When Sylar was in the hotel room with Claire, it looked an awful lot like he was using Eric Doyle's power. But, I thought Eric Doyle was still alive and kicking... Can anybody clear this up? It seems this is just one of many plot inconsistencies within this season.

Stole it emphatically.

I thought he was just using telekinesis here, but empathically stealing it is quite plausible, seeing as he's met Doyle more than once.

Or it could have been TK. Could also explain the less precise movements Claire was doing. More like he was "pushing" her.

In case you missed it, Sylar doesn't need to kill to take an ability, he just prefers to.

And you're right, it was definitely Doyle's ability in that scene.

I disagree. Doyle's ability is pointless/redundant when he already has TK.

Exactly. He never had any sort of empathic connection with Doyle like he did with Elle, James Martin or Nathan so he wouldn't have Doyle's power. Doesn't need it though. He was just using TK to force her movements.

I think its left to interpretation.

Can he do that with TK? I expect so!

Could he have taken puppetry? I expect so too- in BTE they said they left out a scene where Sylar catches Doyle, so we know it was planned at some point they would have some onscreen meeting.

Just decide for yourself

it was just sylars normal tk. he has no need for doyles ability because it is inferior to his own tk. when they came in contact earlier in the season sylar overpowered doyle when they both used their powers on eachother.

i saw him as using TK.

To me he seemed to be doing a whole lot hand motion than doyle would have needed to.

TK is just a more advanced power than doyle's is.

The tale-tale arching 'puppeteer' finger movements that Sylar was using? Yeah, it was Doyle's power.

It did seem like puppetry rather than TK. One reason being that if he was moving Claire with TK she would have been able to resist and struggle against it. Secondly, when has Sylar ever been subtle with TK? He just seems to pick people up and throw them around. Thirdly, his hand movements gave it away, he always seems to do that two finger thing with TK and here he was pulling and twisting his hands to move Claire around.

I'm surprised that Sylar didn't have Claire doing the Moonwalk the way he was moving her around

or get her nekkid ... that would have been my first step.

I was thinking that after Sylar met Doyle, he realized he could use his TK in a puppet-master kind of way. So it's TK, inspired by Doyle.

I thought it was regular TK because it seemed more forceful (pushing Claire against her will) than Doyle's controlled movements (where the limbs work against their mind).

We can wait until a BTE though.

It was definitely the puppet power.

Go back and listen to the sound effects used while Sylar used the power. It was a circus/festival type theme with the sound of cymbals and child's laughter.

Of course it was TK.

Ignore the sound effects. Ignore the visual similarities between what Sylar did with Claire, including the hand motions used in manipulating her, and what Doyle did.

TK makes absolute sense.

Thats the impression I got too.And I wish he would have used that with Danko( instead of shapeshifting) & left him in the doorway for a minute.

"Claire shows up in Nathan's office, and finds shifted Sylar who looks like Nathan. Claire is wary if he's really Nathan, and Sylar convinces her by touching her necklace and mentioning their trip to Mexico. Sylar then brings Claire to the place where the president is making a speech, and reveals his true identity once they are in their suite. While waiting to meet the President, Sylar uses telekinesis to force Claire to pour two glasses of wine. He says that as both of them will live forever and have a lot in common, perhaps she will eventually come to love him, but Claire swears she will try to kill him every day of her life."

It sure seemed to me like Sylar was using the Puppet Master ability on Claire... Did he get it from Eric Doyle via EM?
I've never witnessed Sylar control physical movements besides knocking away weapons, TK choke/suspend in air, and throw/catch people and items. What do you guys think?

I think he just picked up some new tricks with TK after seeing Doyle do similar stuff. I mean, if you can choke someone, you can grab their arms and move them, and why not make them pour wine?

i also think it was tk. i think Sylar got the idea from doyle.

agree...sylar found a new 'fun' way to use his TK

He did not only see, he was a puppet himself and I heard he should have done more like dancing — and finally he overpowered Doyle whom he left bleeding... So he knows how it feels actually. Why not try it on Claire! By the way what did she do to be thrown out roughly?

