Why Am I Still Watching FROM? One Great Season of the MGM+ Series, Followed by Copious Bluster and Filler. A Proudly TLDR Appraisal.
Why Am I Still Watching From?
Short answer: Because Disney just removed reruns of the apparently unacceptably astute Cleveland Show from broadcast. Plus that darned Mouse stole Doctor Who from BBC America. What’s a fellow with exacting taste in television to do?
(Get uncomfortable, because the long answer is significantly longer.)
As I explained at length in my previous article about the television series called From, I started tuning in for this show from its debut because, in 2022, the real world was still unusually dire, and, with a convenient episode per week, I liked being distracted by the puzzling premise, semi-rustic setting, and gratuitous necklines (fully expect that last term to become a band name). However, without even using the highly applicable phrase “shaggy dog,” I added the firm caveat that, three episodes into From’s second season/series (the point of publication), I no longer trusted the show and its makers to deliver narrative coherency, let alone satisfaction. Exactly as one of their characters later accuses their agonizing milieu of being a rigged game, From’s creator, John Griffin, and his cohorts, hold all the cards, and they play by no discernible rules. Sure, they could, possibly, eventually, make some of their ever-extending mess of ooga-booga loose ends pay off, several seasons down the line, but is this initially intriguing but long-term-witless show worth that sort of investment?
Alas, after being nearly enthralled with its first “season” (10 episodes is somehow a “season”; I guess this third one lines up with most of an actual season), I would describe From’s second season as sloppy idiocy. Countless details about it continue, upon occasional contemplation, to irritate. (Search online for civilian comments thereon; I’m far from alone in this estimation.) But first this summary, for those too, uh, busy to click on my previous article:
From is, thus far, a show about extremely melodramatic, maddeningly reticent characters stuck in a tiny, remote, off-the-grid town with inexplicably functional utilities but no route of escape: attempts to drive away on the road lead anyone who tries right back into the town. From-town (online pundits and obsessives have gone with “Fromville,” but I like From-town) also happens to be surrounded by a forest, which each night yields bloodthirsty, vampiric, and extremely vicious humanoid creatures (probably wendigo; and like troublesome party guests they don’t know when-to-go!), forcing the town’s prisoners to remain locked indoors until dawn, with a rune-emblazoned rock hung up sort of like a mezuzah but inside the doorway to keep the monsters out, because such are this show’s largely silly and ever-flexible rules. (They call the monsters “monsters,” but they call the rocks “talismans,” one of countless From-factors that bug, because even though the term is correct [and lifted directly from Scooby-Doo; see below, and images], it’s also way too fantasy-fancy-pants for these mostly rough-hewn characters; who would assuredly call rocks “rocks,” e.g. “Hang up yer rocks so them monsters don’t getcha!”) Some characters live in “town,” and some live a stone’s throw away in the communal “Colony House,” which ought to be called “Lethal Liability House,” because, as we’ve already seen, if one slob opens a window at night, all slobs could be immediately butchered when monsters promptly invade. It’s a miracle that anyone in that hippie hell survives even one night. (It’s equally a miracle that the monsters have left any buildings and hiding places intact: one of many eye-roll factors the characters conveniently never discuss.) The distinction between the two dwelling places cluttered up some early episodes, especially when Julie (Hannah Cheramy) briefly chose shared squalor over familial domicile until it nearly killed her, but by this point those boundaries seem to have dissipated — or, as with all other details, the writers promptly lost interest in whatever they were trying to say.
If you want to know the origins of From, look no further than Scooby-Doo. Seriously. From fallen trees blocking roads, to talismans (called talismans) protecting from demons who inhabit underground tunnels (etc.), it’s hilariously obvious that From creator John Griffin pilfers from cartoons. Check out the carefully researched images I’m adding to this article. Some horror movies also contributed to From’s existence. Directly.
Notably, as both are proudly puzzle-box shows, From is made by some of the people who made Lost, and as it’s produced in Canada, I rather wish they had called it Lost, Eh?
I didn’t find Lost worthy. I only watched a handful of X-Files episodes. I barely know what The Last of Us is. Stranger Things is Stolen Things. I get that Under the Dome is included in the dozens of residual checks received by Stephen King each and every day, but that’s about it. Weirdness is in my wheelhouse, but often television’s delivery turns me off, or only fleetingly seems worth the trouble. Currently, some people state that they prefer Silo to From (stating essentially that “stuff actually happens” on Silo). Maybe I’ll dig on that. But From fairly and honestly got my attention. I want to like it!
Speaking of liking, back in February of 2023, three disconcerting episodes into From season two, the show’s terrific lead actor, Harold Perrineau, kindly “liked” my article link on the formerly enjoyable website then still called Twitter. I’m guessing he didn’t read the piece, as in it I express considerable doubt in the show — which he toplines, plus he’s advanced this season into one of its many Executive Producer positions. Instead, protecting his investment, he raved up the article of some guy from Colorado, who made a big deal out of how absolutely great it is when a show is confusing, frustrating, makes no sense, and stubbornly refuses to deliver on its expanding list of promises. Defending the indefensible, whee. Similar to knee-jerk armchair politicos with their quivers full of mindless, prefab arrows, the online hashtag-”FROMily” are ready to attack any naysayer with claims that the Doubting Thomas (see what I did there?) somehow lacks patience, or whatever. Nope! The equation is simple: If you jerk me around for 20 hours, you got some ‘splaining to do! Aware of this growing disenchantment among like-minded viewers, producer-director Jack Bender, in one of the featurettes accompanying season two (I enjoyed the featurettes more than the episodes!), promised that we’d be getting “answers.” At that point, the relationship between producer and consumer got quite uncomfortable: for one thing, I don’t believe him any farther than I can throw him; and for another, it’s hardly flattering to be put in the petulant position of seeming to demand “answers.”
Basically, the sketchy producers have accused the viewers they keep disappointing of having little faith. I direct them to Julia Roberts’ line from the original Flatliners: “You withheld information; that’s the same as lying!”
Give us something.
Let us feel like you know what you’re doing.
What we want isn’t specifically answers — if you’ll allow the inclusive “we” here — but rather solid storytelling: thus far, by far, From’s weakest suit. Intrigue: Check. Adrenaline: Check. Melodrama: BIG Check. Storytelling: Empty box. The show occasionally strains to reach a hifalutin theme or concept, but every time it almost starts to become something, it bellyflops into that empty faux-pool.
Anyway, for me, in sharp contrast to its fun first season, From’s second season hung dependably only a notch or two above “hate-watching.” (I don’t have time for hate-watching anything; this was tolerance-watching: smile supportively and pat the bad writers on the head.) I wanted to know how the voice on the radio would pay off — and it didn’t. (Ten more episodes! Zero payoff!) I wanted to know how the prisoner guy would pay off — and he didn’t. I wanted to know how the town gets electricity out of severed wires in the dirt — dropped thread. Really, instead of delivering on anything they had set up, the From-bros spent season two merely piling on more crazy crap: subdermal worms that cure Parkinson’s but also kill monsters? monster-corpse full of cicadas? more hallucinations that connect to nothing? And in my article I mentioned a “Kelly-kebab”: even Stephen King, on Twitter, was impressed by the shock of actress Phoebe Rex, as Kelly, staked through the head to a tree, yet still alive and, kinda movingly, conversational. In capsule form, disconnected from the larger narrative (if any), her scenes work, but again the material is so insanely self-serious that I found the unintentional humor in it: Imagine one of the monsters saying to Kelly, “Okay, honey, we’re gonna ram this metal stake through your skull and pin you to this tree, but as you have some dialogue to deliver later, would you be more comfortable sitting down first?” C’mon! Did they ask her to sit down before staking her?! Many mocking comic panels such as this have occurred to me whilst watching From, and I’d draw them were they not an even worse waste of my time and talent than this article.
Then there’s the season-two “bus” — which is really a coach — filled with irritating new characters who are not as good as the characters we already had; and most of them are distractingly “Hey, I wonder what’s in the fridge?” bad. Why do that? Why dilute the formula? From’s second series of 10 episodes offered up many nifty notions and fleetingly tense moments, but, if you ignore paid critics and favor casual viewers wanting to vent online, it indisputably messed up a good thing.
