As for the Hatian, apparently there is going to be an online comic explaining his abilities/origen this summer.

And the thing about Bennet not being able to dress himself makes so much sense and just adds so much more to the HRG/Claire relationship.

This prevents the explosion without Peter having to confess that he is the bomb.

Here’s a thought: if Future-Hiro or Future-Peter had frozen time on the first floor of Homeland Security, would the Haitian a few floors up have been affected? Or would his power-blocking ability automatically make him “immune” to it?

Hi, UB. Your points, in order:

(1) Neat idea; we’ve always assumed that it would be a one-or-the-other deal, and that it would be either Peter, Sylar or Ted who sets off the explosion. It never occurred to me that it could be more than one of them at the same time.

(2) Yeah, your plan’s more effective than the one they used in the story. Chopping Sylar up and burying him around the globe would work until someone, centuries later, decides to collect the pieces and put them back together again. (Buffy did that with The Judge in its second season.) I think the catch there is the whole “Peter-as-the-undefeatable-hero” thing. If Peter was thinking up the stuff you just did, there’d be no one who could stop him.

(3) Could D.L. have wanted to hook up with other supers for revenge, or out of a sense of solidarity? I think it’ll depend on how stuff plays out over the next few episodes. But I agree, Micah’s death would probably be what drives him away from Niki.

(4) I don’t know about this point; Sylar deceives Sandra, Zane and Mohinder, and on every occasion it’s because he has some ultimate goal in mind. But what would Sylar gain by lying to Peter about Nathan? I think the smackdown was going to go ahead no matter what, so what would Sylar’s reason be behind taunting Peter with the prospect of a disloyal brother? Just to distract him?

Hey, Manila! I’m the last person to ask about the whole timeline paradox thing. I think the gist of it is this: Future-Hiro is like a “relic” of Timeline A. He’s gone back in time to meet Peter on the subway, and by doing that he’s changed history. BUT, his memories of history don’t change, even when he returns to the future: from his perspective, it’s still Timeline A: Sylar killed Claire, and Sylar set off the explosion.

I think that’s why, at the start of “FYG,” Future-Hiro needed to ask Present-Hiro and Ando whether Peter managed to save Claire. He only remembers the original version of events.

(Someone please shout out if that’s garbage.)

Hi, Siege. On your first point: I tend to agree with the theory that the Haitian’s ability applies to mental abilities but not physical abilities. So he can block Matt’s mindreading and Hiro’s time-freezing and Eden’s coercion, but not Nathan’s flight and not Peter’s TK and not (in theory) Meredith’s firestarting or D.L.’s phasing. That may be disproven at some point, though.

Second point: yeah, you could be right. I take the online comics as gospel in this case, so I’d say the original sequence of events involved Sylar taking Claire’s and Ted’s abilities and setting off the explosion. If Future-Hiro had never visited Peter on the subway, and if Peter had never saved Claire at homecoming, everything would have gone down very differently.

Raissa: heh, Bennet can’t dress himself. You can picture him getting Sandra and Claire in the room every time he chooses a tie. A non-formal event is his Kryptonite. But Coleman works the leather jacket so well, I’ll bet the show gives him a chance to branch out next season.

Bennet was probably a badass when he was younger. I’d love to see a flashback of that.

I have a theory about Bennet’s wardrobe and accessories…

Going back to the “Claire picks the glasses” flashback in Company Man, we see him in an absolutely hideous sweater. Couple that with the fact that Claire is helping him pick frames, and there’s one inference to draw: He can’t dress himself. Bennet understands this about himself, however. It’s why he lets Claire pick his glasses and part of the reason why he gravitated toward his line a work — a standardized dress code.

As for the Future Glasses, they look wrong, because they are. Something happened to the horn-rims after Claire went into hiding and Sandra left. Couple Bennet’s despondency over the dissolution of his beloved family with his inability to independently accesorize, and he ends up wearing wire-rimmed glasses, instead.

1st point: I’ve noticed that the Haitian doesn’t actually block all powers. You’ll notice that HRG and the Haitian were trying to chase down Nathan after he spent the night with Niki/Jessica (can’t remember which episode, I think it was Hiros?) and, despite the Haitian’s presence, Nathan was able to take off. My theory is that the Haitian only blocks powers that are capable of physically affecting other human beings, i.e., freezing them in time or throwing them around with one’s mind. I think that, for instance, the Haitian wouldn’t be able to block Claire’s power or Claude’s power because neither of those affect the people around them. (You’ll notice that HRG and the haitian had to wear heat-sensing goggles to track Claude and Peter, instead of the Haitian simply showing up and blocking their powers). Ironic…despite the Haitian being possibly the single most powerful ‘Hero’, he’s just as vulnerable to a bullet as any of us.

2nd point: To all those of you who are operating under the theory that Sylar was the bomb, that can’t be right. Sylar wasn’t the bomb. Ever. Nathan covered it up and Future-Hiro became the victim of an elaborate lie. No matter what timeline you choose, its a safe assumption that Peter is the bomb in every single one of them.

3rd point: this is actually a question. Do you think that Peter’s dreams come from his empath ability, or from absorbing them from his mother or someone else? I think you said something about it in your blogs but I can’t remember where or when.

