The 4400: Do-over!

You've seen the previews for a week, promising the return of Richard Tyler. And boy, did he return. But his wasn't the only welcome return this week on The 4400: we also got back Dr. Kevin and schizophrenic mind controller Tess (the excellent Summer Glau).

(Warning: spoilers)

The theme for this episode: trying again. You see, Richard's whole motivation for seeing his daughter again was to knock her out, drag her away from Promise City, and feed her this 4400-enhanced water that made her younger. Because Isabelle grew up so fast, and so evil, that he wanted to have another chance to raise her. Richard, let's be real here: she was evil even when she was a baby. She was killing people then, too. Twenty years of solid parenting might not have helped as much as that good swift injection to the neck did. Besides, she's good now. Mostly. Naturally, Isabelle wasn't into getting any younger, but she was soon too young to do anything about it. And even though Kyle and NTAC tried to rescue her, nobody gets in the way of a telekinetic. (Literally, you can't, because he'll just move you out of the way.) So Richard and Young Isabelle went into hiding, and Isabelle – willingly – drank the rest of the Water of Youth. And now she's a toddler.

Huh. No putting things back to the way they were, show? No hitting the reset button? Am I to assume you'll do it next week? I mean, I know I saw Megalyn Echikunwoke sticking her head into the previews for next week, and of course something's bound to happen between Isabelle – the adult one – and Kyle. (Girl really likes her cousins.) I guess I've surprised myself by getting a little worried about her. I'm actually starting to like this new, harmless Isabelle. She's certainly much more human than the childlike killbot of last season.

In the B-plot, Tess tried once again to have the sweet sixteen party she never got to have, and that involved forcing an entire 50's diner full of people to dance for days. Never has rocking around the clock been less fun. She was waiting for her crush, Bobby, to show up, but instead she got Shawn, who convinced her that Kevin was her Bobby, because he loves her. Aww. Incidentally, how much older is Kevin than Tess? No, wait, don't tell me, it'll just ruin everything. Aww. Anyway, after Shawn healed her schizophrenia (hey, if he can heal autism…), Tess and Kevin revealed that Kevin's been researching a way to predict who can take the promicin shot and live. Yay! I hope this means that we'll see them again soon, because Summer Glau and Jeffrey Combs are always welcome around here.

Meanwhile, the weeks of simmering bureaucratic tension came to a boiling point when Tom and Meghan first made out, thanks to Tom's skillful employment of the old "look behind my ear while I turn my head into your mouth" trick, and then spent the night together. But their chance for a repeat performance was kind of ruined by the return of the mark behind Tom's ear. And like I told you before, I like Meghan. But her spending so much time with Tom, and listening to his problems when she wasn't kissing him, meant that there was very little room for Diana, and certainly no fun Tom/Diana banter. Not cool, you guys. There's always room for more Diana.