When Future Hiro met Peter on the subway, he told Peter it was very important that he must deliver a message to the current Hiro about the need to save the cheerleader. What role was Hiro expected to play in saving the cheerleader? He didn't do it because he went back in time to save someone else.

It makes we wonder if there is going to be a twist since Hiro went to save someone else instead of saving the cheerleader... which one was supposed to be his destiny?

Nobody else has mentioned this, but didn't something funny happen with the clocks? I clearly remember a minute hand going back at one point, though I could be wrong. But when I saw it (or thought I saw it) I distinctly thought, "He's here, Hiro's doing something, we can't see him at the moment but he just did something very important."

Well, one thing that we aren't sure of... if last night was THE time they had to save the cheerleader. We know that last night was what the paintings were directing them to, but remember... Future Hiro had nothing to do with the paintings. Thus, his message could easily mean to save "the cheerleader" at some other future point. We have no definitive answer on that. It seems unlikely that stopping Sylar will stop the bomb in NYC anyway.. and stopping the bomb in NYC is hardly "saving the world". It's all still very much a mystery - so stay tuned true believers!

That was the point to save the Cheerleader. Hiro will alter time again and Jackie will live. Hiro will arrive in time and Sylar will excape the second time around. I think we are going to "re-live" major parts of this episode in a future/past episode. When we do, things will change and maybe Peter will get a scar. I hope Jackie lives, she reminds me of an ex...nevermind,

My thought was that present day Hiro wasn't expected to play a direct role in "saving the cheerleader". Future Hiro told Peter to "be the one we need" because Future Hiro knew that his present day self went back in time to try to save Charlie.
(Geez suddenly I'm realizing the complications of time travel)


Therefore, a hero would be there to save Claire... enter Peter!

Hiro arrives at the bloody Homecoming some time, but maybe stops time to pull Peter out of handcuffs.

He appeared on the subway for Peter because he knew himself he wouldn't be there because he went back to save Charlie. And Peter is the only one (with Claire's ability) to survive a Sylar attack. So Peter was the one.

Hiro's powers are going to be limited in saving persons, because Sylar seems to be on a focused crusade. If Hiro thwarts one attempt, I'm sure Sylar will just try again. And that can't go on forever.

Someone has to take out Sylar, or Hiro has to go back to Sylar's past and convince him otherwise.

I think you are on to something here. The episode did not explain where Hiro currently is located. Did he discover it was Claire he needed to save? Did he get to the school? Will we re-view this episode through Hiro's eyes in the near future?

I believe there has to be some explanation for why Future Hiro wanted current Hiro to know about saving the cheerleader, and why it was so important for Peter to tell him where he is (Issac's studio)... it's a twist to the plot that hasn't been explained yet.

I don't think that Hiro and Peter will meet just yet. If future Hiro barely recognized Peter without his scar on the subway, then that would imply that he has only seen Peter with a scar.

I wouldn't expect them to meet up until Peter gets his scar.

There is still a painting with Hiro and Ando at the Homecoming with the blood on the banner. I think Hiro and Ando do arrive but after the Peter/Sylar fight.

I don't know if that means Hiro will go back and try and fix it.

But it does seem that Hiro did intend for Peter to save Claire, maybe because he did know he'd miss it. He was very clear on the subway by saying "be the one we need".

Should be interesting.

Interesting. When Peter got his a** kicked by Sylar, he had that huge cut on the side of his face. He doen't have it now because Claire was near him. (Future Hiro mentions that Scar)

Well lets just follow Sylar here. Say Peter and Sylar had the wrong cheerleader and Claire stayed at home. Peter would still have that nasty scar.

The real factor in that whole exchange wasn't Hiro, but Claire.

The future will continue to change as the heroes start to interact more.

I mean c'mon, look how easily Eden took out Sylar. How did she know where he was going to be?

actually peter would be dead if claire had stayed home. scar or no scar.

There's one thing everyone's forgetting. The older waitress told Ando that Hiro dropped out of Charlie's life weeks ago. Where did he go? Why would he go back to save her life and then bail?

i'm guessing because he finds out he can't change anything.

it's not like the cheerleader is safe forever. "save the cheerleader" can also mean "KEEP the cheerleader safe", right?

as long as Sylar is alive and knows who/where/what Claire is, she's not safe. QED

The that still kills me about this episode is that the whole week NBC kept saying the meaning of "Save the Cheerleader, Save the world" would be revealed.

