With no word on a fifth season, The 4400 had two choices for its season finale: meekly beg for a renewal, or burn as many bridges as it could while still leaving the door open for another season. The show chose the latter option, and we were left with a very different Seattle, and a very high body count that included some important characters.
(I hope I don't have to warn you about spoilers at this point.)
Before it did anything else this week, The 4400 addressed the two cliffhangers it had left from last week: Danny's mom, Susan, having a bad promicin reaction, and Tom getting shot by Diana. The good news was that Tom got shot up with polonium and quickly healed by Shawn, leaving him healthy and unmarked. The bad news was that Danny accompanied his mother to a hospital, infected everyone there with promicin, and started a city-wide contagion. Half the people who were exposed died, including Susan, half became promicin-positive, and it seemed to spread just fine without Danny's help, because as Danny was seeking shelter with Shawn at the 4400 Center, the virus was reaching NTAC. Inside NTAC, the only victims of the virus were, luckily, a few redshirts and one person with a speaking role, Brady the nerd. Brady, we hardly knew ye. Seriously, though, we didn't know anything about you. And I had to look up your name.
The only person who didn't end up with an ability or dead was Diana, thanks to the early-stage synthetic promicin Dr. Kevin injected her with last year, which gave her a promicin resistance, according to Marco's magical science explanation. Conveniently, the very substance that caused the resistance was available over the counter, so Meghan, Kyle, and their respective commands, NTAC and Jordan's Army, teamed up to get the medicine out at the few non-looted pharmacies.
Meanwhile, Penny Johnson Jerald was given one last evil hurrah, as Parrish captured Tom when he infiltrated the Marked House to rescue Jordan, and then, in an act so cruel it was clear that Parrish wouldn't survive the hour, ordered Isabelle to kill Kyle. Of course Isabelle couldn't do it, so she kissed Kyle goodbye and then it was her turn to go out in style. She defenestrated, speared, and threw around a few minions before taking on Parrish. In killing her, Isabelle's own "kill switch" was activated, which meant that she had just enough time to free Tom and Jordan and exchange a few heartfelt words with them before dying nobly. But what a way for Isabelle to go. She proved her change of heart once and for all, and she got to kick serious butt doing it.
For Isabelle's death, I cheered, because she was so awesome at taking everyone down with her. But there was another death that was nothing but tearjerking, and I was unable to resist its maudlin spell. That was Danny Farrell's. Although Dr. Kevin and Shawn managed to get Danny on the inhibitor, his body was still producing promicin, but with nowhere to put it, so Danny was essentially drowning in promicin. Danny, in the most heartbreaking scene ever, begged his brother to kill him. I lost it after Danny said, "I love you," and I was crying like Andrae explaining his denim chi pao as Shawn finally did as his brother asked. Curse you, The 4400. I didn't even care about Danny that much!
Finally, there was a quick check-in with the new p-positives at NTAC, each of whom had an ability that was surprisingly appropriate. Meghan's ability, turning things into flowers, was pretty, but of questionable usefulness. Garrity, the emergency backup NTAC agent, had the ability to clone himself, providing a cheap source of manpower and/or redshirts. And Marco? Just like Hiro Nakamura, that other loveable nerd on that other show about people with special powers, Marco can teleport! But to my eternal disappointment, he did not yell, "Yata!" at finding himself unexpectedly in Promise City. It still made me happier than possibly any other ability they could have given him, and almost completely made up for Danny's awful, weeping-inducing death scene.
The episode and season ended with Jordan effectively in charge in Seattle as it more or less became absorbed into Promise City, almost everyone in the city exposed to promicin in some way, either positive or resistant, Maia predicting good things for the future, and Kyle placing a promicin shot in front of Tom.
It was a tremendous end to the season, and I hope that there will be a season five. There are so many new avenues to explore now: Seattle under the control of Jordan and his crew, the breakdown of distinctions between positives and NTAC, NTAC agents with abilities, how the rest of the world will respond, etc. Here's hoping we'll find out what happens next summer.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The 4400: A whole new world
Monday, September 10, 2007
The 4400: All the cool kids are getting injections
You can't say nothing happened on The 4400 this week. With only a week to go before the season finale, there was enough action in this episode to get everyone who cares about the fate of the promicin-enhanced world keyed up for next week. Deaths! Shootings! Arguments! Kidnapping! Nanotechnology! And injections! Lots and lots of injections!
