Tips in "Genesis"

Considerations in “Genesis” (S01E01)

1. The episode involves the recurrent theme of existential matter:

a. Who am I?

b. What’s the reason for my existence?

2. Diferent characters go through strong changes and persuit answers:

a. Claire Bennet: knows about her ability and she’s looking for answers involving family and powers.

b. Peter Petrelli: doesn’t know about his ability and he’s looking for answers involving purpose and his potential.

c. Nathan Petrelli: running away from answers and only worried about the elections.

d. Mr. Bennet: a mysterious man that appearently has more answers than it seems.

e. Hiro Nakamura: looking for answers in the the matter of using and controlling his powers.

f. Niki Sanders: running away from her life and longing for answers to her crisis involving life, debt and personality.

g. Mohinder Suresh: looking for answers involving his father’s death and research.

h. Isaac Mendez: looking for answers concerning his life and paintings about the future.

Recurrent Symbols in “Genesis” (S01E01)

1. Eclipse: usually connected with the idea of darkness and light. It is a moment of darkness and mysteries.

2. Cockroaches are shown various times and point to survival throughout the series.

Getting deeper into the episode

1. Hiro Nakamura doesn’t have control over his power. Teleports to New York and into the future: November 8th. He appears in the same place that Peter Petrelli appears when he teleports do the future in Volume II, without having control over his abilities either (S02E06). Both of them – Hiro and Peter – discover a future destruction scenario: Hiro learns about a nuclear explosion in New York and Peter about a worldwide pandemia started by a virus.

2. Hiro starts his always present sayings that describe the journey of the real hero. The first one we see here:

“Every hero needs to discover his mission. Then he will be tested and will do great things.”

3. It’s interesting to notice that for two characters – Niki and Hiro – time passes in a different way for different reasons (while Hiro has the special ability to bend time and space, Niki has a particular problem involving her multiples personalities).

4. Angela steals socks. In Volume V, she reveals why she steals socks referring to her sister Alice. For Angela it meant that she had simple ways to take care of Alice.

5. Angela, just like Mr. Bennet, knows more than it seems. They are a father and a mother that will have important rolls in the series despite their discreet beginning.

6. Claire saves a man from a fire incident involving a train accident. The cause of this accident is revealed in a future episode. Claire’s biological mother and uncle – Meredith and Flint – caused the accident while they ran away from Primatech Company’s employee Thompsom (S03E08).

7. Claire tells her mother Sandra that she loves her. Peter says the same thing when talking about Nathan with his mother Angela. Declaring love is a recurrent theme involving Bennet’s and Petrelli’s family. It usually appears in key moments in the series (like in the closure of every volume, especially with Peter and Nathan).

8. The “duels” between Mohinder and Mr. Bennet begin here. While talking in the taxi with Mohinder, Mr. Bennet refers to Mohinder’s name as a common Indian name, like Smith or Anderson. These two names reminds us the movie The Matrix in which we see the rivalry between Smith, an agent, and Mr. Anderson. In Heroes, we see Mr. Bennet as an agent and Mohinder as the one looking for answers, just like Mr. Anderson in The Matrix.

9. Since the beginning of the series we can already see two attributes that points to the famous character of Superman: the man behind the glasses, Clark Kent, can be seen in Mr. Bennet and Nathan Petrelli as the one who can fly. We can also see Peter as someone who has parallels with Superman (various abilities, for instance). Throughout the series, different attributes from Mr. Bennet and Nathan Petrelli will complete each other, showing more similarities to our well-known Superman.

10. Discreet connections between different and supposedly distant characters start to be shown: Isaac and Claire (tv and paintings), Isaac and Nathan (tv), Niki and Nathan (tv), Peter and Isaac (Simone and paintings), Niki and Ando (Ando’s computer shows Niki’s website), Mr. Bennet and Peter (Mohinder’s taxicab), Claire and Peter (Mr. Bennet as the father that connects her to the “specials world”, who gets Mohinder’ taxicab just like Peter) and so on. This reality already presents that they’re all connected.

11. Being in the heights is a recurrent and one of the main subjects in the series. This happens with various characters. Most times they are in the top of a building. Besides that these theme and scenes have parallels with one of the most important messages that we see in Heroes. See the episodes in the series. It involves scenarios of doubts and need of salvation. This first episode – Genesis – shows the theme involving Claire, Peter and Nathan. Here we can see a kind of prediction of how the Volume I will end involving these three characters: salvation occurs in the context of family, which can be healed (futurely will see the phrase “save the cheerleader, save the world”). In this first episode just like in the last one of the volume, Peter needs to be saved. And his brother’s love and concern will be crucial and make a difference.