Casualties of War

I hope that everybody took my advice and watched the marathon of The 4400 this weekend as well as the finale on Sunday. Granted, taking that advice would have been dificult, since I didn’t actually have a post reminding anybody, but if you did take that advice, you were treated to a great finale. Jordan Collier was determined to stick it to the government, and the government, led by Ryland and backed by Isabelle, was determined to stick it to Collier and the rest of the 4400. And luckily, there were plenty of lives of innocent bystanders hanging in the balance.Like any father, Tom is upset at the loss of his son, and we see him at the beginning of the episode rummaging through some of Kyle’s things. Considering is doing the 4400 equivalent of selling bibles, I am not sure why Tom cares so much. And if he needs comfort, why doesn’t he fall into the arms of his loving wife? She was gone a long time, so I am sure there is plenty of catching up that she wants to do. If your significant other had just come back after being gone a long time, wouldn’t you be creative and find something better to do than smelling somebody else’s old little league t-shirts? Sure he sort of joined a cult, but is it really worse than prison?

If there is anything that Tom should be afraid of, it’s Jordan Collier with a warehouse of promicin. Collier’s grand plan is to give this promicin away, but like any person wanting to sell a new drug, he has to think about a few important factors. No, I’m not talking about side effects and safety; I’m talking about marketing! Without marketing, your great idea could completely go to waste. Luckily, Collier is a master of marketing, and what better way to get your idea across than a viral video?

Collier’s first volunteer, is our hottie head usher/tour guide Devon. Devon wants to be a 4400, always has, and she is more than happy to try out the promicin and be in Jordan’s video. Although I should be well past the days where I would try something out just because I see a hot girl in an internet video saying it is OK, I admit that if Devon told me to jump off a bridge, I would probably do that too. Then again, I am not the only one. Only hours after the video was posted on the Internet, it had already been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. NTAC was doing their best to try and get it removed off of servers, it was already on YouTube and Bittorrent long enough that there was no chance in hell they could ever suppress it.

Although there is no proof Jordan Collier is involved, Devon was enough of a high profile figure at the 4400 center that Tom and Diana recognized her and decided to look for her. Devon wasn’t at the center, and when they ask Collier, he denies that he has anything to do with it, even if he approves of everything that is happening. Diana and Tom then try and ask Shawn what is going on, but even Shawn isn’t going to turn snitch this time. He is also in denial mode, and even gives his Uncle Tom the old “I thought we were on the same side” lecture.

And how is Ryland acting after all of this? You would think that he would be upset that all of that time and government money he invested would go to waste, but for some reason, he seemed like he had no problem whatsoever that Collier was giving away his promicin. Isabelle wanted to know how they could just stand there and let that happen, but Ryland insisted that by giving it out for free the 4400 will be “doing out job for us”, which is kind of cryptic, but I’m guessing we’ll figure out what he means before too long.

There was a lot going on in this episode, but the writers always seem to find the most annoying places to break it up with the uninteresting story lines. I am of course talking about the continuing love between Diana and Ben. If they were going to make a movie about it, it would be called “An Affair to Forget”. Anyway, Diana took Maia out of school because she was worried about what might happen at the 4400 center. Maia, one of the youngest of the people snatched by the future-humans, had a very difficult time adjusting to regular school, and she didn’t have that many friends. The school at the 4400 center was just what she needed, and after her mother removed her, Maia wasn’t very happy. But just when mother and daughter are about to really get into it, there is a knock on the door.

Diana is actually surprised to see that it is Ben. I actually didn’t mention this in the last recap, but Ben said that he was on his way to London, and he and Diana almost broke up. I don’t want to be a callous, but seriously, nobody really cares if they break up or not. About the only thing that could disinterest me more would be listening to somebody describe how they make balsamic vinaigrette. Apparently Ben couldn’t stand the thought of being without Diana and wants her and Maia to come with him to Spain for six months while he is on his next job. Ben says that Diana has given enough to the job, and it’s time for more important things. However, it’s way too early in the episode for her to make up her mind about anything, so I am guessing that it will all be resolved in the final five minutes, giving us a cliffhanger that nobody cares about for next season.