(Unless you want details, don't read any further.)
Evil "Tom" from the future was all about causing trouble this week, and I must say I liked it. "Tom" has turned out to be a very good villain; he's arrogant and irreverent, and I'll miss him when we inevitably have to go back to Vanilla Tom. Rocky Road "Tom" cut a swath of destruction starting with Maia, who he injected with a temporary inhibitor to keep her from having visions. This came after an extremely creepy moment when "Tom" picked Maia up from school and proved that "Don't talk to strangers" is a good rule, but is woefully limited when we start to talk about body snatchers. "Don't trust anyone, not even me, unless I give you the secret password, and even then, get ready to run" would probably be a better rule around the Skouris household. After Maia, "Tom" went on to kill Curtis Peck for talking to Diana and Meghan, and then harassed Diana a little bit about her inability to hold on to a man. It was after she had confronted him about being marked, and yes, he's a bad guy, but still – jerk. And why is that always relevant in cases like these? Every time you see a male-female pair of partners arguing, the guy always brings up the woman's lack of a love life and tells her that he is the longest relationship she's ever had. I think what I mean to say is: shut up, "Tom."
Everyone else at NTAC – who had a speaking role, that is – was concerned with only one question: how do you solve a problem like "Tom"? And what is the problem, anyway? The quasi-scientific answer was that the future agent personality is spread through the system with nanites, which you will remember, in their friendly version, from MST3K. The only way to get rid of them, explained Marco, was to subject Tom to a huge dose of radiation, which would kill both the nanites and Tom. But once Diana confronted "Tom," they knew that he knew that they were on to him, and they had to lure him to an ambush. "Tom" dispatched Meghan easily (NTAC bosses are never very resilient anyway), and then it was all down to "Tom" and Diana. He sneered at her a little, told her she'd never shoot him, but then she proved him wrong. Yep, she shot him, and right in the gut, too. Between that and their other confrontation, it was a good week for Diana kicking butt. And I never get tired of seeing that.
In other news, Tess got herself a bunch of useful and obliging p-positives and rescued Kevin from Promise City. Yay! Kev was then free to continue work on the compatibility test, which Danny (Farrell? Shawn's brother? You remember) took him up on. And thanks to Danny's massive corpus callosum, always a hit with the ladies, he was able to take the shot and survive. However, the same was not true of Danny's mother, who had a bad promicin reaction, what with the coughing up blood and the bleeding from the eyeballs. Was it his ability? Danny certainly talked enough about wanting to be a healer to tempt the fates and bring the irony of anti-healing down on his head.
Isabelle, meanwhile, did her thing and abducted Jordan from Promise City (it was a bad week for the Promise City security team), but not before getting some sweet lovin' from Kyle. And once Jordan was in "Tom's" clutches, "Tom" menaced that he would make Jordan a "traitor to his cause." Jordan underwent a similar procedure to being marked, in which they pumped some liquid into him that would make him use his ability to take away others. Apparently, the future has never met a problem that it didn't try to possess.
What will happen in the finale? Will Tom survive? Will "Tom" survive? Will Jordan and Danny go on unwitting rampages? I'm excited – are you?
Monday, August 27, 2007
The 4400: This episode brought to you by Apple
This week's lesson from The 4400: Microsoft is evil. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean "Ubient" is evil. It's run by one of the Marked, it's bankrolling their activities, the economy depends on it, and the fact that most of the computers in the world run on its software meant that everyone was in big trouble when a virus took down its "Enzyme" operating system. Wouldn't you rather have a Mac and avoid all the hassle of the evil global conspiracy?
(Spoilers ahead.)
With Ubient failing and losing millions of dollars that could be used to finance sinister future activities, "Tom" got desperate to save the company. And this was finally when the little hamster wheel in Diana's brain started turning, and she began to suspect that "Tom" wasn't really Tom. When they found their perpetrator, a bed-ridden old man with a grudge against Drew Imroth and promicin in his system, she was sure. You see, someone drove a car into a telephone pole, cutting off power and life support for their suspect and stopping the virus, and that someone happened to have cut his head in the accident in the same way that "Tom" did, and that someone also has similar DNA to "Tom," according to Marco. So now Diana knows, and Meghan knows, too, but they don't think that "Tom" knows that they know, but he might know that they know. Understand? Incidentally, since Meghan expressed reservations about sleeping, or doing anything, with "Tom" now that she knows the truth, I'm more or less counting on her to do something to tip "Tom" off. And with the curse of the NTAC agent in charge hanging over her, she's not going to last much longer anyway.
