Recap and Review: The 4400 Season Four

The battle lines are clearly drawn.  There are a group of positives living in Promise City following the leadership of Jordan Collier, another group living in the 4400 center following the lead of Shawn Farrell, who is determined to take a moderate approach, the NTAC agents,and now we have the marked, people from the future who are determined to ensure that the 4400 fail in their mission. Season four is the last season of The 4400 and unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger. It left us with questions like does Tom take the shot and gain a power? Will Shawn and Collier reconcile and work together? Has the city of Seattle completely separated itself from the US and will the boundaries spread? Has the future truly been altered?  How will the marked in positions of power react and will they be able to counter Collier's movement?  It's terribly sad that this series ended on a cliffhanger.  I have however learned that there have since been books published to give the fans some closure.

Despite it's problems, I really enjoyed The 4400 and was sad when I had reached the end.  The acting, especially in this last season was truly amazing and despite all of the sci-fi elements, The 4400 remained primarily about relationships.  For me, that is the mark of something engaging.

The 4400 continued to have a problem with gender.  The largest problem by far was Isabelle Scary baby. Isabelle Scary Baby had her powers removed by her father Richard because of the threat she posed.  While this makes sense for stories reasons, it also amounts to disempowering a female character. The 4400 then doubled down on this by having Richard force Isabelle Scary Baby to return to the 3 year old child she chronically was.  This amounts to literally infantalizaation. Sure, authors can create a justification for these actions but that does not mean that there aren't serious gender implications that are concerning. And in a final act of the destruction, Isabelle Scary Baby, she sacrificed herself to save Tom and Collier.  On one hand, this amounted to the first independent decision Isabelle Scary Baby had made in four seasons but it also meant the surviving regular cast member who was a woman of colour, sacrificed herself to save a two White men.  The gender and racial dynamics at play with this are awful.  In the end, despite her power, these two men were worth more than Isabelle Scary Baby's life. Isabelle Scary Baby wasn't the chosen one because that role was reserved for White men and in the end, she was nothing more than the bringer of destruction.

This season, Tom got a new boss.  Meghan Doyle at first appears to be an active boss, keeping Tom under a tight reign not because she is his babysitter like Nina but because she is his boss. Unfortunately, Meghan Doyle becomes Tom's lover and no longer acts as his superior, though she is technically still his boss. This is yet another element of disempowering women that The 4400 seems to adore. This is further complicated by the disappearance of Alana.  The 4400 spent a lot of time convincing the audience that the relationship between Tom and Alana was solid because in the fantasy world Alana created, Tom and Alana lived as a married couple for eight years.  This should mean that her sudden disappearance would cause Tom to expend a great deal of time and energy looking for her. Unfortunately, this is not the case and Alana is quickly replaced by Meghan, thus making Alana disposable once again. When Tom and Meghan first sleep together she makes it clear that it is a one time occurrence but quickly ends back in his bed. It reads as though women aren't capable of one night stands or at least that "good girls" don't engage in that kind of behaviour.

Even one off episodes like Audrey Parker's Come and Gone (S4, Ep.3) presented a problem where gender is concerned. After taking a shot promicin, Audrey developed the ability of astral project from her body. Audrey placed a diary online detailing her experiences with her powers but it seemed so full of regret.  She wrote about living a life of no compromise, yet it was filled with regret for not marrying and having babies and this leds to Audrey's lament of being alone.  When we match this incident to the fact that Diana went from being a fiercely independent single by choice woman, to someone who leaped to adopt a child and that explained her singleness by consistently choosing the wrong man, it suggests that the single woman is destined for misery and isolation.  Women on The 4400, must be coupled and at the very least striving to achieve motherhood to be happy.

