i just watched this past episode again and something occurred to me the second time through. How did Sylar avoid the vortex and save Claire? To me it looked like there wasn't enough room for him to be spun around it enough to catch on to something in the room. So some how he was able to avoid the gravitational pull and be fully up right in under 5 seconds and have enough time to save Claire from falling in.

Is TK going to be the key factor in this?how about IA? or sonic(lol)?

I was wondering that too... perhaps he created some sort of tk barrier, or with IA was able to throw himself into some sort of an orbit...

His comment later to claire about when he touched her he realized how much he hurt her or whatnot... I get the feeling that this is the reason why angela gave him the power of seeing the history of things. It satifys the IA hunger, and if anything, it works as the exact opposite. If the hunger can be seen as going into a state of complete selfishness, perhaps the viewing the history of things ability can be seen as coming with something that puts someone into a state of complete altruism. That was the turning point between old sylar and season 3 sylar...

Yeah, I didn't get that line "when I touched you I saw how much I hurt you." If Sylar really did have a vision they should have shown that, thats kinda important!

Maybe a deleted scene! Lots of stuff happen this season, and it looks like they are filming the double! lol But seriously, as important as it may be, I guess they prefered to cut it for other, more important stuff!

I didn't got that sentence well the first time, weirdly! I forgot about his new power of discovering the history of what he touches, so I thought, weirdly, that it was when he gots Claire's ability! But now, seeing how he just uses this new ability when he saved Claire, that makes way much more sense!

very good point about that power being a counter balance to IA's hunger. What better way to make a psychopath learn what damage he is doing than humanizing the victim. Most of the time people that kill are either disconnected from their victims or it is a murder of emotion, So by him seeing the Good/bad moments of a persons life through their own experiences would really make you sympathize with them.

Not a vision. The ability he took from Bridgett lets him know, immediately, the entire history of an object or person.

Exactly, Synch! Gabriel has "clairentience" now.

Creator

Even if it did entail a sort of dead zone-like vision (I'm with synch on this one for the record), we would have seen all the important parts of the vision... it's called claire's storyline in the show.

It's just plain and simple, Sylar got that ability that Angela "fed" to him, and he used it...nobody wants to waste airtime with flashbacks of things we allready saw

we just saw Sylar split Claire's head open a few days ago...no need to repeat stuff with flashbacks

Good point. I just wasn't sure if I should believe him or not.

What is IA?

Intuitive Aptitude. Sylar's natural ability. (It's what Peter took from him in the IABD.)

Good point about the power he was fed. I love Angela- totally a monster but generally means well. I guess this ability was the closest thing to a conscience she could give to her special boy. Ahhh, a mother's love!

o...m...g... it all makes sense now.

I ****** love Angela!

I don't know if you meant it facetiously or not... but it's an interesting thought...

Suddenly he has no choice but to "know" the people he kills?

that is FLIPPIN brilliant!

Angela specified very clearly that Bridget's ability allowed her to see the history of OBJECTS. I think that if that included people, she would've said so.

On the other hand, maybe "Claire's brain" qualifies as an "object"?

Actually... I'm pretty sure she did include people in that.

And hot.

To me, an object is anything you can perform an action on. People are objects, too.

I don't know if this is the proper place to post this but I'm thinking how Sylar let Maya nearly kill him a few times, and how he split up Al and Maya.

I think his rescuing of Clair and his comments in the car to HRG shows he's playing the same game. Sylar can be seen smirking as Clair gets out and HRG gets out after her.

But why? I don't know.

I just don't think he's honestly repentant. I think he's biding his time with HRG and Angela trying to find out the landscape of this larger world of Specials he's discovering and who all the major players are i.e. Primatech vs. Pinehurst, Angela vs. Arthur Petrelli and how he possibly could come out on top of all of them.

I agree people are often objects though not just that of course!

However, people may ALWAYS be objects to a serial killer and nothing else. Whether or not that power was meant to work on people, it might work that way for Sylar if he considered them objects. He also has IA and that burning hunger to know everything. With multiple powers, the uses and side effects must overlap, whether or not specific separate powers can be combine. In other words, I think his hunger would drive him to use that power on anyone he touched. As far as combining powers, I think we've already seen him do that anyway.

So yes, that's what I meant about the closest thing Angela could give him to a conscience.

i honestly went AWWWWWWWWWWW out loud when i saw
it, and for a split second i thought, LOVE MATCH! but
then remembered he's her uncle. damn. hehehe!
i really really really loved sylar in the whole
episode and this just was fabulous
i agree with besarien's AMAZING point that
angela's gift was a kind of conscience.
brilliant

Synch,

This is true, provided he touches them. Although, the feelings of remorse are unlikely to result during his agent hunts (the B&T's) where he's tracking villainous killers and subsequently captures, kills, and recreates himself. But, it would help prevent his slaughter of other "heroes" in satisfying his Hunger. It provides him a type of moral compass. And, now he could be seen admirably while satisfying his needs ...all with the blessing of his mom and...the Company.

