Five Years Gone

In chapter 20, "Five Years Gone," we jumped half a decade into the future to see what could come to pass if our heroes do not prevent half of New York City from being incinerated. This storyline owes a heavy debt to the legendary X-Men story "Days of Future Past," in which Kitty Pride travels through time to stop a disaster. And what a dark future this was. There's so much to write about that it necessitates the use of bullet points.

· Peter was the bomb, and he went off, earning his wicked scar; half of New York City was destroyed; and Nathan rose to the presidency, charging the Department of Homeland Security (apparently under the auspices of Parkman and the Haitian) to hunt down those with powers. He is protecting his brother (who's shacking up with Niki, ickily sleeping with her second Petrelli brother) by blaming the whole thing on Sylar.

· Except that Sylar (having killed and absorbed Candice, the hot Catholic-schoolgirl-skirt-wearing woman) has killed Nathan, assumed his identity, and moved into the White House. That was quite the jaw-dropper.

· Ando has died, and Hiro, afflicted by guilt and sadness, has lost his joie de vivre and become a "terrorist." (Remember, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.)

· H.R.G., in an agreement with Parkman, is working to turn in dangerous individuals who possess powers while providing harmless ones with new identities.

· Claire is hiding in plain sight in Midland, Tex., ready to marry some local busboy.

But then time-traveling not-future Hiro showed up and all hell broke loose. Parkman killed H.R.G. and future Hiro and Hana Gitelman; Mohinder killed the Haitian; Sylar killed Claire....Luckily it's all like a dream, because for all this not to happen, said future Hiro, not-future Hiro has to go back in time and kill Sylar, stopping him from setting off the bomb. Thing is, as far as we know, Sylar doesn't explode — Peter does. So is Hiro going to have to kill Peter?

The metaphors and political parallels at play in this episode were everywhere. There were the ongoing 9/11 references, such as Nathan/Sylar giving his speech in a Ground Zero-like hole in New York City, the way that Nathan/Sylar's administration tries to use fear and the memory of tragedy to its own ends ("At first the world will mourn," says Nathan/Sylar about his genocidal plan. "They'll be united in grief. Then they'll just be united"), and the co-opting of Homeland Security to wreak havoc on American lives. I was also pleased and shocked by Nathan/Sylar's line acknowledging that he's both president and something more: "I'm the leader of the free world...I'm the most special person there is." If that isn't a damning critique of unchecked executive power and arrogance, I don't know what is.

High marks, too, for the scene that cut back and forth between President Nathan/Sylar's speech on the five-year anniversary of the bomb and the fight to spring Present Hiro from the detention facility. When Future Hiro, Ando, and Peter walked into that office building all badass-like, I thought, "It's going to be like that scene in The Matrix,"i.e., awesome. Except it wasn't really. Save for some bloodless sword slashing and a guy flying through the air, Peter's "I haven't had a good battle in a long time"' statement didn't live up to its promise. What's with that? I mean, can't they give us a little more action? I'm not asking for 24 here, but a few seconds of not really intensely acted or staged fight scenes don't really stir the blood. Let's have some blood stirring!

Overall, I thought the episode was very interesting, providing a few answers while raising entirely new ones. If Hiro knows what he has to do now and can travel back and forth in time over and over, isn't the whole future we just saw null and void?