I don't know. Maybe it is because I remember baseball cap Sylar as a whole lot more ruthless then the one we know and love today, but I can't help wondering if he REALLY would have just walked away leaving two specials behind unscathed.


Unless he planned on going back for Charlie, it doesn't sit completely well with me. This was when his sole goal was to get a lot of powers and kill all other specials. The fact that Hiro pwned him should have irked him a little more IMO.


Also, we NEVER see Sylar beat. So it is just weird.

i think knowing his fate was more intriguing to him, sylar has always been all about himself, so i can see him doing that in exchange for something about his future, and he probably was going to kill charlie, but then hiro teleported him out, and after that whole speech, i guess he was more interested in claire than charlie

It's possible that what Hiro told him gave Sylar pause.

this bothered me as well, i would imagine sylar more likely slicing hiros head when he had his back to him

Hiro easily out-powered him and could have easily killed him. So I don't think Sylar would go back for Charlie when Hiro made it very clear that if anything happened to her, Hiro would kill him.

Plus Sylar really wanted Claire's power.


From what I remember, we never saw much of him at that time beyond a shadowy, evil, lurking mysterious figure.



I'd say that he wanted the information that Hiro could give him, so he wouldn't have killed him.

As much as I liked the episode, perhaps he wasn't inflicted upon by the insatiable hunger that is the root of all the evils he commits at that moment.

No matter what Sylar tried to do, it wasn't fast enough to overcome Hiro's ability. I'm suprised he didn't slice hiro's head, myself. He had the opportunity. However, the writers know, Sylar with Hiro's ability=doomsday for all time! That's why they only teased at him getting hiro, and that's it.

The Sylar as we knew him in Season 1 probably would not, but that's not the Sylar as he is currently written.

Whether you view it as adding character depth or a retcon, more recent seasons have shown that Sylar has -some- control over his hunger. He likely just viewed what Hiro could offer as more beneficial than what Charlie could give him.

I figured Sylar would have knocked out Hiro when Hiro was distracted (like when he was comforting Charlie) and then taken hiro's power, go to the future, and sees what happens that way.

Season 1 Sylar was more ruthless and would not have thought twice about killing Hiro and Charlie. I agree that Sylar has more depth now but that's because he's had a lot of experiences that allowed him to reflect on his actions. Season 1 Sylar hasn't been through that yet, he still thinks that he deserves to get what he wants.

Sylar almost turned back after his first kill, freaked when he thought he was going to kill thousands, and tried to go to his mom for redemption.

I just watched the episode again, and I take it back. For the most part, they don't mess anything up too badly, other than the "3 years ago" thing. I'll give it a pass, and say that they were reallllly wrong about how long its been since the finale of Volume 4 (which makes sense for everyone but Parkman, damn..)...

but anyways.

I don't think everyone was as out of character as we are all seeing. HRG was definately playing Isaac to get what he wanted, so of course he's going to play dumb. He's not going to tell him, oops, my bad we messed up and helped make this mess, and we know what he looks like but are just incompetent, lol.

Basically, S1 was played for mystery and intrigue, which is the biggest thing thats changed about the show. We know way too much about them to be wondering about who everyone is, where they came from, what they can do, how are they connected, how deep does this go, etc, etc... We didn't see the more personal sides of HRG, Sylar, etc, because we *weren't supposed to*. They were supposed to be dark, confusing, scary. We didn't KNOW their personalities yet. They haven't changed... our perspective of them did.

I hope I'm not opening a proverbial can of worms or bringing up something that's been debated to death, but doesn't Sylar have to see the target use their power in order to steal it? In Hiro's case, unless he simply speeds up rather than freezing time, or teleporting, wouldn't it be impossible for Sylar to see how Hiro's power works?

Personally - I wanna what what's up with Sylar and food? Through out the seasons it always seems like he's eating (and not brains )

Everything in this epi struck me as "off" with the characters - Sylar especially - but that maybe because at the time we never had seen his face, he was always shadowed

Hmm... You know, I think it was played well. For one thing, S4-Hiro is obviously stronger than S1-Sylar, we saw them ''fight''... Well, ok, it wasn't really a fight, but you get the point here.

