“The New and Improved Carl Morrissey”

“The New and Improved Carl Morrissey” is the epitome of average. One of the potential traps a show like The 4400 can fall into way too easily, is “the freak of the week”. Just pick a random 4400er out who has gained powers and tell his self contained story at the expense of the furthering the overall story arc.

This is exactly what only the second real episode (if you count the pilot as 1 episode) falls into. Not a good sign.

That’s not to say it isn’t a proficiently crafted episode. It just doesn’t do a whole lot, and I won’t remember it after the season’s over, except perhaps for the name

Carl Morrissey had disappeared in 2003, and when he comes back, he discovers that he has improved reflexes and strength. He decides to use his powers for good by cleaning up the local park and surrounding communities. Carl is a simple man who wants to do good, so it’s not that much of a story.

Not too surprisingly Carl’s powers have made him overconfident, and eventually he gets in over his head and gets stabbed.

The ending has the community building around Carl’s dream in his memory and retaking the community, bit by bit, starting with Bradley Park. It’s an exercise in excess of cheese to be honest. It’s not horrible, it’s just not great television.

There is some advancement of the overall storyline. Tom struggles with signing his divorce papers, before finally deciding to after some help from his boss, Ryland who is beginning to develop a nice presence on the show. Hopefully his role is increased as we go on.

The 90210 portion of the show involving Shawn, Danny, and Nikki develops more as Shawn and Nikki kiss after Shawn heals a burn on her hand.

Kyle finally wakes up but has fluid on his brain and has to undergo emergency surgery. Shawn shows up, and both he and Tom wonder if it was him that did this.

The most important development is that Diana feels bad enough for Maia who has no home, no family and is the subject of a barrage of tests, that she decides to become her legal guardian, taking her home to live. It does seem right somehow, even if it might seem out of character for Diana. But, I can accept that I don’t know much about Diana to make a solid judgment call of her character.

This isn’t a bad episode. It’s just not memorable in the least.

C

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