Registry of the Evolved Database
File #19 Jun 2008 21:35
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portrayed by Greg Grunberg |
As different as it may have been, Matt Parkman’s childhood situation isn’t as rare as it would have been a century ago. As far as Matt is aware, he father stole a substantial amount of money from a variety of people and then fled after giving his only son a pat on the head and a little over one hundred dollars. In reality, Maury Parkman was one of the twelve who founded The Company and, like his son, is Evolved. Matt was raised by his mother, and the rest of his childhood and young adult life in Los Angeles was rather uneventful. Matt made several attempts throughout his lifetime to find his father, but has had no success. As he got older, the dream of seeing his father took a backseat in Matt’s mind.
Matt wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until he was in middle school, and he struggled with it throughout his school career. Refusing the help offered to him by the school’s special needs staff out of a fear of the stigma it would give him, Matt’s grades suffered. Through his own determination, Matt was able to scratch out a decent enough average to get into college, though he took a year off from school before continuing his education. His college expenses were taken care of primarily by need-based scholarships. The distaste for crime that his father helped foster in Matt took a strong enough hold that after Matt graduated high school he went to school for his degree in Criminal Justice from Cal State L.A. and soon landed a job with the Los Angeles Police Department. While at Cal State L.A., Matt met Janice. They were engaged her senior year, and not long Janice graduated (two years before Matt, who had to retake several classes due to poor grades), they were married. Matt was accepted as a cadet in the LAPD’s academy shortly after his graduation. From the start, their relationship wasn’t picture perfect. While Matt was still in school, Janice had to be the primary bread-winner for the house, but the promise that Matt would try for detective as soon as he could in order to rise in the ranks of law enforcement gave them both hope for a better future.
Fresh out of the Academy, Matt was partnered with Tom McHenry. But a beat cop doesn’t solve crimes, so as soon as he was able, Matt took the detective’s exam. Once again afraid of being labeled a special case in terms of his academic ability, Matt didn’t seek any alterations to circumvent his dyslexia, and as a result, he failed the exam. Matt’s determination was not shattered, and he made a second attempt. On his next try, not only his dyslexia, but a night spent eating donuts in his squad car as a result of Sarah Ellis’ powerful suggestion also played into Matt’s second failure. But while Matt was struggling, Janice was advancing in her business career, and the still unbalanced income was just one more thing that put a strain on their already rocky marriage. By the time Matt failed the exam for the third time, his partner, Tom McHenry, had already made detective.
Matt discovered his powers while on the scene of one of Sylar’s murders. Unable to explain where the little girl’s voice in his head was coming from, Matt crossed the yellow tape around the Walker home and located the terrified Molly Walker. At the same time Matt tried to come to grips with his newfound telepathy, the FBI investigating Sylar’s string of murders was demanding answers – and results. But after Matt was kidnapped by The Company, losing a day, and discovered that the FBI detainee, Ted Sprague, had as well, his investigative goals included finding out what had been done to both Ted and himself. Whatever it was, Matt’s telepathy was more uncontrollable than it had been previously, causing him headaches and, in one case involving a potential robbery at a convenience store, unconsciousness.
At the same time, Matt used his telepathy (and the fact that he was hand-picked to aid the FBI by agent Audrey Hanson) to try and repair his marriage, but in reading his wife’s mind he found out more than he had wanted to – Janice was keeping something from him. Catching bits of Tom McHenry’s, Matt’s former partner’s, thoughts, Matt put two and two together and correctly pegged Tom as the man his wife was having an affair with. After punching Tom in the face in a gut reaction to what he heard in his mind, Matt was suspended from the force without pay for one month. Janice admitted to the affair, and though she said it was over, Matt was still troubled.
