"One of Us"
Holy flurking shnit. Best part of this truly stellar episode? It had to be Richard's line about his daughter not being a moody toddler ("Oh, Isabelle's had her moments"). It looks like she'll be having more of those types of moments in the future, considering "Tom" wants her to get her powers back, but at this point, that should almost be the least of everyone's worries.
Not only did we find out that Tom is in fact one of the Marked, we now know that he's got Matthew Ross's old personality. Oh, he's also got Isabelle locked up in Kyle's old room, he shot poor Richard and Cora with enough tranquilizer darts to take down a rhino,
and his Marked personality is responsible for Isabelle - who, by the way, is an adult again - coming into being in the first place. OK, this new Tom is a total jerk, but it's great to see Joel Gretsch stretch his acting muscles a little bit and play someone completely different.
On the other hand, knowing what we do now about what Collier is planning to do, maybe the Marked are actually the good guys. Shawn and Dr. Burkhoff's plan sounded perfectly reasonable to me: devise a test to ensure that no one needs to die from taking Promicin, meaning that only those who could process the neurotransmitter would take the drug. This didn't sit well with Collier, who apparently wants everyone to take it so that those who can't become P-positive will die off, probably leaving him in charge of the whole world. Shawn rightly pointed out that this would be genocide. I hope the History Channel makes room in its non-stop coverage of Hitler to add Jordan Collier to the mix.
Semi-related to all of this was the reunion of Lily and Richard, which improbably ended up being the weakest part of the episode. Yes, I did tear up when Lily disappeared and Richard looked utterly defeated, but we should have had more time to see something we've all waited a long time for - especially considering Lily's death was so sudden. Lily's part of the plot felt a little shoe-horned in since we never got to hear Cassie or Kyle explain why they were making this random 4400 create Lily for Richard in the first place. It didn't seem like this Byron fellow was actually giving them any information. Maybe I shouldn't be complaining; it was still a pretty terrific episode, and even the worst parts would have ranked among the best had they been placed in say, the
"ghost" or
"trapped in a dream" shows from a few weeks back.
I'm interested to see how far they take the Marked Tom story in the next couple of weeks. The previews have him acting pretty creepy, but I have a feeling that we'll have normal Tom back by the end of the season.
