re: FROM (MGM+) SEASON 4 OFFICIAL DISCUSSION THREAD (This show needs watchers!)

I didn't think about Julie being "future Julie" when she saw Jim get killed. That makes sense. So now I shift to what makes her get back onboard with trying that angle as opposed to her "this place lies" stance she all of a sudden had in this episode, especially considering that the bulk of her story this season has been trying to figure out the storywalking shite with the temple thing and Randall.

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Seems like they're really close with the bones but they're gonna frick it up with the bottle tree.

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No doubt. The BiW told Victor at the end of S3 that the bottle tree was important and they've reiterated that again now with this episode. So the bones seem to be on the right track with how Sophia reacted when she found out it was Tabitha and Jade going down there.

They also made it a point to mention the "how" of doing things twice this episode.

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Still no golem payoff

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That absolutely HAS to payoff next week, or else it will be a total waste of a good bit of screen time this season with Fatima. I do think it will since they have basically completely ignored it for a couple of episodes now. So I assume it will have some sort of surprise moment in the finale where it saves the day for everyone, or specifically saves her from something.

Maybe she and Ellis and Ethan will all be about to die somehow, and the golem comes in and is able to save her, but not quite Ethan and Ellis. That would be cool. (Sorry to keep coming back to that well, but I just really hope one or some of those idiots die off next week.)

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Sophia/MiY went from not caring who was digging up the bones to getting worried real quick after realizing it's just Tabitha and Jade.

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Yeah she changed her tone real quick.

I also wonder what the actual deal with Clara was. So far all we know is her saying "do I still get to go home?" or something like that...so we know the payoff, but what was the deal? Just that she would have to help MiY at wreak havoc at some point? How can anybody trust anything in this Town after seeing what's going on for more than about two days?

The more I think about the "deal" with Clara, the more mad I get about that. That is a random thing that was thrown in this week that has absolutely zero callback to something previous that happened as far as I can tell. So it's just more of convenience than flowing with the story. It just feels super lazy, and I am not a fan.

Julie's hair was so awful this episode that I couldn't see her in a scene without thinking of that picture. i don't think a character's hair has ever been that bad for me to notice before.

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I didn't think about Julie being "future Julie" when she saw Jim get killed. That makes sense. So now I shift to what makes her get back onboard with trying that angle as opposed to her "this place lies" stance she all of a sudden had in this episode, especially considering that the bulk of her story this season has been trying to figure out the storywalking shite with the temple thing and Randall.

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They pushed the Julie/Randall story hard at the beginning of the season then just dropped it after the attempt to leave a marker failed, but more than that they've damned near relegated the characters to background players since then. It's a bit odd, it feels like the writers just gave up on that storyline. I mean, I doubt they did and that it will come back into play at some other point but the way they dropped it AND the focus on those two characters was jarringly abrupt.

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The more I think about the "deal" with Clara, the more mad I get about that. That is a random thing that was thrown in this week that has absolutely zero callback to something previous that happened as far as I can tell. So it's just more of convenience than flowing with the story. It just feels super lazy, and I am not a fan.

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I like the idea of finding out about her deal like this to inform us that MiY hasn't been idle, but has been working off-screen machinations with some of the background players. This opens up the idea that anyone could be compromised with a similar deal. My only issue would be if we've never seen her before (ie: even in the background). That would indeed be a shoe-horning and I wouldn't care for that.

All that said, I could go either way on it but it did feel a bit forced seeing as I don't remember her from any other scene.

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So the bones seem to be on the right track with how Sophia reacted when she found out it was Tabitha and Jade going down there.

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Them being the ones to retrieve the bones must be part of the necessary ritual he didn't think they would figure out.

Is Elgin going to be another victim of "knowledge comes at a cost"?

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I think Henry will try and kill Victor.

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Victor being stuck in the jail cell would make that pretty convenient.

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Julie's hair was so awful this episode that I couldn't see her in a scene without thinking of that picture. i don't think a character's hair has ever been that bad for me to notice before.

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Agree 100%. It's literally all I could see when she was on screen. That picture is so great.

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I like the idea of finding out about her deal like this to inform us that MiY hasn't been idle, but has been working off-screen machinations with some of the background players. This opens up the idea that anyone could be compromised with a similar deal.

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I don't disagree with that in theory, but my problem is it opens up literally anything in terms of plot because you can just be shoe-horned in, like you alluded to. Like at least plant SOME sort of seed for stuff so that it doesn't come out of left field. It would be like all the Fatima/Elgin shite from last season except that we never saw the kimono woman with Elgin and in the penultimate episode he was like "Hey, I'm gonna kidnap you because this woman offscreen who nobody has ever seen has been telling me to....trust me."

I don't know, it just felt cheap and lazy to me. But if there is a solid payoff from it I'm sure I won't mind it in the end. But it also seems kinda avoidable altogether in that Sophia could've been the one to poison the drink and bring it to Fatima, and then she obviously would've found out that Jade and Tabitha were going down into the tunnels on her own. The use of Clara just seems superfluous.

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Them being the ones to retrieve the bones must be part of the necessary ritual he didn't think they would figure out.

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It certainly seems to be the case with that.

