“Blink” is episode eight of season three of The 4400.
A woman runs up some stairs in fear and gets to the roof of a building. There’s a man already waiting for the woman, Erica. She tells him to stay away. By the sounds of it, the man is her uncle and he used to abuse her. Except he’s not actually there. She still jumps off the building to get away from him.
Tom is at home. He goes to the letterbox – most of the mail is for Alana, who had to leave in the previous episode, “The Home Front” – when a delivery arrives. Inside, there are cookies that are apparently from Diana. He’s eating one when the phone rings.
Diana and Tom arrive at the scene; he wonders why they need to be there. The DEA agent apparently requested NTAC. Tom thanks Diana for the cookies. She didn’t send them and was going to thank him for the ones he sent her. The DEA agent introduces himself. This is the third suicide in the past few weeks and they think it’s connected to a new recreational drug, Blink. They had a sample analysed and one component is like nothing they’ve seen before. And it’s similar to promicin. It’s a powerful hallucinogen. Erica’s roommate told them she took blink and she started seeing her uncle who is in prison for 12 more years. The roommate tells them Erica sees a dealer called Greg who she went to school with. He hangs out at the park.
As they leave, someone greets Tom. It’s his father, and then he’s gone again. Tom checks with Diana that the drug was said to cause hallucinations. Because he just saw his father. Who’s been dead for nine years. Tom thinks it must be the cookies. Diana says she feels fine. Tom’s under a lot of stress. But she’d better drive. Tom’s father appears in the back of the car and tells Tom that he brought him. Diana decides to take Tom to NTAC medical.
Isabelle is with Shawn; she’s glad he came back. Not like he had much choice. She says they lost something, though. She keeps pretending everything is the same, but it’s not. Isabelle thinks she knows what they need to it. Shawn is glad she realises it too. Isabelle says they need to get married. That was clearly not what Shawn was thinking.
At NTAC, Tom seems fine and the tox screen is negative, but that’s not a surprise as they don’t know much about Blink. Normal psychotropic drugs take 48 hours or so to leave the system. In this case, they don’t know what the effects are, or how long they will last. Jarvis puts both Tom and Diana on medical leave.
Shawn and Richard are telling Isabelle that marriage is not a good idea. Richard won’t allow it and Shawn doesn’t want it. Shawn tells Isabelle he doesn’t love her and Richard tells Isabelle she has to accept that. Except she doesn’t. She says that she and Shawn will be together and she will make sure of it.
Tom is dropped off at home and Diana is going to leave with Garrity when she sees someone called Josh. Who she hasn’t spoken to in 11 years and sees no reason to change. Garrity asks Diana if she’s okay. No, she isn’t; she got slipped Blink. At home, Diana tells Marco that she and Josh were engaged and there was a fight ten days before the wedding. It was ugly. She doesn’t want to talk about it or feel like company.
Tom’s dad is now suggesting he downsize. Alana is gone and he doesn’t think Kyle is coming home. Tom said he sued to hate coming home if his father was there and he never wanted Tom to get into law enforcement. He was jealous of his son. Tom tries walking away from his father; he’s a hallucination, so that doesn’t work. Tom thinks he can find the 4400 behind this and make them stop. Mitch Baldwin wants to come with. Tom doesn’t want to work the case with his dead father. Mitch tells him that either he comes along or they go back inside and talk.
Diana is arguing with Josh in her apartment. Maia overhears and gets worried. The next day, she meets with Tom, who is surprised to hear she was engaged. Diana doesn’t like the idea of a drug responsible for three suicides in her system. Tom says the effects don’t seem the same; their hallucinations haven’t threatened them and just seem to want to talk.
Both Tom and Diana clearly have issues with the people in their hallucinations, issues the hallucinations want them to talk through, and seemingly aren’t going to leave until this is done. Meanwhile, Isabelle is not taking no as an answer to her marriage proposal. And has the power to perhaps ensure this isn’t the answer, as well as being a very scary person.