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TwitterHiro's future past
Heroes certainly isn't being shy about its influences these past couple weeks, huh? After last week's seemingly Watchmen-influenced episode comes a show that owes a heavy debt to the legendary X-Men story "Days of Future Past." (And, in fact, Masi Oka acknowledged as much in an interview last month.)
It was a jam-packed episode, so much so that it could probably have benefited from being longer than it was (surely Ashton Kutcher and Co. could have edited down this week's Real Wedding Crashers to a half-hour?). The pace, particularly with all the exposition about how this version of the future came to be, was almost too quick.
Big, fat spoilers coming right up, so leave now if you haven't watched.
Here's my main question now: If, in fact, it's not Sylar who explodes and levels New York but Peter, how will killing Sylar stop the bomb? We've never previously seen Isaac's art be wrong about the future, so I'm very, very curious to see how the final three episodes deal with that issue. Perhaps Hiro's killing Sylar prevents some other event that causes Peter to blow up -- your thoughts, folks?
Here's another, nitpickier question: In an early episode we saw Sylar regenerate, or at least appear to, after Parkman shot him. Unless he did something else -- e.g., stop the bullet with his telekinesis and only fake going down -- why would he need Claire's power?
Additionally, early in the episode, Future Hiro notes that he stabbed Sylar (at some point in the past, presumably), but Sylar regenerated. As we don't seem him, in disguise as President Nathan, slice open Claire's head till well after Future Hiro says that, how'd that happen?
Enough of the space-time analysis, though, for there was much that was good in this episode as well: HRG (who, didja notice, was wearing what looked like rimless glasses) working both sides of the round-up-the-mutants fence, helping "harmless" people go underground but tipping off Homeland Security guy Parkman to the "dangerous" ones. Future Hiro's darkness, and Ando's crucial pep talk to Present Hiro that allows the two to blink back into the present.
President Nathan/Sylar (gotta say, that was quite the jaw-dropper) also really intrigued me with his moral equivocating. He tells Peter that when he killed the real Nathan, the elder Petrelli "had already turned against his own people" -- and yet he's advocating the genocide of his own kind, so that he'll become, as he's always wanted, "the most special person in the world."
Even Suresh stepped up, offing the Future Haitian so that Present Hiro and Ando could get back to their own time. It's hinted that Parkman's kid is special too, in his offhand comment to HRG that they're both shielding "children of interest."
High marks, too, for the scene that cut back and forth between President Nathan/Sylar's speech on the five-year anniversary of the bomb and the fight to spring Present Hiro from the detention facility -- which also had the best line of the night, Peter's "Nah -- it's been years since I had a good fight."
I'll leave it to you now to untangle the time-jumping knot Heroes put forth Monday: Did the little inconsistencies bug you? Or did the episode deliver enough elsewhere that you're willing to overlook it?
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
Regarding the Sylar taking Nathan's part, that was foreshadowed in last week's episode when he saw the painting of Nathan in the Oval Office.
It also says that Sylar killed Candice (Missy Peregrym) to take her shape shifting power.
As an aside, I didn't see the preview of next week's episode. Can anyone provide a link to the preview? I doubt I'll be able to watch it on NBC's site (doesn't allow viewers to see video if they aren't in the U.S.)
Rick: Here's how the writers will answer the questions you've posited: with great big gaping PLOT HOLES.
Watchen and X-men, huh? Look, I know there's nothing new under the sun, and I honestly don't expect originality from Hollywood. But I do expect these creative types to at least put a new spin on the familiar subject matter. The way it stands now, a lot of the Heroes storylines seem like straight rip-offs of cl***ic comics material. At least credit Alan Moore and Chris Claremont (and others) if the producers are going to be that bald-faced about their "influences".
Other than that ... Decent show.
It's a little hazy whether they're playing with weird rules of time travel or if they've just confused themselves, but Future Hiro acts as though he doesn't realize any of the changes that arose from his attempt to alter the past (he's surprised to learn that Claire was saved, for example). So it's not inconsistent that he still thinks killing Sylar will stop the bomb (***uming that Sylar was the bomb in the original timeline, and Peter is in the altered timeline) though it is sort of odd.
What I'm wondering is, when did he get the freezing power?
roschach if you mean when did peter get the freezing power it was earlier in the season when furure hiro popped into the train. remember peter gets peoples powers the moment he meets them. it just that he is only recently tapping into them.
on another note. i loved this ep for how crazy it got. it was smart of the writers to kill of all those characters and just have fun knowing that it wouldnt stick. i especially loved sylar still being alive. i was so mad when it appeared we wouldnt get future sylar.
however i hated the inconsistensies. all the switching of who the bomb is was confusing and im still not entirely sure who the original bomb was. was it ever sylar? and if hiro did change the future how does he not know it? after knowing peter for five years he never said oh hey i saved claire thanks for that?
