Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
The season opens with a future Peter attempting to assassinate Nathan, setting off a chase through time and competing plans for people with abilities. Several prisoners escape the Company, and Arthur Petrelli, long believed dead, builds a rival operation at Pinehearst. He wants a formula that can give ordinary people abilities. Peter loses his own power after Arthur takes it, while Mohinder’s experiments give him an ability with dangerous physical effects. Sylar moves between the Company and Pinehearst, searching for family and a direction for his hunger.
Hiro and Ando uncover the Nakamura family’s connection to the formula, then struggle to stop Arthur’s plan. The effort ends with the formula destroyed and both Pinehearst and the Company’s Primatech facility demolished. The season then shifts into Fugitives: Nathan tells the President about people with abilities and leads a covert operation to capture them, with agent Emile Danko running the hunt. Claire, Noah, Peter, Matt and others are pursued, while Micah, operating as Rebel, helps people escape. Hiro’s repeated use of his power begins to injure him.
The manhunt collapses as Hiro and Ando free prisoners from Building 26 and Peter turns against Nathan’s program. Sylar impersonates Nathan to approach the President, then kills the real Nathan during the confrontation that follows. Peter poses as the President and tranquilizes Sylar. Angela and Noah persuade a reluctant Matt to replace Sylar’s memories with Nathan’s; Sylar’s own shape-shifting gives him Nathan’s face, and he takes Nathan’s place as Building 26 is shut down. Most of the group is told the burned body of shape-shifter James Martin is Sylar; the real Sylar stands among them as Nathan, while Angela, Noah and Matt keep the truth.