Pilot episode
Two-hour series premiere first aired Sunday, July 7, 2004 at 9:00pm
Maia is on a picnic outing with her parents in California. The date is March 3, 1946, and the little blonde girl is eight years old. Although the day isn't sunny, Maia pleads to wander the surrounding area, hoping to pick some wildflowers. Her parents, never thinking this will be the last time they see their child, smile and tell her to go ahead; Maia promises not to get wet. As she gathers white flowers, a bright light appears over her, drowning out the rest of the world. It disappears in a flash, revealing only plucked white flowers dropped and wilting on the ground.
Several white soldiers are beating up a black soldier during the Korean War, on May 11, 1951. The soldier on the end of the punches is an Air Force pilot, Richard Tyler. They considerately let him know that while they tried to make him welcome, he crossed the line and needs to put in for a transfer. As they leave him, they toss something at him, and he picks it up, leaning against a pole for support. It's a set of picture from a photo booth, of Tyler with a pretty young woman - a pretty blonde woman. Apparently it's ok for Tyler to fight for his country, but not to date a white woman...at least not in 1951. As he grimaces in pain, a bright light appears over him, drowning out the rest of the world...
Orson Bailey is having a good day. He's president and partner in the wonderfully successful insurance firm of Kensington and Bailey in Tacoma, has a very comfortable lifestyle, and it's his and his wife's 35th wedding anniversary; to celebrate they'll be going to an extremely expensive restaurant. It's June 11, 1979, and as Orson rests his briefcase on the hood of his luxury vehicle, a bright light appears over him...
The date is April 22, 2001, in the state of Washington. Shawn Farrell and his cousin, Kyle Baldwin, are just hanging out, drinking a few beers [illegally, of course, since they're 17], talking about Shawn's cute neighbor, Nikki, who is only 14. Shawn mentions this fact to his cousin, then both are distracted by a bright light that appears over them. This time, the intended subject is not alone, and Kyle cries out, falling unconscious to the ground...then it's three years later, and Kyle has been in a coma since the date Shawn disappeared.
Shawn's dad, Tom, visits his son daily in the hospital, a fact that has apparently driven he and his wife, Linda, apart. He's obsessed with finding his nephew, Shawn, hopeful that the young man would have answers about Kyle's condition. The whole planet is excited about a comet passing by, which is visible to the naked eye. The excitement turns to dread, when the comet's trajectory changes to a collision course with Earth. The people at the Seattle Branch of the Department of Homeland Security spring into action, monitoring it's progress. Although most countries with the capability launch missiles at it, they have no affect. Diana Skouris, one of the federal agents, with a medical and scientific background, tells her boss, Dennis Ryland, as well as the others assembled in the agency's ready room, that they don't want to know the results of the impact of a comet that size with Earth. The comet's behavior - it's ability to slow down and manuver - leads Diana and the others to believe there may be something else going on, and as the comet is now seemingly landing in their own backyard, at Mount Rainer, the people in the office all head out to the lake.
As the agents, police, news crews look on, the comet, which seems to be more a bright mass of light than a mass of rock, implodes to a sharp point, then explodes with force, then disappears leaving 4400 people behind. The crowd includes men, women and children of all ages, and they are all are missing persons who have been gone anywhere from a few months to many decades; none have aged a day beyond when they were last seen and they don't reemember anything between the second they disappeared from the past to the second they re-appeared en masse on a Washington state lake shore. Tom, watching all this from Kyle's hospital room, sees his nephew among the 4400, and goes to his good friend and boss, Dennis Ryland, asking to be part of the ensuing investigation. Dennis pairs Tom with Diana.
The 4400 are brought to a building for quarantine, examination and debriefing. They're eventually released back to their families, if family exists. For some, like Maia, there is no one - her parents had died years earlier, so she's placed with foster parents. As the 4400 begin to try and reconnect with their lives, it's soon determined that all is not well. Aside from difficulties fitting back in, some of the returnees begin to experience unexplainable, and for some uncontrollable, new abilities.
Maia exhibits clairvoyance, giving Orson a hankerchief just before he has a nose bleed, telling her foster parents that she doesn't want her shoes on the floor because they'll get wet, and the washing machine floods later that night, water flowing right where her shoes had been. They take her to visit her parents' graves, and are quite spooked when she tells them they'll be in the nicer cemetary down the road - when they're buried. The cherry on top is that a mailer shows up the next day, inviting them to by a plot in the cemetary Maia had mentioned. They bring her back to Dennis at Homeland Security.
