- there are actually TWO futures that we have information on.
The first future, F1, we only are told about from Hiro from the future. In F1, Sylar succeeds in killing Claire at homecoming, and with her healing power, heals the wound from Future Hiro's sword, and eventually goes nuclear. This future is NOT represented in the episode airing this past week, and the only person who remembers these events are Future Hiro. Why? Because he wasn't in the timeline when it was altered. How was it altered? By Future Hiro going back in time, and telling Peter to save the cheerleader. The instant this event occured, F1 ceased to be a possible future (though Future Hiro still has knowledge of F1), and Future Hiro's present has become F2. The clever point is that all the event from the subway meeting with Peter, to the point Future Hiro leaves for the past, Future Hiro has no actual knowledge of. He, in effect, remembers a past that never happened. This is important when he returns to his present time, now F2, and sees that the bomb still went off.
In F2, the events as thus. Future Hiro has altered the present, as shown in most of season 1, by telling Peter to save the cheerleader. The following events, as a result, never occur: Claire being killed at homecoming, Sylar gaining her healing power, and as we are told by Peter, Sylar going nuclear. So F2 happens EXACTLY as we have seen in season 1. There is of course a gap between where the last episode ends, and F2 takes over. These events are filled in by this week's episode, Five Years Gone. We see that Claire is alive, of course, since we've seen her saving during the season, and that Peter goes nuclear, not Sylar. We don't know exactly where Sylar was during the nuclear event, and it doesn't matter - he could have been sleeping for all it matters - the point is is that Peter goes nuclear in F2, not Sylar, and that Sylar is never stabbed by Hiro, and he never needs healing. This is where some people are getting hung up, I think. Sylar never gets stabbed, because in F2, Hiro was never told by his Future Self that he has to. Sylar WAS stabbed in F1, but only because Hiro decided to on his own accord, an act that was futile because Claire was dead by then, and Sylar had her healing. Anyway, in F2, all the events occur as shown on the episode Five Years Gone. Future Hiro incorrectly assumes the explosion is caused, as in F1, by an nuclear Sylar, and that despite warning Peter to save the cheerleader, nothing has been changed. This is incorrect. Lots of things were changed, but not the nuclear incident. Note that Future Hiro seems suprised to learn that Claire is alive in F2. So Future Hiro thinks that saving the cheerleader wasn't the right alteration, so he makes another: he tells Present Hiro to kill Sylar. This event NEVER happened in F1, and NEVER happened in F2. This creates a third version of the future, which we never seen in the episode Five Years Gone. This future, F3, is as it stands right now, the future for the present.
- The best way to think of things is F1 is the unmeddled timeline, and F2 is the result of one instance of meddling: save the cheerleader, and F3 is the future that results from TWO meddlings: save the cheerleader, and telling Hiro to kill Sylar. In other words, F1 was the future before Future Hiro jumped back in time to tell Peter to save Claire, and F2 was the future Future Hiro returned to, which in turn became F3 as soon as Present Hiro and Ando returned to the present following Future Hiro telling Present Hiro to return to his time, and kill Sylar.
- Again, it's important to point out that what we have seen and heard about the future are NOT "possible" futures - they WERE the future, until Future Hiro changed them.
- The overall end result is that F3 is the current new future, and we have no knowledge of it. We literally know NOTHING about what is going to happen next, as the very act of telling Peter to save Claire AND telling Hiro to kill Sylar is a combination that has not occured in either F1, or F2. Thus, it could be the magic combo that prevents a nuclear accident in NY.
- The paintings of the future by Isaac are interesting in that the reflect both F1 and F2. The dead cheerleader in the painting IS Claire. This is F1. It was painted before Future Hiro meets Peter and tells him to save the cheerleader. As soon as that happened, F1 became F2, and all previous F1 paintings are no longer the gospel. Now we have F2 paintings, these show events that all happened between F2 going live, and F3 taking over. Thus, because F2 was closed and cancelled, all F2 paintings are not the gospel either. Of course, there won't be any F3 paintings, at least not by Isaac (remember Peter has his ability too), as he's dead now.
- This leaves the show in a position in which nothing about the future is known. All future events from Five Years Gone are now merely possibilities, not certainties, and literally 100% of Isaac's paintings are the same. In fact, some of his work shows events that were averted. The chief question remains - is the big mural on the floor of a mushroom cloud over NY one of them?
cheers!
Josh
