1812 4400

The 4400 disk two episodes 4-6

In the sixth defined episode of the 4400 hundred I felt the series had come of age and that however derivative its concept it was executed in excellent fashion and had been unpredictable whereas the previous one had. None of the three episodes of the second disk of season, however, came Criminal Justice nor did Sandra Bullock, as a creative disturbed and driven detective controlled by her past in the film Murder by Numbers. This writing could be called three degrees of detection seriousness, two of them criminal.

The third episode of the second disk of the second season of the 4400 (Life Interrupted) stands out because it while it features Tom and his son, Shaun, his young brother and girl friend, their parents, Tom’s ex wife and Homeland security agent Diana, it is not about the 4400 directly. Tom is at the 4400 headquarters for the funeral of Jordan Collier when he is called to the room when the body had been laying in state only to find that it had disappeared. How Jordan Collier came to die was the subject of the previous episode. When Tom returns to the home where he and his son live he is immediately struck by the warmth of his son and when he returns to the office of the 4400 investigation Unit he finds everything normal except the 4400 has not existed and he is welcomed back after being on sick leave after an underground operation where he had been caught, imprisoned and tortured, followed by rescue, a period in hospital and sick leave for recovery. He has little time to work out what has happened when the unit is called to the Collier centre which is the same building but now an arts centre, because of a suspect reported in the building. Jordan Collier is just not dead but the state governor although he does not appear in the episode which one suspects is a clue of some kind. In the chase around the building Tom is separated from his colleagues and thinks he has seen a man enter a room which unlike all the others in the building which have solid wood doors, has a round window through which he looks and cannot enter when he tries to do so. His colleagues enter and apprehend the suspect. The door had become like all the others and room bears no relationship with that Tom had seen although we the audience had only obtained a fleeing glimpse.

When Tom returns home he finds his family and friends have gathered for a return to work party. In addition to his son being the fun loving student, his cousin Shaun is there, his younger brother and his beautiful, intelligent wife, Alana, who we subsequently learn owns an art gallery in the city centre. We learn that Tom is on good relations with his ex wife and her second husband and has a satisfying life as part of a good middle America urban community. When he persists that this is all unreal to him, the same words used by his son when he came out of the coma, his partner Diana traps him into a situation where he is then taken off to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

It is at this point his “wife“ admits that she too is a returnee who has no recollection of him or his life and is just as distressed and perplexed about her present situation which appears to be a parallel reality much explored in the Star Trek and Dr Who series. They agree to cooperate with the medical and other authorities so that Tom can return home and together they can work out what has happened to them. This appears to work and two establish a good relationship which over two years develops into a loving an close one and what had been the charade of their marriage becomes an important reality. At one point Tom returns to the building and enters the room with teh glass window in its door and finds a corpse laying on a medical type table at the centre, in a room reminiscent of the second concert hall at the Sage which is circular with several narrow balconies. However this room is dark and stark and there are showy individuals standing looking down and for some reason I think of The Way to the Stars, although I may have got the film title wrong. Just when he is about to uncover the body on the table the room shatters and he finds himself in the room which existed when he first entered and remained when he had returned. For several days and weeks subsequently he returns to the centre to keep watch on the door hoping the mystery of what had happened has been revealed but as the relationship with his “wife” develops and he has the warmth and strength of his family and work colleagues around him he and his wife accept their situation and the episode jumps eight further years as they renew their marriage vows and go off on a honeymoon with all their friends and family at the ceremony, including his son who has become a doctor. He is set to become the new regional director of the Homeland security unit.

It is at this point he returns to the centre and finds the room and is able to enter and to remove the cover from the face of the body on the table and discovers it is that of his wife. He learns that all that he has experienced over past decade has happened in an instant and was intended to provide him strength for the challenge of coping with the 4400 and their purpose in the years ahead and that the way to break out of the dimension is for both to accept that this is unreality and end what is in effect a prolonged dream. However because they can now control their experience they bring together their family and friends to announce they have decided to extend their trip which is something they had been wanting to do for sometime but wanted to say goodbye and as they do they eliminate the present reality person by person and local community and home. He returns to his office and find it is back to the time of the 4400 and the challenges which they pose. He has just missed a returnee whose form he recognises and runs after her not only to find that it is the woman who has been his wife for eight years in his mind but she knows who he is and they embrace and we believe he is to have the love and support in reality which those who had unlocked the powers of the 4400 said he needed to help fulfil their mission. However I could find no reference to his wife and the actress who played her in the Wikipedia notes on the episode.