Creator

Yeah Sylar definitely had that smirk playing Claire and HRG against each other, and very definitely he isn't that repentant yet. Easily I would have read this storyline as if he were just playing 'possum' but since we did get a glimpse into the future (albeit one that no longer exists) we do see that Gabriel truely does have potential for good, so you have to take it at face value when he says things like "rehabilitation doesn't happen overnight...i AM trying."

I totally agree, Sylar knows how to play people. I think he has an agenda, that does not include redemption. He saw the files of all the level 5 "villains", and he must have saw something he likes. I think he a calculating bastage and he at least for now, does not have good intensions.

Just something else that struck me about Sylar saving Claire- remember when he said something to the effect that he could feel her pain? That's pretty ironic if you consider that Claire can't feel her own pain, at least not pain of the physical variety. She hasn't been able to do that since Sylar poked around with her brain.

I'm thinking Sylar changed Claire in some fundamental way when he gained her power. Before that incident and apparently during it, Claire had the ability to feel physical pain despite her regenerative ability. Sylar poking around on her brain seems to have changed that somehow.

Was this accidental? Maybe he thought he was giving a 'gift' to Claire? Perhaps it was something Claire's power accessed as a defense mechanism to the pain and distress Sylar was causing her? One way or another, I'd think Sylar had to be aware of it given his IA power. Whether it was something he had do in the process of understanding Claire's power, or if he did it as a gift or just to amuse himself, or whether it was something that just happened because of Claire's power, this may have been what he was talking about when he called her 'perfect' or 'special' or whatever his exact words were.

Claire, of course, reacts to this new 'gift' as if it is a curse since it makes her feel less human and normal. It's what Claire had always wanted up to this point- a normal life. After, she wants to hurt villains.

So anyway if what I'm thinking is true, Sylar set her on this path of fighting monsters, then shows up with HRG to save her from one- I mean really, how surreal! I'm reminded too of Nietzsche's quote about when fighting monsters to be careful not to become one. I think Claire was doing a fine job of being careful not to become a monster before her father and Sylar showed up. Wondering if Claire of the future just forgot her Nietzsche. Oooh, there was her comment about Gabriel taking everything from her. Perhaps taking away her pain was the start of it? Anyhow those are some random thoughts that have been messing with my brain.

I think that Claire never truely felt pain, her brain just faked it when she "get's hurt" because growing up she say other people react to pain, and mimicked it even though she felt no real pain herself.

When Sylar cut her head open and starting probing around, her power stopped even this fake pain to protect her.

Maybe she can go back to whatever she felt before once she gains more understanding of her power.

Well, I think she would have felt pain before her ability manifested. Why wouldn't she?

Ummm... right...

So.. she never actually felt pain, but her brain "told" her she did?

And... how is being told by your brain that you feel pain different than... being told by your brain that you feel pain?

First let me say I totally agree with everything you posted. The Claire who was trying to help Blackhole guy was the Claire we know and love. The Niezsche quote is, "if you look long enough into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you." I think this is what happens to F_Claire (along with what we learn in the "Resistence" GN, of coruse.)

I just wanted to point out that there is a deleted scene from S1 where Claire is actually reading Nietzsche (its the scene where Claire says Lyle is also adopted, but I don't think this is canon anymore), which at the time I thought was so random but now I see where they were going.

The simple fact is that Clair was attacked. Like anyone who has gone through a violent attack, though not a sexual one, she's still feeling the effects.

Usually after such trauma people often feel "disconnected" from reality and their feelings and have a sense of "numbness".

Clair, reasonably, wants to make sure it never happens to her again. And notice she takes up a gun and hunting like HRG. Like father, like daughter.

Clair's ability to feel pain is one of the things that helped keep her connected to normal humanity. As shown by FClair she is seen to be losing that. Why does she blame Peter? Well first there is FPeter (how was it possible they were able to kill him?) and then there is the fact Peter was protecting Sylar and son. Also if she still can't feel pain, she is unable to relate to him in any meaningful human way anymore.

The thing that is freaking me a little is Sylar playing HRG and Clair against each other. If he is truly trying to reform why is he doing that?

My only answer is he's trying to form a connection to Clair, but why? To ease his conscience? Its HRG who's bad not him? Or because he is attracted to Clair and...? Ewwwww!