At the end of June, 2023, From actress Avery Konrad tweeted (it was still Twitter!) the following, and responded . . .
I found the brief exchange gratifying, not entirely due to the actress responding, but because From is an intermediary sort of show: while it’s professionally assembled, it’s still crude and homebrew enough to feel like your horror-nerd buddies are making it. And she had immediately invited From creator Griffin into the exchange (that’s his Twitter handle). He didn’t respond, but cool. Perhaps, as a result, he reconsidered her deranged character. Notably, season three’s first episode contains but a few seconds of Konrad’s previously disturbing and disturbed Sara, but at the climax, she swoops in to rescue imperiled Julie (Hannah Cheramy), and her little brother, Ethan (Simon Webster): the boy she had previously attempted to murder. How ‘bout them apples? (How do they have fresh apples, btw? Where’s that Nova Scotia orchard?) Then, as I’ve just glanced at Griffin’s recent tweets, I see one from season three premiere night: “Nothing worse than being trapped inside a nightmare AND having to wait for the bathroom #FROM #FROMily,” and I say, “Hmmm.”
“Trapped inside a nightmare,” is it? That’s the milieu? May we please be excused?
Oh, and why does that massive house only have one bathroom? With no TP for their bungholes?
Although I really don’t like having to bring this up, let us take a moment to consider how pathetic the characters in From truly are. Every night — every night — they are forced to hide indoors or risk being eviscerated by “monsters” (a.k.a. “things,” a.k.a. “creatures”) which hunt humans for sport, delight in their butchery, and are immune to bullets. That’s no minor inconvenience. Two words: Molotov cocktails. The vulnerable people trapped in From-town know that the monsters are physical beings (in season two, they burn a dead one). The vulnerable people trapped in From-town are also in possession of a great many gasoline-powered motor vehicles with petroleum fuel in their tanks, and large volumes of homemade alcohol, plus huge amounts of secondhand clothing and other fabrics, plus — hey — lots and lots and lots of bottles. And yet, do they ever put these elements together, to defeat their extremely malicious foes in one single night? No, of course they don’t. Because this show is remarkably badly written. Of course, permits and proper handlers for flame effects might prove prohibitive for what the producers are willing to bankroll, insure, and create onscreen — but there’s the solution to the monster problem, within easy reach of all the characters and background extras, were they not too maddeningly stupid to save themselves. (The opening credits show a drawing of a skeletal monster on fire — see Co-Executive Producers — but the show itself has not delivered on this image.)
Okay, here’s what I’ve decided: The journo game is the real horror-show, all increasing demands and diminishing returns, and I’m presently finding no joy in it. That said, it is somewhat amusing to scrutinize the ambitious faceplant that is From, in increasingly desperate hope that there will be more to the show than caterwauling and bombast. It’s a moderately enjoyable mental workout to pick apart something as invulnerable and ultimately inconsequential as a TV show, and certainly — in a world in which people actually watch football — there’s no harm in this little sideline. Thus, strictly for my own paltry gratification (I have other pursuits), during From’s third season (10 episodes), I’ll keep commenting here (probably after watching each episode a couple of times), and enlarging this article: same link, same page. I have that magical ability. But do note that, of course, my contemporary opinions and premonitions may or may not hold up when later episodes, we hope, add pieces to the puzzle. Also note that I will not go back and pretend to have known or realized some detail or connection prior to actually knowing or realizing it; this is strictly my game, so if I cheat, I lose. But I’m pretty sure, as the show does all the cheating, that I’m smarter than From.
Okay, let us begin with S3E1:
“Shatter” 22 September, 2024
Promisingly, that title is just one letter off from legendary fellow Canadian horror icon William Shatner (Visiting Hours), as well as one different letter off from a domestic (and potentially metaphorical) porcelain amenity which features graphically in this episode (and the next), as Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) onscreen-pukes something that, uh, looks like yogurt into it: because the character is pregnant, despite not being able to be thus. I’m predicting a yucky mid-season body-horror tangent (certainly Griffin is aware of Immaculate, and The First Omen, plus of course Rosemary’s Baby), but mercifully, in this episode, that’s pretty much it for the soap-opera fodder that cluttered up the second season, as this first episode of the third season has excited fans and critics alike by cramming in a lot of drama (not mere melodrama), and mystery, topped off by vicious monster action.
While modestly hopeful, I remain unconvinced. Justify my like, From! Justify it!
Suddenly From is explicitly about whether or not it can “break” Boyd (Harold Perrineau) — this episode is predicated (and badly written) upon that notion — but the town has already caused him to shoot his wife (and others) dead, among other horrors, so why spell it out now? I mean, we know. Duh.
Then there’s the matter of Griffin’s repeat-offender, drinking-game dialogue. This episode, it’s dullard tough-guy Randall (A.J. Simmons) who uses his fake-Yank accent to snarl the perennial “You have no idea!” line (including bonus f-bomb: those are back en force). Maybe Griffin copies-and-pastes these scripts, or clicks an AI button. Worse, in just one episode, he’s got Boyd, in his (post) office, on separate occasions, directly asking two different characters to explain things only they know, which will enhance the overall understanding of their trap, and both characters immediately decline to share information! AGAIN!!! (Dude, it’s your show, you can do what you want with it, but dude.) Even worse than that, although the ghost of Father Khatri (Shaun Majumder), or whatever he is, refuses to explain what he is, it’s the increasingly harrowed Jade (David Alpay), curtly refusing to elucidate his obsession with a weird symbol, that truly sucks! Why? Because just last season, Jade harangued the hell out of manchild Victor (Scott McCord) for keeping secrets about his long stay in the town! Hypocrite! Bad, inconsistent writing! Augh!!!
Is From S3E1 watchable anyway? Sure, I guess. It boasts all the atmosphere, production value, and WTF-ness of the previous 20 episodes, tightened up so as to be a bit less tedious and a bit more of a ride. Although somehow Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) has had her hair even more conspicuously highlighted and perfectly coiffed (at the ol’ From-town salon?), and she’s suffered zero broken bones or serious injuries and only very minor abrasions from a 150- to 200-foot forced fall from the top of a lighthouse (?!), we pick up with her precisely where S2E10 left off, as she’s awakened three days later in a hospital in what turns out to be “Camden, Maine” (almost certainly Halifax): launching a new subplot about her finding Victor’s father due to his address being written inside Victor’s “DISCO” lunchbox, which no self-respecting boy of that era would have owned let alone treasured, I tell you with utmost confidence. Akin to the terrible writing of David Gordon Green’s Halloween misfires, apparently nobody in this show’s purported real world moves house or leaves town, even after four decades or more. Boom, at that precise second, here comes new character Henry (Robert Joy), and he’s inexplicably aggressive and rude to Tabitha (it’s a public sidewalk), but you can bet he’ll be adding to the mystery by not explaining things that would explain things.
Several online commenters have already pointed out that the “real-world” priest (didn’t catch his name) Tabitha briefly consults with knows the gender of her dead baby without her specifying it. Is this a creepy “clue,” or more sloppy writing?
I enjoyed the scene with Tabitha, after escaping the cops at the hospital plus wandering past a shop featuring a silhouette of monster plant “Audrey II” called audrey’s little shop of plants (thus setting Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, as “Camden, Maine”; I was close!), approaching two young ladies at an outdoor market to inquire about borrowing one of their ubiquitous selfie-phones to call her mother, with the white girl noting Tabitha’s haggard, homeless look (albeit with perfect hair) and refusing even to make eye contact, while the black girl hesitantly but generously hands over her phone. Apart from the call itself bringing in a smidge more soap-opera stuff (“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Bender”), it felt like Griffin was briefly striving for something akin to sociological insight. If you listen carefully, the scene concludes with the white girl advising the black girl to have her phone immediately disinfected. There’s a whiff of something there, regarding the real-life horrors of people’s casual callousness. I appreciated that.
