“The Starzl Mutation” is episode ten of season three of The 4400.
A truck stops by a group of male prostitutes. The driver wants a specific one, Tim. He drives off and stops on the road in the woods. He asks Tim if he knows how special he is, and he also knows his full name. He tells Tim he will change everything. Unless the driver stops him. And he grabs Tim to the sound of screams.
Shawn is being given a cigar by a 4400, Claudio Borghi. Claudio rolled it himself. Shawn may be surprised by the effects. Yes, it’s legal. Claudio explains that when he comes in contact with a person, they may have a vision of the future. As he grew the tobacco himself, it contains his ability; Shawn may see a possible future. But be careful; he might not like what he sees.
Tom and Diana are in the woods being told about Tim’s murder and how one of the other boys got a decent look at the driver. Tom says they are NTAC, not homicide; why were they called? Because the body looks like it’s been drained of all fluid. It has the number 27 pinned to it.
The ME says their best guess is that the body is completely oxidised; one minute he was alive, the next like this. She’s never seen anything like this. As for it being a 4400 ability; there’s no earthly explanation otherwise.
The composite sketch of the driver matches no 4400. There are a couple of partial prints on the safety pin used to pin the note to the jacket. This is typical of a serial killer. Tom says there can’t be 26 more corpses like this one. Oh, and is Diana doing anything on Sunday? He’d like her to go to Shawn’s wedding with him. Not a date, but there are almost a thousand 4400s coming. Diana admits Maia begged her to go, but she’d said no originally. She does agree, but says that you wouldn’t want to get on the bride’s bad side. Tom says Shawn isn’t talking to him.
So, he goes to see Shawn in person. Shawn says he has to get married. No, Isabelle isn’t pregnant. Yes, he knows Isabelle is very dangerous, but this marriage is the right thing. For everybody.
In an office building, the lift is marked as being out of order. The driver from the beginning asks a woman where the stairs are. She’s found dead on them, the same way as Tim. Spree killers normally have a type; this one’s victims are utterly different. She has a number 11 pinned to her.
Shawn smokes the cigar. He sees an injured Richard, who the Shawn in the vision finds. Richard says Isabelle changed Shawn; Shawn says she showed him who he was. He knows himself better than ever. And he kills Richard. A troubling vision.
Tom and Diana find Marco, who’d left them a message. They got a print from the dead woman’s wedding band, that of a Darren Piersahl. Who is not a 4400. The match came from the US military. Piersahl was an Army Ranger for 7 years. And he’s dead; killed in action in Iraq a year ago.
They speak to Piersahl’s father, who says his son sent a letter saying he’d been accepted into an elite training unity just before he died. The army told him that Piersahl was killed in a helicopter crash after it was hit by an RPG. Tom asks if he reason to doubt the claim. Well, the timing was peculiar, and six soldiers died in the crash. Of a helicopter that can only hold four. On the way out, they get a call. There’s another body.
There’s a family dinner for Shawn and Danny gives a speech. Isabelle wants Richard to do one as well. He does; it sounds like it has a double meaning. Then Shawn excuses himself and Richard follows. Shawn explains his vision, and how it looked like he enjoyed killing Richard. Isabelle wants Shawn to marry her to keep her normal; it looks like she makes Shawn less human. He has to go and see if that changes anything.
Marco has figured out what the three dead have in common. They all have the same mutation, the Starzl mutation. Extremely rare and the only documented cases are in the Seattle area, because it comes from a faulty machine a Seattle Presbyterian Hospital used to treat cancer patients; the dosages were all wrong. Some patients had a mutation, and it’s passed onto their children The mutation has no effect on its carriers and Tom asks why someone is targeting carriers. Marco thinks that’s an excellent question. When they find out, be sure to let him know.
Shawn has more visions of the future from the cigar. All are bad. At least one person knows something about the Starzl mutation, and is killing the carriers, for an unknown reason. And there’s, finally, a surprise at the end.