycho we meet in Season 2, but... If I had to choose between "childhood torture, parental neglect, not having any friends, and being taught that killing people with electricity is nifty" v. "convincing some guy to kill some other guy" as an underlying cause of psychosis... I'd pick the first scenario :/



ETA: On a re-skim to make sure I didn't miss anything important, I realized the Sylar/Elle plot was totally Season 2 of BtVS, where Elle was Buffy, Gabriel/Sylar was Angel/Angelus, and HRG was angry post-Jenny!Giles. Just with a skeevy threesome instead of an artsy sex scene.

ETA2: In all the joking about Elle being one of the Pie Hos, the pie itself escaped my notice. First Pushing Daisies, then Bones, now Heroes? What is TV's sudden obsession with seduction!pie?