Recap and Review: The 4400 Season Three

This season definitely made up for the filler feeling of season two.  So much happened that it's hard to know where to begin. The 4400 center has been seized by the government after a power struggle involving a resurrected Collier and Richard Hyland.  Richard is willing to risk anything to keep the U.S. safe from the threat of the 4400 and this is juxtaposed to Collier's prediction of a terrible dystopian future. Isabelle, who I have nicknamed scary baby, turns out to be extremely powerful and uncontrollable.

One of the things that seemed subversive about The 4400 is that Isabelle Scary Baby was initially cast as a savior.  She was even referred to as the Rosetta Stone of the future.This would have been subversive because the chosen was is almost uniformly White and male.  As it turns out, The 4400 is not interested in breaking the mold. Isabelle Scary Baby was created to destroy the 4400 and though she claims to struggle against it, she is quick to join forces with Hyland in a supposed attempt to create a balance of power. Isabelle Scary Baby suddenly becomes an adult but the process kills Lilly (and honestly, Lilly is no loss). Isabelle Scary Baby becomes willful like a three year old she really is and starts to make demands of the people around her like Shawn and Richard (her father).

Interesting story lines develop around Isabelle Scary Baby.  Isabelle Scary Baby is very curious about the world and having missed the process of growing up, she has missed many common experiences like learning how to drive a car, swim and even ride a bike.  Shawn decides to help her with the process of acclimation and in the process, Isabelle Scary Baby develops romantic feelings.  At first, Shawn rejects Isabelle Scary Baby, claiming that a sexual relationship would upset Richard and that Richard has some say on Isabelle's body.  The issue should not have been that Richard is concerned about what his daughter does with her vagina but that Isabelle Scary Baby has the mentality of a three year old hyped up on sugar and therefore cannot consent. She is a child inhabiting a woman's body.  This makes Shawn a problematic character because not only does he engage in a sexual relationship with  Isabelle Scar Baby, he continues to engage in a relationship until it becomes clear that Isabelle Scary Baby is a threat.

Much of this season is about choosing sides. Hyland who led the attack on the 4400 was censured and most certainly did't receive any real punishment. Because 27 people died  and many were at risk, it's hard not to understand the desire for revenge and to protect themselves that the 4400 felt.  On the other side of the equation, the 4400 have manifested the ability for telekinesis, shockwave emission, telepathy, mind control, electrokinesis, producing hallucinations, memory erasure, claircognizance etc. These powers in the wrong hands are dangerous and constitute a real threat to society. They have shown on multiple occasions that they have the ability to kill at will, frame people for murder and even shut down NTAC. Even the 4400 that profess to only be interested in saving the future, still possess a power that makes them dangerous. It's absolutely reasonable to be afraid of these people.  The question is what is an acceptable outcome of this fear.

Part of the issue is that thus far with The 4400, there is a vagueness in the storyline involving the future humans. Now we know that there is a power struggle between two groups: one seeking to change the future and the other to maintain the status quo. This adds more to the story but there is still a sense of vagueness about it. It doesn't help that Collier is walking around making predictions of a dystopian future. Collier sets himself up as a messiah figure making his position hard to trust.  We know from the abduction of Maia that at least one faction is dissatisfied with result the 4400 has had and are still working to redirect the past. This is supposedly the good side and yet they callously removed children from their present lives and families to insert the children in a past timeline.  The future humans only return the children after it becomes clear that Diana and Tom have not forgotten Maia and want her back. Again, this gives a sense of conflict because there is no clear bifurcation between supposed good and supposed evil, making The 4400 incredibly complex.

Recap and Review: The 4400 Season Two

In the first season,we learned that the 4400 were returned to effect change in the current timeline to forestall a future disaster.  Now that the public is over the shock of the arrival 4400, they now have to deal with the fallout.  Not all the 4400 who have powers want or desire to use their powers for good because like any group of humans, they are flawed.