Next, I think he was intrigued about knowing his future. Knowing that he'd die soon and all... Hiro had information that worth a lot to him!

Finally, he teleported him far away in the end, so that he couldn't harm Charlie!

I think it played well in the end. We never saw Sylar as much more than a shadow figure back then, but he was still a human-being, with ideas and plans. So I don't see this totally out! I mean, he was still evil, so...

I thought he was played very well but throughout the episode I couldn't help questioning why we couldn't have this Sylar back?

I tought sylar was a bit out of characther but

clever words, I guess thats just it,
Was used to him being in the shadows so it doesnt seem "right" when he's just walking about..
for me anyway..but still I find it unfitting

I'd agree, especially since all he got from Hiro was a cookie cutter, fortune cookie, prediction of the future. No real specifics, or anything to go on.

If he just didn't decide to go back, I'd imagine it was because he didn't think he fair any better in a round 2 engagement with Hiro.

It did seem a bit un-Sylar-like; But keep in mind that Sylar has always been ridiculously self-confidant. He probably figured that there was no hurry going after either Hiro or charlie. Claire was a bigger priority. Especially since Hiro revealed himself to be a possible threat to his mortality.

Better to make himself immortal first, then go after Hiro.

Ehhh, TBH, I really don't think Sylar would have saved Charlie regardless of what Hiro told him. I think Old Sylar would have been like, "Eh, you say I'm going to die alone. You're probably lying." and he would have killed her anyways.

Just to be fair, He didn't get his "fortune cookie prediction" until after he saved Charlie, and Hiro telling him he was going to die probably freaked him out a little when he tried to call Hiro a liar and Hiro was all like *stern silent*.

I saw Sylar as completly in character. He was ruthless, but smart when he had to be. He wanted the info Hiro had, so he played nice to get it. He didn't know Hiro would double cross him (which is funny, because it is dishonorable, yet 5 min later Samuel calls him honorable), and he couldn't really do anything to hurt Hiro.

I have to say I was thrilled at seeing Season 1 Sylar, found him very appropriate and well acted.

To be honest, we don't know enough (or didn't) about S1 Sylar to say what his real motivations would have been, and what it would have taken to persuade him to, at least temporarily, left well enough alone.
Because of the way he was written in S1, the writers can do pretty much anything they want with him, and it works because there's nothing about what we saw in S1 that counterindicates it.



Sylar doesn't need to see how a power works to take it. He wants to see, but it isn't needed.

People forget in S1 he wasn't just a cold hearted killer, think of the scenes with his mother for proof of that. He is in it purely for himself and Hiro is kind of making a fool him. He knows that Hiro is freezing time and could potentially kill him at any point as well. Also knowing what the future holds for him is key as well, Hiro tells him he is going to die and Sylar would want to know how this happens so he can prevent it.

Just like he showed with Mohinder he is more than happy to put an act on if he thinks he can extract valuable information out of them, Hiro plays it smartly as well and doesn't give him enough to change the future but enough to keep him interested enough in saving Charlie. Charlie is just one person, a handy power but not exactly a crucial one for him like Claire's power was.

I was wondering that too.

Struck me as strangely odd.

I want shadowed Sylar back if they go backwards in time.

The thing is that in the GNs he needed charlies power to learn how to drive the truck that helped him to flee from the agents. In this case he won't be able to and probably get caught or even killed since he didn't had claires power back then and that would change the course of the future anyway.

Unless samuel put her back in the past making her death through sylar valid again without hiro knowing that all he did was for nothing.

I think it's just that Sylar just valued Clair's ability more than the others, so she was his priority.

Well, instead of getting himself a truck, he got himself a car. Or flew away with TK. Or managed to hide from the agent.

We don't know how he escaped now, but the methods he used doesn't change much to what happened.

Or was just smart and had IA and stumbled thru driving the truck anyways.

Old Sylar would have gone berserk with lust at the idea of Hiro's power. He had already worked out a weakspot with Hiro tiring after every jump. There was no reason for him not to strike and take both powers when Hiro had his back to him during the surgery when his defences were down.