A little later, April comes home and I am glad that she was able to finally build up some anger against her sister. She has a new tattoo and actually thanks Diana for helping her see who she really is. She’s not the type of girl who hangs out with artists, OK, tattoo artists maybe, but you get the point. She likes spikes and studs, and fetish balls, and most of all, she hates her sister. Still, April is cool with Diana and Ben, and she even gives back their mother’s engagement ring. Love triangle over? We hope.

Without any help from Collier, NTAC has no clue where to go next. Luckily, Marco is on the case, and just like George Costanza, his mind can do wonders when he is not encumbered with thoughts of sexual intercourse. He analyzed the video, and while there was nothing from the picture that gave him a hint, he worked on the audio and there were a couple of distinctive noises. The first was a garbage truck, and the second was a boat. Taking the time stamp off of the video, he was able to narrow the search location to two neighborhoods by the water that had trash pickup at those times. But it gets even better. Marco looked at the records for all of the houses and noticed that one just had its utilities turned on. Great job Marco! I loved this part of the show, especially the first time I saw it when it was called THE FUGITIVE.

One of the first things I had wondered about Ryland’s promicin experiments was the apparent lack of side effects among the participants involved. Berkhoff had that horrible disfigured face during his treatments, and if there was one thing that would prevent me from taking the advice of a hot girl when it comes to injecting drugs into my body, the possibility of looking like Rocky Dennis is it. What we learned is that the promicin produced from Isabelle is much more pure than what Berkhoff was using so the horrible disfiguration should not occur. But I’m not saying that other side effects don’t occur.

Devon is in the safe house and she starts to bleed out of her nose, which isn’t bad unless you start to bleed out of your eyeballs a few minutes later. This is not something that they had anticipated, but luckily Shawn is only a few minutes away, and we only need him to work his magic and Devon is going to be fine. Unfortunately, Shawn doesn’t seem to be having any effect on Devon, and to complicate matters, NTAC is just about to storm the house. Berkhoff and Tess leave, but Shawn is captured red handed, not because he was guilty of anything, but because Devon was bleeding all over and got some on his hands.

With Shawn in custody, I thought that it would be only a matter of time before he once again ratted out Jordan, but I was wrong. Shawn went to interrogation, but wouldn’t give up the location of the promicin. For some reason, Jordan knew that Shawn would stay loyal, but he still had plans. Richard, on the other hand, wanted to cut and run. Better to destroy the promicin than be responsible for killing more people. When Jordan didn’t agree with his plan, Richard decides to leave, but what can he do with all of those NOVA group members around? Well, he doesn’t have to do anything, because he can move things with his mind, and he decides that he is going to break all of those vials of promicin before they can pass any of it out.

Richard’s plan would have worked perfectly, but as the promicin vials were breaking, Richard still had that look of concentration/constipation/masturbation on his face, which meant that he had to be doing something. Before he broke too many of the vials, Tess got him with her mind control and stopped him.

Take a guess how Ryland acted when he learned what happened to Devon. I guess we now know what he was talking about when he said passing out the promicin was doing his job for them. He knew the dangers all along. Of the twenty men that he recruited for the mission, ten died from complications due to the injections. So why didn’t he tell anybody how dangerous this promicin was once it was all stolen? Well, if people died because the 4400s gave them promicin, then Collier would have made a mistake, and Gods don’t make mistakes, which is kind of debatable. If Gods don’t make mistakes, then how do you explain how we had to wait so long for a Goonies sequel?

So now that they know how dangerous the promicin is, Jarvis tells Tom and Diana that they are going to “step up” the interrogation of Shawn. As you might have guessed, there are many good ways to use “step up” interrogation is probably not one of them. Tom decides that they can use Alana to get into his head, and although she said she would never do anything to harm another 4400, she decides that it is in Shawn’s best interest to not have a car battery attached to his balls.