This episode’s other subplot involves Jim (Paul Rudd. Wait.), tiny fake scab from entire house falling on him still healing on his forehead, deciding to head off into the woods in search of Tabitha, accompanied by typically trigger-crazy Kenny (Ricky He), then on the first night pretty much immediately changing his mind: because From doesn’t have ADHD; it is ADHD. But — adding another unconnected setpiece — they find some decaying old cabins, and wagon wheels discarded from When Harry Met Sally…, surrounded by creepy wooden skulls on posts (basically tiny totem poles), which vocab-challenged Kenny peculiarly refers to as “weird statues.” In the wintry woods, it plays as sufficiently eerie in a ripoff Blair Witch Project kind of way, whereas I would have instructed one of the guys to shrug and say, “Welp, looks like the art department’s already been here.” Ha!
Unfortunately, despite its improved focus and pacing, this episode’s main plot is so poorly conceived that I checked for a Kurtzman credit. It’s to do with lackadaisical barnyard animals doing extremely specifically timed things, and the monster-people impossibly knowing exactly where certain characters will be at any precise moment. If you think about the logistics, at all, the title “Shatter” applies not to the window Jade arbitrarily smashes, but to our foolhardy expectations of intelligent writing. It goes like this:
Earlier in the episode, a big deal is made of the pancake-mad denizens of From-town instantaneously running out of food (greenhouse mysteriously abandoned, their cabbages, raised under detached doors salvaged from who-knows-where, are rotting), thus it’s tentatively decided, amidst some drama, that they’ll have to start slaughtering their petting-zoo animals to feed the locals. (All those extras, and not one forager among them. Tsk.) Somehow the monster-people immediately know this — even though they could kill all the animals any night at their convenience! — so that specific night, pretty-lady monster-person saunters up and jauntily opens the corral’s gate, while milkman monster-person vaguely opens the barn’s door.
Okay, it’s night. The animals would be pretty mellow, probably asleep. Most of them wouldn’t even notice the gate and door being open, let alone hatch a plan for a hasty escape. And yet that is precisely what they do. Lo! At precisely the right moment, Boyd chances to observe their precious cows wandering down the street — followed by sprinting, inexplicably terrified sheep, because somebody saw A Nightmare on Elm Street. This is the same Boyd, possibly due to prolonged exposure to Lyle Lovett, whose earlier dialogue suggests that he believes goats lay eggs (a sharp sound editor added chicken bawks to the mix to make up for the absence of onscreen fowl).
The solution is very, very simple: Do nothing. Stay inside, stay smart, stay safe, let the animals wander if they wish (remember: there is nowhere for them to go). Heck, abandon your death wish, and go Vegan!
Of course, as scripted in From’s typical facepalm way, Boyd immediately does the stupidest thing possible: He runs outside, into the night, where he knows the vicious monsters are, and he causes a big ruckus, prompting almost all of the main characters to get stuck outside with him, resulting first in the cow assigned to Jade graphically getting its throat slashed — reminding us how incredibly sadistic and cruel From truly is — but that’s merely this episode’s appetizer.
The main course is so utterly idiotic, mean, and pointless that it’s probably more difficult for me to type it out as a disappointed observer than it was for its careless writer(s) to slap it together. Somehow, merely by giving a few barnyard animals the option of wandering free into the night if and when they happened to feel like it, a gaggle of monster-people led by Asshole Cowboy (is there any other kind?) lie in wait inside Jason Voorhees’ barn until Boyd specifically rescues one cow and confidently bolts the doors and applies his, er, talisman. Then, despite clearly having no premeditated plan, the monster-people conveniently seize his handcuffs which he happened to have on him despite being ensconced for the evening in the post office, and they jeeringly fasten him to a post: to “break him” (waggle fingers at screen) by forcing him to watch the brutal torture and evisceration of already-bereaved Kenny’s already-bereaved mother, Tian-Chen (Elizabeth Moy): whom they never could have predicted would be there helping Boyd (she had no specific interest in the animals, and was only hours earlier advocating for experimental crop rotation!), so what exactly was the monsters’ “plan”???
Implausible motivations and brazen happenstance, to reach a poorly conceived scene: that is the Kurtzman School of Screenwriting.
For 20 episodes, From has never been a lighthearted and pleasant show — its extreme self-seriousness begs for mockery — but from bloodily ripping back the kind, resourceful, nurturing lady’s conveniently detachable scalp, to making us listen to her screams of terror and agony, season three launches on a particularly nasty and shitty note. Ricky He, who plays Kenny, read the script in December, 2023, and responded to it thusly on Instagram:
Of course From is a horror show, and of course the push-in on Boyd makes it an acting showcase for Perrineau: but having him pathetically repeat “I know, I know, I know!!!” over and over (you do?! you know?!), while Tian-Chen is violently torn apart, feels misguided and sad (and very lazily written, if it was written at all), rather than thrilling and chilling.
Certainly therapy for its producers would be cheaper even than this show’s apparently modest budget.
I like the premise of From, and some of its elements, and most of its cast, but this premiere, plus Perrineau hinting in a featurette that by the end of this season, “your hearts will be broken,” does not bode well for anything commonly known as entertainment. I smell some above-the-line self-loathing.
Episode titles, stolen from Tolkien and far lesser writers such as Springsteen and the Chili Peppers, reveal little of what’s to come, but the final two episodes of season three, broadcasting in mid-November, are called, respectively, “Revelations: Chapter One,” and “Revelations: Chapter Two.” Producers, here’s the deal: You make good on that implied promise, and I’ll keep watching your show. If not, hello, Silo!
Next up: S3E2: “When We Go” 29 September, 2024
This long episode (nearly a full hour) serves primarily as cleanup for the previous episode, and as an impressive acting showcase not just for dependably galvanizing Mr. Perrineau, but for most of the cast. The good news is that this time the performances, while still squishy with overripe melodrama, all come across as relatable and engaging. By now the main characters are familiar, and herein their respective actors and actresses go the extra mile to make the writing work, which, surprisingly and in this rare instance, it mostly does.
Logistically, there isn’t too much to nitpick here, as you either bought what happened in “Shatter,” or you didn’t (I didn’t), and “When We Go” mostly believably delivers what happens next, à la exposition, reflection, and mourning. Of course, it makes no sense that Boyd somehow memorized what Tian-Chen said in Cantonese while: a) She was screaming in agony; and b) He himself was bellowing “I know! I know!” over her — but hey, that was last episode, move on! There’s a problem with Henry calling the police “20 minutes ago” in a town as small as “Camden” (about five thousand people), as they’d only take a minute or two to arrive — and why did he fall asleep with a gun in his hand immediately after calling the police? There’s also annoyance over why Jim and Kenny swiftly find a veritable garden of sustenance growing in the wintry woods (the tableau really looks like crafty produce shopping). Why does Kenny triumphantly display their harvested vegetables in the middle of the street? Is that a good place for triumphantly displaying one’s vegetables? Once again, From cannot abide close scrutiny, but fortunately, in this episode, the sticking points are petty, not damning.
Continuity issues continue to bug. Of course I noticed that Tian-Chen’s blood on Boyd’s blouse doesn’t match between exteriors and interiors — looks like some of it fell off, actually. Soon after, white hairs poke out of Boyd’s hairline and beard when he confronts Kenny in the bar, but in their very next scene, outside the cave, his hair is perfectly dyed again. (It’s his hair — not my business what he does with it — but the lack of consistency pulls one out of the show.) Also, immediately following the scene amidst snow flurries outside the cave, when Boyd and Kenny almost do something that would have been exciting but instead decide to hug it out, do nothing (again!), and bail, they somehow arrive at the church at the precise second that Kristi (Chloe Van Landschoot) and Jade have just finished primping Tian-Chen’s mutilated corpse, with not a flake on either of them. Snow is tricky, but come on, try with the continuity! Don’t get me started about why the bar’s visible floor isn’t knee-deep in sheep poo.
