Virginia Gray

Virginia Gray
Portrayed by	Ellen Greene
First appearance	The Hard Part
In-story stats
Known ability	None
Gender
Date of death	November 6, 2006
Home	New York, NY
Residences	Apartment in Queens, NY
Significant other	formerly Martin Gray
Child	Gabriel Gray (adopted)
Other relatives	Samson Gray (brother-in-law)

Virginia Gray was the adoptive mother of Gabriel Gray, also known as Sylar.

Character History

The Hard Part

Sylar visits his mother after worrying that he might explode. He gives her a snow globe, and starts fixing a broken clock. She offers to make him a sandwich, but he declines, and he becomes angry when she starts making it anyway. He asks her to tell him that it would be okay for him to be just a watchmaker, but she asks why she would ever tell him that when she knows he can be so much more. He decides to show her what he can do, and freezes water from a spray nozzle into a snowfall and telekinetically makes some of her snow globes fly around the room. When one of the globes accidentally hits her, she runs into her bedroom and locks the door.

Through the door, Sylar asks if being special is worth the deaths of many people. His mother comes out of the room and tells him to leave, saying he is not her son. He tries to say he is, but she picks up a pair of scissors to hold him at bay. Still trying to reason with her, he tries grabbing the scissors, and in the ensuing struggle, she is stabbed through the heart. Sylar later uses her blood to finger paint the explosion on the floor of his mother's apartment.

Truth & Consequences

In Cook Lake, VA, Alejandro Herrera shows his sister Maya a newspaper printout about Virginia's death, and she confronts Sylar with it. Sylar explains that Virginia was afraid of him and his powers, and she was accidentally killed while defending himself from her.

One of Us, One of Them

Angela tells Gabriel Gray that he'd always understood on some level that he wasn't Virginia's son.

Dual

As Sylar is about to kill her, Angela says that she knows who his real parents are. She tells him that he isn't the son of a watchmaker and a woman who collected snow globes.

A Clear and Present Danger

Sylar finds Virginia's ex-husband Martin Gray working in a watch-repair shop in Baltimore. It transpires that Martin went out to buy cigarettes on a snowy day in February twenty-seven years ago, and never came back, leaving his wife and son behind. Martin calls Virginia a "sick and infantile woman" and says that he should never have had a child with her, but Sylar knows this is a lie, and they are not his real parents. Martin then explains that he was given Sylar as a baby, and accepted him because Virginia wanted a baby but couldn't have one, and says that theirs was a loveless marriage. Sylar's real father was actually Martin's brother.

Exposed

Sylar has flash backs of his biological father, Samson Gray. He takes Sylar over to a table where a couple is sitting, where they hand him a bundle of cash and he hands over Sylar. He then turns and heads out the door, where Sylar attempts to follow him.

Notes

• During his absence, Sylar apparently told his mother he was traveling.

Trivia

• When Sylar brings his mother a snow globe, she remarks that she's "just missing Oregon. I hear it's...green everywhere [there]." Ellen Greene, the actress who portrays Virginia, is most famous for her role as "Audrey" in the movie and stage productions of Little Shop of Horrors in which she sang the song "Somewhere That's Green."
• Greg Beeman said of Virginia's character that she "was very disturbed and very judgmental and very critical. But at the same time, over the years she had pushed everyone she loved away and she regretted that. So, now, with her son back at home she was trying - straining - to not be too harsh on him."[1]

See Also

• For other uses of Virginia, see Virginia (disambig).