Despite his suspension, the FBI still used Matt in their attempt to find the escaped Ted and the still at large Sylar. While investigating the carnage at Union Wells High School in Odessa, Texas, Matt tried to listen to Noah and Claire’s thoughts with determined effort to break through the “static” that results in a nosebleed and a single word: Sylar. This lead Matt to stake out Primatech Paper with Audrey for two weeks. The stakeout and then raid was an unsuccessful embarrassment, and a frustrated Audrey let him go.
Back at home in Los Angeles, Matt finally clued Janice into his ability to read her mind. In front of the LAPD review board looking over the Primatech incident, Matt tells them what they want to hear in order to escape more trouble. He is suspended for six months as a result, and when he tells Janice, she informed him that she was pregnant. The news took Matt’s mind off his previous stresses and concerns, and he was overwhelmed with excitement at the thought of having a child; he would finally have the chance to right his own father’s wrongs in raising his own child.
In order to keep bringing in some bacon, Matt took a job as an armed security job. But when the job went wrong and Nikki Sanders, as Jessica, killed Matt’s charge, Aron Malsky, Matt took home the bag of diamonds that Malsky had purchased with money he had stolen from Linderman. Janice became suspicious of the diamonds when one Matt had set in a ring for her was questioned by a jeweler. But Matt was more suspicious of Mohinder Suresh, who kept calling the house because Matt is on his list. Before Matt could deal with either of these problems, however, Ted called him to meet in a graveyard with Candice. Ted and Matt then went to the Bennet’s home to take them hostage and force Noah to give them the information about The Company that they wanted. After a heated standoff, trickery, and lots of mind-reading, Ted burned down the Bennet’s home and the two were taken to a medical facility within The Company. With help from Noah, who has also been locked away, Matt was able to escape with both of the men he went in with.
With Noah to help them stay off The Company’s radar, the trio made their way to New York City to destroy The Company’s new way of tracking Evolved humans. They meet up with Claire and Peter, and Matt went with Ted with the other two while he and Noah went to find the tracking system. Matt’s telepathy helped them get into The Company’s New York facility in Kirby Plaza. But when the tracking system is discovered to not only have been moved but to be Molly Walker herself, Matt’s paternal instincts kicked in and he refused to let Molly be harmed. In an effort to protect Molly, Matt pursued Noah out of Kirby Plaza, who shot Matt three times in the chest in the process of trying to shake him and achieve his own goals. Matt slowed when he came across the overturned FBI van containing Ted’s mutilated body, and in doing so lost Noah’s trail. Determined, Matt continued on, trying to find where Noah had gone.
When Peter exploded, unable to control Ted’s power within him, Matt was luckily out of the blast radius. The events in New York on November 8, 2006 were the last of a long line that drove an even deeper wedge between Matt and Janice. Matt’s hospitalization due to radiation exposure kept him out of contact with his wife, who was already worried about her husband’s whereabouts. In the end, the lack of communication between the couple was their downfall, and in January of 2007, Matt and Janice’s divorce was finalized and he relocated to New York to join the NYPD and aid in the efforts to keep the peace. With an increase in crime and the help of his abilities, Matt passes his detective’s exam and is finally able to cross that yellow tape, wear a suit to work, and actually solve cases to get to the bottom of crime surge.
On February 18, 2007, Matt came forward during Nathan Petrelli's press conference as one of the NYPD officers having abilities in order to lend evidence to the truth. In the chaos that followed, with Evolved citizens of the United States being treated worse than the “witches” and communists that came before them, Matt Parkman's experience in dealing with Sylar's case and abilities earned him a referral to Homeland Security. There, he helped enforce the Linderman Act by finding, registering, and detaining Evolved individuals. With the help and influence of Nathan and Angela Petrelli, Matt found himself in one of the department's highest positions, reporting directly to its head. What's more, he believed in the work they were doing.