Incidentally, since Victor explains that, around From-town, the leaves have never previously fallen from the trees, and it’s also never snowed there, I was really hoping he’d say to little Ethan: “Well, we were gonna do this in the summer of ’23, but entertainment-industry executives and producers decided to mistreat the creative people who actually make the shows that make them rich, so the people who do the actual work had to go on strike from May through September, thus this mysterious and disturbing change that’s actually completely normal weather here in Canada.”
I would love that.
Oh, also, between S3E1 and S3E2, it occurred to me that the “monsters” are looking more than ever like the bald Nazi werewolf who slashes David’s throat in his nightmare in An American Werewolf in London. Hey, steal from the best, right?
The monsters themselves don’t figure into the main plot of this episode, but included is generous flashback footage of Tian-Chen’s offscreen torture from “Shatter” (thanks?), plus of course the previous/next week segments. In this little breather, I was given the opportunity to note that, given their odd manner of dress — playing old-fashioned “townsfolk” roles — the monsters (nurse, milkman, cheerleader, cowboy, etc.) could be anthropomorphized versions of children’s toys: like Fisher-Price, or Playmobil, or why not, Weebles. I mean, they’re basically an extended version of the Village People — although this episode instead mines Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” for a twisted purpose. Alas, of late the Gang have been dropping like Ramones, with Robert “Kool” Bell (a.k.a. Muhammad Bayyan) the only surviving original member, so perhaps a lugubrious undertone is intentional? In any case, Kool and his current Gang are still touring, so get up from From and go enjoy them!
Oh, and this episode features plentiful reaction shots from From-town’s extras, prompting me to ask: Who are they, and why aren’t they causing a lot more trouble?
The bulk of “When We Go” is split between Tabitha disoriented in the “real world” (or is it?), and Kenny struggling with grief in From-town, and I’m sincerely happy to report that I felt like we were in good hands for both plotlines. I don’t understand why nobody presided over the funeral, but whatevs. Oh, and I knew that baby Thomas would come back somehow (I’ve pondered whether the whole context of From is his doing), but I didn’t expect him to make his presence known via a direct ripoff of The Black Phone — itself a badly written movie based on a sketchy little story. Perhaps because Ethan Hawke owns an island in Nova Scotia, this is some twisted homage? Let’s hope that’s not this show’s ultimate explanation.
“Mouse Trap” (S3E3) 6 October, 2024
Annoying filler episode, rife with missed opportunities, and stalling again! Following the idiotic plot of this season’s first episode (Tian-Chen is viciously slaughtered due to everyone being too stupid to stay inside and let some barnyard animals wander for a few hours), then the surprisingly nuanced and even moving follow-up episode in which all the actors brought their A-game, this third season-three episode delivers the usual atmosphere and talent, but merely hints at intriguing developments while short-changing us with yet more pointless kooky shit.
In short order (this one’s definitely not worth my time): In two different scenes characters bicker bad-naturedly at Boyd for his probably ill-advised plan to catch, and question, a monster — which of course doesn’t pay off. Bereaved Kenny immediately leads a straw-drawn party of Kristi, Jade, and Obnoxious Old Bald Guy (“Dale,” I guess) back to the lakeside garden that they don’t actually show this time, but they do show Jade’s stream of urine hitting the snow (that’s two pukes and a piss so far), and he twice hallucinates a staked-through-the-eye guy (standing, notably), but more importantly is entrusted with From’s sacred line of dialogue: “You have no idea!” (Who gets the line next episode? Who knows?!) The voice of Thomas on The Black Phone doesn’t pay off, but little Ethan starts uttering cynicisms obviously afforded him by adult writers, thus Julie chides her dad again. Emboldened by his freshly dyed and highlighted hair so he doesn’t look as old as his dad, Victor tries to move in with Sara, or something. And Fatima eats more rotten vegetables, so Tillie plies her with tarot cards, which Fatima angrily rejects, then inexplicably promptly accepts, causing a crow to smash pointlessly into the house and then bloodily die, because From.
Wait, did Nicki say something about composting the rotting vegetables, “to get the soil turned around”? What?! From-town is surrounded by many acres of soil. But they want to try to “turn around” the tiny patch of toxic dirt that suddenly poisoned their crops? Are the writers of this show ever sober?
I could put up with all that nonsense if this episode didn’t disappoint, but it does. In a painful if ostensibly promising turn, Kristi gets her ankle snapped in an old bear trap or equivalent, and with dusk allegedly approaching, there’s all kinds of potential here for SUSPENSE — if they leave her, monsters will get her; if they stay to help her, they’ll all die — with which this lame script does nothing. Nothing! They mess up a Goth-kid’s sylvan art project to pry open the trap, so she’s easily freed, but this is the umpteenth cool setup with zero payoff. Worse: You know how everybody in “Camden, Maine” keeps a bag of saltine crackers in their car’s glove box so they can suggest having a few to Tabitha so she’ll find the friendship bracelet she made for Jim and later found in the diner but which Henry’s wife also made for him? That. Y’know, the ol’ saltines-in-the-glove-box trick. In a scene so terribly facepalm that I thought that this show was kidding, Tabitha freaks out, unconvincingly claims she’s still stuck and being tortured (even though she’s already successfully phoned her own mother in the real world), and tries to exit the car, immediately causing Henry to crash, leading to a hasty and genuinely hilarious cut to them already inside an ambulance (with yet more unnecessary new characters), which — dumb-dumb-dummmmmb!!! — abruptly encounters the Scooby-Doo tree blocking the road! Thus did Tabitha spend a whopping three episodes on location outside From-town, before the writers and producers gave up trying to do anything new, and chucked her back in.
“Mouse Trap” reeks of From-season-two lameness. Three like this in a row, and I’ll quit this show cold.
“There and Back Again” (S3E4) 13 October, 2024
Just a couple of months ago, a few hours after Alien: Romulus was released, the mild fervor of those easily won over by shiny trinkets was drowned out by a chorus of reasonable critics (pro and civilian), stating that the first Disney Alien movie plays like an Alien: Greatest Hits reel — which is pretty much how I feel about this fourth episode of From’s third season. Here we have another Scooby-Doo tree blocking the road, another bevy of bewildered outsiders, another slashy monster in the street (at least it’s a cute one), and another trigger-mad cop (not so cute), plus we’re back to the spooky cabins of the past couple of episodes, and back to more flashbacks embellishing Victor’s childhood (though that kid is growing up already; hurry, producers, hurry!)
I didn’t find this episode as annoying as the previous one (ooh: tarot cards, invasive crow — leading to nothing), but I did find it a bit boring, as we’ve seen most of this stuff before: including even a non-monster being shot by an authority figure through a window, if you’ll recall the Night of the Living Dead reference in my previous From article. If you know anybody who wants just a taste of this show without having to watch it all, it’s a useful episode in that regard. That’s if they can get past the astounding hubris of ripping off the title from Tolkien, while completely lacking the substance to back it up.
The main course this time is that Tabitha is already back in From-town, having spent a mere three episodes (about four days) back in what’s probably the real world as most people know it. Ms. Sandino Moreno admitted in an interview that she was unsatisfied by Tabitha’s limited exploration of “Camden, Maine,” and had hoped for a whole season on the outside, and I concur, but it’s also glaringly obvious that From is a low-budget show, and filming permits and crew-hours outside their main location start running up the budget: I see no narrative reason that they had to rush her back to her family, and the lame story of From might have become interesting if they hadn’t. Heck, she called her mom; why not go visit her mom? Sleep on the couch, rest up, enjoy a pizza, call the Ghostbusters, do something. From’s only consistent factor is that it never makes any sense. (How ‘bout that bottle tree with no broken glass or bird shit after 40 years?!)
There’s ample action to keep things moving, with idiot-cop cuffing Tabitha to the inside of the ambulance for some dumb misplaced tension, and the peculiar notion that all cops’ keys fit all their handcuffs (that’d be handy for thugs), and the requisite shooting and panicking. Oh, and pissy Randall being left to the cicadas and monsters. But for me, ’twas the quiet scenes this episode that better held my attention: Kenny, Kristi, and Jade (where’d Dale go? he wanted his own cabin?) reminiscing about Tian-Chen by firelight; mack-daddy Victor somehow convincing Sara to join him inside a fort made of bedsheets then shockingly sidelining his four decades of pent-up lust and instead choosing to scrutinize a suitcase full of junk (her winsome smile is sweet when he calls her the scariest person in town); and Julie discarding her flight instinct and supporting her little brother in his hour of need. Note that these are season-one characters, whom I liked just fine before the producers cluttered up their own show.
