Spoiler:How to Stop an Exploding Man

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. THIS COULD INCLUDE UNCONFIRMED MATERIAL FROM UNAIRED EPISODES OR PREVIEWS. For more spoilers about Heroes and Heroes Reborn, see here.

How to Stop an Exploding Man
Season:	One
Episode number:	123
Planned airdate:	May 21, 2007
Previous spoiler:	Landslide

This article contains spoilers about How to Stop an Exploding Man. For general spoilers about upcoming episodes, see Spoiler:Heroes.

NBC Blurb

Heroes rise and fall in the shocking season finales written by executive producer/creator Tim Kring and directed by executive producer Allan Arkush -- With Isaac's horrible predictions all unfolding before them, the everyday people with extraordinary abilities face moments of pain and peril in Kirby Plaza with unflinching heroism, as "Heroes" first volume comes to a close -- and the next surprisingly begins.

Published Spoilers

• A promotional photo for the episode appears to show D.L. alive with Jessica, Micah and Molly.
• 4/17 - Charles Deveaux (Richard Roundtree) and Simone Deveaux (Tawny Cypress) appear in this episode. (NBC description)
• 4/10 - Watch with Kristin reports that Simone just won't stay dead. Simone and her father will mysteriously reappear in the season finale as evolved humans. Her source adds "There are people on the positive and negative side. And Simone is on the negative side... [They] may have some ties to some other characters that we had no idea about before." Watch with Kristin, Spoilers Section
• 03/19 - The climax to season one will be built in a small arc consisting of the last three episodes of the year. These episodes will bring together all of the characters in New York City. Each character will play a unique role, a vital puzzle piece in the season one story. Kring says: "Even though some may feel like they're less significant to the final event, when you analyze it, each one had to play that role in order for the final event to be solved, and so there really was a kind of destiny quality to them coming together and having each one fulfilling thing and one specific role." Heads will roll in these closing episodes, but Kring warns "on a show like Heroes, you may not always stay dead. And with our ability to go back and forth in time, you may be dead, but you may show up on the show a few more times." (Sci Fi Wire)
• 3/12 -- Tim Kring says the show will eventually bring all of the main hero characters together before the season is out. (Sci Fi Wire)
• "Entertainment Weekly went to the set during the shooting of the final three episodes. Their article reveals: Here's Hayden Panettiere, waving away offers of a stunt double as she runs and vaults through a fake window — the front end of a stunt that will send her indestructible cheerleader Claire out of a skyscraper and leave her splattered on the sidewalk. Here are Ali Larter (the schizoid superwoman Niki/Jessica) and Leonard Roberts (the walk-through-walls ex-con D.L.) flooded with emotion over being repeatedly manipulated by an underworld puppet master, Mr. Linderman (Malcolm McDowell). And here's the behind-the-scenes ringleader of this fantastic flying circus, Heroes creator Tim Kring, sauntering onto the set just minutes after writing the final sentence of the season's final episode, in which the show's sprawling, far-flung cast of next-gen X-Men will finally come together Super Friends-style in an attempt to save New York from being torched by a human A-bomb. [...] The finale — right down to its eye-popping last scene — sets the stage for a second season designed to expand the show's creative horizons and commercial potential even further. [...] "I thought I was signing up for a show called Heroes," says Adrian Pasdar, whose morally shaky politico Nathan Petrelli will make a choice in the finale that will affect the destinies of every character on the show. "I didn't know I was going to wind up on Survivor." [...] Kring admits he and his staff "struggled" with Larter's story line but insists "we're going to earn back a lot of goodwill when you see how she's connected to everything." Lessons have been learned, adjustments are being made. Next season, instead of one epic yarn stretched across an entire year, there are likely to be two tighter sagas, or "volumes" in the Heroes parlance. There will be more episodes that burrow deep into a single character — outings like "Company Man." [...] This is the present — a subterranean parking garage, where the Heroes gang is shooting some walk-and-talk that will address a key point in the final episode: Will Claire get sucked into the crazy-corrupt whirlpool that is her newly discovered kin, the Petrelli clan? "I get the sense there will be a lot of objects flying around," hints Quinto [about the finale], who won't comment on rumors that his breakout bad guy will indeed return next season. However, Sylar's Freudian-fraught fight with his mother does ignite the finale's apocalyptic endgame and puts him on the presidential path suggested by April 30's noodle-cooking "possible future" episode. "It's a bad day for the world," says Quinto. "I'm not going back to the watch shop anytime soon." The May 21 season capper will set up two big ideas for the second volume of Heroes, to be titled "Generations."" (SpoilerFix)

Fan Theories

• Ando will still die, believing that Hiro has abandoned his quest and will try to kill Sylar himself.
• Candice lets Micah go after learning of Linderman's death.
• We will find out that Candice is in reality, obese/ugly/disfigured.
• How the future events unfolded:

• Hiro stabbed Sylar, but Sylar regenerated because it was not Sylar who he stabbed, it was Peter, who already has the healing power.
• The reason everyone thinks that it is Sylar exploding is because Candice is casting an illusion. Candice is casting the illusion on the orders of Linderman/Nathan, both of whom want the prophecy fulfilled, but Nathan additionally wants Peter protected.
• Nathan learns of the similarity between Peter's power and Sylar's, and decides to use Sylar as a scape-goat. This puts him directly on Sylar's hit-list as an enemy.
• Sylar learns of Candice's ability from seeing himself being framed for the explosion, and moves to consume Candice's ability.
• Once Sylar had Candice's power, he killed and consumed Nathan's power, and took Nathan's place as president.
• Peter's scar is from Nathan.
• In Peter's precognitive dreams, he sees Nathan come towards him. Peter tells him "I absorbed his powers and I cannot control it", and Nathan replies "Let me help you Peter".
• What Nathan helps Peter do is explode, so as to fulfill his 'destiny'. Nathan slashed Peter across the face with the piece of jagged glass that Claire pulled from Peter's head. Slashing Peter across the face caused Peter to lose control and explode, just as Ted lost control in the Bennet's home when he was shot by Thompson.
• Hiro will teleport in a panic when the explosion starts, and accidentally travel to 16th century Japan, where he becomes Takezo Kensai. This is where he will be followed for season two.

Gallery

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  D.L., Niki, Micah, and Molly look up.