Im ok with it being TK, but they played a different sound effect when he was doing it. I pointed that out to my wife and said "It wouldnt make sense for it to be the puppet master power, but do you hear a different sound effect?" and she agreed. If you listen i swear you can hear a noise that isnt normally played when he uses TK.


I cant make my mind up, theres a good argument for both sides.

TK doesn't make sense. It was visually identical to Doyle's use of his ability.
The sound effect was clearly not TK.

Well, not exactly identical. Puppet Mastery is different from TK, the way I see it anyway, because Doyle literally controls anothers muscles and movements, no resistance. It probably kind of feels like when you lean against a wall for a minute and your arm rises up. There's nothing you can do to fight it. (unless you're Sylar of course, but he's got previous for resisting the powers of others). Telekinesis is exerting an outside force to make a person move. That's the difference. And Claire's movements weren't exactly smooth. Her shuffling across the floor is what swung it for me. It was forced and stilted. Telekinesis for me. Like someone said, he probably got the idea from Doyle. Although, reading that back, Puppet Mastery sounds much more terrifying to experience than I originally thought.
As for the sound effect. I can't remember. But is it the same as Doyle's sound effect? Because this angle worked wonders clearing up the Sylar Flight argument.

As were her movements, Sandra's movements, and Meredith's movements under control of Doyle.

It in no way resembled TK either in visualization or in sound effect.

I hope that the Blu-ray of this season has a making of/director's take on some scenes. I wish we could learn/know more about this scene and episode. It's very unique!

While the scene played I was wondering to myself... telekinesis or Doyle's ability? The answer came when Claire was forced to sit by Sylar. It made the same noise Doyle's ability does when he would shut Merediths mouth.

^ this.

I could see it being TK if there were no sound effects. But the sound effects sealed the deal for me in believing it was Doyle's puppetry ability.

What exactly is the time-line for Nowhere Man? Could it be that in the end of this we will see Sylar taking his ability? Actually the whole summer novels are still running with Building 26 still active and Rebel underground, right?

Like I said earlier, Sylar was using this ability as far back as with Luke and his mother. His scene with Claire was so creepy, it seems to me it's classic "Sylar-mimicking-personalities" when using other people's gifts. The things he said to her sounded almost exactly like Eric Doyle. That, plus the sound effects, mean to me it was clearly Puppetry. As for him not wanting a gift so similiar to Telekinesis, we are dealing with a guy who took Shattering.

Puppetry and Telekinesis are not even close to the same power.

Puppetry takes, with little-to-no effort, all voluntary muscle control from a person.

TK would require intense effort and concentration to achieve the same thing.

I think this was a mixture of TK and Doyles power. It was just too similar. She had no control over anything.

I took this as Sylar using his telekinesis in a way to simulate puppetry, probably inspired by Doyle. It seems a bit weird to me that Sylar would have Doyle's ability all of a sudden, though he hadn't used his telekinesis quite like this before, which too makes it a bit odd. In the commentary, it's mentioned that they sped up some of Claire's movement to give it the unnatural feel, which I'd think would be because telekinesis is more pushing her limbs than controlling them to walk naturally.

Thats exactly what i thought. I don't think he ever thought well i can make people move where i want them to. until he saw doyle in primatech.

don't put redundant powers beyond sylar. he got that explody power last episode, even though he already has one from when elle fed him that goth boy. not exactly the same but both useless for him.

Actually, he lost Bullet Finger (for lack of a better term) when he lost everything but IA and TK due to the virus.

And Doyle's power is certainly not redundant for him. Could, theoretically, TK be used in to achieve the same result? Yes. But why work if you don't have to? TK would take far more concentration and work than Doyle's ability would. It's the same reason he jumped at grabbing flight (most probably). TK could achieve the same result, but only through far more effort.

It is TK not Puppetry. David Lawrence who played Doyle confirmed this via twitter

http://twitter.com/ebrown2112/status/1685284449

http://twitter.com/dhlawrencexvii/status/1687917921

"Pretty sure" does not equal confirmation.