4400 Season 1, Episode 1 recap: Where did all these people come from?

What would happen if 4,400 people suddenly vanished from different eras, lifestyles and demographics and suddenly reappeared on Belle Isle Island in the year 2021? That is the premise behind The CW’s newest series, 4400, a reboot of the 2004 sci-fi series from CBS.

4400 Episode 1, “Past is Prologue,” introduces us to Shanice Murray (Brittany Adebumola), a happily married mother and lawyer in 2005. Shanice is getting ready for work with loving goodbyes to her husband Logan and their four-month-old daughter, Mariah. Yet shortly after making her daily commute, Shanice is inexplicably ripped out of her car and sucked up into a mysterious green light and then dumped out 16 years into the future on Belle Isle along with over 4,000 other individuals.

4400 Season 1, Episode 1 recap: Where did all of these people come from?

It quickly becomes apparent that Shanice is just one of the many people this has happened to, and whatever the strange “green light” behind these abductions doesn’t discriminate across eras. Among the group is a housewife from the 1950s, a reality star, a reverend, a WWI surgeon, and more.

As soon as these people appear, they’re quickly rounded up into a facility and essentially held hostage as the government tries to figure out what to do with them and how to spin the story. 4400 isn’t exactly subtle in the way it draws parallels to our current era and the political themes that we’ve been forced to confront, in particular, over the past four years. As Claudette (Jade Ladymore) notes, the modern-day era isn’t all that different from where she came from, at the cusp of the civil rights movement.

But beyond the newcomers landing in a completely different era, losing countless years of their lives but looking no different, some of the group has also developed powers and abilities. Claudette appears able to heal incredibly fast from any injury, and a teen girl from the ’70s named Mildred (Autumn Best) seems to have telekinesis.

4400 Season 1, Episode 1 recap: Shanice finds her family 16 years later

Then there is the social worker Jharrel (Joseph David-Jones) and corrections officer Keisha (Ireon Roach) at the epicenter of all of this. Jharrel and Keisha are brought in to try and connect to these people on a human level, Jharrel more so than Keisha. For now, Jharrel is very much against the system putting ordinances and laws before genuine human empathy. At the same time, Keisha wants to adhere to the strict rigors of the regulations, even if it means that people like Shanice suffer in the interim. It looks like Jharrel and Keisha’s clashing ideals will reflect much of the show’s core conflict.

Ultimately, Shanice does manage to escape the facility with the assistance of her new friend Mildred. But when she manages to reconnect with Logan and Mariah (with Jharrel’s assistance), she is devastated to find that Logan has moved on and married another woman while Mariah is now a 16-year-old. They’d assumed Shanice had run out on them all those years ago, not helped by the discovery of a letter Logan found stashed away.

Shanice doesn’t get the chance to explain what happened to her family before Keisha and other government agents catch up to her, leaving her no choice but to return to the facility. In a tender moment, she reveals to Dr. Andre that she suffered from post-partum after giving birth to Mariah back then. At one point, she had considered leaving, hence the letter, but then she finally bonded with her daughter and was more committed than ever to be a good mother.

4400 Season 1, Episode 1 recap: What happened to Manny?

In the final moments of the episode, it becomes clear that there are many more secrets to be revealed from these characters. Jharrel admits to Keisha that he was hopeful his missing brother Manny would be amongst the 4,400, especially since he remembers seeing a green light the night he went missing. One of the kids approaches Keisha at the end and tells her to let Jharrel know that Manny is sorry for everything. So who is this kid? Did Manny get zapped years older or maybe younger? What is his connection to Jharrel’s brother?

And holding all these people for questioning isn’t going to last long since by the end of the first episode, the news broadcast has a whistleblower report about the government holding countless missing people who have suddenly turned up, seemingly out of nowhere.

New episodes of 4400 air Monday nights on The CW at 9/8c.