Maybe he got it before he got Claire’s power, and couldn’t regenerate. Or perhaps he got Claire’s power at a different time.

The impression I got was that everything we've seen in present time had still happened in this 5-years-later-timeline. Now that Hiro has the comic book, he has at least some of the knowledge he needs to really affect things in the present so that the future is changed.

Sylar shouldn't have had Claire's healing powers before last night, and Hiro should have been able to kill him.

We don't know why Hiro didn't kill him. He might not have gotten to New York in time or hesitated when he had a chance to kill Sylar. In the "right" timeline, Sylar appears to be killable.

So, we haven't discussed the Matrix-yness of Peter. Which just occurred to me. Was it me?

Not just you. when he first turned up in the black duster of doom I said "He is the one!".

The problem with the timeline is that Hiro failed to kill Sylar in the past, before Sylar should have had Claire's powers. I don't see how, according to Hiro's timeline, both Claire and Sylar could be alive (until he killed her) in the future we saw last night. (Even taking into account the fact that Peter, not Sylar, was the one who exploded -- Sylar shouldn't have had Claire's healing powers before last night, and Hiro should have been able to kill him. Maybe Linderman was nearby and healed Sylar for some reason? I don't know.)

My theory on that - because Future!Hiro was the one who went back in time and (indirectly) changed the timeline, he is remembering the original timeline in which Sylar did the exploding after killing Claire but lives in timeline B, in which Peter exploded (because the timeline did that thing timeines do when they want to get back to ther original conditions after some meddling time traveller messes with them) and in timeline B Sylar was not stabbed by Hiro for whatever reason. Hiro is now working on bringing about timeline C in which NY does not get blown up.

Or saving her might turn out to affect something completely different than what Hiro thinks it should.

I'm hoping for this one - that saving the cheerleader does save the world, but not for the reason we have been led to believe.

I really wanted to see the rest of the Peter/Sylar fight scene. I bet it was awesome.

Oh dear lord yes.

last week I wrote this (and whitefonted it because it referred to the comics, but now it doesn't matter):

More comic talk: Except that we know that events haven't unfolded the same way Future!Hiro experienced them. Future!Hiro implies that in his timeline, Syler killed Claire and as a result survived blowing himself up. But we know that because of F!H's warning, Peter *did* save her. So we have at least three possibilities -- 1) Syler kills Claire later; 2) Syler kills Peter and absorbs all his powers (yikes!); or 3) The show is using some wacky temporal mechanics where alternate futures still exist even when they're no longer a possibility in the current timeline. Take your pick.

It never occurred to me that there was a fourth possibility: Hiro only thought Claire was dead and that Sylar blew up the city. He was wrong on both counts.

Still, there is some wacky temporal mechanics going on. Didn't Present!Hiro already know that Peter saved Claire, before last night's episode? If so, there's already a disconnect between Present! & Future!Hiro.

he is remembering the original timeline in which Sylar did the exploding after killing Claire but lives in timeline B, in which Peter exploded (because the timeline did that thing timeines do when they want to get back to ther original conditions after some meddling time traveller messes with them) and in timeline B Sylar was not stabbed by Hiro for whatever reason. Hiro is now working on bringing about timeline C in which NY does not get blown up.

Interesting theory. So in timeline A, Sylar really did kill Claire and blow up NYC. In timeline B, everyone only thinks that happened because that's what Nathan (or Sylar as Nathan -- it's unclear) wants everyone to think.

That's consistent with my previous point that Peter didn't start having visions about being explody until after he saved the cheerleader.

Don't forget that Original!Timeline!Ted is headed to NYC with HRG, so he still could be the Exploder...

We ARE going to need strings in order to keep the timelines straight.

It never occurred to me that there was a fourth possibility: Hiro only thought Claire was dead and that Sylar blew up the city. He was wrong on both counts.

Right now, this is my working assumption. If Hiro's starting from the false premise of "Sylar exploded," everything he's deduced about the timelines leading up to that is questionable, if not flat-out wrong. If Present!Hiro has any chance of fixing things, he'll need to work it out on his own.

[Or, alternately, he's time-travelled so much that he's just lost track of which one he's currently in, and all of his data are right, but not for the timeline Present!Hiro is going back to.]

That's consistent with my previous point that Peter didn't start having visions about being explody until after he saved the cheerleader.

Yes, that may have been the basis of the theory, in fact.

Dude, when Mohinder did the dramatic thing and cut the strings where Sylar killed Claire and the whole structure collapsed all I could think was how they lost all that organization, how would thhey ever figure out what was going on!

Oh dear lord yes

I loved the effect of Mohinder valiantly up against the door as flashes of yellow and blue light pushed the door open.

Dude, when Mohinder did the dramatic thing and cut the strings where Sylar killed Claire and the whole structure collapsed all I could think was how they lost all that organization, how would thhey ever figure out what was going on!

me too!