The writing occasionally leans extra-stupid (Little Ethan, upon hearing something impersonating his dead infant brother Thomas on The Black Phone, shows zero surprise about who is speaking to him, but instead, expecting Canadian legend Leslie Nielsen, almost replies: “An ambulance? What is it?”); and when Randall, surrounded, waves a talisman at the monsters like a crucifix and gets mocked for it, one says that’s not how it works — but seriously, 24 meandering episodes in, why not just tell us how it works? Are you going to stall on every “mystery” until your show gets canceled?
Although I’m aware that viewers have been concocting theories online since From first launched, at this point I’ve noticed a plethora of YouTube videos and other threads dedicated to trying to figure out this show that stubbornly and to some extent self-destructively refuses to give us any solid evidence of anything — and the effect of all that chatter is that I feel it’s a lot less important for me to rattle on thusly about From. Someone mentioned an interview in which Harold Perrineau said that the writer(s) pitched the show by telling executives how it ends — so, all right, perhaps this protracted gobbledygook will eventually lead to some sort of comprehensible conclusion. En route, though, the writing — again, From’s weakest suit — does significantly lessen my appreciation. Love to the talented people behind and in front of the camera. I’ll probably finish out this season.
“The Light of Day” (S3E5) 20 October, 2024
If someone were to ask me about this TV series called From — which is unlikely, as it flies far below the radar of most consumers (the MGM+ channels — formerly Epix — heavily promote it [they’ve even added new raves to the current promo]; but apparently Amazon’s not Disney when it comes to shoving the product down our throats) — as of mid-October, 2024, I would say this: Do you want to watch a show in which the trapped characters are in constant mortal peril, but they fart around for TWENTY-FOUR EPISODES before finally holding a town meeting?
Sigh.
For this episode, the preview material made it abundantly clear that Dale (a.k.a. Obnoxious Old Bald Guy) would hasily enter a “farway tree,” and end up smooshed into the foundation of the pool. This is precisely what transpires, and as much as the director (Alexandra La Roche), the writers (Brigitte Hales and John Griffin), and the gifted effects team want to play it as horror, it’s darned funny. It’s laughable! It’s a crude mockery of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Wonky physics of a human body instantly displacing hardened concrete aside, it simply doesn’t play as intended. If you’ve seen Omar Sharif smooshed into a crushed car in the Zuckers’ brilliant Top Secret! (celebrating its 40th anniversary, fresh and funny as ever), there is no way to take this episode’s climax seriously. The main characters and nameless extras gaping in horror make it even more comical.
Nice try, Fromsters.
Apart from that, this is another filler/melodrama episode. Predictably, Boyd puts new cop character Acosta — should we start calling this show Samantha Brown’s Places to Hate? — in her place as to who’s in charge. (Her suggestion is actually a good one, making his insta-rage more annoying.) Jim defends already-defensive Tabitha from grouchy townfolk. Marielle makes good on the first two seasons’ low-cut-top-jiggle-’em-if-you-got-’em eye-candy (this is a blatant attention-grab and stylistic part of this show; not in the eye of the beholder), and as a nurse she tends to the appreciative Kristi, and to the not-appreciative Randall (the latter being left mangled but alive by the monsters, locals suppose, to increase the captives’ daytime unease — more idiotic writing: Everyone’s going to forget during the daytime that they’re hunted by vicious monsters every single night?!). Ellis catches Fatima eating rotten vegetables. And Ellis argues, yet again, with Boyd. In a rare-this-season featurette, the sturdy and galvanizing Harold Perrineau stated that this season goes to 11; but in this scene, he takes it to 12 — and the unfortunate result looks disconcertingly like acting. Alas, as he usually knows where the ceiling is. The director should have told him to take it down a notch.
The remainder includes the increasingly peevish Julie getting stoned with season two’s pukey, mopey Elgin, then playing thrift-store “‘80s” dress-up and taking Polaroids with a camera that still mysteriously works. (Will this device lead to anything? Probably not. It’s From.) And then there’s the remarkably underwhelming reunion of Victor with Henry, his father. As usual for From, there’s buildup that something really noteworthy is going to happen — Victor flees in shock, takes sibling-like comfort from Sara — but then the really noteworthy thing doesn’t happen, and it leads merely to a standard-issue hug’n’cry. I say this not coldly, but because reuniting after 40-ish years could, should, summon extraordinary developments in character and story. But it doesn’t.
I liked the part where Henry asks Ethan why there’s a motel sign but no motel, but I would’ve rewritten Ethan’s response thusly: “Well, sir, the producers needed a place where they could lens the exteriors of this show convincingly but cheaply, and they found this disused radar base in Nova Scotia with only some foundations remaining, and hired some crafty craftspeople to build the hollow, faux-weathered structures from scratch. This place is sort of like M*A*S*H but without the quality writing. There’s an Epix featurette about it online, featuring Griffin with headbanger hair, if you ever make it back to your internet. As for the motel sign and pool with no motel, you can ask the producers about it, whereas I’m an actual kid. Oh, and your AARP-eligible son with his newly dyed and highlighted hair is my best friend and needs therapy.”
“Scar Tissue” (S3E6) 27 October, 2024
Shockingly, it’s taken me this long to realize that David Alpay is imitating Bob Downey, Jr. (mainly as Tony Stark/Iron Man) in his portrayal of Jade, in From. In the first season, too much was going on for me to zero in on the parallel, and the second season was so annoying it made his annoying Downey imitation fit in and seem no more obnoxious than the scripts being produced. Alpay is a talented actor, and his fuzzy new young-Einstein (not “Young Einstein”!) look is beneficial (from online comments, chix diggit), so I’m liking his work more in season three — despite it still being that Downey-trademarked snide, self-obsessed, self-medicating, diarrhea-mouth shtick. Let’s hope he grows out of it, since Downey never will.
Two episodes back, we got a title stolen from Tolkien. Then, apparently, boring old Springsteen. This week it’s the Chili Peppers. Shrug.
Alas, this is the episode at which I not only have given up suspending my disbelief, but the writers have made it impossible to suspend my disbelief. (If you’re still able to feel engaged, have at it.) It’s hard to tell if the writers are evincing real contempt for their audience (us), or if perhaps they simply suck at writing, but this much is certain: From plays dumb, a lot! A few examples from one setpiece: Dale gets Han Solo-ed into the wall of the empty pool, so Boyd pulls his gun, to what, to shoot him? To fire at concrete from a few feet away? Smart, not! Then nobody chisels out Dale’s body — this would take perhaps three or four hours, with available tools, hammer, tire-iron, whatever. Nope! Instead, Donna hauls a few miraculously uniform stones from who-knows-where (the town’s secret quarry?), to build a cairn around the corpse — even though the writers don’t know what a cairn is, so they don’t put that fancy vocabulary word into the dialogue. (The actress who plays Donna, Elizabeth Saunders, called it a “Cairn” on former-Twitter, and series creator Griffin parroted her, right down to capitalizing the word — which is incorrect — pretty much proving that he didn’t even know what a cairn is, despite allegedly writing the scene.)
The notion is that it’ll keep the stench of Dale’s decomposing body from disrupting the cabbages everyone’s enjoying for breakfast since the pancake kitchen is closed? This isn’t even the supernatural or mysterious stuff, it’s just plain, everyday stupidity. The stink wouldn’t waft out from the rocks? Kudos to the special effects team as usual (the cairn that isn’t called a cairn looks impressive but is probably carved, painted foam), but again, why leave the body there? Is everyone in From-town profoundly stupid? Apparently.