By the time the two of them get to NTAC, it is already too late. Ryland comes in with a piece of paper saying he is taking over the interrogation, and he’s pretty sure his new guy will get results. And his new guy is actually a girl; that’s right, Isabelle is doing the interrogation. Having Isabelle mad at you is scary enough, but Shawn is especially screwed. Although she was quite understanding at the time, Shawn effectively left her at the altar, and that’s not something anybody is going to forget. Therefore, the gloves come off when she is interrogation Shawn. It doesn’t take long to get the information she needed, but Shawn was nearly dead afterwards.

After this little episode, Tom decides that he really must kill Isabelle, and goes back home to get the syringe he received so long ago, but he’s going to have to hurry. Across town, Jordan was about to make an attempt on Isabelle’s life as well.

Shawn did give up the information to Isabelle, more through 4400 ability coercion than his own free will, but whatever the case; it led Isabelle and Ryland to the warehouse where Collier stashed all the promicin. Everybody has left except for Jordan Collier, who apparently stuck around to protect the promicin. Finally! We’re going to see if Jordan is more than all talk. When he first met Isabelle, he said that he wasn’t afraid of her, but maybe he should have been. She knocks him over with barely any effort, and then we see that it wasn’t really Jordan Collier at all. It was Boyd Gelder, and he had a message for Isabelle. It went a little something like this…

KABOOM!

All of that promicin the government thought they were looking at was fake, and Boyd Gelder was there as a suicide Bomber, and there was enough binary explosive to literally blow up the whole warehouse. Ryland was outside when this happened, and when he came to, the only thing he could see, after he picked himself up off of the pavement, was Isabelle walking out of the warehouse. I don’t think anybody was really surprised to see her come out of it unscathed, but for Isabelle, this time was different. It wasn’t so much that Jordan Collier tried to kill her, Boyd pretending to be Jordan Collier tried to kill her, but it was the idea that somebody out there actually thought that she could be hurt.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned could be Isabelle’s motto, and this time is no different. Ryland may have thought he had her on a leash, but this time she means business. She is going to find Collier and she’s going to the 4400 center and “make him come to me”. Having been around this business long enough, Ryland knows what she is planning and says that she can’t just walk in there and kill people in broad daylight because she works for the US Government. Well, the US Government kills me in broad daylight every week and California takes a piece out of me too, it’s called taxes. Also, it’s not like Isabelle actually cares what happens to people around her.

Isabelle makes her way over to the center, but Collier is not there. He and his people have been busy making little care packages of promicin. He’s using the always effective homeless work force to get the word out. Not since Kramer and Newmann started their rickshaw business has a person used transient labor so effectively. That being said, I still don’t think Collier is doing enough to let people know that half of the people who take the treatments aren’t going to be waking up again.

So, what did Isabelle find when she got to the 4400 center? Well, she decided to head to the children’s classroom. Killing off children is pretty bad, complicated by the fact that Maia is in class. The last time we saw her, she was still in a fight with her mom about the school, but I guess she decided it was better than finding a baby sitter or whatever, because she was back in class. Unfortunately, she picked a bad day to return, and although it looked like Isabelle didn’t recognize Maia as the daughter of an NTAC agent, Maia could only watch as Isabelle decided that the first person to go would be her friend Amy.

Maia gets up like she is going to leave, and then Isabelle asks her if she wants to be first instead. And then Maia says, “What you’re trying to do is not going to work.” Isabelle sort of stares at Maia, but before she can figure out what she said, and even before I can think to myself “Oh Maia can see the future, this is good”, we hear shots fired. Diana and Tom to the rescue! They had heard about the warehouse explosion and went to investigate. Ryland told them about Isabelle’s plans, and they immediately drove over to the 4400 center.

