“Fear Itself” is episode two of season four of The 4400.
At an insurance company, a woman enters an empty lift. Which suddenly isn’t empty. More and more people start appearing and she starts screaming she needs to get off, she can’t breathe. When the lift arrives, it’s empty bar her, and she’s curled up on the floor.
A man is running down the street, pursued by an evil clown. He tells two cops that it’s going to kill him. They are clowns too. Everyone is a clown.
Diana arrives at Tom’s; he was expecting her to be here because of Marco telling her April had collected promicin in the previous episode, “The Wrath of Graham”. Ben and Maia are in Spain and Diana will return there after. No-one has seen April in months and they don’t know if she’s alive or dead. Or if she took the shot. Diana says she will. Tom offers to help; Diana wants to know about the new boss. Because she’s thinking of asking for temporary reinstatement to have access to NTAC’s facilities. Tom isn’t sure Doyle will take temporary. Diana will say it’s permanent then.
She asks if there’s any news on Alana. Tom shows her the 19th century painting of a woman called Alana that looks like her that Isabelle directed him to. There’s nothing about this Alana in the art books, other than she posed for half a dozen paintings by the artist. Tom thinks the future gave him Alana and then took her away. Diana says there’s no way to be sure. Tom says there is. Referring to how, in “Gone: Part 2”, he attempted suicide so the future would save him. Diana says the future wanted him alive then. That’s not the case now. But Alana wouldn’t want him dead. Then Tom’s phone rings.
Tom and Garrity meet with Dr Clayton, who shows the man panicking about clowns, even though there aren’t any. There have been eight cases in two hours. Everyone has things they are afraid of, but people have coping mechanisms. They’ve been turned off. The worst fears have been turned into unimaginable phobias.
Five victims used an ATM at the same bank, at about the same time, before the bank opened. Garrity looks at the ATM video and sees two victims and a commotion out of camera range.
Kyle heads to see Shawn, who is out of his coma. Shawn figured out that Kyle was the one who brought him out.
Diana is speaking to Doyle. Doyle knows that Diana only wants her job back to find April, and asks what’s her win. Diana; temporary use of another experienced agent. Apparently pretty much what Tom said. Doyle agrees. Possibly partly because of a shared taste in foreign films.
Isabelle is being told she can be transferred to somewhere nicer. If she gives her consent to be tested for promicin, as she will only be transferred if she can never get her abilities back. If she can; well, they’re prepared for that contingency too.
Tom is interviewing ATM customers, many of whom are mentioning one man. Garrity says they have a no show; the same man. Who runs when he sees them, but gets caught. The man says he took promicin, as he lost his job, couldn’t pay his credit cards and his girlfriend dumped him. But his ability is that he can play any instrument at a virtuoso level. Then Doyle tells Tom and Garrity that there’s been another incident, whilst this man was in custody. The latest victim is the superintendent of an apartment building and he uses a different bank. They speak to the tenants, including a woman with an autistic child. Whose husband was in the ATM line. Not likely to be a coincidence.
Garrity gets affected by the fear, too, even though Tom, who was with him, wasn’t. Danny is thinking of taking promicin. Shawn tells him it’s a bad idea and wants Kyle to tell him the same. But Kyle can’t because, for one thing, he took promicin himself. And Kyle ends up discovering a few things.