I don't think it's possible to write Peter off as dead-- Nathan flew himself into the sky specifically to save Peter (that was their whole dialogue, I'm sacrificing myself for you, yadayada). I had wondered why Nathan wouldn't just fly off, myself, and let Peter finish.

Oh, I think you're probably right. Or maybe partially right. I think Nathan did die... cause it would make his epiphany and sacrifice kind of cheap if he didn't actually get sacrificed. But either way Peter definetly didn't die. Course, folks on the ground couldn't know that.

I saw it more as "I'm sacrificing myself to help you save the world, to get you out of here so you don't kill millions of people." really. I think Peter's alive simply because he was alive in the future and that's something that didn't get changed... he did still explode and he did still have Claire's abilities.

It depends on if you believe issac's paintings are always correct or not. We'll have to find out. But I think Nathan has to be become president, instead of Sylar.

Not sure how that's plausible. Claire was going to shoot him, he was saying there was no other way to stop it except shooting him. Nathan, instead, took him up into the sky-- sacrificing himself for Peter. Further, you had Peter's mother and Nathan speaking together about it a bit earlier with Claire (30 mins through?), saying "Peter's going to die!" "No, he's not. Thanks to you, he will live." "But everyone else is going to die!", etc.

I understood the "sacrifice" to be what Noola understood, as well as stopping Clair from shooting Peter, but to be honest, he could have also been sacrificing his plans and his presidancy, (since he wouldn't be a strong moral leader in a time of crisis anymore) and not sacrificing his life

Claire shooting him, was, I believe, just supposed to stop things if they got out of hand. Remember when she fell on that rock? She was actually dead for a bit. Got autopsyed and everything. And Peter was dead until she removed that shard of glass and allowed his brain to regenerate. Evidently enough damage to the brain takes a bit to regenerate. So, she was supposed to shoot him in the head to 'kill' him and stop the explosion if things got out of hand. It wasn't ever mentioned that it would be permanent. And for that matter, for all they know (remember they don't know much about how all this works either) too much damage to the brain is actually permanent.

Which would also help them think Peter's dead... can't get much more damaging than exploding!

And Claire was trying to convince them of the very badness of what they were planning. She was trying to say whatever she thought might reach them. And it worked in the end. Nathan woke up and realized how screwed up the whole thing was.

It looks like if there's anything lodged in the brain at ALL, it cannot repair. The item has to be removed. They could've left a bullet lodged in his head forever and he'd be "dead". But they specifically mentioned earlier that if he blew up, he'd repair.

I still think that Ted was immune to his own power. I mean, exploding, even minorly, like he did all the time never harmed him in the slightest. It thus stands to reason that Peter wasn't hurt by the explosion. Saving the cheerleader didn't save the world by giving him the power to regenerate, but by giving his brother a reason to sacrifice himself to save the city.

Now, the real question is..... couldn't Peter just fly on his own? Why did he need Nathan to carry him into the atmosphere? And doesn't the fallout from a nuclear explosion in the atmosphwere cause severe cases of radiation poisoning and death to everyone in a large radius?

Ignoring those technicalities though, I loved the final episode. It was really well done. My only minor gripe is that Sylar survived - I really think he should have died. I didn't much like him as a villian - Mrs. Pettrelli makes a far better villian, and we have the new villian coming up in chapter two, the man who looks back at Molly when she finds him. Seems like he'll have some sort of ability that lets him redirect other people's abilities in some way, though that sounds far too much like Sylar/Peter.

I think Peter couldn't fly because he has to focus and think about people to use the ability, and he was spending too much thinking and effort to keep himself from exploiding. hence the on his knees part.

Oh, and I LOVED how Linderman got killed, that was awesome