But first, clothes. Some folks have noticed that I've been photographed wearing certain outer garments... how can I put this... often. I am guilty as charged. Not surprisingly, I am unrepentant. I am not a designer, nor a model. I am an actor. I have six suits and four tuxes, which makes me a clotheshorse compared to my mid-twenties when I owned one suit. I also have a couple of nice sport jackets that I wear when I have to look presentable but not formal.

One of my pet peeves with show biz is the notion that "celebrities" (the pressure once again falls intensely, and unfairly, on women) can never be seen in the same outfit more than once without enduring endless humiliation. I love it when an actress has the cojones to appear twice in the same dress or frock or coat. It says, "These are my clothes. I am a real person with a real wardrobe."

I don't want my daughter thinking it's humiliating to be seen in the same outfit twice. Clothes are expensive. And unlike Hollywood relationships, clothes are not disposable. And, and... ah, hell, I'm busted. I have to get more jackets.

HEROES. I thought the finale was fantastic. I felt it fulfilled our show's mission: to play around with the rules of physics, sure; but to entertain with surprises, consequences, and, perhaps most importantly, to see our heroes cooperate, need each other, and work together to achieve a common goal. It took the entire heroic village to take Sylar down. And yet Nathan died. This leads me to four FAQ.

1: Does anyone really die on Heroes? Yes. Nathan is dead, though through Sylar he can live on, after a fashion, and with tremendous complications.

2: Where does this leave HRG? Some have fretted that HRG is now doomed, complicit in a terrible act (the creation of Sylathan) and planning to reconstitute the Company, which condemns his soul to hell. But the title of this Volume is "Redemption." The Company will not look nor act as it has in the past. Many forces are at work to bring about changes in all our heroes, redemptive changes, one might suppose, and HRG will be profoundly affected.

When we pick up our story, whatever plans HRG may have had for the new Company have been rocked by upheaval in his marriage and by terrible misgivings about having created a being that is "neither fish nor flesh." But he came to it honestly.

3: Why didn't HRG kill Sylar? I see HRG's decision as a Sophie's choice. Which does he want more: Sylar dead or Nathan alive? If Sylar dies, so does Nathan. As a parent, HRG knows he would do anything to keep Claire alive and so his compassion for Angela and Nathan, Claire's biological father, wins out. He chooses to keep Nathan alive. And there's only one way to do that.

I imagine a conversation wherein Angela pleads her case to HRG before they ever broach it with Matt. Once in, HRG is, as usual, all in. He and Angela then take the idea to Matt, who traps Sylar in Nathan's body while Angela imbues him with all appropriate memories to keep him convinced he is, in fact, Nathan and not Sylar. Of course, this will go astray, and I can tell you, based on the first script, that it goes astray with extreme deliciousness prejudice.

4: Why didn't we use Claire's blood to revive Nathan? In Season 2, ep. 9, Claire had just given blood to Bob for the very purpose of healing someone. When HRG got shot, he was in the clutches of the Company, and given an immediate transfusion. This time around, there was no Bob or Suresh on the scene, there was no bag o' blood waiting to be utilized, there was no time. Nathan's throat was slit wide open and he bled out.

Trauma triage: why Nathan died and HRG lived. And, of course, HRG is so badass, no puny Moe Green retinal scratch was gonna keep him down!

(Microsoft Word doesn't like gonna but has no problem with badass. Is this a great country or what?)

That's it for now. Not sure when I'll speak to y'all again. Before too long or when I have something to say... whichever comes first.

[As pages fall from the calendar... ]