The latest episode of FROM is yet another banger in Season 3’s gripping early run. It’s honestly a bit tortuous to have to wait an entire week between episodes, though I’m still glad Amazon and MGM are releasing it this way. Good shows ought to have a chance to marinate, to get that glorious watercooler talk week after week. I’m old-fashioned like that, and FROM is the perfect show for discussion of fan theories, unpuzzling mysteries and occasionally griping about ridiculous character choices.
Let’s go over what’s happening with each of our primary characters / groups this episode beginning with . . . .
Jade and the Foragers
Jade, Kenny, Kristi, Dale and a couple other Fromvillians from the big house all head out to the little abandoned homestead with the creepy mannequins to gather more food from the lake, though snow has fallen and things are considerably less hospitable than they were before. It’s a wonder any vegetables are harvestable at this point, though they also find berries.
Jade is in a bad mood, and after some squabbling stomps off on his own to relieve himself, when he comes across some strange red boulders. It’s here that he sees his first vision: A man on a tree, his face mangled. When others show up, the man disappears, but Jade is at his wit’s end and despite warnings that he’ll never make it back to town before dark, he sets off on his own. Kristi follows, trying to stop him, and steps into a bear trap.
As darkness looms, the rest of the group scrambles to get her free. Jade and the always unpleasant Dale rush back to the mannequins, which were built with a combination of wood and metal bars. They grab the latter and are able to free Kristi, though her ankle has seen better days. As they work to reset her foot, Jade’s vision reappears, gruesomely, only vanishing again when Kristi tells him to focus. They rush her back to the homestead to take shelter for the night. Meanwhile . . .
Fatima and the Birds
Perhaps the most dread-inducing storyline of Season 3 revolves around Fatima and her ill-fated pregnancy. We’ve already learned that she can’t keep normal food down and has resorted to eating—ravenously—the rotten crops that have now been piled up outside the big house.
She does this in an almost feral manner, and while she doesn’t want to be seen it’s as if her hunger outweighs her need for secrecy. Tillie—who I still find unsettling—spots her and tries to talk to her about the oddities of pregnancy. She also offers a Tarot card reading, which Fatima at first rebukes.
When Tillie reassures her that it’s not a game, but something that’s helped her in life, she relents and the two sit down. But just as they’re about to begin the reading a crow flies into the window. They’re startled but continue to start the reading, when suddenly another crow smashes through the window and begins to fly around the house, bloodied and cawing. It’s honestly terrifying—as though the evil presence that rules the town was genuinely afraid of what they might discover in the cards. Will they return to this or have they been too unsettled to continue? What will the cards tell old Tillie about Fatima’s baby? And is it even a baby inside her? I think it’s clear that something is very, very wrong.
But things aren’t going so well back in the real world, either.
In Maine, Tabitha has convinced Henry she’s telling the truth. She’s studied all the paintings, and still hasn’t found anything helpful. Henry tells her about the bottle tree, and shockingly enough his wife had hung bottles from the tree in their yard, just like the Faraway tree she entered to get to the Lighthouse.
But this isn’t the original tree, he tells her. Victor’s mother did another one first, back in town. So they hop in the car and head to the park. This is really interesting because in Fromville there are also two bottle trees. There’s the one Victor took Tabitha to, but there’s another that Boyd found earlier in the series. I wonder, are they the same distance apart that these two trees in the real world are? This must be significant, but we’re never shown the second tree. Tabitha and Henry never make it.
On their way to the tree, Tabitha finds a bracelet just like the one she gave Jim and suddenly she realizes—or at least she believes—that all of this is in fact a lie. She’s not in the real world at all. She tells Henry to pull over, she needs to get out of the car, she’s panicking. But Henry isn’t willing to just give up after everything she’s told him and he pulls the car out into the street without looking. A car crashes into theirs and the next thing Tabitha knows, she’s in an ambulance. Henry is unconscious next to her.
And this is when things go from bad to worse. The ambulance has two medics and a police officer, and none of them will let her go. They’ve been looking for the mysterious woman who just walked out of the hospital the day before, and they’re understandably worried that she isn’t well. And then they come to a tree in the road. Tabitha looks on with horror.
Elsewhere, we have Boyd trying to come up with a plan. He wants to catch one of the monsters, and he goes to Randall’s bus and offers to switch places for the night. Not everyone is onboard with this plan, but Boyd is tired of just waiting around. The creatures have changed. Things are getting worse, but there’s nothing worse than just sitting around waiting for the next horror.
I’m genuinely enjoying this season a lot more than Season 2. It really feels like we’re getting some forward momentum, and while we haven’t gotten any big answers yet, you can almost taste them on the wind. Tabitha’s journey to the real world is a big deal, and her return to Fromville—along with Victor’s dad—will make waves among its residents.
I’ve also noted that we seem to be getting fewer F-bombs, and characters are communicating a little bit better than in seasons past. We’ll see if that continues, but so far I’m just really hyped for this season and can’t wait for each new episode. It’s awfully grim, but it’s really gaining steam and everything feels a bit less stuck in place narratively—though our heroes remain as stuck as ever in this dreadful nightmare.
Also, isn’t Jade great? I just hope he and Boyd and Victor and Tabitha and all the characters with real insights into different aspects of this mystery can come together and share information. It seems like this is happening more now than ever, but it definitely feels like Jade is wasted on a food run when he ought to be working with Boyd and Jim and the others on a plan.
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