|
The 4400 4.3 "Audrey Parker's Come and Gone" |
|
Sunday, 15 July 2007 |
By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
Once again, we have an effective mix of the “original recipe” 4400 subplots with an exploration of the new world order through the eyes of one of the promicin-powered “extra crispies”. The previous episode was full of subplots, almost to the deficit of the story itself, but this version is a bit more focused on specific advances in the overall arc. The results are more or less the same: a reminder of why this is one of the best summer TV shows on the air.
The newly-powered Audrey Parker is the center of the “A” plot. Audrey is an old woman with severe arthritic pain in her hands, requiring morphine shots on a regular basis. To escape the pain, Audrey took the promicin shot, and it gave her the ability to “astral project” as a much younger (and gorgeous) version of herself. She recounts this positive turn in her life on the internet, which becomes a problem for NTAC, since the message is coming from such a persuasive source.
This puts Diana in an interesting state of mind, because she wonders if someone with such a positive ability should be arrested. She admires Audrey on a number of levels, and that drives her character throughout the plot thread. Audrey is killed while using her ability, and Audrey figures out how to interact with Diana, who becomes her voice, pushing Tom and her allies to solve the murder before Audrey runs out of time and energy to communicate.
I liked that aspect of the episode, because some of the interaction between Audrey and the “real world” fit within the theories of paranormal research very well. The idea of Audrey interfering with electronic equipment is fairly standard, but this also had a clever use of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). The treatment didn’t quite much the known phenomena, but it was fairly close.
NTAC’s treatment of Audrey Parker meshed well with Shawn’s decision to re-open the 4400 Center and resume his healing services. Meghan Doyle, as the head of NTAC in Seattle, has personal reasons to support Shawn’s initiative, given her father’s health (as revealed in the previous installment). Just like that, by the end of the episode, Meghan is in the same difficult conflict of interests that has plagued Tom and Diana. She has to enforce the ban over use of abilities professionally while benefiting from them personally.
Shawn once again places himself in the path of Jordan’s revolution, something that was building nicely in the third season. Shawn is trying to make headway against the government ban on use of abilities through positive change, and for now, it’s working. But Jordan’s revolution may not allow for that kind of soft approach, and as Kyle’s subplot demonstrates, that revolution is coming very soon.
Kyle’s plot thread manages to show how quickly “mundane” laws can fall to the wayside. Shawn’s way is civil disobedience; he’s breaking the letter of the law to influence the spirit of the law, but there’s no negative impact. Kyle goes from stealing the White Light book to (presumably) helping a federal prisoner escape when the circumstances allow. If that’s where Kyle’s hot spirit guide is taking him, then it’s reasonable to assume that Kyle’s future advice to Jordan will continue to cross the legal line.
As with the first two episodes, the exploration of the new world order (and the plight of the newly-powered) is giving the subplots for the original 4400 more time to develop. This will give those subplots greater impact when the time comes, and for that reason alone, I enjoy these episodes. More than that, this is the best way to communicate the new world order to the audience, since it’s always better to show the impact than simply describe it in exposition. Whatever the case, another solid entry for the season. |
