I’ve little good to say about this season finale. To say it was anti-climactic would be a major understatement. It was simply terrible.

Sure, Kring tied up most of his loose ends – Claire found her adoptive father again, Niki finally banished the demon of Jessica and reunited with Micah and D.L., Hiro fulfilled his fate and saved Ando at the same time, Parkman did his part to stop Sylar (albeit ending up in critical condition), Mohinder has a new cause, and Peter and Nathan saved the world – or at least, New York City. Kring also managed to open some new doors, alluding to a villain worse than Sylar who can see Molly when she thinks about him. Sylar, of course, isn’t dead, but we knew this would be the case. Questions were raised about Simone’s father, questions that I suspect will forever go unanswered; I simply don’t think we’ll ever really get to see much about this elusive and shadowy group of which Linderman, Peter’s mom, and Simone’s father were all a part, let alone what made them special to begin with.

There was so much bad writing in this episode that I hardly know where to begin. Niki and Candace’s face-off was weak and pathetic – a couple of punches thrown, and it was all over. And somehow that was Niki’s catalyst for putting Jessica behind her. Somehow.

Nathan’s inner dilemma was there, but if you weren’t paying attention, you could almost miss it completely. In fact, had it not been for his mother saying something to him (“I know what you’re thinking, Nathan – don’t do it.”), it’s likely that it _would_ have gone completely unnoticed. Shoddy writing, to be sure.

And what was up with that “fight” with Sylar at the end? I use the word “fight” loosely here, because there really wasn’t much of a fight at all. Sylar shows up, puts Peter in a choke he can’t break (even though he was put in a very similar choke hold by the invisible man during his training which he broke free of just fine there), and then gets knocked down by Niki. Fine, I can accept that he might have gotten blindsided there. But then Peter tells Niki to go to her family and get them out of there, which she does – without argument. And then she doesn’t get her family away. What?! Niki, are you feeling alright?

Then, Sylar is able to stop Peter cold in his tracks, even stops bullets from Parkman’s gun (and throws them back at him), but he gives Hiro a 10-foot running start at him and doesn’t prevent him from running him through?! I don’t get what Kring was going for here. Any moron can see that this sequence of events just completely breaks the suspension of disbelief. I’m sorry, sir – I’m not buying anything today. You’re going to have to do _much_ better than that to convince me that Sylar didn’t see that one coming. It would have been much more convincing if Hiro had teleported around Sylar several times, keeping him on his toes, then appearing suddenly in front him with the instant fatal jab through the chest. Instead, we got a paltry running Japanese man that anyone would have had time to sidestep to let him fall flat on his face. And Sylar wouldn’t have had to work _that_ hard at it.

And the final _coup de grac_ on this whole fiasco – Nathan and Peter doing the noble thing and sacrificing themselves for the world (or at least, New York City). I hate to break it to you, Mr. Kring, there was no victory in this, no triumph, no glory. Only pathetic writing that says to me that you didn’t know what the heck it was you intended to do here. Peter overcame nothing, learned nothing, mastered nothing. Nathan’s sudden appearance to save the day was cheap and flimsy, unsurprising insofar as it went – he was never more than a paper character to begin with. And instead of having the cheerleader truly save the world by being the one to help Peter control his nuclear ability, she stood by helplessly while _Heroes_ went to hell because the most powerful hero of them all couldn’t even save himself.

Peter may not be truly dead, of course – his ability to heal will likely have saved him from that fate. But Nathan is almost certainly gone, and maybe Season 2 will be the stronger for it. When all is said and done, though, I think this was probably the single worst episode of the entire season. I was expecting some huge climactic event to happen here. The entire season was building toward one – or at least _trying_ to, if Kring hadn’t kept getting in the way. If nothing else, the final battle with Sylar should have been _huge_, epic, and nearly apocalyptic. But no – like everything else about this show, it fizzled, turning _Heroes_ into a 23-episode fart.

Thanks very much, Mr. Kring. You’ve just ensured that I will never watch anything you write or produce ever again.