Now is it just me or was that basicly a lie? Yes, Peter saved Claire, that's all well and good but it didn't go a bit explain why that saves the world. Nothing new was revealed to us about her role in saving the world.

once again for the masses...
"subway hiro" knew that he wasnt able to save the cheerleader in fact, none of them knew anything about saving the cheerleader in his time line.
looking back on his past, he must have figured out where the turning point laid. he knew then that he wasn't where hne needed to be, and couldn't be. so, he went back in time, inlisted peteres help because, apparently he knew peter in his timeline to be capable of this feat.
why hirop couldn 't be there obviously has somehtig to do with the fact that he travelled back in time. charlie still dies in this time line becuase HRG has a picture of her corpse. but i theorize that she dies a few weeks earlier, or abouts. since thats about when the waitress said that hiro disappeared out of her life. there for.. hiro must be preoccupied with another task at the time of homecoming. the real question in this episode, and the next. is... everything up till now has pointed to a time six months ago. everyones lives seems to have a signifigant moment there. this is also when hiro travells back too.. so.. what di hiro do six months ago to that possibly affected everyone? is, hiro responsible for everyone haveing their powers in some way? or is this simply one more coincidence?

His control of time traveling is a little weak yet...

Here's food for thought..

Maybe Hiro realized he would creat a grandfather paradox by saving her.

If you think about it, the reason he went back in time was to save Charlie. If he does save her, then when she's supposed to die, she doesn't, thus Hiro doesn't need to go back in time. But if he doesn't go back in time, then she doesn't get saved.

In case you're not familiar with the concept -

Grandfather Paradox - if you went back and time and killed your grandfather, your dad would never be born. Thus, neither would you, so you wouldn't be around to go back and kill him in the first place.

But the same could be said for saving Claire. Since future Hiro contacted Peter to tell him to save the cheerleader, the act of saving said cheerleader should result in the eradication of both that particular future Hiro and his message, etc.

We can speculate until we're blue in the face, but we won't know for sure until Hiro discovers the rules of time travel himself. Applying logic to a logically impossible scenario is simply an exercise in futility.

I suspect that multiple alternate timelines would be too difficult to keep track of for both writers and viewers, especially considering the large cast. That leads me to believe that future Hiro's rift phenomenon is some kind of unifying force of nature that cleans up all the inconsistancies and paradoxes left behind by his time hopping, possibly in a rather violent manner.

The concept of Paradox and Quintessence from White Wolf's "Mage: The Ascension" RPG is a handy working model for such a rule system, even if it's used for a slightly different purpose. Little changes can often slide. Bigger changes have bigger consequences.

Did they not save the world by saving the cheerleader because now that HRG guy's people have Sylar, they have stopped him from killing Heroes who will be needed to save the world in the end?

good points dude. this might explain how claire was meant to die. with hiro going back 6 months trying to save charlie. he could end up changing the future that might result in claire actually dying. this could be the "rift" that he talks about on the train to peter. so if he claire does die, sylar has killed her and taken her ability. could sylar have also killed peter too? since claire is dead at this point, peter hasnt been able to mimic her ability and as a result, wasnt able to heal himself from the fall (that might explain the scar he got from the fall). if this does happen, then hiro has realized that he was the result of this by trying to save charlie. will he go back again 6 months again, or will he let charlie die? is there a way he can save them both.

i believe because Hiro was busy he needed someone to save Claire because she was needed in the future so Hiro asked Peter to do it

Future Hiro said to Peter: ?When I call you, you must tell me where we meet?. When Hiro calls Isaac, Peter said to him ?get to New York, we will find where the cheerleader is?.

By saying this, Peter basically causes Hiro and Ando to head for Texas in their way to NYC. So basically future Hiro wanted Peter to guide his present self to meet Charlie.

A good point but kind of a weak way out for the writers. It works but I hope to see a much more direct and immediate impact.

Well you see Hiro from the future is from an alternate reality 'cause he says to Peter: "You told me many times how lost you felt before all started". You see I think that the way Peter got his scar is 'cause they didn't get to the cheerleader. Thus she is kill. And also they don't get Sylar so he get to Ted(radiation guy) and NY Explodes.

why do people keep assuming that hiro is going to keep going back and change time?

from a viewers point of view if he keeps doing this, everything we have so far seen will never happen, so we will have no idea of what's going on.

as for him not returning. it maybe as simple as he cannot. when he went to NY he was focusing on the poster and when he went back six months he had the charlie photo. now, he has slightly altered the time line and has no way of knowing what will be different, and thusly has nothing to focus on.

