The Spike, the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart

Random late-night thought: Spike being bound to Wolfram & Hart, and furthermore to LA as it goes to Hell. Angel's team all agreed, for various reasons sufficient to each of them, to join the new staff of Wolfram & Hart. However, as has been revealed in the comics, WR&H were playing a very long game, and they now have the whole team right where they want them. But they wanted Spike, too, and he never would have agreed to join them of his own free will. They knew, though, that he would insist on wearing an amulet designated to be worn by 'a champion, souled but stronger than human', especially to save Buffy. Passing it from Lilah to Angel to Buffy to Spike ensured both that Spike would insist, and that there would be no way for him to understand where/who it came from. Any one of a dozen spells would ensure that the amulet returned to the LA office, and once conjured there, Spike would be bound to the offices, and whether or not he recorporialized, he would then have ties that would keep him in town for a year, which is all they needed. They played him just as much as the rest of the team, just at one more remove.

Nature or Nurture (or, the inevitablity of destiny)

The new season of Heroes has started, and the threads tangle more thoroughly with every scene. First of all we have the clustering of powers: the energy manipulators, with the fire-specific subset and Traci's ice power as well as Elle's electricity; the fourth-dimension folk, who can move at inhuman speed or change the flow of time (I include precogs in this category); the body manipulators, like Claire's self-healing, Linderman's other-healing, and Monica's muscle memory; and the mental ones, like Parkman's telepathy/Influence. And now that we have learned about the Company's formula, how much of this is designed?
Next, of course, is the twists and turns of Gabriel's life. Is he still Sylar? Will he be Sylar four years from now? He will have a child, for whom he will care very deeply, but who is the boy's mother? And why has Gabriel named the boy Noah? Never mind all the convolutions that claim Gabriel is another Petrelli, which seems like something of a cop-out on the part of the writers, frankly.
In an interesting twist, we now have four individuals who are effectively immortal. What that will mean for the continuing story is an interesting point to debate, but there are more immediate concerns. For instance, we have seen both Claire's and Peter's blood restore someone from the dead- if they/someone makes this public knowledge, there will be rioting and mass hysteria. On the other hand, at the moment the Company is keeping this very hush-hush, which suggests that they have nefarious uses for heal-all blood. Well, of course they have nefarious plans- they do have Level 5, with all that implies.
I am a little irked that the writers are continuing the trend of more male characters than female, and the males having more volition than the females. Maya, for instance, took the huge step of seeking out Mohinder so he could help her, but to get there she needed her brother, then she turned to Sylar for help, and now that she has found Mohinder, she has completely submitted to him. She may yet kick him to the curb, but only if she notices that he is being abusive, which, with her history, seems highly unlikely. Claire keeps going back and forth on how active she is (though she's getting more and more dangerous), while her grandmother is just a terrible, manipulative bitch.
Ah, and then there's this formula business... It's possible that, like Mohinder, the Company started with someone with abilities (maybe Adam Monroe? or is there time trickery there?). Equally likely, they decided that they wanted abilities, figured out the formula, and tested it on themselves. We know they found the formula too dangerous for general use, officially for the reasons Hiro saw, but likely for more personal (ie, retaining secular power) reasons, too. Now I just wonder how close Mohinder's formula is to the one the Company created, and how far each of them will spread in the coming months.