This episode contrast with the previous two in which Richard‘s wife Lily turns to her former husband a lawyer, for help when Richard is taken into custody for his failure to register as a 4400 living in the community. This leads him to Jordan Collier who comes a calling, and begs the couple and their child to return. Jordan has revealed that prior to trying to stop Richard and his wife taking the child away from the centre he had been full of personal ambition, power and the wealth of the situation but although the child and threatened his life when he had touched Lily, he had been fundamentally changed and become focussed on the mission. He wanted them to come back and participate in the mission freely and he wanted contact with the child again because he believed his present life would be validated. This turns out to be so and Jordan become a grandfather/uncle in their life and that of the child. Everything continues to go well as the time of great reunion approaches when the returnees will assemble from all parts oft he world.

It is as this point that Maia has a prediction about Jordan who she sees on TV, he is to die. Diana and Tom first persuade their boss that it is important to try and intervene and then persuade Collier that he needs to take greater precautions and allow them to his help protect him and try and prevent what so far has been the inevitability of Maia’s predictions. In this respect they are supported by Shaun who argues that Jordan becoming a martyr would place the Mission in jeopardy and Jordan himself is ambivalent about what to do, agreeing that the unit and Tom and Diana can enter the 4400 complex centre and take control of security. They would still like the reunion postponed

Jordan decides to consult the child of Lily and Richard and while we do not immediately learn the outcome, Jordan believes that he should continue and that everything will work out well. For a time this also appears to be likely outcome as one major suspect is apprehended having come close to achieving the assassination. Then Jordan is shot from a vantage point outside the building where the main reunion ceremony is taking place, a flaw because in the real word this possibility would have been taken into account and he would have been moved to a position in the building where an external shooting could not occur. (Have you not noted the way Parliamentary building chambers are designed, The Houses of Commons and Lords, the Senate and Congress Houses and the UN building in New York. Although Shaun attempts to revive , Jordan, he is declared dead.

I suggest that no one is surprised that the body then disappears leaving the way open for a resurrection, reminding of Bobby Ewing in Dallas, nor is anyone surprised when we learn that the shootist, reminiscent of the shooting of President Kennedy also in Dallas, is none other than Tom’s son. This is not et tu Brutus but Judas.

The son and Shaun’s cousin have become increasingly aggressive towards the 4400, attacking everyone and everything associated with the returnees, especially Jordan and his chief assistant Shaun, with Kyle resentful and afraid of his ability to lose time and find himself transported from one situation into another and without memory of what has occurred in the intervening period.

Shaun also remains troubled as his commitment to the mission of the 4400 grows. He is challenged by a group of young misfits, drugs addicts, petty criminals surviving by voluntary hand outs and prostitution, living in the shadow of the city, in the first upside on teh disk, Suffer the children, a continuing problem in the Sates but which has been largely eliminated in the UK by in effect Government and police action supported by the establishment of refuges by independent bodies funded by voluntary contributions and government funds.

Shaun encounters one of these groups gate crashing a ceremony in which the guests are provided free food and he takes an interest in a young woman of similar age to himself and to her plight and those of her friends, donating food, blankets and medical supplies. Jordan warns against revealing his healing powers because to do so to one and all will seek help and it is not practical for him to heal everyone. However he responds to a call from the girl when her boyfriend appears to be a bad drugs trip and Shaun cures him with the consequence as Jordan predicted all the down and outs want his help. This leads to the girl being disillusioned with Shaun who has become her hero and potential saviour. He persuades her to enter the 4400 which does, we suspect not out of conviction but to get close to him. Unfortunately Jordan has been assassinated and Shaun has to take over the role of leader and becomes too busy with too great responsibilities to have a personal relationship and symbolically the doors to his office are closed to her as she approaches him having progressed within the 4400 process of enlightenment. The scene reminds when Corleone’s son becomes the Godfather.

The main focus of Suffer not Little Children is a returnee teacher accused of child abuse by some parents at her school because some of children have been changed dramatically for the good while others have not. She explains she has been able to recognise the untapped potential in many of the children, some creatively in playing a musical instrument, painting and sculpture with others in more traditional scholastic subjects but not all. One particular father and one pupil becomes very aggressive towards her and getting her removed from the school. When Tom and Diana investigate they are satisfied with the explanation of her power and she is returned to the school with protection but too late to prevent the most disturbed pupil from entering her class with a gun, not to kill in her but to persuade her to change him so his father will be proud The father has become the town failure the teacher explains that not everyone has untapped talent which can be immediately recognised and transformed this does not mean the boy will turn out like his father and does not find contentment through his work and relationships in the future. It is the father who persuades his son to hand the gun over and it is time for the teacher to move to an environment where her abilities will be appreciated and use to their potential.