Then there’s Elgin, already offensively pouty and unlikeable, who decides to make a “collage” (photos clothes-pinned to a rope are a “collage”?) of Polaroid snapshots, some taken sans the subjects’ permission. There’s a whole lot wrong with this. First of all, who brought that camera to From-town and hid it in a basement, and why does its battery still work? Further, is there an unlimited stack of film for it? Julie is the camera’s co-finder, and she’s immediately extremely possessive about the snaps they take of each other, so why does she relinquish the camera to Elgin? Makes no sense. In lieu of Instagram, such a young woman would seize that thing like her life depended on it! But far, far worse: The denizens of From-town lack devices: their phones don’t work. The fact that they’re continuing to explore the territory and find new, and often important, details about it — especially since everyone sucks at telling each other of their discoveries, and half the population just wanders around in the background being idiots — makes a Polaroid camera a vital tool for the community! “Look, THIS is the tree!” “Look, THIS is the cave!” “Look, THIS is the lighthouse!” Etc. But no. Instead we get a thing that isn’t a thing: a clothesline “collage.” Because lame writing. And you don’t have to hang Polaroids on a line to dry! That’s not how they work!
Such complaints aside (though they cannot be shoved aside), unfortunately I have to classify “Scar Tissue” as a filler episode. There’s a lot of bluster, but nothing actually happens, the writers are blatantly stalling, and the majority of the scenes merely redundantly revisit information we already know and have seen more than once. (The Matthews have issues, check. Monsters sleep in the tunnels, check. Victor likes to hang out in his truck-clubhouse sometimes, check. Fatima is worried about her apparent pregnancy and dubious cravings, check. Tabitha sees ghost kids, check. Jade is obsessed with the bottle trees, check. Randall is a mean jerk, check.) Little stuff I found irksome includes Victor using plastic army men to find his way out of the cave system (how does that work? we never see that. another pointless prop.), and Kenny reminding us of the orgies previously thrown at Colony House: During lockdown, as with most of From’s first season, that seemed an intriguing notion. Whereas during the threadbare retreads of this third season, in a place where any small error could result in a slaughter, it seems monumentally stupid. Shoulda stayed quiet and hoped we’d forget.
But lest you think I’m merely being harsh (I’m not; this show deserves far tougher criticism than I’m dealing it), I’d like to take a moment to praise the actors — well, most of them. Although this episode is another narrative disappointment festooned with irritation, the setting and the characters still hold appeal. “Scar Tissue” is a hanging-around, treading-water episode (with some seriously bad reverse-angle issues: check out the lighting and wind inconsistencies poolside cutting between Tabitha and Donna), but if you’re on board with these characters, this episode allows you to loiter with them, as their portrayers instill each scene with emotional veracity: no mean feat, considering the world-record volume of bull-pucky they’re all juggling.
Remember just a few episodes ago, when the main dramatic focus was on Boyd deciding to capture one of the monsters? Obviously the writers don’t. Another huge dropped thread.
After its second season, From will never regain my trust, but glimmers of my initial enthusiasm are reappearing, zero thanks to the writing, all thanks to the performers and designers. Oh, and although I mute that Pixies song and usually leave the room during it, the score in this episode caught my attention as being particularly gripping, so praise to composer Chris Tilton. On their rave spots, perhaps the marketing team could add mine: “This show ain’t all bad.” Unless the next two episodes are also filler, I will continue watching From to the end of this third season.
“These Fragile Lives” (S3E7) 3 November, 2024
In this perilous second filler episode in a row, Kristi gets to say series creator and solo episode writer John Griffin’s prized, redundant, and irritating “You have no idea” line. Yet again, nothing actually happens, but instead characters rehash stuff we already know, until Fatima steals Dale’s move from season two when he whoopsie-stabbed her beau, Ellis, and she whoopsie-stabs Tillie, in the cruddy greenhouse, with some clippers, like some bad sequel game to “Clue” that nobody liked or bought.
If I had to choose a highlight from this episode, I’d express my muted delight at the veggie-scavengers at “the settlement” in the terrifying forest, with supermarket kale sticking out of their backpacks. Rad.
In case you haven’t noticed, despite little blips of enthusiasm, I’m weary of From, and I’d just had a great weekend, and was taking a nap when this episode premiered on MGM+, and I decided that feeling cozy was much more important than watching this show, so I only got up and switched on the television for its second half. (It’s From! It aggressively disrespects its own audience! It doesn’t matter how you watch it!) About 90 minutes later, I watched the whole thing on its rebroadcast, and that’ll count as twice, because who cares.
As a brief recap (“Previously, on From”), just in this season, Boyd made a big deal about trying to capture one of the monsters — and then he didn’t do it, and the topic was dropped. Also, Kenny made a big deal about going into the caves and torching the monsters with moonshine, with Boyd’s help — and then they didn’t do it, and the topic was dropped. During a potentially revealing tarot session in Colony House, a hyperactive crow smashed through a window and flopped to its bloody death, and it meant nothing, changed nothing, and we didn’t even get the result of the reading. A whopping twenty-four episodes in, the captives finally decided to hold a town meeting — and then nothing came of it. Absurdly, the most ambitious character this series has been Dale, who insulted everybody for hanging around inertly, and hastily leapt into a farway tree, only to end up Han-Solo-ed into the pool wall. From the writers’ perspective, perhaps Dale represents their viewers.
But hey, we’ve seen Fatima’s vomit (twice!), and Jade’s urine. Thanks. Please don’t show us Donna’s feces. Thanks again.
Of course I don’t like the new cop character, Acosta (the only likable cop character ever is Frank Drebin), but by coincidence, she figures into the two scenes in this episode that I actually did like. Kenny holds court in the diner, his pain concealed behind a knowing grin, explaining to her (and refreshing us on) how every new arrival goes through the same process of believing they can solve the town. (Though a genuinely gripping new mystery is born: Why is the sarcastic jukebox he only just smashed somehow repaired and functional again? Answer that!) The other scene is a cliché — a cop-vs.-cop pissing match — but in his post office, Boyd makes it clear that he’ll abide no ‘tude from the newbie hothead, then grudgingly hands her back her gun, unloaded, to go fetishize and fondle as such unfortunate types do. Mr. Perrineau gets some fine yelling in, and as usual, he’s the glue that holds the increasingly sketchy and tedious From together.
As noted, the rest of the episode is pure filler: Copying Tabitha from this season’s first episode, Fatima painfully rips out her own IV (“it’s like poetry; it rhymes”), and continues her annoying mewling about herself (we get it). Victor desperately wants to make Fats — er, Jasper — talk, and nothing happens. Julie joins Randall for a pointless joyride in the minivan so she can admire the inconsistent bloodstain of the maxi-pad on his face, then they go to the ruins, and nothing happens. Tabitha and mountain-man Jade perform at red rocks and obsess about her childhood dream, to Jim’s moderate annoyance, and nothing happens. Donna bitches some more, and Boyd listens to her bitching, the more interesting aspect of their scene being that the snow has nearly completely melted, and sublimated into fog enshrouding the Colony House façade, so I’m guessing that they filmed this episode in April. (I’m no longer personally engaged in the “story.”) There’s some brief rain, too, but nobody comments on it, even thought they made a whoop-de-doo about the snow. Forget about it, Gregory — it’s From-town.
Since From has fully outed itself as being openly antagonistic toward any and all intelligent members of its audience, I recently decided to seek spoilers online (I’m no spoilerbaby), and apparently Fatima somehow gives birth to the season-two-slain, adult “Smiley” (clearly this was not the original plan, but the result of fans liking that actor, in fact an extra) — ouch, btw — and Jim, one of the town’s primary sensible and proactive denizens, gets slashed and dies. There are probably a few seasons to go, so I’m presuming that nobody escapes, and none of the many loose threads are tied up, but Jasper will probably talk (or: “talk”), and drop just barely enough hints to get suckers to return for an unnecessary season four.