With Hiro's power any infomation about his 'future' is moot anyway. He can go observe it himself. Don't get me wrong, Sylar with time travel would kill the show and I don't want to see it, but at least make Hiro a believable adversary.

Sylar was obviously hoping for something more concrete from Hiro concerning his death: A date, a specific event, the method. Hiro peaked Sylar's interest by hinting that Sylar would ultimately fail to gain the cheerleader's power. We know that's false, but pastSylar must have wondered how he could have failed and what he could do differently to succeed, which was his big goal then, to obtain immortality. For that reason alone, Sylar held back, since what was the point of stealing two powers if he was ultimately going to be killed in the end?

Hiro basiclly screwed Sylar over by giving him a vague answer of Sylar being beaten by a group of people and then dying alone and unmourned (another little dig at Sylar's insecurities, planting a seed of doubt which might one day grow to fruition in the later future) .

Knowing Sylar's lust for powers, Hiro probaby didn't even give Sylar the chance to doublecross him. Instead, immediately after he delivered the information, Hiro froze time again and brought Sylar back to Odessa (which also explains why Sylar didn't need Charlie's power to drive the truck from the diner. He was already at his destination). Sylar left the two, most likely with even more determination to gain Claire's power so that Hiro's prediction would not come true.

Even if Sylar did manage to overpower Hiro and steal his power, Sylar still had no way of really finding out where, when or how he would die. What could he do? He would just be time jumping blindly, and could easily miss the day. His death could have been 50 years or 2 weeks away for all he knew. He can't shadow his future self until the event came for the same reason.

If Sylar took hiro's power none of that would matter. He would eventually get claire's power as he can attempt to do so an infinite amount of times. He would know that the future can be altered by the act of killing future Hiro before he has a chance to become him.

Hmm maybe that's why he didnt kill him. Used IA to forsee a paradox, heh.

I'm as big a fan of Sylar as anyone and loved his ruthless shadowy self, but I still see this rendition of S1 Sylar as accurate. Sylar knew he was outclassed by Hiro (sure Hiro was getting tired, but thats because we all know (including Sylar) that Hiro was going easy on him) and had his interest piqued by the mention of his death (he has always been scared of dying). He went along with Hiro because he was making the best of a bad situation. He was still very much mortal, I think we have just seen too much of immortal Sylar lately that we forgot how much he worried about his death before he got regeneration.

IA to see paradox and variables, isn't that what F_Peter was trying to do in the first place?

Another great call...

Sylar was never as dark as we saw him in S1, his personality has remained constant (like when he was playing head games with Mohinder), we just saw him as mysterious and unknown because thats how he was presented to us..

Definitely not. The writers themselves don't even know the characters they created. I simply don't understand why Sylar wouldn't have killed Hiro when he had his back turned to him, took his power and saw the future for himself. The Heroes writers continue to make stupid decisions for the sake of nonsense time travelling plots.

I'm waiting for the next episode where someone travels to/paints/dreams about the future where the world explodes, or the city explodes, or Angela Petrelli's ****** explodes and the Heroes have to get together to stop it.

Umm...because if Hiro had died, Sylar wouldn't have found out what he knew. It's actually fairly straightforward, and was remarkably intelligent on Hiro's part.

And, once it was done, Hiro didn't give him a chance to do anything.

I think its also likely that Sylar was "playing along" and hoped to double-cross Hiro if he got a chance.

I agree Hiro was smart in immediately teleporting him away, and -better still- putting him right in Odessa where he'll be enticed to go after her instead of returning right away.

One other thing to think about is that early S1 Sylar wasn't very keen on fighting anyone who could fight back in any way and would just run away. Interestingly, this starts to change in after he encounters Charlie. In the next episode, Homecoming, we could now say that he's probably still angry about being bested by Hiro, and thus is much more aggressive in his confrontation with Peter.

Also, we might also wonder if possibly this is what inspires Sylar to go after Isaac for his alternative method of seeing the future. Isaac's ability isn't as attractive as Hiro's, but he's a much easier target.

