Matt Parkman
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| Matt Parkman | |
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| Portrayed by | Greg Grunberg |
| First appearance | Don't Look Back |
| Information | |
| Ability | Telepathic Reception |
| Real name | Matthew Parkman |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 35[citation needed] |
| Occupation | LAPD police officer; currently in suspension Bodyguard |
| Spouse | Janice Parkman (wife) |
Matthew "Matt" Parkman is a fictional character played by Greg Grunberg in the 2006 NBC drama Heroes with the ability to read minds.
Contents |
[edit] Character history
[edit] Beginnings
Matt Parkman is a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. He has tried to become a detective, but has flunked the qualifying test three times due to his dyslexia. Parkman is a mind-reader; he can hear the thoughts of people around him, which he first realizes after hearing the thoughts of Molly Walker, a little girl who was hiding from a serial killer named Sylar. When he found the girl, suspicion of how he knew her location led to his arrest.
After proving his ability by reading an FBI agent's mind in the interrogation room, he is offered a position to assist in the investigation. Things turn dangerous when a man who appears to be Sylar shows up. Stopping the mysterious man from harming a little girl in the building, Matt tries to comfort the girl while Audrey, the FBI agent, gives chase. Ultimately, the man escapes, but not before displaying apparent telekinesis and standing after being shot. Later, Matt comes home to his wife, Janice, with whom he is going to couple's therapy. Though he apologizes for missing the day's session and tries to tell her about his amazing day, she is still upset with him and does not want to hear it. Janice also comments about how, when she got promoted, he seemed to resent her for it. Matt tells her he didn't mean to, but she just further shuts him out. Hearing Janice think she wants him to leave, Matt responds "I will" verbally and then storms out.
[edit] Capture
At a bar, Matt hears most, if not all, of the thoughts of the various patrons. However, when he comes across a patron whose mind he cannot read, he begins to hear the other voices fade out. The mysterious other man sits and stares at Matt until Matt finally collapses on the floor, unconscious.
Matt wakes up strapped to a table with Mr. Bennet standing over him. Bennet explains that they had to drug him, as Matt is telling him what he remembers last. Matt asks if Bennet works for the FBI or CIA. Bennet states that he doesn't work for any organization that has initials. Matt tries to read Bennet's mind, but he is unable to. Bennet tells Matt that with his friend around he cannot read his mind. His "friend" turns out to be the mysterious man from the bar. Nevertheless, Matt is still able to discern the name of Bennet's daughter, slightly impressing Bennet with his developing power. Bennet then tells the mysterious man to "go deep," which elicits a scream from Matt.
[edit] Struggles
Matt wakes up on his couch a day later, suffering from what he thinks is a hangover. His wife tells him he has been missing for a day and has been frantic with worry. He uses his mind-reading ability to listen to her thoughts and give her everything she wants. They stay home from work, he cooks for her, and is the perfect lover. Later he goes to a local convenience store to buy her ice cream and overhears the thoughts of a man planning to rob the store. Matt talks the man out of what he is about to do. The would-be robber leaves his gun on a shelf and runs out of the store. Matt picks up the gun and attempts to calm the customers in the store by telling them he is a cop. However, they instead fear him because he is holding the gun and a headache Matt had is aggravated by their fearful thoughts. Matt's perception gets hazy and he appears to lose consciousness.
The following day, Matt approaches his wife with the intention of revealing his newfound power. As he attempts to explain his power, his recent mysterious behavior leads his wife to think about a secret which she feared he had discovered. Suddenly uncertain, Matt left without uncovering the secret. At work, Matt and Audrey Hanson run down a possible lead on Sylar after discovering a badly burned corpse with a fingerprint branded into the bone. Instead of finding Sylar, they find a man with radioactive powers. Matt ignores Janice's calls to his cell phone throughout the day, despite Audrey's suggestion he should listen to her. In the brief but intense stand off, Matt manages to diffuse the situation by using his telepathy to allow the man to speak with his comatose wife. Afterward, Matt calls Janice and says he'll be coming home soon to talk with her. At the end of the day, Matt is informed by his old partner that he was being given another chance to interview for a detective position. After congratulating Matt, his friend immediately calls Matt a "loser" in his mind and and gleefully thinks about how he is sleeping with Matt's wife behind Matt's back. A shocked Matt punches his "friend" in the face but is restrained by the other officers before walking out of the locker room.