I think this is basically an example of promotional material (ads, trailers, etc.) being put together by marketing folks and not the actual writers and producers behind the show. How often have you seen trailers that don't really reflect what is going on in the upcoming movie or tv episode?

If we consider Isaac's painting of the dead cheerleader to be about Jackie and not Claire, then "the cheerleader" that Future Hiro referred to might not have been saved at all - at least not yet.

The show's writers/producers would be fully aware of such a plot twist in the series but the marketing people probably wouldn't be in the loop. Anyway, marketing types are more interested in ratings and media exposure than the actual substance of the material in question, hence the excessive hyping of episode 9 in a 22 episode season.

I'm still curious as to why Hiro didn't return to the diner after it was all said and done. All he had to wait for was for Ando to show up right?

The waitress left a hint I think when she said he "popped" out of her life weeks ago.

Hiro goes back in time, saves waitress, the change in the timeline causes claire to be killed by sylar due to change of overall events, Hiro realizes his mistake goes back in time to get Peter stop him form saving her. Paradox timeloop?

Too outlandish?

And the reason NY explodes is because my head explodes trying to comprehend some of these theories!

Hiro couldn't save Charlie's life, I don't see him playing around in time to try and save Jackie's. If only because it would really cheapen the events in Homecoming, and as much as I enjoyed that episode, I don't want to watch it happen again and again until it gets done "right".

"Do-overs" are too dangerous to do with brute force direct intervention (like trying to save Charlie), they only work when done with precision like giving Peter vague clues and hints.

I think that's what this is leading to - Hiro can't interfere himself, but he can get others to do so.



I pretty much agree with this.

If Hiro was in the company of several witnesses, then Charlie could have died a couple weeks earlier.

***

Jackie isn't the one they had to save.

If Future Hiro didn't come back, Peter wouldn't have known about "save the cheerleader, save the world", wouldn't have told Mohinder about that, who told Eden, who told HRG, therefore he brought in Isaac and confirmed it was Claire and she was going to be attacked on Homecoming.

Without that, he wouldn't have grounded Claire, but she and Jackie would still have ended up alone in the girl's locker room. Sylar would still have attacked Jackie there, thrown Claire to the wall, see her healing and chase her. But this time, without Future Hiro's interference, Peter wouldn't have been there to help and Sylar would have caught her and killed her.

Peter saving Claire is the change, no one could have saved Jackie without being in the girls locker room, which would have drawn some questioning stares at the very least and likely a police call.

They needed to save Claire because her healing ability will be very important later on to stopping a disaster.

I say that Save the Cheerleader, Save the World means DON'T LET SYLAR GET HER POWER OR
BUM BUM BUM!
WORLD WIDE KILLING RAMPAGE!

Here's my theory on the whole Hiro thing;

Hiro goes back in time to save Charlie. He does not. (Only a total ****** would argue with me.) He cuts out early and goes to (place missing).He (somehow) meets up with Ando again. He goes to the school and sees the destruction. (You can see that painting as an easter egg in one of the graphic novels)(P.S. The blood on the banner behind them is Jackie's) Hiro gets ticked, gets coolio sword, and goes back in time to Peter thinking that he was too late to save Claire. Eden and Mr. Bennet get Sylar, but he escapes. Sylar chases after Ted to nuclear factory, where all of the Heroes chase after him. Peter goes super nova..Hiro stops time. Blah blah blah, random going back and forward changing crap. Finally he alters enough crap to where they kill off Sylar and stop Ted. Woo-hoo. TV magic


Now then, that was just something off the top of my head. I am admitting it sucks, so don't get mad.

Sylar was aware of Charlie's powers, because he was directed to that Texas town from Chandra's research.
Sylar cannot "feel" other powers.
If Hiro was able to stop Charlie from going to work that day, Sylar would have waited for another moment.
Thus Hiro could not save Charlie, except temporarily

***

Excellent.
If Sylar were not captured by Eden and "the Haitian", there is no doubt he would be back for Claire (which may still happen if Sylar does escape).

I agree with this..

hiro had to drop out of her life weeks ago, because that is when he successfully teleported for the first time from tokyo to the 5 wks in the future new york. there is no way that he could have extended his stay with charlie...and i end up back at the 'grandfather paradox'. hiro did not bail on charlie, he just couldn't save her.




if mohinder just unlocked chandra's list of people with special abilities while back in india, how did sylar end up in texas as a result of chandra's research?

where did sylar get the specific information which guided him first to midland, tx and then to odessa, tx?