(S04E17) Forces are starting to converge at the Sullivan Bros. Carnival as we get closer and closer to the finale -- two weeks away now! After last week's stunt where he wiped out an entire town, the "family" at the carnival is understandably a little wary of Samuel. He did, after all, erase a small town killing hundreds of people. I'd give him a wide berth.

Maybe if I was invulnerable, I'd be more willing to get closer to him. Claire certainly has no reason to be afraid, right? She stumbled upon her father's plans regarding taking down Samuel and shutting down the carnival for good. Like Edgar, she is concerned about Noah's plans to break apart the family. Noah, as usual, is bull-headed and stubborn. I'm just not sure under what authority he was acting throughout this episode.

As for Sylar, we saw him at the Parkman house. And we know how powerful Matt is. Maybe, just maybe, this psychopath can be taken care of for good. Not hardly.

Not so long as Peter Petrelli still has breath in his lungs. The biggest idiot on the show, with the worst lighting in his apartment, rushes headlong into the situation at Parkman's and takes matters into his own hands. After all, he's Peter Petrelli. Nobody could possibly know better than him about anything. Don't even bother to really get behind what Matt saw in Sylar's head, or completely understand what he did to him or why he's bricking him up in his basement. Steal his power and save Sylar so that your weird trippy dream can come true.

For that matter, he never even got any real clarification from Angela about the dreams. Dreams aren't necessarily literal, I thought. Certainly all of Angela's weren't. And yet, Peter's certain that only Sylar can save Emma from killing tons of innocent souls. It did look like the Puppet Master was forcing her to play the cello, thus luring them in with her siren abilities. And it does seem pretty straightforward that Samuel would have her bring in more people with special abilities.

He'd better be careful, though, because if he gets too powerful he could crack the earth, and then where would he be?

I'm sure none of us bought for a minute that Samuel was really going to turn himself into Noah -- again under what authority does HRG have to even accept a surrender? -- but I didn't see his clever use of the Multiple Man to frame Noah for shooting recklessly into the carnival. Multiple Man certainly doesn't seem to have any of the moral conflicts that Ray had.

As for Lydia, well, her concerns don't matter anymore. I suspect Samuel intentionally had Multiple Man target her and take her out during the volley. Why not remove a dissenter who could easily expose his true intentions with but one touch. But where was her daughter? Did she actually leave the carnival already?

I'm actually going to give Claire credit for trying to do the right thing, and even being intelligent about it. Had it not been for Samuel's super-evil counterplan, she might have actually accomplished something notable all by herself. Our little Claire is actually going to grow into a character who does things, rather than just whine about them? Hell, she just about stole her roommate's car.

With only two episodes left this season (forever?), things are coming to a head at the carnival. Emma's just arriving, and still completely fooled by Samuel's nice guy act. And I guess in this big season finale battle ... Sylar will be the savior of mankind? Will we get a teaser of "Volume Six" even, or are they confident enough they'll be back. It's not like NBC has much going for it.

[Prepare for the final showdown with clips and full episodes of Heroes at SlashControl.]