Now for your discussion topic. I’m inclined to think that Sylar stealing an ability doesn’t diminish Peter’s ability to absorb it, but I could be wrong (with this show, no one ever really knows, after all.) I think that Peter has every ability that Sylar does, he just doesn’t know it yet. Perhaps he actually DOES need to see Sylar use it before he can, so he’ll probably never learn the art of making a skillet become a pool of silver liquid [Darn!] or be able to hear people’s hearts beating from twenty miles away [hence Matt's ease in sneaking up on him]. I also think that its more difficult for Peter to draw on a power without knowing he has it, since if he doesn’t know who had it or if they had it then he wouldn’t be able to focus on the person and thereby draw on their power. I’m stumped as to how Peter was able to draw stick figure prophecies after finding Isaac stoned, although his use of Claire’s power automatically when she came near him was probably just a reflex. Perhaps the show will enlighten us down the road, or perhaps we’ll never actually know the full extent of Peter’s power. Looking at the brilliance of the show so far, I’m somewhat inclined to not really care.

There’s something that’s been bugging me for days now and - I think - you didn’t mention in your post on #1.20, Otto.

We have two different timelines. Timeline A is Sylar being the bomb, timeline B is Peter being the bomb.

Now Present-Hiro teleported into timeline B, obviously. But why does the Future-Hiro of timeline B STILL say he failed to stab Sylar? Since Peter is the bomb in timeline B, there never was an exploding Sylar that had to be stabbed. Hiro failing to kill Sylar thus never happened. Am I overlooking something here?!

1) I see no reason why killing Sylar couldn’t very well still prevent the explosion. The reason for this can be found in the way in which it appears the two begin to fight at the close of this episode, namely that Peter seems to be drawing on a flame power to combat Sylar’s ice ability (Claire’s mother… Meredith was her name?), but one can assume that he hadn’t appropriated that by the time of the explosion itself as Present-Peter doesn’t have that skill. The next best thing would probably be Ted’s nuclear abilities (unless the flame hands were simply a prelude to the use of said nuclear abilities as well), and the ensuing fight could very well be what caused the explosion (perhaps the method through which Linderman enacts his plan). Some leeway can be given to the writers here for the moment, as we still have very little knowledge as to the events just before and during the explosion itself.

2) I think the bigger question may well be, why exactly does Peter choose that ability in the fight against Sylar, in this most recent episode? As far as I can tell, nobody really has an ability to counter Hiro’s, except for the Haitian - who we must assume Sylar can’t copy, because the Haitian is still alive (well, until he dies, but you know what I mean). Even with Claire’s regeneration, there’s no reason Peter couldn’t freeze time, stab Sylar in the head, then grab him and bury his body somewhere - perhaps toss him into the ocean where it’s unlikely he’d be found, deep underground, whatever. This is further recommended because Hiro has already noted he was able to stab Sylar - most likely this is because of his ability, and not just his martial arts prowess (if that’s not the case, somebody get Jackie Chan on the phone). Unless Sylar has found some other way to counter Hiro’s abilities, I’d think they’d still be effective, and Peter obviously still has access to them.

3) I would agree that there’s a good chance Sylar killed off Candace before she ‘went into hiding.’ However: Sylar shows off both her skills and those of D.L., two people specifically noted as having been brought in - possibly together - by Future-Hiro (Molly doesn’t actually seem to be part of the intrusion plan, oddly enough; or, at least, Hiro doesn’t mention her when he tells Ando of how Candace and D.L. will be useful right before he gets tasered). I think it’s not coincidental that D.L. is absorbed. Also note that D.L. was brought to HRG, but not N-J and/or Micah. This raises the question of when D.L. leaves N-J, as well as for what reason (with Micah’s death certainly being the leading possibility). But it follows from there, why would he go into hiding? He’s certainly not been bashful of acting in the past, and he knows that short of effectively handcuffing him to the Haitian or keeping him constantly drugged he’d be impossible to keep in containment. The only time he’s really ever been shown to be a bit gunshy is for Micah’s sake, but timeline-wise he’s already dead by the time D.L. comes to HRG. So my guess is he’s following Hana for some vengeful purpose, as is her style, and I just feel it’s unlikely Sylar would have bothered with such a pretext.

4) Everybody’s focusing on the “When I killed Nathan he’d already turned against his own kind.” Why isn’t anybody focusing on Peter’s response? “Liar.” Honestly, Sylar’s not exactly the sort who seems above a little abuse of the truth, either in his words to others, or in talking to himself. Perhaps Nathan really -was- looking for some sort of a ‘cure,’ minus the whole “round supers up, if this doesn’t work then it’s happy genocide time” Plan B. I can certainly see Sylar interpreting that, or a whole host of other significantly less malicious plans than the one actually in place, as having turned against ‘his own kind.’ Or, like Peter said, perhaps Sylar really was just lying. If he’s not above stabbing Isaac in the arms and legs with paintbrushes, he’s probably not above a little mental torture as well.

5) No references to Peter’s dream in Fallout when his brother suddenly turns into Sylar?

Nah, this is cooler, right?

“Shall we freeze time?”

“No, I haven’t had a good fight in years.”"

Hey, Otto
Quick thought: Future-Peter and Future-Hiro are anticipating that the Haitian will neutralize their powers as soon as they reach the upper floor, correct? So if they freeze time, walk past the guards leaving them unharmed, and go upstairs, all the downstairs guards will unfreeze and be ready for action, and can rush upstairs when they realize something’s wrong. I interpreted this as a sporting “Should we freeze time and then slaughter them?” “No, let’s fight it out.” exchange. Of course, I guess they could have frozen time, found some duct tape, and bound and gagged every guard, and hidden each guard in a different location so they wouldn’t all be freed by some well-intentioned person, etc., etc. But I definitely don’t see that happening.