Now that the tears from Tian-Chen Liu’s tragic demise last week have dried, From is now giving us its best episode yet by bringing into focus what makes this town so terrifying. We aren’t given a chance to feel our pain for too long before the show moves onto the next spooky shenanigans. The devastating news inevitably affects every single character in different ways.
*SPOILERS AHEAD!*
To watch his friend be killed for such a long time, Boyd Stevens must be broken now, right? Parents are such a big theme on the show, how will Tian-Chen’s son Kenny react to losing his remaining parent going forward? Is Kenny going to blame himself for leaving her side to accompany Jim Matthews on his trek?
Those are big questions that transcend to every storyline in “When We Go”, even Tabitha Matthews’ journey outside the town. The diner was focal point of tension even before its owner’s death with food now becoming a scarcity. The food that the animals provide is what the monsters baited Boyd with last week.
Normalcy by way of food is what Jim and Kenny were looking when they left last week. This places an unreasonable amount of guilt on Kenny when he returns to town to find that his mother has been brutally murdered while he was away, consoling himself in a promise he made to his mother to cherish every moment. With less and less hope in the living world, Kenny pulls strength from the dead and what he feels he owes to his “Fromily” (as fans have put it). Yeah, it doesn’t seem like the healthiest response! Here is the thing: it might not be the most dangerous response to the hereafter in the episode.
Photo: Chris Reardon/MGM+
From Season 3 Episode 2 is the reason I quoted Rod Serling’s stance on the afterlife in my season review. Here in this episode, we had numerous character reckoning with people they have lost. The storyline that deals with this the most is, ironically, the one involving the Matthews family, who are all alive. It’s jarring to realize, but this family came to the town with the specter of death following them.
The phantom of death haunts Tabitha Matthews as she talks to Victor’s dad, Henry, who long ago accepted that his son was dead along with his wife. Henry reveals that his wife had visions of the town, even before she and Victor wound up there. She described the town as filled with trapped people who only had each other to hold onto in a fight that seemed hopeless. This description is played over a scene of Tian-Chen Liu’s funeral, making us think that she was describing the characters we’ve been following on From so far. However, she would be seeing these visions before the events of the show which brings to mind one question. Was she describing our heroes in the present or is she describing past trapped townsfolk who would become the monsters we fear currently?
If there is one town that could turn innocent people into ravaging monsters, it’s this one. The horrors the Matthews family has endured on top of the unresolved issue of a dead sibling has left little Ethan Matthews searching for any form of comfort. Now, all the adults are focused on surviving or dealing with the literal monsters but at least Donna reminds him that Tian-Chen loved him. It was the wrong time, though, since she was cutting up one of the barn animals Ethan was worried about last week.
It is Ethan’s father, however, who is hit the hardest with a remnant from the afterlife at the end of the episode in a scene reminiscent of The Twilight Zone episode “Long Distance Call”, (the one with creepy grandma). The closing moments see Jim get a call on one of the phones not connected to anything. On the other end of the phone call is Thomas Matthews, the son Tabitha and Jim lost before the series which caused a rift within the family.
“When We Go” focuses in on the true horror of the story being told while also revealing the source that the characters can pull strength from.
New episodes of From air Sundays on MGM+.
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