In "Seven Minutes to Midnight," Matt receives a one month suspension without pay for punching his former partner for having an affair with Matt's wife. Unaware of his suspension, Audrey Hanson asks Matt for assistance in interviewing Ted Sprague, the man from the previous episode who has the power to emit radiation. Matt talks with the man and discovers that, like himself, Ted was abducted from a bar just after seeing the Haitian and woke up two days later with no memory of events. Ted says he experienced headaches and has a strange mark on his neck just like Matt's. Unfortunately, Homeland Security takes Ted into custody before Matt can learn more, although Ted tells Matt to "find the Haitian." Audrey later notifies Matt that Ted has escaped from custody, leaving behind a burning car. Matt's wife, Janice, admits to her affair with his former partner and asks Matt if their marriage is over. Matt says he doesn't know.
[edit] Switching targets
In "Fallout" Matt and Audrey investigate the crime scene at Union Wells High, where they suspect Sylar was intercepted by two other people near the school. Matt and Audrey don't consider Peter Petrelli a suspect in Jackie's death, but interrogate him anyway and learn that Sylar's target was the cheerleader Claire.
Matt tells Audrey Hanson that he has never cheated on Janice. He is flattered when he hears her thinking that he is "cute." She orders him not to read her mind and tells him she believes he loves his wife. Matt acknowledges that this is true, but says he doesn't want to call her because he doesn't want to be a "chump." Audrey tells him he will only be a chump if he doesn't attempt to work out his problems with Janice.
Matt later attempts to read Claire Bennet's mind when she is being interviewed by Audrey at the police station about Jackie Wilcox's murder. However, he is unable to hear anything except static, which he recognizes as having also happened to him before he was abducted from the bar. Suspicious, he and Audrey stake out Primatech Paper and Matt recognizes The Haitian from the bar with Mr. Bennet. He attempts to overhear Mr. Bennet or the Haitian's thoughts and is able to pick up just one word: "Sylar." Getting this much apparently caused a nosebleed, presumably from pushing his power too far.
For the next two weeks, Matt keeps a close watch on the PrimaTech Paper Company, however he is seen on the parking lot surveillance cameras. Finally, in "Godsend," Matt and Audrey organize an FBI raid of Primatech. When they find nothing, their boss is very upset and threatens to fire Audrey for following Matt's "hunch." Audrey, fearful of losing her job, harshly tells Matt their partnership is over. Matt then confronts Bennet, telling him that he knows he was kidnapped and will make Bennet pay. Bennet calmly replies, "Good luck with that." At home, Matt finally tells his wife about his power, after telling her that both of them need to be more honest with each other.
[edit] Moving on
After playing guessing games with Matt's power, Janice is convinced. Matt, however, has other problems. Matt faces a review board of three police captains who question his detailing of the past few weeks. In particular, they find his references to a "super-powered serial killer" almost insane. Matt grudgingly recants his statement after hearing one of the captains think that he'll end Matt's career otherwise. As another captain shrugs in his mind, thinking "a liar, not a lunatic," Matt is suspended for six months. After turning in his badge and gun, Matt goes home to fix the bathroom sink. Janice comes in, and Matt then begins to lament the state of his life. On top of his suspension, he's losing his marriage. Janice tells Matt he hasn't lost that yet, and says in her mind that she's pregnant. Matt and Janice then rejoice.