As for me, at this point I’m enjoying the cottage industry of fans’ online speculations and cheesy YouTube videos more than watching From itself. Those mesmerized by the show’s dipshit hoodoo constantly respond to criticisms with variations on: “You’re too impatient! We’re like the characters, not knowing what’s going on! Just enjoy the ride!” And I laugh. And yet the fans’ guesses really are more entertaining than the abysmally witless writing of the actual show, so after season three is wrapped, I may be adequately content on this front simply by occasionally glancing online. (For example, some fan’s line of, “I’m calling this right now: Tillie is a witch who is controlling the whole situation!” has suddenly become quite funny!)
I close this episode’s capsule by pondering the characters’ names. No ersatz numerology or whatever, just looking at the names that Griffin and maybe his cohorts gave their characters. “Victor,” because, duh, he probably “wins.” “Jade,” because he’s jaded? (Are there men named “Jade”?) “Tabitha,” because the girl on Bewitched. “Kristi,” because she’s going to wax messianic? “Randall,” because this show rips off Stephen King six ways from Sunday, and, like, Randall Flagg? “Tillie,” because she’ll be tilled under? “Sara,” because she’s faux-witchy and, like Stevie Nicks, she sucks? “Fatima,” because somebody remembers Camper Van Beethoven? “Ellis,” because he is a rock, he is an i-i-island? “Nicki,” because she gets nicked? “Acosta,” because she’s a cop who accosts people? “Boyd,” because he’s a bird from New Yawk? “Kenny,” because he’ll end up slaughtered in an orange hoodie, so somebody can say that hoary old South Park line?
Theories, FROMily! Theories! Ha.
“Thresholds” (S3E8) 10 November, 2024
In this episode, its teleplay credited solely to John Griffin, the From creator seems to be using his characters to try to remind himself what his series is about. There are even elements of a dreaded clip show, as Julie enters or re-enters the torture dungeon or whatever, and sees redundant, season-two footage of herself, Marielle, and Randall chained to the wall in agony (perhaps being forced to watch all of Lost). But mainly, characters tell other characters about stuff we already know, such as: Jim — whoops, must have slipped his mind — finally electing to tell his wife Tabitha that someone called them on their disconnected old kitchen-wall black phone, claiming to be their dead infant son, Thomas (we know); and some Colony House guy reminds Kenny that his dad was killed because of Sara (we know); and two unlikable season-two characters remind each other of when one puked on the other on the ride in on the “bus” that’s really a coach (we know); etc.
Nonetheless, for me the main challenge of this episode is deciding whether or not to define it as another filler episode, making it three strikes in a row, concluding my interest in From.
As is his wont, Griffin drops more spins from other people’s material, such as when Jade busts a Hooper from Jaws, modifying the line “working-class-hero crap” to “sanctimonious blue-collar bullshit” (close enough), or at the end, when stupid Elgin pulls a Lovely Bones on whiny Fatima. And surprise! Just like in Magic, Fats, er, Jasper the dummy (perhaps we’re all dummies for continuing our viewership) isn’t really sentient and capable of speech — turns out it was that gosh-darned Boy in White, who told whoever-the-hell Christopher is whatever the hell he told him about the children, yadda-yadda. (If this is the case, why does Jade have scary visions of inanimate Jasper? Because From: that’s the only answer From ever delivers.)
And where the hell is Kristi this whole episode? Tillie is murdered, and the town’s doctor is MIA? Actually, even this plot development feels redundant, copied-and-pasted from this season’s first two episodes, in which a From-town matriarch is killed, and then the locals stew about it. (This season’s second episode is still its best.) I guess that’s the A-plot: that Fatima is forced into hiding in an embarrassingly rickety shack in the woods (like she’d be safe there from an irritable raccoon), due to whatever (“Smiley”) is raging inside her, which could otherwise land her in “the box” (dusty old season-one reference).
The B-plot seems to be Jim (who’ll soon be killed) struggling against Jade, regarding Tabitha’s status as saviour of the children. Their altercation in the bar is actually pretty good, perhaps because it’s the poor man’s Paul Rudd arguing with the poor man’s Robert Downey, Jr. Again it’s all redundant information (we know!), but it’s chased by Henry and Jim lamenting their respective alcoholic dads: hey, whatever fills up the hour, right, From?
MVP, as always, is Boyd, who holds yet another episode together, this time battling to save his besmirched daughter-in-law. (I was less impressed by Victor going full-Rain Man.)
Of course, annoying questions linger: If ’twas time-warped Julie in the dungeon who threw the rope to Boyd at Martin’s behest eighteen episodes ago, then why didn’t we hear their conversation? Is this merely Griffin trying to plug a plot hole? Sure seems like it. He doesn’t even know what an oubliette is (calls it a “chimney”).
Just rebirth “Smiley,” already: that’s all the fans really want!
Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t particularly care what happens anymore in From. This show benefited enormously from appearing at the peak of the pandemic (about which MGM+ already has a new show: Earth Abides), when our shared dilemma felt almost as dire as the series; whereas life in America has improved so much since th — oh, wait. Egad.
But really, since it’s jerked us around so much, and dropped so many threads, and delivered so little narrative satisfaction, this series is feeling quite stale. And is this a filler episode? Can I leave now? Hm. In the sense of nothing new happening, and characters rehashing redundancies, yes, it is. But also, Boyd is as galvanizing as ever, and the scenes in the bar feel crucial to the group dynamic. My verdict: The actors saved this one. I’ll watch this season’s final two episodes. If the episode-ten cliffhanger is stupid and/or annoying, I might not care enough to return. We shall soon see.
“Revelations: Chapter One” (S3E9) 17 November, 2024
At this point, I am merely humo(u)ring From, the way an adult humo(u)rs a child who’s trying to spin a yarn, and is doing a terrible job of it, but you tousle his or her hair, and you say, “Hey, good job, kiddo! Then what happens?!” You slyly side-eye the other adults, and you return your supportive smile to the child, counting off the minutes until his or her bedtime.
Despite false-promisingly being called “Revelations,” this ninth episode of the season, and 29th episode overall, offers absolutely nothing in the way of revelations, instead playing as a redundant recap, continuing series creator John Griffin’s trend of blandly repositioning his mostly unlikable characters, and making them reflect on, or tell each other, stuff we already too well know. It’s like one of those greatest hits albums consisting of songs re-recorded by the artist as inferior versions to the originals. Jade even says aloud: “Try something new, because this, this, it’s not doing it for me anymore.” ‘Zackly.
Pretty sure I haven’t yet used the phrase “to wit, or lack thereof,” in this article, so: To wit, or lack thereof: Victor tells Tabitha and Sara that he doesn’t enjoy remembering stuff; Julie lies and tells Kristi et al that she doesn’t remember what happened at the ruins; Randall fiddles with his maxi-pad resulting in yet another cicada flashback, then tells Jim they’re all doomed but he should give Julie driving lessons; Boyd tells Ellis that the missing Fatima will be safe because she presumably has a talisman (Whaaa? We know those don’t work outside!); Donna warmly remembers pothead Fatima’s one-year anniversary at Colony House even though she’s also about to rat her out to everybody about murdering Tillie; Boyd drops f-bombs galore, including at a kindly nurse just trying to say hello; Sara reconstructs her murdered brother’s snowman figurine that Kenny understandably smashed seemingly a hundred years ago, then has another one of her sub-Possession/The First Omen freak-outs; Elgin continues reassuring Fatima that all is well while he continues his abduction of her and makes her drink a dirty jar of his blood; Bakta reopens the diner and welcomes the Matthews family to sit and accomplish nothing at the booth where the jukebox Kenny destroyed is somehow not destroyed anymore (I get that there are two of them, but both appear intact; did Fonzie visit From-town?), plus Ethan misses Tian-Chen’s pancakes because Bakta inexplicably cannot make pancakes (and remember Ethan a couple of episodes back right there with her and Boyd, coldly stating that everyone should give up on finding his missing mother, Tabitha?); after Boyd flips off evil with a double bird, almost everyone teams up to go search for Fatima precisely where she isn’t; except of course for Jade, who makes a new bottle tree and gets scared by that stupid dummy again; while Victor plays Jack Torrance with an axe but only proves his tree-chopping ineptitude with the lighthouse bottle-tree; causing the rapidly aging Boy in White to come reprimand him and explain even more of nothing so nothing happens and we learn nothing; and we have to revisit the stupid pond so Elgin can practically confess to Ellis that he kidnapped Fatima but Ellis is so thick he doesn’t get it; and we return again to the Matthews’ overturned RV with Jim and Ethan so they can both hear not-Thomas on the radio and decide again that it’s not Thomas (you think you’re bored; try typing out all this); then Tabitha yet again sees one of the Achooey kids, who leads her and Julie back to the conveniently located root cellar where of course nobody in the whole town is searching for Fatima because that’s exactly where she is locked away with Kimono Corpse Woman; and inside we find Victor standing creepily in the corner because Griffin saw The Blair Witch Project; then finally — finally — in the last couple of minutes, rudimentary stuff kinda-sorta happens:
Comforting Victor, Tabitha somehow flashes back on Miranda’s presumed death at the claws of resuscitated fan favo(u)ite Nightmare Creature/“Smiley” (Jamie McGuire), who makes literally a five-second flashback cameo here, before getting reborn via Fatima in the next and final episode of this initially vaguely promising but ultimately protracted and arduous season. What a drag it’s been.