For a future agent who got his host killed the last time he was given a job, "Tom" certainly has a lot of clout. He's the one running a newly repowered Isabelle. (What? Oh. They gave her something to rid her body of the promicin allergens, and then stuck her with the promicin again. Just go with it.) He's also the one who can kill the newly repowered Isabelle if she fails to follow his orders. (What? Oh. They implanted a kill switch in her. Just go with it.) And when all of Drew Imroth's personal information wound up on the Internet for all to see and draw conclusions from, "Tom" was the one who told him that he had to die. But it was actually a promotion for the future agent, as they're planning on moving him to Jordan Collier. They've got an asset inside Promise City now: Isabelle. Yes, she's back inside the compound, and the first thing she did when she got back was make out with Kyle. You know, they keep saying that Isabelle has changed, and I mostly believe them, but she does still have that predilection for Baldwin/Farrell guys. Does that mean Tom has to watch out in season five?
But before the makeout, at the irritating Cassie's behest, Kyle stormed the 4400 Center and hauled Dr. Kevin away to put a stop to the compatibility test. Kevin's being held hostage until either he or Shawn agree with Jordan. And since Shawn won't compromise and Kevin remained crabby and defiant throughout (which is why I like him), Kev's only hope for getting out of the Promise City compound is whatever plan Shawn is cooking up with Tess. Go, Shawn! Get Dr. Kevin back! I love the doctor's brand of prickly, half-crazy genius, and the happenings at the 4400 Center are a lot less fun without him. Actually, everything is a lot less fun without him. Save Kevin!
In other news, it was Maia's birthday this week, and her old friend Lindsay gave her a present: a park where she can see her dead parents again. She went there a couple of times that we saw, and while it didn't seem to be a problem yet, it's the sort of thing that will turn into one. Oh, and remember how PJ the NTAC geek was promicin-positive and had to be taken away? Remember PJ at all? Well, anyway, Marco got a new nerd to replace him. And it's a blonde, female nerd named Abigail. And halfway through the episode, she had Marco dressing up in a suit. Nerd lust alert! Thank you, The 4400, for still caring enough about Marco to give him a love interest. And also, thank you for the suit. I mean, he looks cute enough usually, but what can I say? The suit worked.
See you back here in two weeks!
Monday, August 20, 2007
The 4400: Invasion of the considerably more fun body snatchers
On the heels of last week's mega-reunion with Richard, Kevin, and Tess, The 4400 brought us another familiar face this week – Laura Allen as Lily. "But wait," you may say, "she's dead." Ah, but this is The 4400, and it's not like no one's been brought back from the dead before. Or at least back from wherever it was that Jordan went that one time, if it wasn't the dead.
(Hey, I didn't tell you anything you didn't know from the previews. If you don't want to know anything more, stop now.)
There seemed to be only two possible explanations for Lily's return: either Isabelle's reverse growth spurt brought her mother back from old age and death, or it was all a hallucination brought on by a 4400's ability. As it happened, we got first one explanation, then the other. Kyle, for Phase 1 of a plan that the irritating Cassie refused to tell him the rest of, had a guy make Richard hallucinate his dead wife, and the plan worked as it was meant to. Richard realized that what he did was wrong, and he went back to the 4400 he got the youth water from and fixed Isabelle. But not before there were some very sweet domestic scenes between Richard and Lily. Aww. I missed those two. Great to see them together one more time.
Well, it finally happened. Tom became one of the marked. Having had a few bizarre visions/memories of the future and the procedure in which Lily was impregnated, Tom realized what was happening and tried to fight it, but as I think we all learned from The X-Files, you can't fight the future. (Or maybe you can fight the future. I was never really clear on that point.) The body snatcher took over, with some help from the fabulous Penny Johnson Jerald as another one of the marked, director of national intelligence Rebecca Parrish. No one can do charming menace like her. She's just as cold-blooded as she was as Sherry Palmer on 24, and I love her for it.
