I think that Sylar is that powerful right now, but agree that Peter isn't. That's why Peter needed Nikki and Hiro to save his ass and that he (somehow) forgot how to control Ted's power since he first absorbed it.

It seems to me that the Company -- or at least Linderman, Mrs. Petrelli, and Mr. Deveaux (and probably Mr. Nakamura) -- found out that Isaac was seeing the future, and based on his paintings learned that the explosion would happen. Once they learned that, they decided to position themselves to take advantage of it.

I tend to think most people are overanalyzing these "timelines." The timelines we have seen over the season were all possible FUTURES. Although Hiro can travel through time, it has been shown that he cannot change the past through his actions - remember him trying to save Charlie? He couldn't save her even though he went six months back. What he discovers from the future is that he has the ability to interact with the past (speaking to Peter on the subway, altering minimal details such as the picture with Charlie in the diner, etc.). The thrust of Hiro's ability from the future was to have people with special power make the changes he himself could not.

In the first scenraio of the future, future Hiro realized Sylar had Claire's power and needed to eliminate the moment Sylar got it to make him vulnerable. Hence, meeting Peter with "save the cheerleader, save the world." Claire was ultimately saved through Peter's actions (not Hiro's) thus altering the future to scenario 2:the bomb still exploding, but now with Peter being the bomb.

Hiro's actions to get Peter to save Claire brought Peter into the mix of Sylar and caused the meeting between Ted and Peter, thus giving Peter the power to explode as well. When Hiro went to the future to meet his future self, he discovered the new wrinkle: Sylar was vulnerable, but a bomb still detonated. Returning to his present, where he is able to change future events, Hiro know from the comic he was to kill Sylar. All of the talk of changing the future ultimately led Nathan to fly Peter away, hence changing the future from the explosion altogether.

The "alternate" future possibilities of the bomb have now been averted. Those futures no longer can occur from the indicidents seen this season.

The comics have revealed that

They should have just had Sylar beat Peter and then have Bret Hart run out and say not again so the fight could be restarted. Better finish than this episode.

Note also that -- since Claire was the one (along with Peter) who convinced Nathan to turn his back on Linderman's apocalytpic plan -- it really was the case that saving the cheerleader saved the world (a fact they hit us over the head with in Nathan's final speech).

I thought it was a run-through of all of his victims, ending with Sylar himself. But even pausing the TiVo, the images were too small and unclear for me to confirm a sighting of Charlie or Metal Melting Guy or Super Hearing Chick.

Keep in mind that this was like the third or fourth time Hiro has threatened to stab Sylar, and every other time, Hiro couldn't go through with it. Sylar probably figured this would be just another case of Hiro chickening out.

As much as I too wanted to see a knock-down-drag-out, I think the point that "5 Years Gone" Peter is a huge badass but not so much now is completely valid. He hasn't become the power-switching master that he was at that time.

I'm sure he will be around next season, and hopefully the "bad ass" will start to come through.

All in all, I enjoyed the finale. However, the fact that Hiro gets an unopposed three second run with his sword at the telekenetic that just stopped bullets was a bit much. If I had been in charge, I would have had Hiro simply appear directly in front of Sylar and run him through...or even better, reappear while he's already thrusting the sword, giving Sylar zero time to react. Plus, that would have been a cool shot.

I hated that Sylar just stood there and took it.

Other than that, it was a satisfying end to the season and my wife and I are both looking forward to what is next.

Oh, one other thing - I'm sorry to see Nathan go (I do think he's dead). Not just because I like him as a character, but I think they've handled his flight ability in a very unique way on this show. I like how he basically goes from a standstill to full-speed flight in a split-second. No harness lifting him slowly off the ground - just BOOM and he's gone. Seeing him swoop in at the end was a very cool moment. I'll miss seeing that stuff.

Charlie was never a victim of Sylar, remember Hiro went back and saved her but she died anyway of an aneuyrsm.

Kind of a bland finale. I was expecting a lot more from the build up of Sylar vs. Peter. I suppose it makes sense that Peter couldn't control his powers when he went nuclear but I thought the network did a terrible job of building this big battle up then delivering a hushed ending.

i was extremely happy with the finale..... this isnt freaking neo vs smith.... remember... this is ordinary people with extraordinary abilities... Peter didnt have training in combat and how to use his powers in combat.....its almost like watching a regular street fight... now if this was five years gone time, then we would expect it because they would ahve trained that long for this

I really like Heroes and thought the episode was ok but the fact that Hiro could travel back in time and kill Sylar before he had powers makes the show somehow pointless.

Why is everybody still puzzled over Sylar *letting* Hiro stab him? He let him do it because he knew he would survive it.

What? I don't remember that part all. What ep was this?

She told Hiro that she had an aneurysm and was going to die, but Sylar killed her. Mohinder read her name off a list of people that had been killed by him.

Hiro is no King Herod - it is not in his nature to go back and slaughter some baby or little kid just because he COULD become the person that destroys the world.

Remember there is still "Free Will" in humans.

Edit: Thanks adomblast

You mean King Herod. King Herold sounds like a John Goodman movie.

My guess is that it's Sylar's father.
He dragged Sylar's body into the sewer & he will be going after all the heroes next season.

Yep.

Yep. His arrogance was his undoing.

I thought this episode was fine, but very, very predictable. Actually, I predicted the last 10 minutes pretty much scene-for-scene over two weeks ago when talking to my girlfriend. I gave two scenarios, and this was the first one.

Basically, Scenario A was:

1. Sylar will be preparing to explode when Peter confronts him.
2. Hiro will use the distraction of the battle to stab Sylar, thinking he has saved the world.
3. However, Peter will start to go nuclear.
4. Nathan will swoop in from out of nowhere in a "shocking twist" and redeem himself by flying Peter into the sky to explode, sacrificing himself.
5. No one will know what happened to Peter until he dramatically reappears partway through the second season. He will have used the time alone to master his nuclear power, so he can never again be a threat.

(As you can see, I was little off on #2.)

Scenario B was that Hiro stabs Sylar, but he continues to go nuclear as he's dying. Peter or Nathan make the snap decision to fly him into the sky to harmlessly explode in the atmosphere.

I didn't guess that Peter would absorb Nikki's super-strength, though, or that Parkman would be shot.

I also didn't see the Evil Dead II ending coming at all, but I got really excited by it. Assuming he's in the past for a few episodes in season two, that will be awesome. Peter and Hiro—the two most powerful heroes—have disappeared and no one knows what happened to them.

He could drag along whoever he wants to do the killing for him.

Or he could pull a "Back to the Future" and changing the world by preventing the Sylar's parents to meet so he would never been born.

Peter + Molly's power + Hiro's power = freaking awesome

He could basically find anyone in the world and immediately teleport to their location.

They really need to be careful, because Peter could very easily be ridiculously powerful

Peter is already ridiculously powerful, but, once he gains control of everything then we're really in for some fun.

My prediction (not that it's a stretch) :

Peter : Alive

Nathan : Dead

Still not sure why Nathan had a change of heart ...