Ok - some speculation to mull over ...

We know that Bob told Mohinder that every picture that Isaac ever painted has come true. We also know that Isaac did not necessarily paint everything in order. Is it possible that all the events from last season did not actually change the timeline - and that the city is still set for destruction?

- Hiro went back in time ... Kensei was a punk whitey that had no honor or intention of being a 'hero'. Hiro had to come back in time so that Kensei would fullfil future history.
- Sylar (assuming he regains his abilitites) has 'seen' how the Changeling / Illusion power works (Pres. Petrelli from the future). He also has Ted's Nuclear power from last season.
- Claire is a cheerleader again.

What if "Save the Cheerleader" is refering to the CA school? Isaacs picture showed a girl down in TX, but it was Claire's friend. If Sylar is able to get Claire's ability, he can still blow up the city, and Nathan still can be the binding force to the city, leading him to the white house.

Nathan is already getting chummy with Matt, who is in tight with Mohinder, so this White House trio is getting its foundation.

Assuming any this actaully makes sense, the best thing for Hiro to have done was to prevent himself from going back in time in the first place. Maybe there is even a chance that the fact that he did go back in time causes the 'rift' that propagated the evolutionary abilitites in the first place.

Honestly most of that does not make sense to me. When Hiro went back in time he altered the events of the past and that is why he is now having to fix it. Also in the future the bomb went off the day after nathan was elected. The other fact is that Isaac's painting did show Claire and not her friend. Finally it is obvious that Nathan is not a part of congress right now. Not trying to be a jerk but this theory does not fly.

well i think that his painting are open for interpretation.

the 2 paintings we saw re: the bomb was the mushroom cloud over NY and the exploding man. well that did happen. peter did explode and there was a mushroom cloud over NY it just didn't destroy the city. and the picture of sylar standing over a dead cheerleader did come true as well...it just wasn't Claire.

that's why i'm not too nervous about HRG and painting 8/8. it can happen but not as you think it might.

and i have no idea whats the deal with hiro so i'll just leave that alone.

besides i think the bomb story ended at the end of volume 1 full stop.

hard to follow but good
I agree with this theory

The explosion is still to come, nothing has been stopped.
The future can not be changed.

Peter is becoming the thug/bad guy type like in the future.
Sylar has the Changeling / Illusion power but can’t use it yet.
Nathan has vowed to set things right. Become president, maybe?
Nathan, Matt, Mohinder trio is forming.

Things are falling into place quite nicely.

How will Nathan become President? He is a drunk that is not in the political arena at all.

That is a good question. All that I was pointing out is that he has vowed to make things right and maybe becoming president is part of that. I don't know how. Maybe Matt can tell him what his constituents want to hear.

I don't think that is true at all. The future is not set in stone b/c it hasn't happened yet so of course it can be altered.

I did however have the same sort of: well what if all those thigns still happen because you are right Sylar did get Candices power. And he told his mom "I could be president."

But while these things may still happen (because if we do not learn from the past it can be repeated) I don't think it means it absolutly has to happen. Unless you go all "Final Destination" (which Ali Larter was in) and say that death has a plan and you can deter it but can not escape it forever?

And don't you think it would be a bit dull if season two was just a repeat of season one? Or at least i think it would be a bit... uncreative.

i dont know about all that, but i do know i am scared for claire considering sylar's driving around in her nissan rogue..

I agree that would be a bit dull but, things are falling that way so far.

what if the paintings that Isaac did are the painting of future of the aftercome of all the timetraveling hiro did..
so no matter what, whatever hiro does, the outcome will be on the drawing..
i agree with the topic creator...i think the bomb can still happen...
was there a certain date that the bomb was going to explode?

I think it would be a bad idea from a writer's perspective to revisit this. The first season basically ended that whole story arc with "the bomb has been stopped; the future is not written in stone" (which I personally didn't like, btw) and then moved on. To suddenly contradict that and revisit a plot that most people thought was 100% over with would probably turn off a lot of fans.

We don't know if Sylar does actually have Candice's power. Perhaps his inability to use...uh...abilities prevented his usual method from working.

Very interesting...This could work. The small details starting to develop and resurface give it wiggle room. Personally (my opinion only), I could see this working if it slowly progresses to that situation, but not an exact duplicate.

There are two levels of "insight" that we the viewers are given of the future (or at least the "possible future"). 1) Hiro's Time Jumping - We saw what happened 5 years into the future. The relationships that existed then are "kinda" coming into form now...Just a bit. 2) Isaac's Trippy Paintings - We saw, what I guess we consider to be, "visions" of future events. Or I guess we could say they were more like momentary snap shots of specific events that will occur. Now with this thought, I am not taking the comic book into consideration.

Now I know you're thinking, "Okay...Get to the POINT" Here it is..Not sure if this is what the poster was ultimately getting at...But to me, this idea could really work. Especially if 1) It is a result of the Isaac paintings. Like I said earlier, the paintings are like snapshots of events. 2) It happens slowly and down the road. And by down the road I mean the halfway point, or later, in the series. (Ex: Season 5 of 7). This way, it gives plenty of time to let the story line die out a bit. And then it doesn't have to be all of a sudden. No rushing...just slow plotting. Claire can always have great HS years and then be a cheerleader in college. Save the cheerleader, Save the world. Nathan can get his life together and get back involved. Petrilli in office. With Hiro, we saw how he was using the whole "string theory" to plan this change the past mission. I don't think it would be crazy to wonder whether or not he was positive on what would change the course of the future. This could have been the 17th time that he went back and changed something. He could have been going with old reliable trial and error process. Maybe? Plus we don't know how many more random "prediction" paintings exist outside of this recent 8-pack. All I'm saying is, a little time and originality...it could be an intersting plot.

i don't think your theory has enough theory behind it. The future has now been altered due to the events that happened in the last episode. Sylar cannot become the president in Nathan's form as Nathan has now gone down a different path. Also, the whole cheerleader thing is wrong too. The painting's clearly show the homecoming sign of Claire's school on the night of the murder. Also, the painting of the cheerleader wa'snt necessarily Claire. Isaac could well have just performed his abilityof predicting that a cheerleader was going to die.

