Also, it would be nice if this why saving the cheerleader saves the world. Because she needed to be the one to do the reveal, on account of the cute and non-threatening, maybe.

It seems like there was a critical mass on that side (with the carnival crowd ready to come out), but her decision seemed largely selfish, rather than really thinking about the larger Special community. Given the Lesson that Hiro learned this episode, that seems like an important point.

Also? I don't think Indestructo-girl is the power to start with. Not that most of the others are less scary...I suppose at least super-healing is fundamentally a defensive power.

I take it that I'm the only one who believes -- while admitting it was melodramatic -- that Claire was right to out the fact that "specials" exist?

I think it was right both plot-wise and, um, ethically?

The things that go bump in the dark aren't always so scary in the light.

I agree that it was selfish, but it was a good kind of selfish. It was a "this shit has to change or I'll go nuts" rather than a "I CAN HAZ WORLD NOW!!!!".

I agree that it was selfish, but it was a good kind of selfish.

More later, but consider this: everyone else was making the decision on how she's to live her life for her. I'm afraid I can't hold with that.

everyone else was making the decision on how she's to live her life for her

Has she now made that decision for others? The specials can continue to hide their abilities, I suppose. But, if they do something by accident, they're pretty much outed now. Hard to come up with a cover story if the world knows specials exist.

I suppose at least super-healing is fundamentally a defensive power

This is good, I think. People could be wigged out by her ability, but not threatened by it. She can't hurt them with it.

Has she now made that decision for others? The specials can continue to hide their abilities, I suppose. But, if they do something by accident, they're pretty much outed now. Hard to come up with a cover story if the world knows specials exist.

As you say, they have the option to remain hidden, whereas I can always appreciate the desire -- need, even -- to live in the open. As HRG says, bad things will happen, but it's hard to argue that bad things don't happen anyway, and indeed are made worse by clinging to the shadows. The specials have been hunted, rounded up by the government and suffered persecution already, and all of that has been enabled by the fact that the public at large doesn't know they exist.

I guess I just don't subscribe to the X-Men model, that their entire existence will be reduced to being prey to a world that hates and fears them. Don't get me wrong -- that WILL happen, but things always get worse before they get better. Eventually, someone was inevitably going to make a move. Better a Claire than a Samuel or a Sylar. (Even though Reformed!Sylar looked pretty happy with the turn of events.)

I also think it's a good opportunity for the show to not only shake up the status quo, which DEAR LORD kneeds shaking, but also to reassert the central dynamics of the show. Claire may be the catalyst (Eek! That word!) for change, but Peter has been squandered from becoming the show's "Superman" -- asmittedly, partly becuase the producer's lost their nerve and didn't know what to do with him when he was ultra-powerful -- and while HRG functions pretty well as the show's Batman, the contrast would serve him well.

They seem to have refixed Hiro, their other hyper-powered threat (eta:threat to the writers, not anyone else, really) with a heart of gold.

I don't know about Batman exactly. HRG is darker than Bats (although more sane) and less likely to work to the same ends. Peter and Hiro, at least, were always both on the same page as to ultimate motivation. Everyone else (okay, maybe Micah?) demonstrated varying levels of just trying to get by.

I'm not so much talking exact parallels to the characters, so much as I am the archetypes: the bright, supremely powerful force that's extremely human beneath the abilities, and the dark, purely human force that's more menacing than anything super-powered that's thrown at it.

But I think the idea that HRG works counter to the goals of the group is fundamentally different from the relationship Batman has with his peers. For them it's a means and an end sort of a thing. Part of the issue with HRG and with Heroes in general is the lack of a general end.

HRG is menacing not just because of how he does things (like Batman) but because of the things he wants to do.

If Batman were randomly trying to kill/contain Superman, then I could see it more.