FROM may be steeped in horror, but there are certain hours that feel like you’ve straight up entered into This Is Us territory with a splash of Dark and Twin Peaks.
Not every hour is filled with monsters terrorizing, and the tension spiked up to 100.
Sometimes the story has to take a beat. It has to let the characters breathe in the pain and the unfathomable.
After FROM Season 4 Episode 1 dropped us back into the immediate aftermath of FROM Season 3 Episode 10, it was almost like we needed a morning-after hour. And that’s exactly what we got.
Except this morning was filled with mind games.
It’s always an interesting thing when the audience is in on the joke, or in this case, the secret, while the characters are all oblivious. We already knew Jim was dead, but no one else did, so it was really just a matter of how long they’d drag out the big reveal.
When Boyd spotted that sack hanging from the motel sign, obviously, the first thought was that the monsters hung Jim up there. We’ve seen them get crueler and crueler, often taking things just a step further than necessary to prove a point.
But if that were the case, why would they have put Jim in a sack?
My heart was beating so fast when Tabitha slowly opened up that sack, and when that goat head appeared, I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Those monsters are genuinely terrifying in so many ways because they’re more than just scary; they’re diabolical, and they know exactly how to make things hurt.
The barn was Ethan’s safe space in a lot of ways, even if some messy stuff had happened there over time. Still, it was the first place Tabitha thought to send Julie and Ethan because she knew it would offer a modicum of comfort.
So, what did the monsters do? They hung Jim’s dead body there for everyone to see, putting him on full display and making sure to completely break his family’s spirit, all while stomping on a place Ethan loved.
I will fully admit to being a Jim hater. He displayed a lot of arrogance, a lack of discernment and understanding, and while he and Tabitha both had a lot of trouble communicating, there were so many times when he was so dismissive that it was aggravating.
I was deeply moved when Tabitha entered the barn and dropped to her knees, while Julie and Ethan were outside grieving.
The Matthews family has been through so much, and this is just one more crappy thing to add to the plate.
Love him or hate him, Jim did love his children, and he was an anchor for them, even if he lost his way at times. Yes, a lot of people have lost someone in there, including others losing their parents, but there’s something deeply unsettling about Jim going out this way.
In many ways, it still doesn’t feel real.
The phrase “knowledge comes with a cost” feels like it could be the series’s slogan at this point.
When the Matthews and Jade arrived, that town was about as blissful as a town filled with ugly night-dwelling monsters could be. But everything changed that day, and we know now that’s partly because Tabitha and Jade showed up for their shift to try to save the day.
That day, though, sparked something in that town, as they went full throttle from then on, taking a more active role in their situation rather than passively adapting.
They had routines and rules, and they’d managed to find a semblance of normal in the most abnormal of situations.
But it’s been a minute since anything has felt even close to “normal,” and one of the biggest changes has been an increase in people trying to figure out what the hell is going on in that town and how they can get out.
Sometimes this show hits you over the head with the idioms, but this one woke something up in Jade, who has somehow turned himself into perhaps the most active person there, which is a far cry from where he started.
Tabitha’s been in denial since finding out she’s the reincarnation of multiple people destined to be trapped in that town, but Jade’s accepted his fate with a lot less reluctance. And even though he only found out the day before about the children, it felt like it was past time for him to tell Boyd.
Everyone goes off on these little adventures or discovers some odd thing they can do or some odd place in the woods, and then they never tell anyone. It’s infuriating.
Hearing Jade actually tell Boyd and Ellis information that may one day help them felt like a massive step, but unfortunately, Jade didn’t really have any answers. Everyone before him failed, hence his being there, and he’s got no answers, so what’s Boyd supposed to do with that information?
Regardless, it’s a puzzle piece that will likely come in handy at some point in the future, and at least someone outside of Jade and Tabitha was made aware of it.
Speaking of Tabitha, she had an obviously devastated reaction to her husband’s death, and she took a lot of her emotion out on Jade, which was a hard scene to watch, if only because Jade’s not at all the man we met in FROM Season 1.
That Jade was a narcissistic jerk who only cared about himself, but that’s not the current Jade. Tabitha was angry and heartbroken, and she’ll likely tell Jade she didn’t mean to wish him death at some point, but in the throes of that conversation, it was just inherently sad.
It was also sad to see Ethan screaming at his mother, but Ethan and Julie have lost a brother, and they’ve now lost a parent, and that’s a lot for two young people to bear.
They’ve watched helplessly as their parents drifted apart over their anguish about Thomas, and they’ve been remarkably strong since they got there, as they’ve dealt with the realities of their current situation on top of the mountain of unresolved issues they brought with them into that town.
Think back to when they first arrived, and Julie didn’t even want to stay in town with her family. She needed an outlet and a place away from the suffocation of her parents, who were drowning in their own sorrow, loss, and shame.
For her part, Julie let herself have her moments, but she bottled up the tears before they could spill in front of Randall, because she immediately had a plan to bring her dad back.
