Great episode. Lots of twists and surprises. Looks like when the show renews, Hiro gets to meet Future Hiro, which will be bad ass.
I think that no matter what they do, they wont be able to stop the destruction of New York. Seemed like it was kind of suggested that the future can't be changed when Hiro couldn't save the waitress in Texas.
Ok ,this may take a while to explain so strap in... (all theory but there's logic behind it)
1. This show screams FATE in huge letters all the time.
- Hiro Couldn't save charlie
- Claude Just Happens to bump into peter at just the right time
- The way everyone is connected
- The global eclipse is the uniting event that kickstarts a massive rise in the number of heroes
- The prophetic dreams
- The random group of individuals drawn together by forces beyond their control
- Hiro just happening to teleport in to new york at a key moment for the heroes
These are not just random occurences. It screams grand plan
2. You can't change the past, only the future.
All theories on time travel to date indicate that by changing one small thing in the past the future timeline that you would create would mean the probability of the future time traveler ever going back to kickstart the chain of events in the first place is reduced to almost zero.
The time stream has to remain constant at all times, this is why hiro told peter to tell hiro where and when they met. If peter fails to do this hiro will never go back in time and the future will be changed as a result.
3. Claire didn't die in hiro's timeline.
This is the key element. He said "save the cheerleader, save the world". He DIDN'T say the world was taken over/destroyed as a result of Claire's death. This means that in Hiro's timeline claire was key to a major battle that he has already faced. This points in one of two directions, either there's another time-traveler trying to kill her (perhaps pete goes bad, but this unlikely) and thus change the future, or hiro is simply dotting the I's and making sure things happened. The best way to think of this is that once you introduce time travel you have to view each event as having taken place an infinite number of times. I believe it's called a mobius loop. The idea is that hiro was predestined to go back and make sure claire was safe. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to change anything because without claire's presence he might not be alive to go back, hence the whole thing goes screwy.
Therefore it's quite simple really. Hiro goes back as a safeguard to events that have already occured rather than trying to change something, and he was ALWAYS destined to go back.
Also with regards the they didn't save the world?
New York is not the world. My belief is that (as company man illustrated) once ted was injured he couldn't control the radiation. It was as if it was leaking out of him and they had to basically shut down his brain to stop it. However... with claire's healing power peter might be able to take control. Think of it like containment. Peter may end up taking out new york but ted, it has been stated, can make the fat man and little boy look like cherry bombs. The initial explosion is part of the fated timeline, but by controling it he can simply localise the explosion to new york rather than taking out a sizeable chunk of the planet causing destruction that would impact on the planet's ecosystem, orbit, the whole shebang.
Finally, and here's the really interesting part...peter is clearly the key to taking down sylar (and this is where the fate part really comes in) If peter had never been told by hiro to save the cheerleader he never would have met claire, he never would have gained sylars TK. Hell he wouldn't have met half the people he did. So that one event has impacted EVERYTHING. Again remember the first rule of time travel, change one thing, change everything.
So in short
In Hiro's time Claire DID live
New York is NOT the world
Hiro didn't change anything, he just preserved the status quo by fulfilling his destiny
That's the way I see it anyway, feel free to pick holes as you see fit
