Last weekend marked the return of The 4400, USA's miniseries about a group of humans abducted and brought back to earth. When I announced the return of the series as well as the contest for the swag from the show, I hinted that they had been abducted by aliens. I said this mainly because I thought I would leave a little suspense for those of you who hadn't seen the first season yet, which is, well, almost everybody. In fact, the big twist at the end of the first season is that The 4400 weren't taken by aliens, but by humans in the future. And they were sent back changed, so that they could save the human civilization.
As I said, it puts a nice little twist onto the whole human abduction theme that has been traveling through science fiction since forever. Since the season premiere was two hours long and there are a lot of intricacies in the story, I won't be able to give a traditional recap, because that would be about forty pages long. Instead, I'm going to try and make a quick run through this episode and try and connect what everything means as coherently as possible. By the time the second season is over, we might be all cut up and some of it may make sense.
Some time has passed since our last scene from the show, which had Richard and Lily driving somewhere into the Pacific Northwest in an attempt to save their baby from Jordan Collier (more on him later). Richard and Lily were both abducted, but about fifty years apart. The interesting thing is that, when he was abducted, Richard had a thing for Lily's grandmother. Although they never saw each other during their time away from earth, Richard and Lily almost instantly fell in love. For Lily, she found a perfect companion after her husband, who had remarried since she went missing, put a restraining order on her, even preventing Lily from seeing her own daughter. For Richard, it was a second chance at love, but also really the first chance. Richard is black, and during the time period when he was in love with Lily's grandmother, their relationship was so forbidden they never knew if they would ever have a chance to be together. Oh, did I mention that Lily was pregnant with some supernatural baby?
Like I said, they were on the run from Jordan Collier (played by Billy Campbell - this role was the reason for his ridiculous beard on The OC) another 4400 who was a real estate developer; and with his means, he envisioned bringing together the 4400 and protecting their community. Quite obviously he has some nefarious plans for world domination and he somehow thinks that Lily and Richard's baby is the key (we'll assume it is theirs since it is mulatto, but they didn't have sex while gone, so how can we be sure?). Therefore, Lily and Richard are trying to make their lives away from populated places where somebody could find them, and Jordan has plenty of people searching. This leaves them to live in places like cabins in the woods, and take jobs like car mechanic at the local garage. Their life is hard, but of course they care more about being together and all of that sappy shit.
So what is Jordan Collier up to these days? He is creating 4400 centers, where he is going to get people to open the 4400 inside of them. What does that mean and why does he want to do it? Well, all of the 4400 were changed in some way when they returned. Some of the were able to manifest their powers, and some of them looked like they hadn't been changed. Jordan believes the theory that the 4400 were sent to save humanity, so he think these 4400 centers will do just that. However, in order to build them, he needs money. He was rich, but not that rich. Luckily for him, Shawn Farrell works for him. He was abducted, and when he came back, he had the ability to heal people. Jordan uses Shawn to heal the terminally ill kids of the filthy rich in order to get them to write donations to his foundation. It sounds to me like he is building a cult, but that's just my opinion.
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Comments (13)
The journal entry said "Mommy's bosses will be punished for betraying us." And it is shaping up to be a fine season. I hate space/time arguments, but if Kevin's research leads to the technology used to change the 4400, then the future people didn't need to send anyone back for him. He must have gotten uncrazy anyway. Wouldn't they have needed to focus on something else more directly related to whatever is causing the human race to die out in their age? Unless they needed him uncrazy sooner in order to somewhat alter the course of his deeds. Or maybe he never got uncrazy in the original timeline and someone else took his research in the wrong direction...
Who knows.
1 of 13 | Posted by Lady J | Posted on June 13, 2005 7:02 AM
I think Mahershalalhazbazahmedzappacalifragalicousexpialidocuos Ali gives a wonderful performance.
2 of 13 | Posted by Eddiebosox | Posted on June 13, 2005 8:57 AM
I did not watch last season, but caught up by tivoing the entire season one, which was played on USA last Sunday leading up to the season two premire. Even though I already knew about the whole Future-Rather-Than-Alien-Abduction thing, I was hooked.
My only problem so far is that I fear that the Richard/Lilly/Isabel triad will turn into a supernatural version of Kim Bauer from 24. I'm telling you right now, if they get attacked by a cougar somewhere outside of LA, I'm going to quit watching....
Thanks for blogging this J-Unit!
3 of 13 | Posted by Brian | Posted on June 13, 2005 9:32 AM
I too started watching during the marathon last Sunday and I was hooked. The 4400 is one of the greatest non-reality shows on tv these days. Though I'm a bit worried that Season 2 won't live up to Season 1...
4 of 13 | Posted by ikellybside | Posted on June 13, 2005 11:02 AM
I'm glad tvgasm is covering this show. It's definitely one of the best summer shows and one of the only non-reality summer shows. Much as I loves me some Hell's Kitchen, I do like to get back to fictional characters doing fictional things from time to time (not to say that at least half the people and events on reality shows aren't fictional, too, but you know what I mean!)
5 of 13 | Posted by Ashes | Posted on June 13, 2005 12:01 PM
The lullaby music played when Isabell forces the guy to kill himself was one of the best uses of music in television ever. But I think Lily might be the one with the powers and is using them subconciously and just believes Isabell is doing these things.
6 of 13 | Posted by GNARKILL | Posted on June 13, 2005 4:20 PM
GNARKILL,
I had a similar thought, re: Lily, that I'll write about when I get to the latest episode.
7 of 13 | Posted by J-Unit | Posted on June 13, 2005 4:47 PM
Have you noticed that all the 4400s have only one power? All except for Isabel. So far, she has used mind control (to get the guy to blow his brains out), telepathy (she and Lilly supposedly communicate), she can move things (like when she popped the cash register open), and she can make people ill (Jordan by touching her and Richard by looking at him). Is it possible that Izzy has ALL the powers rolled into one? Is that what makes her so special? Just a thought.
8 of 13 | Posted by Brian | Posted on June 14, 2005 7:54 AM
The baby is psychic. She gave Richard the dream of what would happen in the woods. If they'd fled when she wanted to, things wouldn't have gone down like that.
I wonder if the baby is a future person who had to be sent back and born through someone in this time. No idea what kind of science that would call for, but it's as good as any other option.
9 of 13 | Posted by Lady J | Posted on June 14, 2005 9:33 AM
In response to the first post, this is classic sci fi paradox. In order for Kevin to create the technology to change people he needed to change someone to go back in time and MAKE him un-crazy. Its a beautiful thing isn't it? Loving the recap btw.
10 of 13 | Posted by Peta | Posted on June 14, 2005 10:50 AM
Isabell is the key to all says the little girl that was in love with Frank Sinatra. In directly, Tess, Kyle were just messengers. This is going to be a great season!
11 of 13 | Posted by bolden1015 | Posted on June 14, 2005 1:16 PM
They're all messengers. That's why they were chosen. Kyle is a conduit. They use him to communicate with our time.
12 of 13 | Posted by Lady J | Posted on June 15, 2005 7:11 AM
Great show, decent recap. However, assuming that Isabel is the biological child of Lily and Richard because she is "mulatto" is offensive. "Mulatto?" That term hasn't been used for many decades. It also has a very negative connotation. If you are unsure of a more approprite word, then learn to use Google. Ignorance is no excuse.
[J-Unit's note: I was going to write something more about this, but the negative connotation derived from a certain entomology of the word does not make the term offensive to all people. And as somebody of mixed race, I don't take offense to the term. Your ignorance of the author's background is obviously more startling.]
13 of 13 | Posted by gimmeabreak | Posted on July 2, 2005 10:22 PM