Landslide - Again

I finally got to see the episode, and it was great. I'm pretty pumped about the finale tonight. As always, highlight below to see my notes.

How many people are going to be left when this season is over? Four deaths in just one episode, and let's not even talk about all the cool guys that Sylar's killed in episodes past. If we keep going at this rate, Claire and Mr. Muggles will be the only returning cast members.

So, D.L. is apparently dead after confronting Linderman. Not to be outdone, though, Linderman is also dead after having his brain forcibly removed by D.L. What a cool move. The only lurking question here is whether or not that piece of Linderman's brain is going to heal D.L. Sylar gets power from others by removing pieces of their brain (and doing something with them) and Claire and Peter could only be stopped (paused not killed) by something embedded in a certain section of their brain, so there's a bit of precedent so far to allow the writers to keep D.L. around. Personally, I'm still hoping to end that whole storyline, I'll be happy to see him go.

Before his death, Linderman gave Nathan two gifts. First, he healed his wife so she can walk again. Ironic, I think, since Linderman is also the one that caused the wreck which originally took her ability to walk. Second, he rigged the election so that Nathan won by a landslide. A foolish move if you ask me, but it's TV land. Seems to me like it would have been more plausible for Nathan to win by a slim margin and avoid any probing investigations by the other candidates. As long as it was close to the predicted margin of error, things are believable, but his standings in the pre-election polls make a landslide victory very unlikely and very suspicious.

Nathan is apparently on board with the plan to let NYC explode and elevate himself to the White House. Even with a warning from Hiro, he doesn't seem ready to change course. Of course, neither Hiro nor Nathan realize at this point that it's actually Sylar who ended up in the Oval Office, which actually gives me some hope. In order for Sylar to have Nathan's power, he had to kill him, so I'm hoping that that foreshadows a change of heart from Nathan so that he joins the fight to stop the explosion and in the process he's faces Sylar. I hope that he is not killed, though, because I mostly like his character.

Peter got some cool new toys when he met Parkman and Sprague. First, he managed to get the nuclear power under control, and then he also picked up that cool ability to read minds. What occurred to me at that moment, though, is why didn't he also pick up all of the collected powers of Sylar when the two of them met in Mohinder's apartment? Did he just absorb Sylar's one true power – the ability to detect powers in others and then do whatever to their brains? I would think that he would have gotten them all, though. Give me your thoughts on this.

Sprague was another victim of Sylar's this week after a tip off to the FBI. How brash is that man, to actually stand there and talk to the FBI when he's the real threat? Anyway, in response to Caci's previous comment, I think he just walked away. I assume that Caci's comment refers to the fact that Sylar wasn't there when Agent Hanson turned around, but I don't think that he used Claude's power to be invisible. I think he just disappeared into the huge crowd of people. If he had the ability to actually become invisible, I think we would have seen that more directly like we did with Peter and Claire fleeing the scene.

Now that Sprague is dead, both Peter and Sylar have the nuclear power to blow up NYC. Sylar believes it's his destiny to be the bomb, so it seems most likely that he'll be the one to explode, but in the future, it was actually Peter that blew up. I still don't understand what's going to happen there. Of course, if Peter blows up there's the possibility that he would heal himself and survive. If Sylar blows up, wouldn't he just be gone since he doesn't have Claire's power? Why would he do that to himself?

On the other side of town, Parkman and HRG infiltrated the building where Micah and Molly are being held. They took out Thompson with a cool bit of dialog: "What am I thinking now?"/"Your last thought." And have now ended up in a standoff with Mohinder over Molly's life. Molly must be pretty confused since Parkman saved her life once and now he seems to be there to hurt her, but I think the situation can be defused pretty easily if everyone works together to just get her out of that building and let her work for the good guys.

Micah's usefulness to Linderman is over, but Linderman is dead. I assume that Niki will rescue him and keep all of the money, so here's hoping that they just retire to Vegas and lay low for a season or two or the rest of the series.

Candice raised an interesting point to Micah in this past episode, too. When Micah said that he knew someone else that ate junk food all time and they were overweight, Candice seemed to indicate that the familiar face we see might also be an illusion. She went on to talk about other people and hint at some self-esteem issues which makes me think that she was teased until she figured out her power and now she wants to get back at all the people that she perceives as being mean and unfair to those that are different.

Finally, Hiro and Ando met back up with Mr. Nakamura. Interestingly, Mr. Nakamura indicated that he had been waiting for someone to carry on the family legacy which seems to indicate that Hiro may be descended from a line of others with powers and that Mr. Nakamura himself may have some. Of secondary interest is the training. I've seen plenty of martial arts movies and done some martial arts in real life. I find it hard to believe that Hiro learned sword fighting in a single afternoon. I wonder if somehow they didn't spend more time in training that the amount of time that had passed in the outside world. Now that Ando is out on his own, though, Hiro is conflicted. He's got a mission to kill Sylar, but he also wants to protect his friend. Which will he choose?

They are all together in NYC finally, and the end is coming quickly. I can't wait to watch tonight and find out what happens.