Anyway, "Tom" wasted no time, once he was in control, in doing things the real Tom would hardly ever do. To psych out Meghan and Diana, "Tom" pretended to control Marco's mind, and that's really where the women should have noticed something was up, because Tom's sense of humor is fleeting, at best. Besides, "Tom" is a much more chipper guy than normal Tom, and – hey, wait a minute. Funny, good-natured… somebody tell me why this "Tom" is a bad thing. Oh, right. The evil plan from the future. That is kind of a deal-breaker. That's not to say I won't enjoy this "Tom" as long as he's around, though.
"Tom" started putting those evil future plans into motion when he and Diana went to round up the Tylers. He shot Richard with tranquilizers and had Richard brought into custody, but claimed that Isabelle went missing. Actually, she's hanging out in Kyle's old bedroom, and "Tom" has just told her that she needs to get her powers back to capture Jordan Collier. Meghan and Diana? Still none the wiser. Ladies, when a person tells you that he's going to turn into a pod person, and then wakes up the next day claiming he's totally fine, how much more do you need in the way of clues? Oh, whatever. I'll give them until next week.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kevin came up with a simple way to determine who will survive the promicin shot – a CAT scan – and Shawn encouraged Jordan to tell people to wait on getting the shot. But Jordan wasn't into that, as his vision for the future doesn't involve promicin-negative people at all, unless it involves them dying. So Shawn took the message to the people. And stupid Cassie reached new heights of annoying, as she maneuvered Richard into jail and Isabelle into "Tom"'s clutches, chewed Kyle out for complaining, and then told him he had to stop Shawn. You know, "stop" him. And I thought I wanted her to shut up before.
And I don't know how it happened, but between the Collier faction, which is actively rooting for the deaths of half the Earth's population, and NTAC, which is controlled by fantastically evil pod people from the future, somehow Shawn became the only sane person on The 4400. His cause seems hopeless, and he's more or less ineffectual at bringing about peace, but he's got the right idea.
Monday, August 13, 2007
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.
Monday, August 06, 2007
'The 4400': WarGames
I'm sure I posited this to you guys a couple of weeks ago, but here's my theorem of The 4400: you can't go wrong with any episode with Marco and his geeky sidekicks. I don't know if they make the episodes good, or they just happen to be in good episodes, I just know that it's true. And, unsurprisingly, based on how important the nerds were to this week's episode, it was extremely entertaining.
(Spoilers ahead.)
This week, representatives from both sides – essentially everyone from the opening credits, plus Marco and his nerdly buddies P.J. and Brady – woke up inside a locked-down NTAC, with no memory of how they got there. At first the two sides only cared about attacking or defending themselves from the other side, but then the building started trying to kill all of them, and succeeded, in the cases of Meghan and Shawn. Turns out the entire situation was really just a war game concocted by extra crispy nerd P.J., who wanted to try and heal the rift between NTAC and Jordan's group, and the only way for them to get out was for the two sides to work together. Of course, "the two sides" really just meant "Tom and Jordan," the figureheads and men of action for each faction, so it's the two of them who not only had to create a power surge to kill the building, but used themselves to complete the circuit. So Tom and Jordan went out in a blaze of symbolism, clasping hands and sacrificing themselves for everyone.
The only problem was – it didn't really accomplish anything. Okay, yes, everyone woke up, and was fine, and the people who died weren't dead anymore, but the positives and negatives are still at odds, and Jordan even called Tom specifically to underline this fact. ("Hi, Tom. We may have sacrificed ourselves together for the greater good, but we're still not friends.") The only thing that's different is that there's a certain amount of respect between them now, as Tom called Collier "Jordan." Yeah, I'm sure Meghan and Shawn will be pleased to know that they didn't die in the simulation in vain. I understand the need to hit the reset button on a series and put everything back to normal, but – there couldn't be a little bit more cooperation? The beginnings of a deal, perhaps? A détente?
Ah, well. There were other détentes that the war game brought about, most notably an end to the weirdness between Diana and Marco, as Marco got an invitation to dinner. Yay! (Steal her back, Marco! Prove Maia wrong about that future husband guy!) Truces were also declared between Isabelle and Diana and Isabelle and Shawn – hmm, I'd almost forgotten how many people were mad at her. Granted, they were just momentary cease-fires, because you can't take all of the conflict out of the show, but Maia, at least, does seem to be cool with Isabelle now, for whatever reason. Maybe that apology last week really worked.