Julie seems to be willingly ignoring the whole ‘you can’t change the story’ part of being a story walker, and I get it, especially now when there’s a story she desperately wants to change.
But Randall’s going to have to give in and tell someone what Julie is doing because it’s dangerous, and it feels like just another case of someone in that town possessing knowledge, and in this case, a skill, that would be useful for SOME people to know.
Julie doesn’t need to broadcast to everyone that she can time-travel, but her mother? Boyd? Donna? Those positioned as the leaders of that town should probably be let in on this gift (if you see it that way), especially if she’s going to continue to try to leap into the ruins to keep her dad from dying.
I’m pretty sure we already knew that the Julie who saw her dad die was from the future, but this just confirmed it. And while we already know she won’t be able to stop his death, I’m curious what good she can use that gift for.
Not only can she not change the story, but the monsters can see her and hurt her, so it seems like the only useful thing she could potentially do is gather information, right? Though each time she steps into the ruins, she doesn’t seem to have any control over what time she’s transported back to.
It makes for a very interesting storyline for Julie this season, and I hope it’s expanded beyond just her desire to save Jim, because there are some really intriguing things to consider.
Like, what if Julie can glean information from the past that could be used in the future?
While Jim’s death and the fallout were the main part of the hour, we couldn’t get through it without talking about Acosta, who remained insufferable.
Maybe that’s not fair, because who’s to say what any of us would do if we were in her shoes in this fantastical situation? But her attitude, this belief that she knows better than everyone around her, will never be a winning formula.
You could see it in her eyes when she just snapped and made the decision to do something, but that something, being to run off with the ambulance (something desperately needed in that town!), reeked of desperation and fear.
I almost felt bad for her at first, but she truly does see herself as on some kind of moral high ground when she has seen firsthand the way in which that town picks and picks at everyone’s worst instincts.
What makes that so frustrating is that she does see the humanity in that place. She sees the moments of compassion and the care with which people treat one another, but to her, those two things seem incapable of coexisting.
The ugliness cancels out any and all goodness.
And to be fair, in the real world, that’s not an unreasonable reaction. When you see the worst in people, it’s difficult to see them any other way.
But they don’t exist in anything close to the real world.
The rules are different, the fear and pressure are constant, and survival distorts the complexities of right and wrong, or at the very least turns it all into a muddled mess that’s impossible to make sense of.
She may be a good person, but this assertion that she’s the only good person in a place designed to scare you into submission makes her feel incredibly naïve.
Even having said all that, I did understand her at times, though she lost me completely when she wouldn’t even stop for Ethan on the side of the road.
Ethan was not at all interested in the adult drama, and his escape to the RV to get the radio to communicate with Thomas almost had me ugly crying.
Jim telling Ethan to look for the lake of tears from the dream he had the first night they were trapped in the RV made me try to think back to whether that’s something that’s been addressed in subsequent seasons.
Is it a physical place? A drawing? Does it have something to do with the children?
I won’t pretend to be the resident FROM historian, and this little anecdote didn’t ring a bell to me right away, but it would be very fitting for something from the very first episode to play a pivotal role in this entire mystery.
Loose Ends
- It was nice to see a little Jim cameo and for him to leave us with another little mystery, but I don’t need Jim to become a Father Khatri! Let him fade off into the sunset.
- I will be referring to Sophia as such until she shapeshifts back into The Man in the Yellow Suit, and she had better leave Kenny alone. That’s all I will say.
- It’s very hard to play moral police with a show like this, so whether or not you think Elgin deserved to have his eye ripped out or not, Boyd wasn’t wrong to tell him to keep quiet about what happened. It serves no one for the town to know the truth, because it’s much deeper than just that moment with Sara.
- That moment between Victor and his father just reminds you how much Victor has seen in that place. He couldn’t even have one happy night playing roommates with his dad before he was reminded that place will always take and take until there’s nothing left.
- It’s telling how much has happened lately that Sara is no longer persona non grata.
FROM Season 4 is off to a slow but strong start, and I’m liking the slower pace. Jim was a big part of this universe, and this episode was necessary to make his death matter.
How are you guys feeling this early into the season?
Let me know any and all theories you have in the comments below!
You can watch FROM on Sundays at 9/8c on MGM+.
-
FROM Season 4 Episode 2 Lets Grief Take Center Stage
The town is hit with a big loss, one that has Julie searching for answers and Tabitha lashing out on FROM Season 4 Episode 2. Our review!
-
FROM Season 4 Episode 1 Returns Us to a Hopeless Town That Just Got Worse
Boyd must deal with the aftermath of Smiley’s return, while a new visitor arrives in town during FROM Season 4 Episode 1. Our review!
-
FROM’s Harold Perrineau on Boyd’s State of Mind This Season: “He’s Going to Finish This — or It’s Going to Finish Him”
Your favorite sci-fi horror show is back, and we talked with Harold Perrineau about FROM Season 4 and more! Check out our chat!
The post FROM Season 4 Episode 2 Lets Grief Take Center Stage appeared first on TV Fanatic.