I think we could all see what was coming next. Tom knew the shots Dian fired would not be enough to kill Isabelle, but it might be enough to stun her and give him a chance to stick the needle in. But by the time he gets out the syringe and attempts to plunge it in her neck, it is already too late. Isabelle is recovered, and she is going to make Tom pay for what he did. Oh well, I guess Tom and Diana can be happy knowing they saved a bunch of kids from the horrible deaths they were about to experience, because nothing could save them now, or could it?

While writing this portion, I left out the part where Richard is driving with Berkhoff and Tess and gets a call from the center on his Blackberry telling him that Isabelle is at the center. He knew that was trouble, and Tess let him out of his mind control long enough to do what he needed to do. He got to the classroom just as Isabelle looked like she was going to smash Tom’s head in. Isabelle couldn’t believe they were going to have to go through this again, but Richard said that although she can’t be saved, if she stops what she’s doing, he’d still support her through whatever comes next.

Isabelle only laughs, and it looks like Richard has no clue what he is going to do, but he notices the syringe that Tom was trying to reach, and used his telekinesis to stick it right into Isabelle’s neck before she knew what hit her. She dropped to the ground, and although Isabelle was a huge bitch and literally the most dangerous person in the world, it’s still tough for a father to kill his own daughter. But then something strange happened. Isabelle got up again!

When Isabelle got up, I thought that this would be quite the way to end the season, with a death of one of these characters, but something was different. Isabelle looked like she was trying to kill her father or throw him across the room or something, but nothing was happening. Whatever was in the syringe must have taken away her powers, but Tom didn’t want to take that chance. He pointed the gun at Isabelle and…oh come on! Like Tom ever had the guts to actually kill somebody. We’ve seen this scene how many times, and every time Tom….

BANG!

Whoa! What the hell? Tom actually shot her! I guess he didn’t want to take the chance that Isabelle might get her powers at some point. And that message from the future did say “Kill Isabelle”. However, just when I thought that Tom wasn’t a huge pussy, we return from commercial and see Isabelle is in the hospital. Tom popped her in the shoulder instead of going for the headshot. And even if he just had bad aim, if he wanted to kill her, wouldn’t he have put three or four more rounds into her chest and another couple into her head for good measure?

Now that there could be hundreds or thousands more people with abilities, NTAC’s job is going to be tougher, and Tom is going to do it all without his partner, at least for the next six months. Diana decided to go to Spain with Ben, and she was taking Maia with her. And to make matters worse, as they were leaving, Maia told Alana that while all of them were coming back, Alana wouldn’t be here when they returned. WHAT? NOOOOO! They already took her away from me once. What am I supposed to do if they take her away again? Oh, and I’m sure Tom will be wondering where his wife went at some point as well.

I was wondering what Maia meant, but found out in the closing montage. As they wrapped up the season, they showed us Isabelle and Shawn. How ironic that they are in comas in hospital. You have to wonder if Isabelle’s fate has really changed, or if Shawn is going to love her now that she can’t do so much damage. And then, as I a feared, Alana is taken away. The same blob of light that abducted everybody and then dropped them back in Seattle took Alana away. I have no idea why it had to be Alana, but I tell you right now, they had better give me a pretty damn good explanation when the show starts next summer.

But let’s face it, the thing we are all interested in is who is going to be juicing with the promicin, and who isn’t. There are a lot of people who want to try, and not surprisingly, two of them are very close to this ongoing saga. First we see Kyle, and then we see April have received doses. While neither of them have actually taken the doses, they shoot it to assume that we are. As predicted, people are lining up to receive the promicin, and in the cheesiest of endings, once the random homeless guy is done handing the dosages out on screen, he turns to the camera, looks at us and asks if we want to try for ourselves.

Honestly, what the fuck was that? That little move nearly ruined the entire episode for me. It’s going to be interesting where they take the series because both of the main enemies, Ryland and Isabelle, appear to be neutralized. Does Isabelle take some promicin and become badass again? How will she treat her father? What will happen with all the new people with abilities? Why did they take Alana and how long will she be gone? My guess is that Collier becomes evil and maniacal again, but the show can literally go anywhere.

What did you think of the finale?