In all, this was probably my favorite episode of the season so far. Good story, great character development and interaction, and a couple of shocking moments when recurring characters were killed off. It was obvious that they were going to come back, but still, you don't see main characters die very often. And, of course, I've already mentioned the Marco and friends quotient. So maybe peace wasn't declared, but I had fun anyway.
Monday, July 30, 2007
The 4400: One nation under Jordan
Alternate, but too long, title for this post: "Take me down to the Promise City, where the river is clean and the garden is pretty."
(Spoilers ahead, of course.)
You know, I should have seen it coming. This entire season of The 4400 seemed to be building toward it. First he just had a following; then he had a city; now Jordan Collier has annexed himself a piece of Seattle and called it Promise City. Of course, that's just a backdrop to the real point of the episode, the question that's been hanging over this season – and possibly over the preceding three as well – is Jordan Collier a good guy or a bad guy?
The fact is, we didn't get a definitive answer. We were invited to make up our minds, as Maia did. On the one hand, Jordan took a toxic corner of Seattle on the Duwamish River delta and cleaned up the river, made all kinds of plants grow, and promised to work miracles everywhere. On the other hand, he caused mini-disasters to happen as a demonstration of his power and essentially carved a sovereign nation out of a major city, which the government wasn't too cool with. So the government sent in enhanced soldiers – remember them? – commanded by Glenn Morshower, Aaron on 24, who can't seem to not play government or military personnel.
Since Maia foresaw that something very bad, possibly the end of the world, was going to happen if the soldiers killed Jordan, she snuck in to Promise City like the teenager she almost is. There she saw enough to decide that Jordan was good, and she warned him about the soldiers. But she still didn't trust him; she lied and told him that she'd had a vision that a war would doom all mankind, hoping to keep Jordan from hurting anyone. It worked, since Jordan's response to getting invaded was not a bloody reprisal, but an expansion of his borders.
As always, the mystery of Jordan continues to be fascinating. He seems to be gentle and reasonable, but there are hidden reserves of ruthlessness, and he's certainly not above allowing his minions to do the really dirty work, so he doesn't have to. And I was glad that there was a lot of Maia in this episode, as she's been lacking recently. I don't remember seeing Maia take this much action before – she doesn't go out on her own much – and it seems like another indication that she's growing up. It's the natural next step for her, and I'm just happy that the writers thought to take it.
Shawn, meanwhile, jumped into the running for Worst Political Candidate Ever. He dated the daughter of a woman he healed, slept with her, and proceeded to be surprised when it got all over the internet. Shawn, you idiot, the internet knows all. But as he didn't have the foresight to spend the entire campaign sitting quietly and doing nothing, he did the next best thing: admitted he had made a mistake. He also, in spite of warnings from his mentor, asserted that he would continue to take the middle road between promicin-positive people and the rest of the world. At least, that's what he keeps saying, but I haven't seen much of this middle road. Now that the divisions are starting up in earnest, I'd love to know what the middle road is and what he proposes to do, especially because Shawn is the only character who's advocating this middle course.
And Tom/Meghan shippers got something to squee over when Marco totally walked in on them almost-but-not-kissing. I like Meghan; certainly the show has gone out of its way to give her a personality, what with the sick dad and the Fellini predilection. But I'm not really feeling this Tom/Meghan love. Oddly enough, the only person Tom seems to have any chemistry with is Diana (see: their cute dinner at the beginning of the episode, in which Diana got all gal pal with Tom and grilled him about Meghan). But, as I actually enjoy the fact that they're the only male-female partnership on TV without any sexual tension between them, I don't want them to get together. Tom is nice; Meghan is nice; I wish I could care about them together.
Monday, July 23, 2007
The 4400: Mystery Science Theater 4400
This week's episode of The 4400 was more fun than we've seen in a long while. How could it not be, when it started out with a B-movie festival with Marco and his geeky pals? From there, it went into cheesy horror-movie schlock, worldwide conspiracies, snarky Tom and Diana, and so much of my favorite nerd Marco, you'd think they were trying to butter me up. Well, it worked.
(Beware… of the spoiler!)