plus, notice that whole thing about dl? niki thought he died in the explosion but he apparently lived long enough to be hidden away by hiro and hrg what up with that. did he not call her cause he didnt know she stopped being jess? (anyone else think thats a dig at nick lachey and jessica simpson) tho i am glad to say that if you read the online novel it appears they are trying to explain how peter and niki met up so i hope that includes how she took control over jess (gotta say i love the newer version of her i love jessica and niki/jessica over plane ole niki)
last but not least, if dl didnt die in the explosion, does that mean micah didnt? oh well ill try and forgive the heroes writers. after all they gave us sylar being nathan. good stuff
I think it plays out like this:
Furture Hiro had spent the last 5 years trying to figure out how to reverse what had happened. His first idea was that when he tried to kill Sylar, he regenerated and survived, so his first attempt at reversing time was to go back and tell Peter Petrelli, who he now knows in the future, to "Save the Cheerleader" (how future Hiro knows about Claire is something of a mystery but not really inconsistant just not told to the viewer. However, Peter could have told him since it's implied that he and Nathan know of her and her power). This action alters time, but does not reverse the ultimate outcome, which was somewhat foreshadowed when Hiro tried to go back in the past to save Charlie. So Hiro goes back to the drawing board, so to speak, to try to figure out what his next move is. It's at this point that past Hiro and Ando encounter him and he learns that the cheerleader was saved. This could all have happened before he had time to check with people in the future, especially since the "save the Cheerleader" events directly influenced the actions of HRG in sending his daughter into hiding and may even have robbed him of information he previoulsy had knowledge of. This also could have lead to the encounter between Hiro and Sylar never occuring so the fact the Sylar doesn't kill Claire until later is not really inconsistant either. We, the viewers, just aren't privy to what happened after Hiro changed time. That all falls under the adage of a butterfly flapping it's wings on one side of the world. Lastly, Isaac's art is only wrong at the snapshot moment of time which we saw in the episode. It is very likely that in the end the art will actually be exactly correct.
All in all, I have to say that I was seriously impressed with this episode, the revelations and the way they were presented. It gives the viewer a chance to think through what happened and leaves a lot of anticipation about what is to come.
Here's how I see it...
We will find out, in the next three episodes, that Future Hiro (FH) has been altering past events for some time now. In some timelines, Sylar kills Claire and gains her powers. In other timelines (leading to the five years in the future timeline), Peter or FH save the cheerleader, and Sylar does not get her powers.
I think we're going to see a kick-*** season finale that answers alot of the space/time questions...
First of all, awesome ep!
In response to fanboy regarding DL: I thing Sylar killed him since he exhibited DL's power when he reached through the door to pull Peter out of the room. Likewise, Sylar also killed Candace. This means that when Hiro brought them (and the third person he named) to HRG to be hidden, HRG must have given them up to Parkman, who delivered them to Sylar (posing as Nathan).
Regarding the timelines, it wasn't making sense because Sylar did not get to Claire until 5 years in the future, yet he seemed to have regenerative powers the day the bomb when off. That was when future Hiro stated that he stabbed him, and Hiro figured that Sylar regenerated. (And this is why Hiro thought saving the cheerleader would save the world. He ***umed Sylar would have absorbed Claire's power, so by saving Claire would mean Sylar would have died from Hiro's attack.) BUT, Rick Porter noted that Sylar appeared to regenerate after Parkman shot him eariler in the season. So perhaps Sylar has some version of a healing ability(see comment below), but it isn't as near as complete as Claire's, which can bring her back from death, and which can apparently save Peter after he causes a nuclear explosion!
Sylar's healing ability may be based on his ability to fix things and/or telekinetically mending tissue--or at least holding it together until it heals naturally. After all, he can apparently fix/rewrite his own genetic code so that he can have other heroes' powers.
Any thoughts?
The one thing I found interesting is that Future Hiro (and now Present Hiro) are on a "fool's errand" in their effort to kill Sylar to stop the explosion. We now know that Sylar was never the bomb, it was always Peter. Nathan just covered up the facts to protect Peter (a recurring theme to the show). Unfortunately Sylar, Peter, and Nathan are the only ones who know this and poor Hiro thinks he will save the world, and stop the explosion by killing Sylar when he really needs to be killing Peter. So either the explosion really will take place or Peter will have to do something to stop it.
i know there's a lot of hating going about how they are ripping off other comic book stories, but look at it this way. We most likely will never see movie adaptations of any of these stories, so i'll take the Heroes version for now. I also wish they had made this a two hour show, so they could really go into more detail about all that was going on and how it came to be. I want to see Nikki/Jessica tear somebody in half before the season's over! I know it'd be tricky on TV, but at least give us a taste of how strong she really is. Can she lift a car or even maybe throw a car? also, with a longer show they could give us a little more of the Peter vs. Sylar fight. Still, i loved the show and can't wait to see what happens next.
Bilbo, are you sure Sylar was never the bomb? From what Future Hiro says it sounds like he stabbed him immediately before he went nuclear, which makes it unlikely that he could have been mistaken.
There are two possible sources of the blast, as I see it: one is the possibility of power overload (which Peter started to experience, only to be punched out by Claude, and which it seems Sylar may also be capable of) and the other is Ted Sprague's radiation power (most likely wielded by Peter or Ted after a meeting in NYC). So it's possible that it was originally Sylar who goes off, but FH's intervention has changed it so that Peter is now responsible. It seems like the outcome (kaboom) is fixed, although the route is malleable.