He wants to mess with HRG now because he tried to send him through a black hole.The best way to mess with HRG is through Claire, Sylar has always known that and Sylar thinks he is telling Claire the truth: "he doesn't see our humanity" (which is actually kinda true, HRG doesn't really see them as human beings except Claire because he raised her and even then we know from 'Company Man' he kept his distance in the begining).

I think Sylar feels sorry for what he did to Claire (as much as he can at this point and NO I don not think that justifies what he did). I take a lot of Sylar's "I want to be a better person" lines at face value based on the future Daddy Gabriel we saw and that Angela really does seem to have an effect on him.

Good points and I agree with you about Sylar getting back at HRG through Clair. Also about HRG's often ambivalent relationship with "Specials" wit the exception of Clair.

Lets face it. He's afraid of them.

But if Sylar truly cared a fig about Clair he'd have shut-up and stayed out of it.

But the fact that Sylar is living in the Bennet House leads me to think that something more happens between Clair and Sylar. Am I saying Clair's Noah's mommy? And she would kill her own kid? Maybe--just kidding. No, not really. But I think more happens between them.

Remember before Sylar aquired Claire's ability..when he was "hovering" around her while she was trying to find him? Lots of people were saying it seemed like his feet weren't even touching the ground.

I assumed that the way he got around the vortex is that same "hovering" ability that has been speculated about before.

Well, the true extent of Sylar's powers remains to be seen. We still don't know exactly how many brains he got a hold of before season one even started. We saw glimpses of abilities over time and while some powers were obvious (the ability to freeze), some were more vague (like taking several bullets to the chest and still being able to rise to his feet and that was long before he got Claire's regeneration ability).

I wasn't really looking too much into it. Sylar grabbed something and then saved Claire and that's all I need to know. Personally that scene felt as forced as the rest of the season has so far.

Wait- if Sylar lost all of his abilities except IA and telekinesis from the virus then how did he use those abilities while "hunting" Claire?

Mom P did say "she's going to feed you"...perfect allusion to how it's satiated his hunger.

As for him avoiding the vortex, he has electro-magnetism too, right? He could have magnetized himself to all sorts of things to stay out of the black hole.

He doesn't have Magnetism. That guy was killed by Knox.

He has Telekinesis.

getting power to know history of objects didn't satisfy his hunger because he still cut the mexican guy's head off at the bank

Sylar clearly lost his TK to the Virus and Clair/Mohinder's blood was what restored them at the end of season 2.

He used to TK to capture Clair and IA to acquire her ability Ep 1. The Second Coming. Sylar had no other abilities but TK and IA until he acquired Clair's according to writers Aron Coleite and Joe Pokaski in a Comic Book Resources Behind the Eclipse interview last month.

This month when asked about how Sylar used two of his old abilities Issac's Painting the Future and Ted's Nuclear ability from the first season, Aron and Joe imply that he somehow Sylar acquires them in the intervening years

Maybe someone should ask them why it also looked like he was reading her mind in the car?

Because he's always been able to read people and manipulate them. He doesn't even need his IA for that.

Synch :: I always felt that Sylar's ability to "read people" came after he learned to use his IA. You didn't think so?

Oh, I agree that it's something that came after he harnessed his IA. But, it's a skill that he doesn't need IA, or any of his acquired abilities, for. He used it quite well in S2 with Maya, without having access to any of his abilities.

...in other words, just plain old human intuition will do the trick sometimes. [i.e., super-human intuition was not required to understand or take advantage of Maya]

Creator

LMAO! I take it you don't like her either?

I agree, Sylar, even when he's not using IA, knows just what makes people "tick"

As to why he's pitting HRG and Claire against each other... well, he's never been a fan of Noah, really, has he? Even when they're getting along you get the feeling that they're just playing with the other until they can actually kill them.

And, if Sylar wants to really get under HRG's skin, he can remind him that technically he is far closer to Claire than he is...

After all, they're both "special"

And he's also biologically her uncle...

*Watches Noah's fingers twitch towards his gun*

Does he even know that? I mean, does Sylar know that Claire is Nathan's daughter and does he even know that Nathan is his brother too? Does he even know that Nathan exists? They never crossed paths in present timeline. Or maybe we're just supposed to assume that Angela told Sylar everything about Petrelli family's history off-screen. He didn't seem surprised when HRG told Angela "You expect me to work with this animal after what he did to my daughter, your grand-daughter."

When Peter has him by the throat and Sylar is touching Peter then he should know all Peter knows including about Clair's parentage and about Peter's travel to the Future and about himself and little Noah and who his baby's mama is.