The 3P (promicin-positive person) of the week was an original recipe, Curtis Peck, who made movies about famous unsolved mysteries – Jimmy Hoffa, the Roanoke colony, the JFK assassination, etc. (If you're curious, he pinned JFK's death on an ex-Marine, Robert Shaftoe, and if that is not a nod to Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, I will be hugely disappointed.) Curtis went missing just after coming up with the idea for his latest movie, The Marked, concerning ten agents from the future who have come back to stop the 4400, and have taken over the bodies of prominent living people to do it. Sounds crazy, right? But the government was awfully interested in what Curtis had to say, and one of his producers did end up dead, so the theory bears looking at. Especially since one of the supposed "Marked" was Matthew Ross – you remember him, Jordan's assistant, killed by Isabelle? There always was something odd about him. So I'm buying the idea for now.
Although Diana and Tom began by cracking wise about the whole situation – and very well, too, they can get some good banter going when they want to – things got tense quickly, with Tom carted off to the mental institution for evaluation, and Diana forced to hide Curtis in Marco's shockingly spacious and awesome apartment. I mean, not shocking that it was awesome, shocking that it was spacious – Marco gets a government paycheck, after all. But Curtis sold out before he could finish the script and tell them who else is Marked, and Tom got injected with something behind his ear, giving him a similar mark to those agents from the future and making him worry that they put the agent that was in Matthew Ross inside him.
And he was right to be worried. One of the other Marked, Bill Gatesalike Drew Imroth, showed up at the end of the episode to more or less confess his Marked status to Tom and Diana and claim that the Marked are their allies before heading back to his office and purring to his co-conspirators that "when we need [Tom], he'll be there for us." So, was it the consciousness of the dead agent from the future that they shot him with? Was it a mind-control chip? It couldn't have been that promicin shot they've been threatening him with, because it's the Jordanians who want him to have that… right? Strange how many plots recently have revolved around the need to inject Tom with something. You don't suppose that he needs the promicin to save him from whatever he's got now?
In the B-plot, Shawn met with Jordan and told him that he couldn't join him, he had to beat Gabriel Hewitt. Interestingly, Hewitt then had a massive stroke, causing brain damage, and Jordan had to swear up and down that it wasn't on his orders. It's hard to believe him, but Billy Campbell is such a cool customer and brings such beatific placidity to the role that you really, really want to believe him. In fact, if Billy Campbell had a cult, I'd probably join up. Anyway, Shawn ended up healing Hewitt and asked only that Hewitt change his ways in return. I'd be shocked if that really was all there was to the Gabriel Hewitt story, because it seems very early to drop his antagonism and that vision Maia saw of the internment camps. I'm not going to assume that Hewitt has changed just yet.
So, yeah, a lot happened in this episode. I've never been big on straight-up mythology, but this was the most entertaining way that any show has ever served it up for me. When the Marked come back – and I'm sure they will – I won't have forgotten a thing about them, thanks to this little gem of an episode.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The 4400: What a town with abilities can do
There was no shortage of symbolism on The 4400 this week. There was Maia's dream, fraught with Holocaust echoes, of promicin-positive people being forced to wear armbands and carted off to prison camps. There was Jordan Collier bathing, baptism-style, in a lake. And that was just in the first five minutes.
(Spoilers follow.)
What we also got this week was utopia: a little taste of the heaven on earth that the White Light book predicted. This was Evanston, a town in which everyone, in addition to being creepily, overpoweringly nice, had an ability. Tom followed Kyle there and was quickly welcomed/held hostage by the locals, who all the while told Tom how great their town was, how perfect it was, and how he should really try the pie. This pie, to which Tom eventually succumbed, allowed everyone to share a collective consciousness, communicate telepathically and frolic inside each other's memories. Tom seemed to like it, but having total strangers wander around my mind strikes me as overly familiar, to say the very least, and it made me want to learn Occlumency just watching it.
I guess that was the tough part of the episode – I wasn't sure how to feel about Evanston. It was presented as utopia, a town in which extra crispies could live without fear of persecution. But we were also invited to see it as too perfect, like one of those towns that were always on The X-Files, the ones that hid terrible secrets like vampires or garbage monsters. I suppose the show had a mixed verdict about the town as well, with Tom liking the people but not what the town stood for: producing more promicin and converting people to the cause. (I was never keen on the townspeople; to me, they were cult-like and entirely too willing to foist apple pie on everyone.)
But a mixed position, like the one on Evanston, is also what the show has taken on Kyle and Jordan's mission from the beginning of the season – it takes sympathetic characters, with sympathetic motives, and allows you to decide if what they're doing is right. I'm not sold on the idea of utopia yet, of course, but I appreciated Kyle and Jordan's decision not to force promicin on anyone, not even Tom (meaning that the shot Tom got was a sedative and not promicin). It was a principled decision, and it helped keep sympathy with them for the time being.
