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Last night's midseason finale episode of Heroes gave us a lot to think about for the next month or so until the show picks back up. I may be dropping Lost and Jericho, as those two shows seem to be going nowhere, but Heroes has me hooked.

I've first got to touch on Hiro, who remains my favorite character. Determined little bloke doesn't give up, even when he thinks they've failed and let the cheerleader die. He gets the call from Isaac (Mister Eee-Sahk) and the look of wonder on his face when they meet was great. Classic Hiro.

Isaac has a breakthrough in discovering that he can indeed sketch the future without drugs, and snaps himself into the freaky white-eyed trace to paint Hiro battling a dinosaur with his katana. Hiro comments "I hope I don't step on a bug", which I thought was a great reference to Ray Bradbury' short story A Sound of Thunder. It seems obvious now that Hiro will likely obtain his katana from some great swordmaker centuries ago in Japan. Where better to get one?

From what Hiro writes on his blog, it seems that he fears he's losing his powers. It took him forever to make his way back to the diner because he couldn't simply teleport. He took a bus most of the way. I suspect that perhaps he wasn't able to use his abilities because doing so would have caused a paradox. He couldn't save Charlie because her death had already happened. Not chronologically of course, but if he had succeeded in preventing her death, what reason would he have ever had to travel back in time and attempt to prevent her death? Paradox.

And of course, Hiro's other great line of the evening, "How do you stop an exploding man?"

We also see Sylar in some kind of power-proof cage. I'm really not sure about that. How is it that the prison he's in is supposed to prevent him from using his abilities? That implies that all the abilities from all the "heroes" come from some single source. Not sure I buy that. Perhaps there was some sedative or other factor in play I haven't yet thought of.

In any event, it seems that Mr. Bennett, A.K.A. HRG, would like to kill Sylar but has superiors who won't allow it. An interesting peek into future plot. Who are his superiors? What are their motives? Why is he capturing and examining special people? In any event, it's clear why he'd like to see Sylar dead. Sylar explicitly threatened Claire, and we know that as much of a shady figure as he can be, Mr. Bennett does indeed care about his daughter. I actually loved the scene where Mr. Bennett was genuinely thankful to Peter for saving Claire. I've got to say - Mr. Bennett is one of my favorite characters because he's complex. His goals are noble, but his methods are less than kind. His ability to use the Haitian to erase the memories of anyone that gets in his way seems to have given him quite a god complex. And now we see him erasing Zack's memory, his son's memory, and attempting to erase Claire's too.

And that brings up another bombshell from this cliffhanger. The Haitian - whose proper name we still don't know - has his own agenda. He isn't mute after all, and he wants Claire to lie to her father and pretend that her memory has been erased. We were given very little here, but if The Haitian has his own agenda, what is it? Is it selfish? Is it in pursuit of a greater good? After seeing this, I'm willing to bet that he's erased Mr. Bennett's memory at least once.

Back in the "power-proof" cell, Eden has decided that Sylar is too dangerous to let live. She intends to hand him a gun and command him to shoot himself. But he uses his telekinesis and pulls her forward through the glass wall, smashing it, and probably injuring her badly in the process. His intent at this point is to steal her ability. With the "power of persuasion", Sylar would be nearly unstoppable. Eden first tries to shoot him, and then realizes that he's able to stop the bullet with his power. We've seen this before when Matt and his partner shot at Sylar. So instead, Eden turns the gun on herself, destroying her brain and making it impossible for Sylar to steal her ability.

The question that this brings up is - why couldn't Sylar have smashed that glass at will? What was it about that moment that allowed his abilities to function? I really don't understand. And while we're discussing Sylar, what abilities exactly does he possess? We know that he killed that first man in the flashback and stole the telekinesis ability. And we know that he killed Charlie and stole her Eidetic memory. But we also saw the murder scene that was being investigated when Matt first showed up. He obviously killed someone there and stole their power. And that man was frozen solid. This implies that Sylar stole a freezing power before going there, plus whatever power he stole from that person. So Sylar has at least four powers, only three of which we're aware. I'm sure more info will come out about this. And if you don't mind a spoiler, we learn in the latest comic from the heroes graphic novel that Sylar didn't escape after killing Eden - men with tranquilizer dart guns quickly subdue him.

I like Nathan Petrelli for the same reasons that I like Mr. Bennett. He's an ass on the surface, but has some redeeming qualities, and is a complex and flawed character. Nathan cares about his brother. He's comsumed nearly entirely by his political ambitions, but he comes and uses his political power to get his brother out of jail.

One of the scenes I loved was the interrogation. Matt and Peter's proximity, with both reading each others' minds, created a feedback loop. Being an ex-AV geek, I appreciated that immensely.

But now that we come to the subject of Peter, there are a number of important subjects to discuss. The big one, of course, is his vision. We've seen Peter have vivid dreams - visions - since the first episode. And they generally come true, although not as literally as Isaac's paintings. This second power of his is incredibly interesting to me.

The scene in which all the other heroes are running from him as he unwillingly explodes was so well filmed. I really liked the feel of that scene. And now it seems that Peter is in danger of absorbing Ted's radiation ability and somehow exploding. But all is not lost - Peter's visions, unlike Isaac's paintings, aren't necessarily destined to come true. They can be prevented. On top of that, we know that the future Hiro recognised Peter, and remembered him with a scar. So Peter's death and the impending destruction of New York isn't as immediate a threat as it may appear.

All in all, a terrific episode. Can't wait for the next one in January.