So much of the second season second disk has been constructive and optimistic but there are warnings. The consequence of first husband assisting in getting Richard out of jail has led to problems with his second wife and to her first daughter overhearing and discovering that her first mother is alive and going in search and making contact. However when she has contact with her half sister there is a discordant note and later when she returns home she becomes seriously ill so the first husband makes contact with her mother when the danger is over for her visit in hospital, Do we detect jealousy and a child who requires the exclusive attention of her parents? There is also pressure on Diana and daughter Maia. The child continues to wrestle with her powers and wish to be normal while discovering that she is having further visionary predictions, Homeland Security subpoenas their employee to surrender the diary. Why did the baby tell Jordan he would be safe if he went ahead with the Reunion? One would like more answer and to know more those returnee who pass by only in one episode

1809 The 4400 season one

Why is it some people can make consistently better choices than others when outcomes are evaluated. Is it a question of intelligence, intuition, childhood background, education, experience, divine intervention? I believe it is having the right mix of all these and more, except into relation to the latter when from experience I understand that intervention is not in the form of human understanding but the ability to keep within a balance of forces which make up the universe.

When I discovered that the second disk of the series the 4400 was missing with its three final episodes of the first series I was tempted to continue with the remainder, expecting it could take some time to replace the duplicated first disk. I decided to contact the gift provider and amazing quickly the good customer relations of Amazon had supplied not just the disk but a replacement full set. Although watching West Wing had been my priority, I elected to start with the 4400 in the run up to the Christmas Season.

(section deleted as not directly applying to 4400)

So having digressed about the exercise of choice and its outcomes, back to the 4400 and where the whole series appears to hinge upon the choice that of one young man three years before the date when the series is set after 9/11 and the formation of Homeland security in the USA

First I had to remind myself that the series is about 4400 people, (will we learn the significance the number or was it just a creative notion which sounded good?) who are returned from where they have been after having disappeared for up to a century but interestingly not longer. Was this because the creators were limited in their imagination or because it would have been difficult for those from previous generations to have made an adjustment to the present had society accepted their return There return is associated with a Comet which become a large white light cylinder in shape and subsequently has the form of a white electrical charge.

It was evident from the two episode pilot and the one that which followed that the series would follow the experience of three distinct groups of people and this was confirmed from watching the three episodes of the second disk to complete the first season on Friday afternoon.

The first group are the investigators/monitors. There are three of these who work for the new Threat Assessment Unit part of the Homeland Security Service in the USA. Tom Baldwin, played by Joel Gretsch works for the government and is assigned to monitor what happened when the 4400 are released into the community after it is legally decided it would be unconstitutional to hold them for longer in quarantine. The reason why the 4400 are considered a threat and ostracised by the society generally is because the public becomes aware that they have extra terrestrial, Godlike or devil like powers.

Tom’s role becomes more significant when we learn that his son was one of those intended to have been taken three years before but his cousin moved him out of the white light force/electric charge and takes his place. This is the exercise of choice with profound consequence for both of them. The son Kyle, is played by Chad Faust and lived with his mother Linda (Lori Ann Trioli),until the event which has left him in a coma who is estranged from her husband, but they really love other and it appears to be his work which has caused the rift. More on the significance of the choice when I have covered everyone and everything else that has occurred to date. She appears to have no control over what and when she sees.

Tom works closely with Diana Skopuris (Jacquline McKenzie) a single woman who can barely cope with her own life but appear to be good as her job. She befriends the youngest of the returnee Maia born 28 Feb 1938 and disappears in 1946 aged 8. She is the first often returnees to attract the interests of the authorities because of her uncanny knack of predicting what is going to happen with infallible accuracy. She begins to write her visions in a diary.

This duo are commanded by Denis Ryland (Peter Cope) who heads National Threat Assessment Unit. Because the majority of the 4400 chose to settle in the area of his posting. Washington, we learn has doubts about his abilities and sends someone to keep an eye on and potentially take over as the first season progresses.

The second grouping are the majority of the 4400, who we never learn of their backgrounds or their role in the mystery although a selection become the main subject in every episode. The third group are the core returnees, five todate who are to have an on going role, or at least this is what the first series indicates with Maia already mentioned..

Lily Moore Tyler (Laura Allen), is a young woman who finds she is pregnant when she returns and that her husband has had her declared missing believed dead and remarried and where his new wife is bringing up Lily‘s child as her own. She was character born August 1966 and disappeared May 26th 1993. Her grandmother had an unrequited relationship with Richard Tyler born 1922 (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), who was abducted May 11th 1951 15 years before the birth of Lily, after being framed for assaulting a white girl when it became known he had a white girlfriend. Richard is amazed at the progress in race relations and rights since his abduction and he is struck by the similarity in appearance between Lily and his former love and when both find they do not fit in and do not have relatives with whom they can relate they establish a relationship even though Richard knows Lily is pregnant, assumed by her former husband. Lily has the ability to communicate with her unborn child. There is the possible parallel of Lily being the Virgin Mary, Richard is Joseph and the child, well we shall see! However the twist which emerges towards the end of the first season is that the unborn child has the same DNA as Richard. What does this mean?

