I think it was something like that. My take on Sylar is that there are two levels on which he operates. On one side, clearly the guy is mad. He likes taking powers on an emotional level, he wants to be a special person, and he has a need to be, if not powerful per se, an individual of note. It’s an interesting dichotomy; he has both a need to be a powerful person, and a hatred of those powerful people as well. He clearly relishes the actual act of brain-stealing, or whatever he does. So he has the drive to go out and do these things.
And then on the other side, his personal morality seems to be a sort of survival of the fittest type thing; the most powerful should take what they want, and he is the most powerful. However, he seems to make a definite distinction between supers and mundanes; survival of the fittest is all very well for the powered people, but not for everyone else. I think that were Sylar ever actually to get into some powerful position, he might do a good job of actually taking care of people (we can’t really tell from five years on, since it’s all focused around the powers). This rational side is also fine with the power-killing, but does draw a line. I don’t think he’s completely gone yet, because of that. In certain situations, he’d probably be sane (or at least have less of an opportunity to be nuts). He’s more anti-hero than outright villain.
Matt was knocked out, on the floor, in the “present” so it’s no stretch to assume that him seeming dead in the preview just means that he’s still knocked out.
Neither Mohinder nor Bennet have any reason to kill him, Linderman and Eric Roberts are dead, Sylar isn’t around, DL is in no shape to kill him, Niki doesn’t do that sort of thing, and Jessica didn’t seem interested in throwing him out another window earlier.
So who would end up killing him?
Sylar never thought that Ted was going to blow up – he painted himself blowing up, and has thought that he was the bomb all along.
Did anyone catch the TVGuide channel special Heroes finale party? I didn’t catch all of it, but it looked like the cast was really having a good time, and got along together. That always is nice to see. The guy that plays Matt apparently is in some sort of band, and the actress that plays Claire (Hayden something?) can actually sing pretty well.
Back to speculation. One comment about DL
The previews are what showed him sitting up with his eyes open, in the actual episode he looked much closer to death.
I also got the vibe that Linderman had arranged for Nikki and DL to ‘meet’ and have Mica.
Agree that Syler both believes that he’s more deserving than the other supers, and wants to be more powerful. Which…ya know if I had the ability to somehow take other peoples cool power when all I had was a crappy “how things work” power I can’t say that I wouldn’t be a villian too. It’s easy for Peter…all he has to do is be near other people to absorbe their power…then figure out how to use it.
I still think they’re going to blow something up…not sure what…but something is going to go boom.
Oh…yeah and if anyone watched that TV Guide special, did you see
The preview for the last episode where the little girl said that there was someone that she couldn’t locate, because he could see her when she tried? Wonder what that’s about. She specifically said it wasn’t Syler. I wonder if they’re setting up for the big bad for next season?
[spoiler]I thought I saw blood on his shirt when Mohinder was kneeling by him. And DL, Niki, Micah and Molly were all sitting together, and looking alive.
And I couldn’t tell ANYTHING about the guy that crashed through the window. And I stepped through the scene frame by frame a couple of times. [/spoiler]
As I recall, the story was that the hero sacrificed himself rather than bowing to the dragon’s demand for a victim close to him. So my guess is that Ando will be in peril, and Hiro will grab Sylar and transport him to a distant location where the explosion will only kill the two of them.
One warning about making deductions from previews is that they deliberately pick provocative scenes that may not turn out to be what we think they are – e.g., Hiro and Sulu swordfighting.
Well, actually, that’s exactly what I did think was going on after seeing the preview.
But we could say the same about making deductions from the cliffhanger scenes. Witness: Peter last week - “Oh noes! Claire, I’m blowing up!” Peter this week - “Oops, nevermind, false alarm, my bad”.
So, again, we now have a cliffhanger with DL “dying”. Oh noes! It kind of makes us all spoiler-tagging the previews seem a bit silly – the previewed blips are yanking our chains just as much as the cliffhanger scenes are; neither are to be trusted for making deductions about what is happening. (thank goodness.)
That’s true. But bear in mind; Sylar has no idea how accurate Isaac’s power is. For all he knows, they’re just possible futures, not certain ones (and even we aren’t sure, with access to things he doesn’t have). Also, we know from the future that Peter could be the person who explodes. Sylar doesn’t know that, of course, but it does show that it is possible that exploding isn’t Sylar’s goal (considering how easily he stole Ted’s power when he wanted to). We know Sylar doesn’t like the idea, not only of being the bomb, but also the bomb happening in the first place. Like I said, it’s possible his killing of his mother made his mind snap even more, but he didn’t seem any extra crazy. I don’t think it’s out of the question that Sylar could have put two and two together like that; he’s a smart guy.
I just have to say that I’m still geeking out over the obscure sword details in the last few episodes. Like, when Ando tells future Hiro, “You always wanted to be a kendo master!” and future Hiro responds, “Technically I’m a battojutsu master.” Kendo (“way of the sword”) is modern Japanese-style sport fencing with a dose of meditation, while battojutsu (“art of striking”) was the actual combat forms used in feudal warfare. Or in the last episode, when Ando takes off with a nagimaki - a somewhat rare weapon type that’s a sort of short polearm with a sword blade as the head. The more common naginata is similar, but with a much longer haft.
When the actor’s in non-Sylar mode, his eyebrows strangely don’t look quite as overgrown, fr’ex: Zachary Quinto
I think the haircut and the stubble make 'em look worse. Or maybe Sylar ate somebody’s brain who had fantastic eyebrow-powers.
Only two mentions of what a tremendous cop-out the begining of this episode was? “Wait! It’s okay! I don’t feel explodey anymore! Really!”
I just caught up watching all of them for the first time off of the NBC site tonight. Tomorrow night is the season finale, yes? Does anyone know when they put the current episode up on their site? (I don’t own a TV, so it’s the only way (besides torrenting) I can get it.)
Despite Sylar cutting it off when he fought Peter at Mohinder’s place so long ago, Peter’s Emo Bang still seems to be intact (when his hair isn’t all slicked back like it is on Badass Future Improbably-Scarred Peter).
I, too, don’t get why Sylar was so happy to get Ted’s power when he seemed genuinely freaked out about himself exploding earlier. As was mentioned earlier, he believed he saw himself as the explosion, not Ted, so he couldn’t’ve reasoned killing Ted would prevent the bomb.
I liked Candice better when she was evil for the hell of it. The heavily hinted at backstory of discriminating due to her true appearance isn’t doing it for me.
Also: Since the next season (and Heroes: Orgins) aren’t going to be starring this cast, in tomorrow’s episode, I want more huggy scenes between Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia. I know, I know they’re playing brothers! But DAMN if they aren’t nice eyecandy together. /happy place
[/spoiler]
I know, I know they’re playing brothers! But DAMN if they aren’t nice eyecandy together. 
/happy place