“The Marked” is episode six of season four of The 4400.
Tom and Diana are watching a very bad black and white film with Marco and the others. Marco wants them to wait for a particular person, who turns towards the camera with a photo of JFK, who he is apparently being hired to kill. The actor is Curtis Peck, abducted in 2001.
According to Marco, Peck wrote, directed and starred in very low budget horror movies; the sets were his house and the actors friends and family. When he came back, he shifted genres to unsolved mysteries. Some think his ability is making the films. The one they just saw did have at least some basis in fact; the hired assassin existed and was in Dallas. Diana says they don’t have time to look into Peck’s ability. That’s not why Marco asked them to come. Ten days ago, Peck disappeared and he missed his last check-in with NTAC as well.
Kyle, Jordan Collier and the rest are checking out a place Cassie directed them to, possibly an old bomb shelter. Isabelle asks why they came to a city where everyone is looking for them, but Collier thinks it’s perfect.
Diana and Tom heads to Peck’s home, doubting anything is wrong. When the door swings open when knocked on, something having happened looks more likely. The place is a mess; it may or may not have been tossed. A man, who was in the film they watched, asks if they’re looking for Curtis. He’s Curtis’s neighbour and collaborator and has been in more of his films than anyone else. Tom says they’ve seen his work. When asked if Curtis has any enemies, the man says yes. He exposed lots of people. That’s why he was brought back, to tell the truth to the world. If someone did search Curtis’s place, he guarantees they didn’t find the secret hiding place where Curtis kept his journal. However, what’s in there is a video tape saying ‘WATCH ME’.
On the tape, Curtis is saying if anyone is watching, he’s in trouble. Don’t believe any claims of a car accident or suicide. If he’s gone, they came after him. He had an idea for a new movie that will change everything. A car pulls outside and Curtis says it’s them. He continues; Jordan Collier and the 4400 are not what they should be scared of. There’s something much worse out there.
Tom says Curtis owed money everywhere; if anyone was going to come after him it would be creditors. Or movie critics. He has almost six figures in outstanding debt and might have skipped town. Diana thinks Curtis looked genuinely scared on the tape and she doesn’t think he’s that good an actor. What could be bigger than Collier? Tom just wants to make sure he’s okay. Diana has found a Brady Wingate listed in the credits of Curtis’s movies. He may know something.
Shaun is watching Grant Hewitt on the news when he’s brought a messengered package. He opens it and finds a sheaf of paper. It’s a copy of the book Kyle found and Kyle rings Shaun. Collier wants to see Shaun; call the number once he’s finished the book and someone will come get him.
Handley bolts from his house when Tom and Diana show up. He doesn’t get every far and begs them not to kill him. They reassure Handley and he explains Curtis was making a new film, The Marked. He made a short trailer for Handley, who likes to see such before he invests. He still has it and they’re more than welcome to it; if what Curtis says is true, he wishes he’d never watched it.
They watch it with Marco, Doyle and the others. Curtis claims a faction of elites in the future want the future to stay as it is. The Marked. Ten agents from the future inserted in the bodies of ten prominent people today, their goal to guide world events. The only evidence is a mark behind the left earlobe. The movie shows Matthew Ross, and Isabelle killing him as she did in “Graduation Day”. Given that no-one else knows what happened, it’s almost identical to what did. Curtis says that Drew Imroth, head of Ubient Software (any similarities between Imroth and Bill Gates are completely intentional) is one of them, and has him a meeting with others to discuss Collier’s return and need to be stopped.
Afterwards, Doyle says they wondered about Ross but the only thing they know is true is that Peck is a terrible film maker. There are questions she’d like to ask him, but they’ll have to settle for his producer. Tom and Diana go see Handley again. To find him dead in his car in the garage.
Handley was killed from carbon monoxide poisoning. Tom says he was odd – he had to be to fund Curtis’s films – but the timing is off. Diana suggests they see Drew Imroth. And ask him if he’s part of a global conspiracy? They could. Or just see if Curtis ever tried to get in touch.
Curtis’s film about the Marked does seem to have at least some basis in fact. The problem is proving any of it.