Continuity mistake: In the scene where Sylar and Mrs. Bennet begin to talk, she becomes suspicious about his interest in Claire. When Mrs. Bennet picks up the phone to call her husband, Sylar visibly moves his finger to use his telekinetic power right before the angle changes. In the next shot, Sylar again does the same motion with his finger, but this time the phone is removed from Mrs. Bennet's hand.
Continuity mistake: When Meredith and Nathan are talking in her trailer, as he says, "I could have been a much better person back then", he has his sunglasses in his hand and places that hand on the table. Cut to a shot from behind him, and his hand is resting on the table with the sunglasses beside it, with no time to put them down and move his hand in between the shots. Also, when Meredith says, "You and me, we were never gonna work out", his hand goes from being on the table to his lap between shots, once again without having had the time to move it. (00:32:10)
Continuity mistake: When Matt Parkman gets thrown out of a window by Niki Sanders, he lands at least a few stories down and has a cut upon his head. The amount of blood on his head differs significantly from shot to shot.
Continuity mistake: At the end of ep. 1-14, "Distractions", Meredith calls Nathan to tell him about Claire. In that episode he is holding the phone to his ear, with nothing else in it. In the beginning of this episode, when the same conversation is shown, he is holding a pen in the same hand as the phone. Also, in ep. 14 Meredith said to him, "We haven't spoken in a long time, but... Our daughter just found me". In this episode, she says, "We haven't spoken in a long time, but I just had... Our daughter just found me".
Continuity mistake: In ep. 1-14 "Distractions", when Claire asks Meredith about her father, Meredith answers, "Well, that's complicated. Why don't you let me work on that for next time?" But when the same scene is shown in a flashback in this episode, Meredith says, "Well, that's complicated. He's kind of a big shot".
Continuity mistake: Peter is pushed off the building faced forward, he is falling face forward, yet he manages to land face upwards.
Company Man - S1-E17
Continuity mistake: When Claire gets killed she is wearing reddish brown boots, with her jeans tucked into them. She's still wearing them when her body is placed on the bed. A few moments later, running from the house with her mother, she's wearing sneakers.
Company Man - S1-E17
Continuity mistake: At the end of this episode, Noah is having a flashback. It shows Claire helping him pick out his new glasses. In this scene, Noah first tells Claire that she is adopted. However, in the episode "One Giant Leap", Claire tells Brody Mitchell that her parents told her that she was adopted when she was really little. In "Company Man" she is around 14 or 15 years of age in the flashback.
Company Man - S1-E17
Visible crew/equipment: Towards the end of the episode, as Claire and Noah get out of the car and walk with René (The Haitian) towards the back of the car, you can see the entire camera crew, even the camera crane, reflected on the back of the SUV.
Revealing mistake: When Mrs. Petrelli is sitting with the dead Peter, just before she lies down on his chest and starts to cry, you can see the "dead" man tilt his head slightly backwards. (00:21:10)
Continuity mistake: When Sylar comes for Isaac the painting of Hiro and the dinosaur is visible in the studio in several shots, even though Hiro took this painting to Linderman several episodes ago. The episode director even comments on it during the audio commentaries.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Mr. Bennet, Matt Parkman and Ted Sprague are at the used car lot, Ted is using his powers to defrost a blue station wagon. As the frost is melting you see "Automatic" written on the windshield. The shot cuts to Bennet and Matt talking by the pay phone. When the Shot returns to Ted, he's finished defrosting, but you see "Low Mileage! 1 Owner" written on the windshield instead. Ted didn't switch cars during the conversation because written on the used car beside the blue wagon is "Like New" for both shots.
Continuity mistake: This mistake is repeated in the next episode too. After D.L kills Linderman he is lying face down, his face is flat against the floor and we can see right into the hole in is head, he has already stopped moving. Then after the camera starts to pan around, Linderman's head is now facing right, and we get a good look at his face.
How to Stop an Exploding Man - S1-E23
Continuity mistake: When Parkman is shooting at Sylar in Kirby Plaza, he fires four shots. But when we see the bullets hovering in the air before Sylar's hand, just before he flings the bullets back toward Parkman, there are five of them. (00:35:30)
How to Stop an Exploding Man - S1-E23
Continuity mistake: Hiro's sword changes position between the shot in which Hiro arrives to the scene and the shot when he is about to kill Sylar.
How to Stop an Exploding Man - S1-E23
Deliberate mistake: At the plaza, Peter tells Claire to shoot him because there is "no other way". Nathan then comes flying in and declares, "Yes, there is, Claire!" However, Nathan could not have heard Peter and Claire from the distance he flew in and the rushing of air past his ears.
Chosen answer: It's not been made 100% clear. It was originally assumed that he actually consumed part of the brain, but this has turned out not to be the case. Sylar has been shown all along to have an instinctive knowledge of how things work and how to fix them - this is his actual original power and the ability that made him an exceptional watchmaker and repairer. It appears that he uses a similar process when acquiring new powers - he exposes the brain of the target, allowing him to examine it and determine how their power functions. He can then apply that knowledge to his own brain, allowing him to replicate the ability in question.
Tailkinker ★