Stupendous! Amazing!

It's a water cooler - and it's on time! Thrills galore!

It was certainly a slam-bang ending... I found it more quick-paced than last volume, and of course there was more of a punch involved, emotionally. That being said, I am sorely disappointed in the following people/things:

1. EMO-HINDER. You flippin' tool. In the immortal words of Crow T Robot, "There goes a stupid, stupid man." You knew Sylar was waiting in your apartment with a nine-year-old hostage and you just walked in with no plan? Do you know how impossibly dumb that was?
2. HRG. What's your new super-duper, double-secret-probation plan for volume three? You know, it doesn't even have to be different from the last plan, which only failed because Emo-hinder was prominently involved. Just pick someone less tool-like. Or maybe you could take over the company and direct it to noble ends, like you did in the ""five years later" episode from volume one. I always liked that idea.
3. "I'm back." Geez, Gabe. Ouch². That is a terrible line, especially for a super-evil, manipulative genius. Did your writers go on strike or something? BUT - that being said, nice touch with the spinach can. He's strongs to the finichk, and all that. I guess it's like some zen yin-yang thing... the subtlety of the image with the braying obviousness of the line. Or maybe somebody was afraid we wouldn't get it unless he said something? Suits ruin everything.
4. I am very sad for Niki. I am also sad that HRG has apparently whacked Nathan.
5. I have two personal rules for my stories. A- no time traveling. B- nobody comes back from the dead. These are really just guidelines in order to ensure that I don't cheat by letting characters hit the Reset Button. This show, of course, features a main character whose entire thing is breaking rule A, but in a way that never lets the character cheat by just going back in time and "fixing it." In fact, Hiro's dad told him not to. So, OK, I'll let them skate on #A. (Yeah, yeah... you know what I mean.) But with the magic healing blood thing, they are dangerously close to blowing rule B. Not happy times. This volume hit enough Reset Buttons without that.
6. Peter, Peter, Peter. It took some doing, didn't it - but thanks. BTW... I hope that powdered variety 138 doesn't wind up destroying all life on earth or anything. And while I'm pondering - why didn't you ever try to read Adam's mind to find out if he was on the level? If you're strong enough to out-Park Parkman, you couldn't figure it out without your brother's impassioned speech?

Oh, and one thing I loved: stone-cold Hiro Nakamura. Day-ummmmm.

Now, my lovely bride has a running joke, and it's quite true - four women will leave a movie and talk all about how they loved the costumes, and that person was totally believable, and wasn't it so sad when x and y and z, and that was great, and didn't you just die when.... and so on. Four men will leave a movie and say "I didn't buy that, this guy was a jerk, I can't believe nobody thought of THIS, it dragged toward the middle, and how did x and y happen in between w and z?" They are talking about the SAME MOVIE. Both groups LOVED IT. This drives Ladybug up the wall, across the ceiling, and out onto the balcony. Can't figure it out and can't stand it.

Well, consider the above my guy way of saying that, flaws and all, I did enjoy the finale. And holy cow, that cat Hiro is a bad motha-