[edit] Bodyguard
Recently, Matt took a job as bodyguard to pay the bills while on suspension. His new employer was Aaron Malsky, a man who stole the $2 million that DL Hawkins sent to Linderman as restitution. Malsky used the money to buy diamonds, but the transaction was rushed to completion when Matt learned via telepathy that the jewler was on Linderman's payroll. Jessica, currently the dominant personality over Niki, works for Linderman and was hired to kill Malsky and his bodyguard. After a shootout and breaking out of handcuffs, Jessica threw Matt out of a window and onto a sign girder; but not before Matt revealed that he could hear both Jessica and Niki, a fact which surprised Jessica. She then proceeded to tear Malsky in half. Malsky had hidden the diamonds in the ceiling shortly before he died. Matt found them by recalling Malsky's last thoughts, but kept the diamonds for himself after hearing a detective thinking disparaging thoughts about him.
[edit] Confrontation
In "Unexpected", Matt receives a phone call from Ted Sprague, who wants to meet with Matt again in the cemetery where his wife is buried. At the cemetery, Matt meets up with Ted and Hana Gitelman who informs him of Primatech and their connection to their abduction and the markings on their necks. Ted wants to confront their abductor, Mr. Bennet, but he needs Matt's help, as he can get into his mind and make sure he doesn't lie to them. Reluctantly, Matt agrees. Both Matt and Ted manage to confront Mr. Bennet and his family at gunpoint as they were coming back from the hospital.
[edit] Imprisonment
Currently, Matt is being held against his will at the hands of Thompson and his associates. In "Parasite," he is used to "screen" Mr. Bennet to detect any lies.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Matt possesses telepathy, but lacks complete control over it. He is unable to deactivate his ability fully, so he often hears the thoughts of everyone in his immediate vicinity unwillingly. It is likely activated by the clear thoughts of others; thus, the time and amount depends on the "sender(s)" rather than himself. He is, however, able to focus on and glean specific thoughts from those he wishes to, such as when he was able to pull the name "Claire" from the mind of Mr. Bennet, despite being blocked by the Haitian, which Mr. Bennet considers as evidence that Matt's powers are growing.
With concentration, he was able to duplicate the feat of "pulling a name" from Bennet's mind with the Haitian present. However, he was only able to do it once and the strain caused a severe nosebleed. Since then, he generally hasn't been able to get past what he described as "white noise" caused by the Haitian.
Currently, the biggest problem of the power is his inability to turn it off, allowing for a whole room of thoughts to bombard him. Also, as he stated in "Nothing to Hide," he has been having trouble honing in on a specific person in a crowd. He is unable to send messages to others, use his abilities over any significant range, nor otherwise influence other people via his power. In general, he only seems able to hear thoughts from those in his immediate vicinity. Also, when he hears the thoughts of others, the voices echo inside his head and they are very similar to the sound those people emit when they actually speak. Because of this, there are instances where he can't distinguish the thought that he hears from actual voices.
Occasionally, Matt's use of his powers have had physical side effects. He may take large amounts of aspirin a day to deal with headaches caused by him unwillingly hearing multiple thoughts at a time. When attempting to read the mind of Peter Petrelli during his interrogation, Matt's telepathy and Peter's mimicry of telepathy overlapped, causing both parties to experience an uncomfortable feedback.
It is heavily implied that he suffers some form of dyslexia, in the episode Six Months Ago he says to his wife that he can barely read the questions on the detective test, explaining his continuing failure in the test.
[edit] References
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Heroes characters
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| Main characters |
| Mr. Bennet • Claire Bennet • Simone Deveaux • D.L. Hawkins • Isaac Mendez • Hiro Nakamura • Matt Parkman • Nathan Petrelli • Peter Petrelli • Micah Sanders • Niki Sanders • Mohinder Suresh |
| Other characters |
| Claude • Hana Gitelman • The Haitian • Ando Masahashi • Eden McCain • Ted Sprague • Sylar |
