Irony

Irony
Candice is killed with a Have a Nice Day mug.

Throughout Heroes, irony is used to underline themes, as well as to highlight comedic tones.

Memorable Quotes

"You gotta love the irony, c'mon its like a Greek tragedy or something."

- Eric Doyle (to Claire, Meredith and Sandra) (Dying of the Light)

Season One Recurrences

Genesis

• When Ando humors the idea that Hiro can bend space and time, he asks him what he would do with a power like that, and suggests joining the circus. Three years later, because of his ability, he unwillingly does.
• Peter begins to believe that he can fly and tries to convince his skeptical brother of it. When he attempts to prove his ability, Nathan himself is the one who takes flight.
• Hiro says that every ten year old wishes he had superpowers. Sometime later, Hiro is made to believe he is ten years old, and excited to learn he has superpowers.

Don't Look Back

• Brody states that Claire is "dainty". Soon afterward, she is accidentally tackled, has her neck broken and regenerates.
• Matt Parkman is suspected of being Sylar after rescuing the missing Molly Walker. Years later, Matt's body is under Sylar's control.

One Giant Leap

• When Matt tries to explain that he can hear voices in his head, Audrey asks if the voices tell him to rob a store or kill the President. Matt later stops a man from robbing a store, and in a dark future, Matt works with the President who is actually a man he has been hunting hiding behind an illusion.
• Paulette Hawkins tells Niki that her son, D.L., would never murder anyone. Later, he kills Linderman.

Better Halves

• After long believing her husband guilty of murder, Niki discovers that she herself committed the crimes for which he was imprisoned.

Seven Minutes to Midnight

• Charlie goes to the back of the Burnt Toast Diner. As she aggressively slices off the top of a can, Sylar aggressively slices off the top of her head.

Homecoming

• Jackie is murdered by Sylar. She dies because she lied and took credit for Claire's heroism in Genesis.

Six Months Ago

• When Chandra is testing Gabriel's brain activity to see if Gabriel has an ability, Gabriel asks him about the testing: "So... What? You're gonna cut me open?" Later, Gabriel Gray assumes the name "Sylar" and cuts open his victims skulls to examine their brains.
• Unknown to Sylar, his talent at fixing watches comes from his intuitive aptitude. He later states that he wanted powers because he wanted to be more than an insignificant watchmaker.
• Niki says that her life is "too much for one person." She later acquired a split personality.

Fallout

• Eden McCain attempts to use her power to have Sylar commit suicide, however, her plan backfires and she kills herself in order to keep Sylar from obtaining her power.
• Peter, who is trying to prevent the explosion, has a dream in which he himself is the cause of the explosion.

Run!

• Hiro and Ando find a woman called Hope -- immediately after Hiro tells Ando that they "need to find hope" -- and because of her hopeful name, they decide to help her. She turns out to be a thief who attempts to kill the duo.

Unexpected

• Mohinder discusses the murder of his father, stating "Even if I did come face to face with him, justice could never be served". At that moment he is talking directly to the man who presumably killed his father.

Parasite

• After holding Sylar captive, Mohinder draws spinal fluid from Sylar and tells him he "might actually do some good before [he] dies". Later, Sylar escapes, then tells Mohinder that he "might actually do some good before [he] dies" before he assaults him and pins him to the ceiling.

The Hard Part

• Virginia Gray tells her son that he could be anything he wanted, even President. In one possible future, he pretends to be the President. Years later, he attempts to assume the identity of the President.
• Sylar goes to his mother to try and figure out why he'd want to blow up New York, according to a painting he did. After accidentally killing his mother, Sylar decides to kill everybody.

Landslide

• Despite having been working on Sylar's case for months, Audrey exchanges words with the killer without realizing who he actually is.

Season Two Recurrences

Lizards

• Takezo Kensei tells Hiro how he deals with bandits by sending big guys to distract them and die as a result, while he shoots them with a crossbow -- in other words, Kensei fights his enemies as if he could come back from dead. Soon, he discovers he has the ability exactly to do so.

Kindred

• Will says "Sláinte!" when he pulls his gun on Ricky. This Gaelic greeting means "to your health".
• Sylar kills Candice with a Have a Nice Day mug.
• After Sylar kills Candice, he comments that Candice was being something that she wasn't. Sylar doesn't want to be -- and ignores that he is -- an "insignificant watchmaker". In the future, Sylar uses Candice's ability to pretend to be President Nathan Petrelli.

The Kindness of Strangers

• Sylar, a man who is on a hunt to acquire new powers, meets Maya, a woman who is trying to get rid of hers.

Fight or Flight

• Peter and Caitlin talk about his past, and Peter says that anyone can try and find him -- it will not affect him. Ricky dies as a result.

Four Months Ago...

• A marvelous and joyful party was being celebrated for Alejandro and Gloria's wedding, until Maya became furious and killed everybody.

Cautionary Tales

• Noah, who was so determined to get West out of Claire's life, ends up asking him for help.
• Elle, who thought Noah had a death wish for kidnapping her, gets outsmarted by him and ends up shocking herself with her own power.

Powerless

• Adam Monroe is buried alive in the same cemetery with one of his victims, Kaito Nakamura.
• When West tells Claire revealing her power won't bring her father back, she turns around to see him standing in the doorway.
• Peter Petrelli almost helped Adam Monroe to cause the Shanti virus outbreak that he was intending to prevent.

