heroes - looking forward to looking back

first off, wow. excellent season finale. not often does a show hype something up SO MUCH (like all season) and then have it live up to expectations. sure the fight was a little lackluster, wasn't too epic, but all the characters had their roles to play. and that's what was neat. and what "save the cheerleader, save the world" ended up meaning - very, very cool (save claire, nathan reconnects with his long-lost daughter, has a change of heart at the last minute).

were there any complaints? as with every episode, there were a few, but there were less in this episode than in others (maybe because this one was written by the creator of the show and had a true driving vision behind every line of dialogue). as i said, i was a tad disappointed in the less-than-epic fight between sylar and peter... i mean peter didn't even use any of his powers! well, except for the one he got from jessica, which was cool. another thing - why didn't SOMEONE step up and try and at least stop peter when he was about to go nuclear. i know a lot of them were shot or injured, but i think jessica could have tried knocking him out... or maybe suresh decides to step up and just sacrifice himself, i don't know. and i'm not sure i understood exactly why claire shooting peter was such a bad idea... was it just that she didn't have the guts to (which is fine, understandable, it's hard to kill a man i'm sure)? then when nathan came, why didn't he shoot peter instead of fly him off - i guess because flying him off into space or whatever was the only SURE way to stop it. like i said, small, nit-picky things.

now the questions.

what happened to nathan and peter? did nathan take peter up really high and then let him go so he could fly away and live, then fly back to catch peter? ...probably not, since he said he was going to stay by his side, but it's a thought (maybe i just don't want nathan to bedead, after he finally stopped acting like a pussy, which is what he's been most of this season). so nathan's most likely dead, but peter? man i hope peter's alive...

what "family" was claire's dad referring to when he said "let's go home" and that home is where family is? could it be that he's going to gather heroes together like an x-men sort of thing ("family" then meaning people like claire, who is always complaining about not being normal remember, not fitting in)?

what happened to sylar? i watched it twice (yeah i'm a dork) and the first time i thought he crawled off into the sewer, but now i'm thinking he was DRAGGED off, perhaps by the even BADDER bad guy that the little girl mentioned earlier in the episode, to be devoured by him. i mean his life flashed before his eyes right before he "died," so i think he was dead. but IS he still, i don't know (who knows what powers he had). oh, and that was another problem: why didn't any of the heroes see sylar escape/be dragged off? or at least why didn't one of them say something when they noticed he was gone... i mean the paramedics had already arrived, more than just a few minutes have passed since the explosion.

what significance did the cockroach have on the sewer drain at the end, other than the obvious one of cockroaches being utterly resilient, to rule the world once we're long dead (cockroaches standing for heroes, mutants, the next step in the evolutionary chain)?

now a few notes:

i really like the little girl, and seeing her with jessica, DL, and micah, i think it'd be cool if she hung out with them, sort of a surrogate family. just the little exchange between her and micah at the elevator was really cool, and i'd like to see more of that.

FINALLY we get to see the eclipse that's been the symbol for the show, and it happens on the battlefield hiro transports into at the end. who KNOWS what any of that meant, but i can't wait to find out. "generations." one thing is for sure - we'll get a lot more backstory.

and i’m glad we’re getting backstory, because i want to know who that black guy was that peter took care of at the start of the season... whatever power he has/had, it's a doozy, to visit peter after he's dead - or did peter visit him?!?

that's about all i can think of for now. the writers did a wonderful job of taking a very full cast and bringing them all together at the end of the season in all different ways (with plot twists and the like) and then managed to live up to the hype of an event a whole season in the making. kudos.

well we've got heroes: origins coming next fall, a 6-episode miniseries that'll introduce even more characters to the show... do you know why they're doing that? because apparently heroes lost a TON of its audience after that long break in march and april. so they're adding this miniseries to stretch the heroes episodes to 30 for next season (24 for the regular show, 6 of the miniseries).

what are hopes/predictions for next year? well i know we're going to get a ton more backstory... i think the little girl (MOLLY! that's her name) will tell suresh that his sister isn't dead and he'll go off to find her... we'll be introduced to the BAD bad guy... and i really think that claire's dad will get together a bunch of the heroes in x-men type fashion. how about you guys? thoughts?

- kawitchate