The 4400 Season Premiere left me feeling... unsettled. Lots going on. And if you don't want spoilers, stop reading right now.
I was really surprised that they killed Lily off. But it looks like the actress had other plans, so the writers were forced to kill the character. Too bad - I loved Richard and Lily as a couple. I've got to say - the stand-in actress who played old Lily did an awesome job though. And Richard's telekinesis is developing, but he hasn't learned much in the way of control yet. Looks like he's headed for Orson Bailey territory.
I'm feeling anxious about the 4400 Center. Maia is going to school there now - will they indoctrinate her, telling her that non-4400s are bad? And Alana's going too, for seminars. She's certainly old enough to have her own opinions, but her talk about wanting to connect with other 4400s left me with a nagging sensation of unease. Sean certainly made the right decision about turning T.J. Kim over to NTAC. Right? After all, she has used her power to kill on multiple occasions. The Nova Group. Hmm... I'll come back to them.
Matthew Ross, The 4400 Center's PR guy, is an enigma. He certainly knows more than he's letting on. He laid out to Isabelle what she was supposed to do. But if he has such great plans for her, why would he give her a means to suicide? And how the heck does he know as much as he does? Is he from the future? What's his agenda? He's at least as bad as Jordan Collier ever was. Speaking of which, where the heck is Collier? I expected his miraculous return! Matthew found out and was not surprised. And he seemed irritated rather than happy.
I've had a theory for a while that there are multiple factions in the future, and they have multiple goals. Perhaps one faction grabbed Jordan Collier's corpse the same way that the 4400 were abducted and then resuscitated it and sent him back. If Matthew is part of the opposing faction, it would explain his reaction. Not sure if my theory is right - we'll have to wait and see.
Kevin Burkhoff's plot thread is one of my favorites. The guy is a genious, but he's still nuts enough to conduct genetic experiments on himself. His skin is breaking out in all sort of crazy lesions, and now he's losing his teeth. As long as blue triangles don't start appearing on his skin, I'll be happy. Burkhoff is my favorite character on the show - he's such a wacko eccentric.
Gary Nevarro is a scary guy. Someone who can read minds opens up all sorts of crazy possibilities. It's looking as though The 4400 may explore a lot of plot aspects that I was hoping would come up in the XMen movies. There are, after all, tons of similarities. Mutant powers, 4400 abilities. Practically no difference aside from the costumes. Just give Isabelle an adamantium skeleton and claws.
I'm really not sure what Isabelle's deal is though. She is so not what I expected. I expected her to have mysterious knowledge of everything, but instead she's naive, and Matthew is the guy who knows everything. And the plot twist with the Nova group was awesome. We were all geared up for a terrorist attack, and the attack was the transformation of a desert into a wheat field. Didn't see that one coming.
Can't wait for next week.