PARIAH was one of many groups on the DHS radar, so naturally Matt became involved with watching their movements. But when Molly Walker, his adopted daughter, became a target, things got personal. He was there when PARIAH made their move on Primatech, thinking that Sylar was being held in the facility. In reality, Sylar was masquerading as Mohinder – a fact that Matt revealed to the group in the middle of a standoff. In the end, he took Claire Bennet custody. It was while questioning her that Matt became aware of his ability to trigger illusions drawn from the thoughts and fears of others. It wasn't long after Matt released a newly registered Claire from DHS custody to her grandmother's care that Matt suffered the loss of a limb at the hands (and teeth) of Huruma.
When he woke up in a hospital bed, Daniel Linderman was sitting beside him and his right arm was restored. While functional, Matt lacks any feeling in the appendage, and he learned that someday, Linderman will call on him to repay the businessman for this favor.
Matt's work on the Sylar case continued as the DHS liaison to the Company, but that work was soon put on hold when a new threat emerged – the Vanguard. It was in his capacity as a DHS agent that Matt reconnected with Kaydence Lee Demaris, wife of his now deceased partner from his days as an NYPD detective. With his own adopted daughter staying in a Company facility for her own safety and his ex-wife raising a child he doubted was his, Matt was eager for some semblance of a family. When Kaydence Lee was kidnapped by Vanguard operatives, Matt learned that he was the emergency contact for Cole, Kaydence Lee's daughter, cementing his role as surrogate father for one more fatherless girl.
When Allen Rickham became President-Elect, Matt was assigned as one of the politician's safety nets. So when the Vanguard attempted to assassinate Rickham, Matt suffered a laser laceration courtesy of Sylar, and was rescued by Phoenix along with the newly elected official. It's there that an unlikely alliance was forged for the purposes of eliminating the Vanguard as a threat. Matt became a conduit of information between the Company, DHS, and Phoenix in order to prepare for and thwart the Vanguard's plot. While his head was swimming with the stress of it all, Kaydence Lee proposed a more formal merging of their families. Blindsided, Matt accepted.%r%rBut the way Phoenix handled the final showdown with the Vanguard left them as a target for the U.S. Government, as well as the Company. Urged by Roger Goodman, Matt changed his face and went undercover on Staten Island to gain intelligence. Little did he know that idea of him being a “fly on the wall” was a play by Pinehearst to separate Matt from Molly. Matt's mission ends early in order to track down his father, who used his abilities to infiltrate Matt's apartment and seize the girl. When all signs pointed to Pinehearst, Matt sprang, only to find himself the victim of Arthur Petrelli's schemes and his own father's betrayal.
Powerless, but reunited with Molly, Matt spent nearly two weeks imprisoned by Petrelli, and only broke out with the help of others. For the first time in his life, Matt was forced to live under the radar while he tried to put his life back together, for his own and Molly's sake. The first step was a deceptively difficult one – getting his ability back. Calling in a perhaps undeserved favor with Helena of Phoenix, Matt was put in contact with someone who could do just that for. The second step was reclaiming his life, which meant pushing his father out of it. Tracy Strauss, whose powers manifested around the same time as all of this, became critical in this. Third, Matt wanted revenge on Arthur Petrelli, and launched himself into efforts of finding something, anything to bring Pinehearst down legitimately.
All of this was put on hold when Maury showed up at Matt's door, bleeding severely after being nearly gutted by Adam Monroe – the real power at Pinehearst. Despite all that he had done, Matt couldn't let his father die, and so he got Maury the help he needed. Not three weeks later, he had his ultimate revenge on the man who abandoned him as a boy, trapping Maury in a subconscious prison. The victory was bittersweet, though, as Matt realized that while he hadn't become his father, he was on the road to becoming something worse. In an effort to save what remained of his family, Matt finds alternative arrangements for Molly and throws himself back into his work. He saw it as the only way to really protect anyone. He had a duty, and while that duty was to more than his family, they were included.