The episode ended with paradise lost: with NTAC onto the existence of Evanston, the townspeople had to leave, and make their new home in a new land, Seattle. Yes, Jordan's going to hide them right under NTAC's noses. If it were any other character, I'd say that the plan could end up being either stupid or brilliant. But it's Jordan, so it must be brilliant.
In pretty much the only other plot that counted, Maia finally got something to do and to say this week. She had dreams about people with abilities being arrested and imprisoned en masse, and Shawn's political rival is apparently the very leader whose rise will make this happen. More than that, though, we saw the beginnings of Maia's teenage sulkiness, as she complained about being taken back to Seattle, Ben's absence, and her mom calling her "sweetie" like she's still a little kid. It was definitely due, and I hope we'll see more of Maia growing up, because she's been a static character for a long time. Sad and prophetic half the time; cute and bubbly the other half. If nothing else, teenage tantrums, dating, and rebelliousness will give Maia something to do.
Monday, July 09, 2007
You seriously can't lie to family on 'The 4400'
Ah, family. You know, for all that everyone on The 4400 has to deal with – abilities, prophecies about a brave new world led by Jordan Collier – their family issues are just the same as the rest of us. Lying, going behind one another's backs, arguing, telling uncomfortable truths… if you don't recognize any of that, then, well – can I join your family?
Uncomfortable spoilers to follow.
So April, black sheep of the Skouris clan, came back, sporting a kicky new haircut and a kicky new power: she can make people tell the truth. Aside from the got-old-real-fast music cue that heralded her ability, which sounded like someone running a finger around a wineglass rim, April's ability was fun; it provided a couple of great laughs when she got Diana to admit how many times a week Diana and Ben… you know (three, if you must know) and Tom to confess to having fantasized about Diana. Not appealing, though, was her scruffy boyfriend/pimp, who made money off her ability. Sure, he said he loved her, and he said it to April, so we know we can believe him, but there was still something far too pimptastic about him for my taste. So when he turned up dead, I wasn't too broken up.
This turned out to be the week in which April learned responsibility, something I feel like the show had been threatening to do for a long time, and maybe actually did at some point in the past. But, whatever; April was forced to choose between running away again and helping secure a confession from the man who killed her boyfriend (who was selling defective body armor to the military, because murder wasn't bad enough), which would get her arrested by NTAC. For once, April chose the responsible thing and was rewarded with more responsibility: a job with the government, extracting the truth from people. Good for you, April. Come back anytime, and bring your cute hair back with you.
Diana, of course, is staying in Seattle, like we knew she would. But this means problems with Ben, who's not staying. Because they mentioned Maia's prophecy that they'll get married, you know the writers haven't forgotten about that; this just means they'll be finagling with things a bit before we get there. Of course, it's probably also a convenient excuse for Ben to be gone for a little while. And speaking of Maia, she must have laryngitis or something, because I swear this is the second week in a row in which she's been seen, but not heard. What's up with that? Throw her, and us, a bone, writers; she's awfully cute when she's not making dour predictions, and I miss her.
Shawn's a politician now, thanks to the encouragement of a former anti-4400 senator, and he started his campaign for Seattle city council. But to get support, he'd have to denounce Jordan Collier. So what did Shawn do? Well, he denounced Jordan Collier. In the mildest of terms, merely saying that Jordan should have waited to distribute promicin until the risks were lower, but it was enough for Kyle, who called him a traitor. Guess Kyle doesn't like it when you insult his messiah.
Because, yes, Kyle is now a true believer; witnessing Isabelle's escape last week converted him utterly. That was awfully quick. But on the bright side, no Cassie this week, so maybe I don't mind the fast conversion. Hmm. Anyway, Kyle stashed Isabelle away in a shack, and in return, she decrypted the coded pages in the book for him. Roughly translated, they said: "These 200 people have to get promicin shots before a wonderful paradise can exist on earth." The last name on the list? Tom Baldwin. Who, incidentally, now knows that his son is promicin-positive. And you know Tom, he's not going to take the shot quietly. So now it's Tom vs. utopia. Where's your messiah now, Kyle? Wait, he's in the previews for next week. Never mind.