Whatever emerged, I fully expected Fatima to give birth by the fifth episode, allowing for the overall plot to cultivate and encompass all sorts of consequent twists and turns — and this was my error, for this is From, and From inherently doesn’t deliver: From obfuscates, From stalls.
Fifteen episodes ago, Boyd accidentally killed “Smiley,” and Fatima discovered that she was pregnant. Sixteen episodes later, Fatima will grodily albeit indirectly give birth anew to “Smiley,” and the TV show called From will be right back where it was in the middle of season two, not having progressed at all.
Intending no meanness whatsoever, I have to say that, unless the next episode is astounding, I’ll be wishing well to the cast and crew, and leaving the garbage writing of From in the dust. To paraphrase Sara: This show — it doesn’t give; it takes. Enough already.
“Revelations: Chapter Two” (S3E10) 24 November, 2024
It’s tempting to type, “From, in sum, you’re really dumb. Bye-yeeeeeee!!!”
But as I’ve squandered 50 to 60 hours on this show (watching most episodes twice), the least I can do is cash out in style. Dig some more words:
The third season of From started vile, and it ended vile. What series creator John Griffin and his cohorts (Pinkner and Bender and Wright, oh, my!) have chosen to do with their extremely poor excuse for a “story” (no more than an attempt to drag us along and exhibit lots of sadism) gives me more than adequate reason to stop watching their show, in which I’m really no longer interested. The fire they stoked in the first season they doused in the second, and completely snuffed out in the third. Obviously this is a horror series, and I’m no prude, but the stupidity and ugliness Griffin & Co. have chosen to foist upon their audience represents a sad waste of the estimable combined talent of their cast and crew: who deserve better writers, much better writers.
This 10th episode of From’s third season, and 30th episode overall, sort of lives up to its title by offering a few paltry revelations: With unintentionally comical out-of-nowhere-ness, Jim divulges that his mother was a piano teacher, and suddenly cracks the code of the numbers in the bottles being musical notes (despite brainy Jade being a musician); Julie discovers that she can time-travel (and possibly affect timelines, despite her brother Ethan’s claim to the contrary); and Tabitha, along with Jade, discovers that they are reincarnated versions of Miranda, and Christopher, respectively (despite this development being annoying). That’s pretty much it for the positive.
The rest of this episode ranges from ho-hum to dag-nasty. Because Ruth-Anne danced on the high bluff where Ed chose her gravesite back in Northern Exposure (a brilliant show for which From is the hideous step-sibling), we get a scene of Victor showing Henry where somehow, as a child, he carried and buried his mother Miranda, and pieces of his sister (possibly) on the same sort of bluff. Ho-hum. Jim and Tabitha continue to try to communicate with each other. Ho-hum. Ditto Kristi and Marielle. Ho-hum. Donna shows up a bit and acts like Donna. Ho-hum.
The dag-nasty bits make the episode more memorable, but they’re also — in keeping with Griffin & Co.’s chronic cruelty — horrible junk, anti-entertainment. Mainly the show continues to focus on how absolutely nobody in multiple search parties checked to see if Fatima was in the whole region’s most obvious hiding place, the nearby root cellar: where of course, because Griffin or maybe Pinkner saw Disney’s The Last Omen, Fatima has to have a demonic insta-baby, which swells her belly within a matter of minutes. And because some focus group liked the redheaded extra monster guy (“Smiley”), Kimono Corpse serves as midwife to help Fatima give “birth” to a blob of gunk, that is promptly transported to the convenient scary tunnel below to grow very rapidly into Smiley: which equals about fifteen episodes of agony to get back a character who isn’t even a character but an exalted extra with an obnoxious grin. Whee. Yuck. It’s exactly this sort of arbitrary course correction that indicates how little design From’s “plot” really has.
Worse, rather than simply letting dumbass kidnapper Elgin go free so he can lead Boyd and his posse to the trapped, tortured Fatima in that root cellar where anybody and everybody should have looked anyway, Boyd makes a decision as stupid as his episode-one choice to leap outside at night to save some errant ruminants, but far uglier: Against the protestations of Ghost Khatri, Boyd decides to fill a duffel bag with hand tools to be used as torture implements, to force the whereabouts of Fatima out of Elgin. Even in From, this is not a good look. Griffin, seriously, why make your main protagonist behave like an irrational, vicious scumbag? Pretty sure nobody likes Elgin (Bakta’s the only good character introduced in season two), but why do you want us to watch our “hero” smash his hand with a hammer? Then, even though the “twist” is clear, it fails: Sara taking over the mantle of the torture psycho makes zero sense. She’s “protecting” Boyd by viciously wounding Elgin, eh? You got any bridges to sell? Anyway, threatening further harm might have convinced Elgin to divulge Fatima’s whereabouts, but having Sara matter-of-factly do it, then blithely chirp, “Welp, she’s in the root cellar inexplicably searched by no one,” that doesn’t work! He’d either be incapacitated and unable to speak, or possibly killed given the length of that screwdriver, and anyway once that damage was done, he’d have no reason to talk. The sequence is pointlessly, gratuitously brutal, like most of From. And that Elgin actor is a big guy! You think a little piece of cord is going to hold him to that chair? Dumb!
As I said, this season started vile (the stupid, vicious murder of Tian-Chen), and it ended vile (the stupid, vicious, unceremoniously abrupt murder of Jim): arguably the two most reasonable, rational, supportive, and proactive characters in the town and in the show. Whether or not Julie can time-travel and attempt to reverse these deaths in a distant future episode becomes irrelevant, when weighed down by the tedious slogs of seasons two and three.
I’ve noticed an online fervor mostly focused on the rebirth of Smiley, and on the masterful fight choreography at the very end, between Jim and Ronald McKrueger (sarcasm), but color me unimpressed. This episode had its moments, but it wasn’t worth all the tedious filler episodes leading up to it. Yeah, I noticed the Mabuse clues. Who’s the man in yellow? Who cares.
* * *
I enjoy some meandering, but From takes way, way too long to reach points that barely nudge the plot forward. Fine, now we know that some people with particularly poor parenting skills sacrificed their own children for a monstrous sort of immortality. But 30 episodes in, we’re still offered no information on the town itself: how it works, and why it does what it does. The growing horde of From cultists can’t handle any criticism of their show, instead making it personal and accusing naysayers of a lack of appreciation for nuance and pacing, but puh to the leeeeeease. You don’t have to be a chef to know the buffet sucks.
In closing, and for me this is closure for From, I’ll say sincere thanks for one good season (the first), and no thanks for two largely lame seasons, and, given what I’ve seen, I’m not excited for a fourth (or more). I wish the excellent crew, and most of the cast, very well! If I tune in for a random future episode here or there, it will be entirely due to happenstance or convenience: “Oh, that? That’s still on?” But I won’t be wasting more time, or keystrokes, on careful scrutiny of this show.
Have fun, kiddos! tousle-tousle
~Gregory
24 November, 2024
