FROM Season 4 Episode 6 Leaves Us Asking Where Do They Go From Here?

Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

4.2

As we enter the second half of FROM Season 4, you can start to see where it’s headed.

It’s been slow-moving at times, as the show has been over the years, with the scares slowing down and giving way to more character-heavy hours focused on people’s emotions while dropping hints about the town.

It’s a necessary part of a series like this, but some hours do work better than others.

There was nothing inherently wrong with FROM Season 4 Episode 6, but coming off arguably its best episode of the season, it felt subdued and ultimately came across as a bit of a letdown.

The big cliffhanger coming out of FROM Season 4 Episode 5 was Jade triumphantly exclaiming that he knew how they could save the children and that they would be able to go home.

There was much speculation about what Jade would reveal, and I admittedly had no idea what he would say. So, hearing him say that they needed to travel down to the tunnels to dig up the bones of the children left me with an overwhelming feeling of “Huh?”

Jade’s mushroom trip was informative for him, seeing the versions of himself from the past, but he pretty much sidelined what I’m sure had to be a lot of fear and confusion to focus on what happened before he was ripped back to reality.

At the end of the trip, when he was pulled into that stone tomb, it must have been the moment of his epiphany. Okay, maybe it caught me off guard, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

How many scary movies have you seen over the years that feature a disgruntled ghost seeking revenge? And the only way to bring them peace is to solve their murder and bring the bad people to justice.

Or, in this case, maybe it’s to give them a proper burial, out of sight of the monsters who killed them.

There are a lot of moving parts with this show, and the tragedy of the children has come into greater focus as potentially being the key to everything, especially if their deaths were the catalyst for everything.

Jade’s discovery didn’t affect Boyd, and it’s kind of funny to see him still push back after everything he’s seen.

It’s like he still can’t bring himself to blindly believe the crazy theories, because there’s a tiny part of him that just can’t accept they are living in this everyday nightmare.

Of course, the seemingly nonexistent door in the basement of Colony House pretty much proved his point that whatever Jade said wasn’t real.

Boyd and Jade are such an interesting pair because they embody the two extremes that exist within that place.

Boyd is completely beaten down, hanging on by the skin of his teeth and holding it together with little more than faith. Then there’s Jade, who’s actively seeking answers and willing to risk everything to get one step closer to getting out.

They both want to get home. That has never been a question. But Boyd’s not willing to engage in a suicide mission to do so.

Of course, the lack of a door, and what ensues, means they never get a chance to talk about things more until the very end of the hour.

Let me just say, we literally just saw life-sized dolls rise from the bottom of the lake to try to kill people, and that was not as terrifying as seeing Donna suffer a heart attack.

There are a lot of human moments in this series, but seeing Donna get sick almost felt foreign compared to the fantastical horrors we’re so used to.

Coming back from the forest (and how exactly did they make it through the rest of that night?), Donna was overwhelmed by everything that happened. Not only did she almost die, but it was yet another thing in that godforsaken town to worry about.

The idea that the people who die there infest the town with their nightmares may be one of the scarier things they’ve discovered because it’s just another evil they can’t predict.

Remember in FROM Season 1 when they actually had moments of feeling they had a modicum of control? They had the talisman, and they knew to come in before the sun went down, ensuring everyone made it through the night safely.

Those days seem like a lifetime ago, and now each day brings a new pain and a new unknown they have to battle.

Donna’s heart attack felt so unexpected because she’s Donna. A heart attack isn’t supposed to take down someone like her. Someone who helps keep that whole town from devolving into madness.

But it was so heartbreakingly relatable, too, because that’s life.

It hit everyone like a ton of bricks, especially Boyd.

Even though the two of them had a rocky relationship, to the point that the town was essentially split between them, they’ve grown closer, and the respect that was always there, bubbling under the surface, has turned into a real friendship.

They both value each other and their sometimes-differing perspectives, and I loved that Boyd was the same with her as he’d always been, because I think that’s what Donna would want.

Boyd crying at her bedside and trying to will her to open her eyes? That’s not their dynamic.

Their dynamic is Boyd telling her to wake the hell up because he can’t do this without her, and her hearing his plea.

Father Khatri’s appearance was a little unexpected, since it’s been a minute since he showed up to douse Boyd with cold water and deliver some hard truths. But it did feel fitting that he would show up at that moment, when Boyd, internally, had to be scrambling, thinking about the possibility of life there without Donna.

Khatri’s presence always seems to come at a time when Boyd is at a crossroads, and he doesn’t necessarily have the answers, but he always awakens something in Boyd to think about.

Whether he wants to believe it or not, Jade did give him a plan. He gave him something no one else in there had said, and with each day growing more dire than the last, why shouldn’t that be enough?

When Boyd took a sledgehammer to the stone, I knew there would be a door there, so it wasn’t a shock, but where things go from here likely will be.

Who’s going to risk their lives to go down into the monster’s lair? Will they do it during the evening while the monsters are prowling the streets? Or will they do it during the day as stealthily as possible?

There are still so many unknowns here, but it’s also kind of exciting.

It’ll also be interesting to see if word gets back to Sophia.

The Man in the Yellow Suit thing has been lingering in the background all season, but they are nowhere close to figuring out that Sophia is him, or even that he’s haunting the narrative right now.

Sophia just goes along every day, subtly harming people, making them doubt themselves, and no one is the wiser.

This week, Sophia set her sights on Henry, and poor Henry. He’s really struggling, and can you blame him?

When he finds out about Tabitha, which will likely be in some horrifying way, because why wouldn’t he, it’s going to affect him in so many different ways.

His life was upended like everyone else who gets stuck there, but in such a uniquely awful way that it’s a miracle it’s taken him this long to just collapse under the weight of it.

Sophia took his vulnerability as a way to get to him, but where she did things to make Sara and Marielle go a little mad, she just played the part of a supportive drinking partner until she could spike Henry’s drink with her blood. And WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?

More than her psychological mind games, I am so worried about what that blood will do to Henry.

Is it going to slowly drive him mad? Will he start having weird flashbacks from The Man in the Yellow Suit’s life that haunt him?

Will it physically break down his body? Will it cause him to have murderous tendencies?

There are so many possibilities, and they’re all terrible.

It’s starting to feel like we’re on a collision course this season to something catastrophic, and not just another shocking death or a big revelation like in past seasons.

Instead, we’re reaching levels of desperation that aren’t sustainable.

Characters are being pushed closer to a breaking point, and it seems less like a mystery waiting to be solved and more like a powder keg poised to explode.

Loose Ends

• I never thought I would see the day when Sara and Julie would find common ground and a trauma bond over the monsters trying to ruin their lives. The longer you stay in that place, the more you realize everything is just an absolute mess, and everyone’s just trying to survive.
• If you didn’t cry when Ethan was saying goodbye to Donna, HOW? I love their bond.

• Can they give Ellis something to do this season besides worrying about Fatima? Same for Kenny! He started the season with the semblance of a story, but now he’s just worrying about people, absorbing information, and moving on to the next worry.

• My heart breaks for Victor. He’s suffered and gone through so much, and he’s suppressed so much so as not to burden or scare those around him. And now he feels like he’s broken his dad.

• Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Sophia slyly asking Henry if it’s all just a dream. I refuse to have been put through this torture just to get to the end, and for it all to be a story an adult Ethan is reading to his college English Lit class. NO!

Maybe not the most exciting of hours, but there’s a lot to think about as the season rolls along.

As always, let me know in the comments how you’re feeling so we can discuss!

You can watch FROM on Sundays at 9/8c on MGM+.