The game being played in From reaches a clutch moment with multiple characters coming together. Did this week have more action per minute than the rest of the series, while also squeezing in some character moments and developing the less action packed storylines here and there? Yes!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Five minutes into the episode we have Tabitha stuck in an ambulance with Henry, two medics and a cop, surrounded by the town’s monsters. Together, they don’t last long before the two medics are taken out for stupidity. Other than being in the ambulance, Tabitha and Henry are left defenseless because the cop hightails it out of there to the “safest” (Ha!) place she could find: Colony House.
Thomas (or the disembodied voice claiming to be Thomas on a phone not connected to anything) is becoming my favorite character as he warns Ethan about his mom’s current circumstances. Ethan, being the dutiful son, tells Jim which energizes him in a way we haven’t seen before. The storytelling surrounding Jim, Boyd and Randall teaming up to rescue Tabitha and Henry is exceptional in its action developing characters. Next to this storyline, Kenny and company doing their best impression of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdom” was slow but interesting.
The best thing From does is inspect the living’s relationship with the dead, good and bad. Escape from your current trauma is one of the reasons people cling to their lost loved ones. To afford that dwelling on the past, however, like Kenny, Kristi and Jade do in front of the fire, you can’t be surrounded by the danger that took your loved ones in the first place. The relatable banter shared between the three is a nice reprieve, even if it’s brief. We’ve seen the attachment these characters have with Tian-Chen grow and this was a pleasant send-off. The extreme version of a fireside chat is given to the scene that didn’t even involve a fire.
Loss is something felt by every single character on this show. Yet, it’s Victor who has suffered loss on the most occasions beginning with being separated from his father. The town’s history of loss is told by Victor Kavanaugh to Sara Myers in the hopes of preventing more loss. Nobody will be surprised by this but all the loss during Victor’s childhood turned out to be from an evil ventriloquist dummy.
Photo: Chris Reardon/MGM+
The town is unfortunately going through another period of loss. The calm after Tian-Chen’s death (if you can call it that) is fully disrupted with the monsters’ attack on the ambulance. In a heartbreaking moment, Acosta the frazzled cop, kills Nicky, a resident of Colony House who kept interacting with Fatima as she dealt with her pregnancy woes. I loved that immediately after Nicky’s death, Fatima’s pregnancy horrors caused her to go HAM on Nicky’s dead body… I love horror. The sorrow in Boyd, an African American man, as he reacts to a cop killing an innocent bystander is another example of the power that horror has.
Coincidence and timing often play a role in horror as it does when Randall is captured by the monsters during the rescue mission. He and Boyd had come to a place where they could trust each other, but Boyd made the tough call to not go back for Randall. The monsters place Randall, bloodied but alive, on the ambulance’s hood in front of Colony House as a way of taunting Boyd. What began as a team effort between Boyd and Randall could now be seen as a betrayal by Boyd.
The characters face what’s beyond the mortal veil in various ways with each succeeding or failing based on what is keeping them grounded in the living world with loved ones.
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