But Matt's work weighed heavily on him. In the beginning of 2010, Matt learned from his ex-wife that his son, Matthew Parkman Jr., was showing signs of having abilities. Through a tense series of visitations on what little time Matt could get away from his work, he and Janice were able to work out that yes, their son was Evolved. It came as a blessing and a curse to the boy's father. First of all, it cleared up the paternity issue, making the distance a strain on Matt's conscious as well as on his relationship with Kaydence Lee. Second, keeping Matty's abilities a secret became just as much a priority as toeing the line of duty. PARIAH may have been history, but groups like Humanis First and Messiah, not to mention Rebel, still wreaked havoc and fostered fear in the minds of the populace. As Operations Director at DHS, it fell to Matt to organize agents to uncover cells. But rather than take down Messiah when they had the chance, Matt was given orders to use his ability and turn Magnes into a mole. Matt had been shying away from his ability in the aftermath of his final altercation with his father, and so this act was the opening of a new door for him.
On July 2, 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Evertt Hicks was killed in a suicide bombing at the Pentagon, and Matt was promoted from Operations Director to Interim Secretary. A few weeks later, he was officially installed in the position.
Inch by inch, Matt's focus narrowed into a tunnel. Little by little Little mattered outside of keeping himself and his family safe and whatever work lay before him. National, global threats would appear and be neutralized, and the general public would be none the wiser. And Matt would think less and less about the atrocities he would help commit in the name of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, so long as those closest to his heart remained out of harm's way.
Matt has always been a complicated man, but ambition has been replaced with the desire for family. Following the demise of his own father, Matt struggles not to commit the same crimes toward his son as Maury did to him, but distance and the nature of his job make that nearly impossible, and thereby weigh heavily on Matt's conscience. In a word, Matt is a workaholic. He is devoted to his job, but less because he believes that the work he does is for the common good and more because he knows it is in his best interests, and in the interests of his family, for him to do what he's told. Work has put a visible strain on Matt, turning him prematurely gray, as well as endangering the direction of his moral compass in a less-than-true-north direction.
Matt is telepathic. That is, he has the ability to hear people's thoughts. Matt can concentrate to listen to an individual's thoughts, but he is also able to tune out thoughts when in large crowds of people. Years have doing the latter have made it somewhat second nature, or Matt's "default" setting. However, strong or "loud" thoughts, or thoughts from people in his immediate vicinity are harder to ignore. If he doesn't tune out the constant barrage of thoughts, Matt can suffer from severe headaches.
Thought Invasion: With an effort, Matt can tune out the thoughts of others around him in order to focus on those of one individual. That person can try to resist Matt's invasion by either clearing their mind or thinking of something else.
Thought Projection: Once Matt has successfully invaded someone's thoughts, he can concentrate harder to try and inject his own thoughts into that person's head. These thoughts are in Matt's own 'voice,' and it is essentially like having a conversation without anyone needing to move their mouths.
Mind/Body Control: Once Matt has successfully invaded someone's thoughts, he can attempt to act as puppeteer in that person's brain, injecting thoughts disguised as belonging to that person rather than himself. Highly perceptive individuals may be able to recognize the command as having a foreign source, but it takes a great deal of effort to resist.
Hallucination: Without distractions to counter his concentration, Matt can use a mental connection with a person to induce hallucinations. By tapping directly into all of the senses, a whole new reality can be created to fool a subject. The intensity of the hallucination will depend on how much Matt concentrates and how many distractions, external and internal, he faces while constructing it. Matt can continual reinforce the hallucination, fighting against the willpowers of any trying to resist it, but if he becomes too distracted or moves away, the hallucination will fade when the captive stops believing in it.
Appendices
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.-T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," lines 111-119
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Trivia and Notes
- Matt has no feeling in his right arm. That is to say, his right arm is functional, and he can move it all he wishes, but were he to be injured in it - even something as small as a papercut - he would not feel it. This is a result of an incident with Huruma and subsequent healing by Daniel Linderman.
- Matt carries a few scars from scrapes he's been a part of in the line of duty, but the most notable is one across his chest courtesy of Sylar which he received while trying to protect President-Elect Rickham.