The 4400 – Season 4, Episode 2 – “Fear Itself”

Finally, a post about an episode of The 4400! How I have looked forward to this moment! Unfortunately, last night’s episode was one of the show’s weakest. Like Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Veronica Mars, each week’s episode of The 4400 features a balance between two elements: episodic storylines (self-contained stories that are introduced and resolved within the episode, never to be visited again) and serialized storylines (story arcs that continue throughout the series or season). The best episodes of all of these shows are usually the ones with the most serialized elements and the least episodic ones. Regrettably, last night’s episode was the opposite, featuring mostly episodic elements with a few, less than stellar serialized elements thrown in.

On the episodic side, we had a very screwed up and poorly envisioned story of an autistic kid whose Promicin-induced ability is to cause extreme, debilitating phobias in anyone who makes him uncomfortable. That’s right. The bad guy was an autistic kid who had no idea what he was doing. It was very screwy. However, the phobias did provide for some of the creepiest and downright scariest imagery they’ve ever had on the show. Those clowns were freakin scary.

On the serial side, we had a few developments, but nothing major. Mostly, seeds were sewn for future episodes, without much taking place during this one. Of the more mundane developments, we’ve got Skouras and Baldwin back in tag team action (looks like its back to recurring character for you, Garrity) and Kyle realizing that the semi-good looking ginger chick with long bangs isn’t real (duuuuh). But we did get a couple of interesting moments that bode well for future episodes. In one of the better written scenes, Shawn and little brother Danny discuss the dangers of promicin. While I personally didn’t think taking promicin was a good move, Danny’s argument about all people without powers being “a little less special” than everyone else was very well-written and certainly heightened the show’s main moral dilemma And best of all, it ended with Shawn giving Danny a promicin syringe (dude is definitely gonna die, right?).

Also, we have a budding romance on the horizon, as cute new NTAC boss Meghan Doyle convinced Tom to let go of Alana, his time-traveling love. I think the character of Alana is one of the most fascinating I’ve ever seen on tv. She was randomly introduced in what was seemingly an episodic tale, only to become a main series regular. Then, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone for good, lost in the annals of time. Awesome. Plus, she looked and sounded like Catherine Zeta-Jones’ less hot cousin. I’m sad to see her gone, though I appreciate that Doyle is an outside-the-box thinker. And a blonde.

Most importantly, we had a shady test of Isabelle’s abilities from some shady dude who was never actually introduced. We saw promicin and Isabelle’s blood mix and turn black, then shady dude (let’s just call him Man in Black, or MIB for short), er, MIB, told her that any injection of promicin into her system would poison and kill her, and that her powers would never return. All who believe this to be a lie in order to discourage Isabelle from ever trying to regain her powers, which is actually possible through a promicin injection, say ay. Ay!

A few other things that bugged me about this episode: where is Richard? Is he coming back? What’s the dealio? And where was Jordan Collier? If one of these two dudes doesn’t appear in the next episode, I will be moderately irritated. Moderately irritated, I say!

So, all in all, not a super duper episode. Not awful, but certainly not top form. In fact, the more I think about it, this is probably one of the worst 3 episodes ever, and as such, with heavy heart, I grade this episode a high C+.

NOTE–Want to know more about the battle for promicin? Check out this cool website, Promicin Power.