When they find life in the community difficult with bomb attacks on some of the returnees they seek the help of another returnee Jordan Collier. He is featured in the first season episode (4) Becoming, A real estate financier and developer he disappeared in April 2002 and when he returns he decides to take on the government and society by declaring that he is a returnee and offering a new luxury private housing estate as a refuge for other trainees and he offers to provider a home free for the Lily and Richard and a job as head of security for Richard. However his support becomes suspect when he takes an intense interest in finding out what is happening to the pregnancy and when he attempts to separate the couple. They break out of the estate with the help of the unborn child and going into hiding until the baby is born. How they manage to fund their life is not explained and I learn that their fully furnished log cabin they use was found abandoned!

The main focus of the episode Becoming is the suspicion that another of the returnees Oliver Knox was a serial killer before he disappeared and is responsible for a further series of killings since his return. What emerges is that Oliver is able to get other men to kill victims he identifies to them and to then take the blame for the original killings thus taking the pressure away from himself. He is however apprehended. It is a relative of one of the murder victims who starts the bombing campaign against 4400 returnee and he and a associate are caught before their attack on Jordan Colliers property refuge takes place. Oliver disappeared in 1983 and uses mind control through speech.

The pilot is a double episode and in the second the main story focus is on Orson Bailey a partner in an insurance firm who disappeared in 1979 only to find on return that he has been removed from his company which is now being used in a corrupt way. When put under stress and frustrated Orson finds that he has awesome telekinetic power in the form of shaking vibrations to the extent of causing a minor earthquake and the death of the man who has taken over his company. However when it appears that his power is out control is shot by homeland security but lives and is taken into secure custody.

The third episode also is about a character, Carl Morrissey, the New and Improved Carl Morrissey, a minor Supermarket employee, also some who disappeared recently and returns to live with his wife and his old job. He is presented as someone who accepts what life throws at him but rebels when eh finds that the part where he courted his wife has been overrun by drug addicts, and gangs including rapists. He finds that he has developed great strength and movement and sets about cleaning up the park at night. He is the first to communicate the idea of being on a mission, However he misunderstands his abilities and is killed when taking on several hooligans at the same time. However this is not the end of his mission as the community responds to his death by getting together to reclaim the park. This can be viewed as an episode message that it is up to communities to band together to sort out similar situations but also alerts the viewer, and the investigators that the returnees are on a mission but which we have seen appears to have contradictory purposes ranging between extremes of good and violent evil.

This brings me to the significance of Tom’s son Kyle who was drinking beer on a beach at night in 2001 when the white light strikes him but on appeal to his drinking companion and cousin Shawn Farrell, it is Shawn who pushes Kyle out of the way and takes the full force of the light and is abducted. Kyle remains in a coma visited by his parents until Shawn returns.

On his return Shawn discovers he has the power to heal which eh finds it difficult to admit to and this includes healing the hand of the girl friend of his young brother who has a relationship with a girl at the High school who had a crush on the disappeared brother before his departure. This leads to a violent confrontation with his brother and taking teh decision that he needs to take refuge run by Jordan Collier who previously had taken an interest in the young when realising the nature of his powers. Shawn is upset to find the condition of his friend and on a visit to hospital places a hand on Kyle who appears to make progress which does not last. When eh visits again Kyle appears to regain full control over himself but cannot remember anything or anyone of his past including his father and mother. He claims that he is not their son and appears driven towards searching for someone or something. Meanwhile the person placed to watch over the activities of the Special Task Force takes Kyle into protective custody and for study and Tom and Diana embark on a plan to break the boy out of quarantine and into a place of safety with his mother. They are successful but the young man forces them to take him back to the beach where he was abducted and where father and son become transfixed by the white light which appears tom hold them in a trance like state. We the view know that this is not the situation as the being who has taken over the son is having a conversation with Tom. This is not evident to both the head of the unit and the man planted to take over when they arrive or to Diana, however the spy in the camp pulls a gun a shoot Kyle and breaks the white light connection. The episode is called The White Light. Kyle recovers from the shooting after the being inside him leaves and he appears fully recovered but to where he was three years previously.

And the conversation between Tom and the being ? We learn that the being is not an alien but a human, from the future, unstated time, and that the human race is dying out and that the time travelling was take the selected 4400 and return them in order to change things to change the future. So there is a mission which the 4400 must be allowed to undertaken. Kyle had been selected as the one to communicate the task when they returned but because of the intervention of Shawn he had not been taken and had been kept in the coma state until the appropriate time. They were therefore using Kyle to communicate with Tom and given him the responsibility of protecting the 4400 and the in so doing the future saving of humanity from extinction. Hmm!