Orson has nosebleeds when his power -uncontrollable power - exhibits itself, apparently when he gets upset or angry. He is hit by several emotional impacts: the son of Orson's former partner had bought out his share in the company years ago, and refuses to even offer his a job, all the money is gone, and worst, Orson's beloved wife, Elizabeth, is in an unpleasant nursing home, apparently suffering from Alzheimer's. Orson goes to Kensington's home, stands outside, shaking the security gates, demanding to be allowed in. While he's doing this, the place is literally shaking, the son is inside crying out and holding onto his head, then something gives inside it his eyes roll up, at the same time glass from windows and doors explode, flying everywhere. The coffee table glass breaks, exposing the metal legs, and as the son falls, he impales his chest on a leg. Orson is arrested, but since he wasn't actually inside and nothing can be proved, he's freed. Tom and Diana question him as well, and see a little bit of Orson's power, when coffee pots in the room with them crack; they can't hold onto him. He goes to visit his wife, and finds that she's died. Orson's power exhibits, throwing things at the nursing home around, lighting fixtures explode. He leaves, hides out. Tom and Diana track him down at his cabin. Orson seems to be scared of himself, and swears to stay hidden if they leave him alone. Obviously, they cannot, and while Tom is incapacitate by Orson's telekinesis, Diana manages to shoot and injure him, which stops him. He's brought back to the Homeland Security facility and sedated.
Shawn, who was not thrilled with his uncle's greeting that assumed he'd 'given something' to Kyle, causing the coma and then leaving, reconciled with his uncle somewhat at the Farrell welcome-home party for him. While the two talked and reconnected, a bird flew into a window, apparently breaking it's neck. Shawn picked it up, while still talking to Tom, and the bird revived within minutes and flew away; Shawn said it must've just been stunned. In another incident, Shawn got into a fist fight with a guy at school who'd been giving the young returnee problems since he'd come back. Shawn had him pinned to the ground, and the other boy's face turned white, almost like Shawn was 'draining' or possibly freezing him. In the crowd of kids gathered around was Shawn's younger brother, Danny, who is now the same age [17], as well as the earlier mentioned neighbor, Nikki, who is now also 17 as well as being Danny's girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Richard Tyler and Lily Moore had discovered while they were quarantined together that the blonde woman in his pictures was actually Lily's grandmother and namesake, Lily Bonham. They bonded at the facility, but Lily was looking forward to seeing her husband, Brian, and child, Wendy, and Richard headed to his hometown of St Louis. It was odd when Brian wasn't waiting for her when she left with the other returnees, so Lily just decided to go to her old home. She walked up, and as she got to the door, two young girls opened it from the other side. One walked away; the other was Heidi. Lily introduced herself as mommy, but Brian came to the door at that point, and set things striaght. He had Heidi go back inside, and let Lily know that yes, he was informed of her situation by the authorities but that she needed to understand, that he'd remarried, and had another child in addition to Heidi, and that his current wife had been a good mother to their daughter. Lily just smiled tearfully, and walked away. Later, Lily and Brian had coffee and a chat. Turns out that Brian is a lawyer, and when Lily started to insist that she wanted to see Heidi, he handed her an order barring her from approaching them, and said he'd make sure it stayed that way ~ he'd never told Heidi about Lily, and the girl thought his second wife was her mother. Then, Brian left. Oh, and in addition to her husband's lovely behavior regarding Lily's return and their daughter, Lily had discovered she was pregnant, although Brian had been out of town just before she disappeared, and there'd been no sex since. So it was a bery unhappy Lily Richard found when he went looking for her. Nothing had turned out right for him either ~ no friends, no family, racial lines blurred, so he went to find the one person he had any connection with in this world... Lily.
As Tom and Diana leave Orson, they discuss his unusual condition, and Diana expressed a hope that since they hadn't heard anything, maybe this was a singular problem, just Orson Bailey. She asked if he'd noticed anything about Shawn. Tom clicked briefly on the bird coming back to life episode, then said no, nothing. We then see Shawn has decided to go visit Kyle in the hospital. He puts his hand on his comatose cousin...and the other boy sits up with a whoop of air, then flops back onto the bed, still comatose, as Shawn backed away, shocked. Maybe next time...
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