I think the assumption is that the "Save the Cheerleader" notion was an invention by the Future Hiro, who, after much dedicated research, came to this conclusion. Isaac's paintings reiterated that. I think that Claire's importance to the world is not over, but I believe that the catchphrase was directly related to the explosion.

I still don't understand the whole "You saved the Cheerleader, so we could save the world" thing, though.

I don't think the painting looked like a mushroom cloud "over the city" Secondly if the bomb exploded in the atmosphere I doubt there would be a mushroom cloud. The explosion would go in all directions to just upwards. I also think that of all Isaacs painting the biggest waste of time, paint and canvas was Hiro and the dinosaur. He predicted Hiro would be in a museum? I think it's possible that since they changed what happened in Kirby plaza that the mushroom cloud painting morphed into something else or his paintings are warnings of possible threats and not predictions.

I aways took the paintings as "This is what happens if you guys screw up and let this crap happen" kinda thing, not like a "I am written in stone". also, yea, the dino painting sucked hard, such a letdown.

How can you say that? The cgi from the first season in charmed is FAR better than anything Heroes has ever seen, can you possibly imagine them trying to make a cgi dinosaur? I'm so glad I didn't have to endure that pain, hell, I don't think I can endure watching any of the characters fly again...

We mean that of all the paintings predicting the future the one of Hiro and the dinosaur wasn't necessary. He painted dead cheerleaders, exploding NY, a dead person with his brain missing, a flying man. Hiro in a museum looking at a dinosaur replica seemed like a waste of good heroin.

the thing is, Claire isn't really a cheerleader anymore... thats just her cover for seeing West. so the argument falls apart after that.

true that renrut, he should have saved that heroin for a better, more worthwhile picture. Also, I am fairly impressed with the heroes special FX, and they will only get better as the budget increases, and they collect more talented FX guys over time. I have to say I really like all the FX, like TK brain removal, regeneration, linderman getting a lobotomy, ect. Even nathan's flying looks good, it it just West's that looks like crap. Hey, maybe thats west's power, to look crappy! Anyone else agree?

also, yes, claire is going to get back into cheerleading, probably in the next ep. She is the cheerleader again

Good point.

I think the future was indeed changed. Remember when Hiro went forward in time, landed in Isaac's apartment and witnessed the bomb? It was the day after the election. Well, the election passed, Nathan lost instead of winning by landslide, and Peter exploded in the sky instead of on the ground.

I know Isaac's painting doesn't say when the bomb will explode over NYC, but we still have proof that one explosion was avoided. I think saying that it can still happen is a little farfetched. But I do like your theory though It's true that a lot of things point to the 5 years gone episode.

I think we need to look at it this way.

Even though Isaac's paintings gave the characters a look into the 'future' added with the fact that Future Hiro came back and gave them a very big head-start with the whole save-the-cheerleader bit, a lot of the predictions came true. And I mean a LOT. Somehow, someway, every single thing that was 'gonna' happen, did...

...except for the city being destroyed. I think based on Hiro's string theory, he finally realized that he cannot 100% change everything. I think it's entirely possible he went back in time SO MANY TIMES and tried SO MANY THINGS until he eventually found the ONE thing he could do that would change the events he wanted changed.

Based on what I've seen and what the GN shows, I've come to reason that when Hiro goes back and changed something, it does have a butterfly effect, but a very small one. As you can see, going back and changing something as big as telling Peter to save the cheerleader only changed ONE thing - the occurrence of the actual explosion while everything else still happened.

Hiro's control over the future/past seems to be limited.

What am I getting at? Hiro may have stopped the bomb from destroying the city but everything else still happened and still will happen. The relationships that we saw formed in the future may have happened differently, but Hiro only stopped the bomb. The connections and relationships that we saw are still bound to happen and will some way still come true. It's something we've seen so many times in the past.

Maybe I'm trailing off (actually I think I am) but I'm willing to believe that a lot of what we saw in the future will be paralleled now (relationships and whatnot) but I don't think the bomb is in the future anymore. Certain things about fate (Sylar killing Candace, Claire constantly moving, Mohinder/Matt/Nathan forming a group) cannot be changed.

-Age

I agree with your outlook on this subject. I think it will take a season or 2 before we really get an idea on how this will play out. But, either way, it is still possible that this can be pulled off in a creative way.

Okay, WHY IN THE HELL would they set up a story where they would have to stop 2 bombs? Did you not catch the whole "New Season, New stories" promo during the summer? Plus have you missed the MULTIPLE interviews with Tim Kring saying that Season 1 stuff was all tied up in the finale?

Please stop bringing up this idea that the bomb is going to go off again. If you believe that this is where the story is going, your just simply not paying attention.

Although the theory is plausable, What motivation would Sylar have to blowing up the city? He said himself that he didn't want to.