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The 4400 4.10: "One of Us" |
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Saturday, 25 August 2007 |
With only a handful of episodes left for the season, the time had come for the season’s plot elements to pay off dividends. This installment only begins the fun, taking what could have been a predictable plot turn and standing it on its head.
By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
With only a handful of episodes left for the season, the time had come for the season’s plot elements to pay off dividends. This installment only begins the fun, taking what could have been a predictable plot turn and standing it on its head.
The previous episode hinted at the emergence of Tom’s “marked” personality, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happens. Not only that, but a key member of the US intelligence community reveals herself to be one of the “marked” as well. Had the writers been thinking in more predictable, traditional terms, this revelation would have led to Tom’s apparent conversion and eventual restoration. In fact, that pattern is found so often that I was waiting for the moment when Tom would break the conditioning and come to his senses.
That reversion never happened, which gives the drama another massive boost. After all, Isabelle’s restoration was all but assured, so the writers had to find something unexpected to counter the predictability. Isabelle’s fate was practically a minor consideration compared to Tom’s character turn. It was clear that Isabelle would be “re-aged” from the very beginning, but Tom’s new personality is hard to anticipate.
Unlike this point in the third season, where the resolution of the season arc was relatively easy to predict, Tom’s situation opens up any number of possibilities. This solidifies Tom as Jordan’s opposite number with Shawn still caught in the middle. As one of the “marked”, Tom is actively working to eliminate the powered and maintain the control of the current (and future) Elite. Jordan has now made it clear that he wants to eliminate the “mundanes”, using promicin as a form of artificial selection for humanity’s evolution.
Shawn and Kevin have found a middle path, but Jordan makes the most obvious point. Creating a class system between the powered and the mundane will only serve to foment war. This brings up an interesting possibility. One might assume that the “marked” will be thwarted in the process of restoring Tom (if he is, in fact, restored), and that Jordan’s movement will meet a bloody end. Both philosophies are too extreme to work as a long-term solution to the conflict.
That leaves Shawn’s “middle path”, which could very well devolve into the future scenario that spawned the 4400 (and the “marked”) in the first place. That would be an interesting way to bring the series full circle. It would be a wonderful time travel paradox if the 4400 were created using the last remnants of the promicin left over from the victory of the mundanes over the powered decades earlier!
Kyle’s ability (which more and more seems to be a twist on the “marked”) seems to indicate that Shawn’s “middle path” is a threat to some final solution to the conflict, which lends credence to such speculation. The origins of the White Light cult have yet to be revealed, and even if Kyle was meant to build Jordan up as a messianic figure, there’s no certainty that Jordan’s success is Cassie’s true endgame. With so many balls still in the air, the writers have their work cut out for them.
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