HEROES, OMG!
Oh, Mohinder. You poor thing. There's some incredible burden to knowing you're the cure for your sister's fatal disease, and you were just too late. It's not even your fault, but the burden's there, all the same. But how cute is he with kids? How adorable? Guh, love.
Oh, Nathan. How does anyone make that choice? How?
And oh, oh, oh, Sylar. I feel for him. I shouldn't, but I do. The phone call to Mohinder? (So looking for love. He is infatuated with Mohinder, and that phone call was reaching out for it. However, Mohinder was entirely wise in getting the fuck away from him!) The way he reached out to his mother? He's trying to connect with his humanity in the face of what he will do. And in those efforts, he loses it completely. When he killed his mother, I think he killed his hope for forgiveness from someone, redemption somewhere. Remember, this is the man who scrawled that wall of confession Mohinder found. His mother put some intense religiosity into him, and he is obsessed with at once overcoming mortal flesh and finding redemption.
Gabriel, גַּבְרִיאֵל, means the Might of G-d, he brings visions to Daniel and commands understanding. His first appearance in the Tanakh is to bring the visions of G-d to Daniel, to show him terrifying things that will come to pass, that must come to pass. He is the agent of destiny. "...And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, that I sought to understand it; and, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Ulai, who called, and said: 'Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.' So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was terrified, and fell upon my face; but he said to me: 'Understand, son of man; for the vision belongs to the time of the end..." (Daniel 8:15-17)
Gabriel belongs to the time of the end. He is revelation, death, epiphany, the voice of G-d. Names have power, and this is the first name that Sylar has. He brings visions, he commands them understood and fulfilled. His namesake is commanded as an actor upon G-d's stage, and so Sylar wishes to be, he wishes to be active, to be Special, and who is more Special than he who is commanded by G-d, by Fate, by Destiny? No matter how badly he doesn't want the vision to be true, how he values innocent lambs (and mercy is an attribute of the Angel Gabriel's as well!), he is compelled to act. He must act. He cannot be redeemed, he can only act and master his destiny. Gabriel is the left hand of G-d, and as such, the Angel of Death. Can Sylar hope to be anything else? His is named, and in names are power. He is Death, and as Death, he cannot show mercy, cannot show weakness. He is only the hand of G-d. He can only do as he is commanded.
If Kring is telling us that there is Fate, G-d, Destiny, then Sylar is the principal actor, and cannot ever be otherwise. This was his destiny from birth, from the moment he was named and given over to his purpose.