“Wake-Up Call” is episode one of season two of The 4400.
At the end of the season one finale, “White Light”, there was a six-month gap, then Lily was about to have her baby. This episode opens after a further six-month gap, and Richard wakes up from a nightmare of him running through some woods, a baby crying and bloody hands. This isn’t the first time he’s had it. Lily and him both hear footsteps and he opens the door to see a car driving off. Whoever was in the car left a leaflet mentioning warnings and the 4400. They decide they need to leave, but Richard needs to collect his last paycheque in the morning.
Jordan Collier greets a couple and their son who arrive at a centre he’s constructing for the 4400. It’s not open yet, but the son, Peter, is taken to see Shawn. Peter is terminally ill, but Shawn cures him. And Jordan collects a cheque for this, warning the parents that for now this has to remain private.
Diana and Maia are heading to see a judge. Maia’s visions apparently stopped about four months ago, and the judge is a family judge; Diana is adopting Maia.
At NTAC, Kyle is in a room under observation. Tom is talking to him; they want to do another CAT scan. Kyle says there’s no-one in him but him – previously, he was inhabited by a human from the future. Tom knows, but people are still trying to make sense of what happened at Highland Beach. Given that the future human said the human race was dying out and everyone from the past had been taken then brought back to stop this, it’s not surprising. Kyle just wants to leave and be normal; he can’t remember what happened anyway.
Diana finds Tom in the gym; he’s been on desk duty for the past year. He did put a gun to Lytell’s head. Diana has a new partner, who pops in; Tom doesn’t think much of him. This is the fourth new partner this year; if Diana has two more, she breaks a record. She wants to get Tom out from behind a desk. Her next stop is the theory room, where something Diana asked for has already been sent upstairs.
At the Abendsen Psychiatric Care Facility, a woman, Tess Doerner, abducted in 1955, is drawing something. Another patient, Kevin (Jeffrey Combs), gives her a book; H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Tess says she’s leaving soon. Outside, two patients are building what she’s drawing. Two orderlies tell the patients they need to stop.
Richard finds another copy of the leaflet on his car. Then on every other car. And a man is posting them as well. It looks like they weren’t targeted for being one of the 4400; just part of a blanket leaflet drop.
Diana heads to see a Nina Jarvis; Ryland has been replaced. Jarvis wants to know if Diana is sleeping with Tom. Or if she owes him money. Because of the paper from the theory room stating that Tom should be reassigned to field duty. Diana explains why – and it seems she had quite a bit of influence on what was written.
One of the orderlies who told the patients to stop building is now climbing the roof of the facility. He gets the weather vane, then falls off. Tess had drawn an image of the weather vane, and has a series of drawings in her room.
Jordan Collier is still looking for Richard, Lily and the baby, even though the baby injured him last time. Before she was born. It seems an increasing number of people at Abendsen are building whatever it is that Tess is drawing; she was a patient there before she was abducted, so she’s not the easiest person to get sense out of.
The story continues in the next episode, “Wake-Up Call: Part 2”.