By Jennifer Larson

Season 4 came to an end, with tonight’s episode of THE 4400. Jordan (Billy Campbell) has been abducted by the marked, but with his many followers, something tells me he will find his way back to Promise City. And we now know that Promise City, and their work, may be the future’s salvation, while the marked have been working frantically behind the scenes to keep things as they are. The question remains, if the people of the future are fighting for opposite agendas, how in the world can the people of the present know whom to trust? That’s truly been the crux of this whole season. I’ve spent most of the season vacillating back and forth between whom to root for. So now that they have answered that question, my next one is how are these people going to save the world?

Another big hint that Promise City is on the side of good is the fact that NTAC is now asking them for their help. True, it’s happened before, but this time it feels as if people are really beginning to take sides in this fight. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that Kyle’s (Chad Faust) life is in danger, and his father Tom (Joel Gretch) is a prominent employee of the government’s national threat assessment team. But that’s nothing new; Tom and Diana (Jacquilin Mckenzie) have been playing on both sides of the fence for a while now. Of course they both have family members who are either one of the original 4400 or one of those who have become part of the tribe by taking the magical elixir, Promicin, to give them abilities, which helps blur the lines between right and wrong. In fact, the situation this dynamic duo constantly finds themselves in sheds a light on the fact that those lines are usually blurred anyway.


The good news is that our hero, Tom Baldwin, is back. Thanks in part to the radiation treatment and the healing abilities of his nephew, Shawn (Patrick Flueger), Tom is the first person to survive infiltration by the marked. The bad news is that Danny’s (Kaj-Erik Eriksen) new ability appears to be causing death and destruction wherever he goes, starting with his and Shawn’s own mother. I don’t think even Shawn has the time or energy to heal all of Seattle. It seems as if Danny’s ability is to infect everybody he comes into contact with, with Promicin. Remember, that stuff kills 50 percent of the people who take it. But, this is wonderful news to Jordan, as he has made it his mission to get the whole planet on that funky green stuff. I guess that’s what you call collateral damage. Than again, if the marked get their way, Jordan will turn against all his people and their cause. Again, the line between good and evil are always being blurred, on THE 4400.

Meanwhile, Danny’s ability has caused a pandemic the likes of which we haven’t seen since SARS. Ok, SARS didn’t really turn into the pandemic the CDC was hoping for, but the Promicin pandemic is a doozy. I mean in the first 15 minutes of the episode, people were dropping like flies. That explains why NTAC and Promise City decided to team up. It would take a major catastrophe to get these two powerhouses to play nice. The funny thing is, they are actually on the same side. The real fight is for control, which has brought down even greater societies in the past. Ah power, it’s always a nasty aphrodisiac. Thankfully the brilliant Dr. Burhoff (Jeffrey Combs) found a way to counteract the devastating effects of Danny’s ability, and it appears that Seattle – and the world – will be saved … for now. Gosh, this saving the future is a full-time job for these people, and costly.


By the end of tonight’s season finally, Shawn’s mother and brother had died, Isabelle (Megalyn Echikunwoke) sacrificed her own life to save Jordan and Tom’s and Promise City and NTAC had agreed to a tentative truce. Now that the marked have all but been obliterated, and there are thousands more people with 4400 abilities, I smell an exciting new season next year.