We see a lot of Diane's private life this season.  It begins with her legal adoption of Maia.  In many ways she is unrecognizable as the woman we first met in season one.  We also meet Diane's estranged sister April who is as different from Diane as night from day.  The three settle into a sort of domestic bliss until April decides to use Maia's ability to tell the future to make money gambling. The moment Diane finds this out, she asks April to leave.  While this shows that Diane has truly settled into her role as mother, it indicates how out of touch she is with Maia's life.  April represents Maia's only real access to the outside word and chance for normalcy. Maia is home schooled and left with a baby sitter whenever Diane has to leave and whenever Maia tries to interact with children her own age, it always turns out terrible.  I like that Diane continues to  work and is a strong single mother but it is telling that she doesn't think about how Maia's powers or isolation from others is impacting her growth.  In some ways the message screams that working mothers cannot have it all because something always falls through the cracks.

This season, Lilly finally gives birth to baby Isabelle. Isabelle is a truly terrifying baby because she has the ability to kill when she feels threatened. What I do find interesting is that Isabelle is initially set up as the chosen one.  This is very rare, as normally whenever there is a chosen one, the role is usually filled by someone White and male. Unfortunately, Isabelle doesn't remain the good mystical chosen one for long. This is made clear when she participates in the death of Collier by lying about him surviving an attack.  This is somewhat redeemed when her blood is used to save the 4400 who become ill after the government injects them with an inhibitor.  Isabelle is very much a mystery at this point and it's due largely to her age but she bares watching.

Despite Diane, it's fair to say that The 4400 had a problem with its representation of women in the first season. To counteract that, we were introduced to Nina Jarvis, the new director of NTAC.  Nina largely asserts her authority to act as a check to Tom and his flagrant disregard of the rules.  Nina initially gives the appearance of a strong female character but we learn essentially nothing about her and her mission to control Tom turns her into a defacto babysitter. We are also introduced to Alana Mareva who was given the power to create alternate fantasy worlds in order to have a soothing effect on Tom.  Alana is a human pacifier for Tom and has no role outside of her relationship with him.

Review and Recap: The 4400 Season One

Though I very much enjoyed season one of Resurrection, many of the discussions online kept bringing up The 4400 as a referential.  The curiosity finally  got to me and I decided to give it a go myself.  The 4400 is about a group of humans who are abducted and suddenly returned all at once.  We aren't originally told who took them but by the end of this season, we learn that they were taken by humans from the future to avert a catastrophe which would lead to the near extinction of all humankind.  Many of the 4400 who returned were also given special powers.  NTAC (The National Threat Assessment Command), which is a division of Homeland Security, is the unit assigned to keep watch over the 4400, for both the protection of the 4400 themselves and the general population.

Much of the first season deals with the 4400 trying to adjust to the new timeline.  Some are able to continue on as though nothing went wrong and others, like Richard Tyler, an air force pilot who disappeared in 1951
discover that most of their family is gone, along with any trace of the society they once knew.  This is what makes the season compelling to me. Because of the large number of returnees, The 4400 does occasionally engage in a returnee of the week story; however, due to the fact that the 4400 quickly become organized and the same NTAC agents work each case, the story never lost its cohesion and it managed to keep the meta plot moving quite nicely. As much as there is strong sci-fi element to The 4400, it's the human relationships that keep this showing moving.

The 4400 is very much a White centric show despite being located in Seattle and the 4400 consisting of people across the globe.  Unsurprisingly, The 4400 is also overwhelmingly U.S. centric.  I am not surprised by the Whiteness of the show because sci-fi has a long history of excluding people of colour.  Richard Tyler seems to be very central to the show itself but his position as the only man of colour very much tokenizes his character. The 4400 does a great job of depicting the racism he faced as a Black man in the military in 1951; however, in the  present time, race disappears as an issue for Richard.  He is told about Blacks in high level government position and racism is depicted as something which is an archaic idea.  It is further problematic  that when Richard has problems gaining and maintaining employment, he then compares the oppression he faces as a member of the 4400 to Jim Crow.  To be clear, these words were placed in this character's mouth by the writers.  Not only is it a false equivalency, it's absolutely racist.