You're not reading correctly. I said if killed him and took his power, Sylar could go to the future and check for himself. He doesn't need Hiro at all. Let me put it simpler, we have two options

A. Sylar with s1 hunger, "hmm, I'll let both of these Heroes live in exchange for this stranger's word that what he is telling me about the future is correct"
B. Sylar with s1 hunger, "hmm, I'll kill both of these Heroes and have a power that allows me to visit any time period and slow down the flow of time!"

Which one of these do you think Sylar would go for?

Umm...sure he could.

Just one question..where/when would he go? One year? Two? Four? Eight? Six months? Three weeks?

He didn't killed him because he wouldn't had been able to kill him at all and because after a few tries he understood that if he pushes hiro too far, hiro might think things over and just kill sylar to end everything. Does this make sense?

I mean even if he would had tried to kill him when hiro turned his back, at the second sylar would had used tk, hiro would had frozen time again. This way sylar wouldn't had been able to do it and hiro would had been able to decide if he kills sylar once and for all or ports him to where he were supposed to be (or even elsewhere lost in time) to remain the time flow withouth changing too much like he did at the end by porting him to where claire was.

There were always two persons in season 1 sylar wouldn't had been able to outmatch through power and they were DL and Hiro.

You could put Candice into the mix if she would had being going after him or if she knew that he is only out for murder.

Anyway, I think the plot and writing worked well so far.
I just hope they will sometime take care of the timelines a bit so people won't be confused doing maths work like in almost every episode to find their way into the series timeline.

Anywhere he wanted. He wouldn't exactly be time-constrained.



We saw Sylar catch Hiro unaware and throw him against the side of a bus. How would it not be possible for him, while his back is turned, to grab him and propel him into the ceiling, thus knocking him out?



Why do you say that? Sylar couldn't outsmart DL?!



Yeah, Candice did a great job keeping him at bay. He didn't even have to use a power to kill her.



They won't ever correct it because they change it every season, there's no plot. They just come up with new stories every volume and give us a poor flashback episode like Monday's to try and justify it, but end up creating even more paradoxes.

Umm...yeah. Wasting years hoping to find the right time to land in and see what happened. Not real bright.
Instead he sacrificed a power he didn't even particularly want (since he only used it once after getting it) in exchange for information he did.


Yeah. He caught Hiro offguard. And...less than a second later, Hiro had him playing "catch me if you can."


Outsmart? Who said outsmart?
He couldn't have beaten DL though.


Because she was stupid and thought she could keep him from killing her.
Had she known he was out to kill her though? Different story.


1: No overarching plot, I'll agree. The show doesn't actually need it.
2: Poor flashback episodes? When'd you see one of those? Paradoxes? I must've missed the one you claim exists.

While I still don't buy Sylar's characterisation in this episode. (why not hold charlie hostage for the infomation while rifling through her brain?) It occured to me perhaps Sylar decided against getting time travel powers as he didnt want to risk getting a brain tumour? Particularly before getting Claire's power. At that point it's conceivable he'd bother to keep Hiro alive to find out what he knows.

psychopathicROC,

"He's not going to tell him, oops, my bad we messed up and helped make this mess, and we know what he looks like but are just incompetent, lol."

Possibly, Noah didn't realized back then that Gabriel Grey and Sylar were the same person. He, up until his capture, always refers to this malevolently mysterious mass murdering psycho as Sylar and not Gabriel Grey. Could it be that he actually, genuinely, did not know that they were one in the same [until after his capture by Eden and the (as yet unnamed) Haitian]? That's the only way that I can resolve this.

So, while I agree that it's a bit of a stretch, it would explain how Noah knows his true identity and calls him by name following his capture; I can live with this (Noah not realizing before capture that Sylar and Gabriel are the truly same person).

And then "advanced Hiro" knows that some abilities can be inverted from destructive to constructive, he called Sylar a "doctor" much to his surprise.

The easiest way to resolve it is to just admit that Noah was less than honest with Isaac.
Which situation sounds more serious?

"We have a killer going around attacking everyone with abilities and, although we know what he looks like, we just haven't gotten around to catching him yet. Oh yeah, the Company's kind of directly responsible for him not being dead."

or

"We have a killer going around attacking everyone with abilities and we haven't even got a clue what he looks like."

/Signed and fully agree!