Season Three Recurrences

I Am Become Death

• When asked to choose a desk for his office, Nathan's aide chooses Robert Kennedy's, who was murdered like Nathan almost was.
• Gabriel, who has renounced killing, explodes and kills 200,000 people.

Angels and Monsters

• Nathan tells Tracy they can trust Mohinder to help them, and says he is completely harmless. Meanwhile, Mohinder has rendered Maya unconscious and seals her in a cocoon along with his other victims.

Dying of the Light

• In a twisted game of Russian roulette, Claire is forced to pull the trigger on Meredith by Eric Doyle. However, the gun does not fire. Sandra's turn is next, and she is forced to shoot Claire. Eric even remarks about the irony, comparing the situation to a Greek tragedy.

The Eclipse, Part 2

• Sylar kills Elle, the person who saved his life.

Our Father

• Sue Landers is killed by Sylar on her birthday.
• Sylar ignites Elle's cremation with her own ability.
• Sylar says "No place I'd rather be than with family" to Arthur and Peter, but soon he knows that Arthur lied to him.
• Hiro attempts to destroy a formula he is entrusted to protect years later.

Dual

• In the past, Hiro tries to destroy the formula so nobody could use it. He is saved because in the present, Ando uses the formula to give himself an ability.
• Nathan, once on the path of giving everyone abilities, now wants everyone with abilities to be captured and locked away.
• Nathan claims that unlike Peter, he wouldn't have gone against what he believed to save his brother. Months later, Nathan saves Peter in a similar fashion while he's being hunted by Nathan's own organization.

Building 26

• Sylar is not happy when Luke thanks him for coming back to help him; he just turns the radio on, only to hear "Psycho Killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?".

Cold Wars

• Noah gets kidnapped by Matt, the same way he kidnapped Matt in Season One; made unconscious by a drugged drink.

Shades of Gray

• Nathan's secret is uncovered, and he is on the run with his fellow evolved humans whom he betrayed.

Cold Snap

• Eric Doyle is tied up like a puppet in Danko's apartment.
• The door that Danko opens for Mohinder that contains all the sedated "specials" is labeled "Human Resources".

Into Asylum

• Sylar takes James Martin's ability in order to be someone else. Later, his mind spends months in someone else's body, trying to be himself, while his body spends months struggling to understand who he is.

1961

• Angela tells Alice a lie to make her stay at Coyote Sands. She discovers fifty years later that Alice is still there because of the lie.

An Invisible Thread

• Danko, who framed evolved humans several times (Building 26, Exposed), is himself framed by an evolved human.
• Earlier, Sylar stated that he almost wished Angela Petrelli was his mother. Now, Sylar is made to believe he is Nathan Petrelli, one of Angela's sons.
• Sylar wanted to take over Nathan's life and was ultimately forced to do so.
• Noah Bennet uses James Martin's body to convince Sylar, who believes he's Nathan, that Sylar is dead, much in the same way Sylar used it trick Noah.
• Sylar attends his own "funeral".
• Sylar's cremation realizes the shot planned for Elle's cremation by Sylar.

Season Four Recurrences

Ink

• Samuel asks Peter if he has ever lost a brother; he says he hasn't, unaware this is not true. In addition, there was a time he believed Sylar, now posing as Nathan, to be his brother.

Once Upon a Time in Texas

• Hiro has Sylar save Charlie, his attempted victim.

Thanksgiving

Peter is forced to watch Sylar's attempted removal of Angela's brain. In the past, Sylar watched Peter begin to do the same thing.

The Fifth Stage

• Peter stops "Nathan" from committing suicide on the same rooftop where Nathan saved Peter.

Let It Bleed

• Peter and Noah let the world think that Nathan, who can fly, died in a plane crash.

Graphic Novel Recurrences

• Hana meets Mr. Bennet in a children's playground to discuss life and death situations. (The Death of Hana Gitelman, Part 1)
• Betty, an obese female generally regarded as ugly, shares her name with a slang term for an attractive female. (Betty)
• Betty calls the people at her high school "fakes", all the while creating fake illusions of her own. (Betty, Part 3)
• Elle comments to herself that if she had to attend Homecoming, she'd have to shoot herself. Eden does just this after replacing Elle and capturing Sylar on Homecoming night. (Elle's First Assignment, Part 2)
• Penny disagrees with her mom about using her appearance to get guys. But when her mom forces her to keep a beautiful appearance for a night, she has one drink too many and ends up using her looks to score a guy anyway. In addition, Penny's mom desires to show her daughter that an improved appearance can make her happy; but when Penny wakes up in bed having reverted to her normal self, Penny also realizes a different truth--that beauty doesn't last forever. (Faces, Part 1)
• After sleeping with Thompson, Jr., Penny sneaks away, trying to hide from him that she used her mother's ability to alter her appearance to attract him. She is later forced to tell him that she did so and learns that he likes the idea of her going out with him as someone new every night. (Faces, Part 2)
• Sylar while working for The Company visits a gallery in which are represented many of the Company's deceased agents (Bob Bishop, Candice Wilmer, Bianca Karina, Gael Cruz, Eden McCain and Bridget Bailey), all of which where his victims. (Viewpoints)