Heroes - An Invisible Thread

The season finale of Heroes was underwhelming. The climatic battle between Sylar, Nathan and Peter took place behind closed doors. It SOUNDED exciting, but unfortunately Claire was the only one who witnessed it.

The reason Sylar survived the metal spike Danko plunged into his head? "Shapeshifting...gotta love it .Remember that little off switch in the back of my head? I moved it," he tells Danko.

Sylar then sets Danko up by shapeshifting into him and shooting an agent. Danko is dragged away and thrown into a cell with Noah Bennett. The two are about to shake hands in agreement of joining forces to stop Sylar when Hiro stops time. He and Ando release all the prisoners in Building 26. "Payback is bitchy!" Hiro exults but then a massive migraine hits him. Mohinder tells him that his body is rejecting his powers like a virus.

Danko and Bennett's partnership is short-lived as Danko is about to inject Noah with a massive tranquilizer intended for Sylar, but Hiro stops time and injects the duplicitous Danko instead.

Sylar shapeshifts into Nathan and goes to the Stanton Hotel accompanied by an unwitting Claire. When he signs his name with his left hand, however, she becomes suspicious. I had no idea Sylar was a lefty. Guess he isn't all bad! Sylar resumes his own form and teases and taunts Claire, telling her that they're both alike. "You can't die. I can't die," he says.

"Oh, you can die. I'll make sure of it!" Claire retorts. "Well, everybody needs a hobby," sighs Sylar.

Nathan and Peter arrive to take on Sylar and when the dust settles (or in this case, the feathers...), Peter is bloodied and Nathan and Sylar are gone. Claire tells Peter to fly after them but Peter tells her he can't.

In another hotel room, Sylar dispatches Nathan by slicing his throat. "Oh, Claire's going to be so mad at me," he smirks.

Peter and Claire race through the hotel only to run right into Noah who aims a gun at the pair. Claire convinces him that it's her and not Sylar and Noah asks Peter, "Did you take his power?" to which Peter replies, "Yes."

Angela, who has tracked down Matt Parkman, rushes to the hotel room. Because her dream told her that Matt was supposed to save Nathan, she is devastated to find him dead.

Sylar shapeshifts into Nathan and, in a creepy Bobby Kennedy-esque simulation, encounters the President's assistant Liam. He then shapeshifts into Liam and gets into the limo with the President. All he needs to do is shake the President's hand, but when he does his shapeshifting goes amok and the President, aka Lt. Worf aka Peter, injects him in the throat with the tranquilizer.

Nice twist.

Angela and Noah convince Matt that the only way to make things right is via Nathan. So Matt performs his brain mojo thingy on Sylar and erases Sylar's identity and replaces it with Nathan's.

So Nathan is dead but Sylar is Nathan so Sylar is "dead"--or is he?

Volume Five "Redemption" began with the return of Nikki/Tracy or whoever she is this go-round. Yeah, Ali Larter is back but instead of freezing people, she can turn into water and drown them. And Matt's brain mojo thingy may be losing its power as Angela realizes when she visits Nathan/Sylar. When she presses Nathan for why she hasn't heard from him, he tells her "Just haven’t felt like myself lately..."

He then gets distracted by a clock running a minute and a half too fast.

Yeah, Sylar's not dead...