Monday, June 25, 2007
'The 4400': Together again, naturally
Finally, things are back to normal on The 4400.
(Spoilers, of course.)
Whatever normal is, anyway. The extra crispies are still running rampant, and Shawn's brother wants to take promicin, and Tom may be giving up on Alana, and Isabelle is being transferred, after some shadowy men first determined that she can't get her abilities back ever, and weird old cults are cropping up, but at least Tom and Diana are back together. Hey, we always knew she'd come back, right?
We also know that Diana's staying, despite her protests that she only wants to find April. Tom and Diana are the foundation of this show, after all; they can't break up for long. Tom, in fact, illustrated precisely why he needs Diana around this week when he suggested nearly killing himself again to get the future to listen to him. Great idea, Diana pointed out – unless the future decides to ignore you. Tom and Diana like the MythBusters in that way – one is impetuous and apt to do something stupid, and the other is more level-headed and careful, and can talk the other one down. And, just like the MythBusters, that's why they make a great team.
This week's extra crispy: an autistic boy whose ability made people see their worst fears. The show tried to make you guess about who had the ability, but, if you were like me, I'm sure you were yelling, "Don't pick up the train!" as soon as you saw the autistic kid, because that's how he got Garrity. Why introduce an autistic kid if not to have him go off, er, spread his ability around later? Since his father only gave the kid promicin to try to help him, the story ended up with a very touching scene in which Shawn healed the kid's autism and he recognized his dad for the first time. Aww.
And hey, remember Cassie, the faux art school girl? She introduced Kyle to an old cult called White Light, which believed in a messiah who looked suspiciously like Jordan Collier. So Jordan might be a messiah? Yeah, and water is wet, so what else is new? Well, the fact that the White Lighters also predicted a shaman who could see visions – who Cassie thought was Kyle. Why haven't we seen any of these visions yet, you ask? Oh, but we have – because his visions are of Cassie! Yes, Kyle's developed the ability to see a spunky redhead who tells him what to do. Unfortunately, like Ed Asner, I hate spunk, so I'm not real sold on this ability yet. But I'm interested to see what's going to happen, because I do like the idea.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Season four is extra crispy on 'The 4400'
Previously on The 4400: Season one was excellent. Season two was good, too.
Season three was… well, season three was kind of like a test paper on which the writers kept changing their answers. The future second-guessed itself and started messing with the returnees. Alana went on the run and came back unobtrusively a few weeks later. Diana broke up with Marco because she wasn't ready to commit, but put up only token resistance when her precog daughter pointed out her future husband. (Poor Marco. His only crime was being cute and dorky. Of course, ask Greg Sanders and George O'Malley what that'll get you on a drama.) But it's another summer and another season, and I'm ready to see what season four brings.
Interestingly, it seems that season four is coming back around to season one. Once again, we had the cousin in a coma, but this time it was Shawn, and Kyle brought him out with a shot of promicin. And, with promicin now available to the public, the show is introducing us once more to people just discovering their abilities – people Marco dubbed "extra crispies," as in, "not original recipe." This week's extra crispy was Graham, a high school kid who turned his school, and then the city, into his own personal cult. Since this was what got me into the show in the first place – people discovering abilities, adjusting to them, and changing the lives of people around them – I'm glad to see the show go back to basics, or, at least, a tweaking of its original recipe.
As for Jordan Collier, he just gets more intriguing. His guilt over all the deaths caused by promicin was perfectly in character, but also a departure from the confident, almost mystical Jordan that we usually see. And, at long last, he showed an ability: he can neutralize the promicin in extra crispies, as he did with Graham. It only makes sense; like Jordan said, "I gave you promicin, I can take it away." Kind of puts a damper on his promise that everyone can have it, if he can strip anyone of their new powers, but it keeps him powerful and relevant, and I'm all for keeping Jordan in the game.
There were also a couple of new characters to contend with, like NTAC's new head, Meghan Doyle, a woman with a taste for Fellini and, like Tom, a certain disregard for protocol. I think she'll be fun. Then there's Cathy, who knows an awful lot about Kyle and the 4400 story, and who suggested that Kyle use promicin on Shawn. Naturally, she wasn't the art student she pretended to be, and I'm sure she'll turn up again soon.
All in all, it was a promising start to the new season. I'm intrigued, I have questions (like what Alana is doing in a painting from 1885), and the promise of more extra crispies has only whetted my appetite.