I'm also not sure what the Henry shite will bring about. Clearly they are heading straight into him trying to kill Victor, which to me screams the same thing that happened with Abby. Now, I don't know if she just went insane or if the MiY had something to do with that (it would be cool if we got a flashback and saw MiY dabbling with shite with Abby too), I also assume there's no way they kill off Victor.

And I get Yeti's gripes about Victor. But I do think he will be very important moving forward. I do agree that up until now, outside of throwing out little nuggets of information here and there, he's been pretty useless. I definitely had higher hopes for him this season (although I don't think he stays locked up in that cell for the whole finale).

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I also wonder what the actual deal with Clara

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My wife said she made a deal for a cake

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The eye thing was cool. But what was MiY’s deal with this chubby chick? Have we seen that or is that an offscreen thing? Seems like the latter.

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We have Abby, Sara and Elgin who have been promised a route home by working with the MiY...seems like they are just shortcutting some writing here.

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Weird that this fat chick would walk out of the woods and do the blood in the thermos thing in full view of the clinic when she was just…..in the woods.

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Thought that exact thing when she stopped to "covertly" dose the thermos.

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So MiY can manifest himself into anybody that has died there before

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That little nugget will definitely come into play, if it hasn't already. I agree, that he wasn't fake-Jim, though.

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Sophia/MiY went from not caring who was digging up the bones to getting worried real quick after realizing it's just Tabitha and Jade.

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Big game changer for Sophia...thus, the townfolk are on the correct path.

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I'm also not sure what the Henry shite will bring about

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That one has been bothering me.

It seems like every character is something like a reincarnation of another from before, at least in terms of roles.

Like maybe in the past Eloise was a storywalker akin to Julie, and that's why Victor thinks she disappeared.

But Boyd's wife Abby has already gone down the "none of this is real and we're in a nightmare" scenario while they've been there, so why is Henry already doing it again?

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MiY can manifest himself into anybody that has died there before

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Remember the weird, cheerful older lady Tillie who came on the bus, and knew Fatima was pregnant?

That was actually the MiY, right?

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As of right now I’m going to trust that the BiW is good and trying to help them in a when I feel like it kind of way. What’s always confused me is why they haven’t tried to go back to the lighthouse. I know it’s pretty far away but still if I knew it was the way out I would be hot footing it there.

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I agree. I remember being annoyed when Tabitha came back that everybody was pissed at her and yelling at her for not doing more when she was "out." Like I think they were bitching at her for not going to the cops and shite like that.

But I don't remember, did she ever even tell them about how she got out, about the bottle tree and the lighthouse and the BiW and all that? Because if so, then it stands to reason that others would try to leave that same way. Is that what the dude last season that ended up in the concrete in the pool tried to do? Didn't he go through the Bottle Tree and end up there, or was that another faraway tree somewhere else?

Also, this has to connect back to previous shite we've seen and heard about the Bottle Tree. This is from my notes on the first page (re> Victor):

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- Victor remembers that it wasn’t jasper telling Christopher shite. It was the boy in white. “The answers to the end are at the beginning. It started with the children, what the others did to them (the people they loved and trusted). The children were born in the dark and were murdered in the dark. But someone who loved them told them a story and it gave them hope. And when the children laid on the stones they poured their hope into the roofs to make the symbol and those roots became the tree." Boy in white was telling Christopher that to save the children he’d have to go through the tree. But he wouldn’t listen and got angry. So Victor told his mother what the boy in white said and that’s why she went to the tree.

- Victor had an axe hidden and wants to chop down the bottle tree. Victor tries to chop the bottle tree down and the boy in white stopped him. BiW said it's important and he tried to help them with Christopher and that they need to learn for themselves and it’s the only way they’ll understand. Also the BiW looks different now (older?) and Victor notices it. And he says “everything is different now.”

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"The answers at the end are at the beginning..." I assume that this is why Sophia isn't happy about Jade and Tabitha fricking with the bones. J&T were around in the beginning (and it remains to be seen if they were the ones who sacrificed the children or not, although at this point all we know is that they "tried to save them" I think).

"Someone who loved them told them a story and gave them hope..." Could that be part of J&T trying to save the kids?

"And when the children laid on the stones they poured their hope into the roofs to make the symbol and those roots became the tree." So that is why the BT is so important to the kids/BiW. The question is why. And hopefully we get more information on that this week when Victor trying to save the tree will surely come into play.

But all of that quote seems to basically be talking about "the beginning" which is when the kids were brought into the tunnels and sacrificed to whatever entity rules this place. So J&T digging up the bones is a good plan. Not sure they even know what to do once they dig them up (assuming they even can get them out of there since the monsters just have to sneeze softly at the visqueen and get past that.

Another big question is what Sophia/MiY actually is. Is it the big bad entity that rules over this place, or is it more of a lesser boss that has to answer to a bigger boss? We've seen the voices tell Sara that there are worse things in the forest than the monsters, so surely MiY isn't the final boss IMO.

As for this part:

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Victor had an axe hidden and wants to chop down the bottle tree. Victor tries to chop the bottle tree down and the boy in white stopped him. BiW said it's important and he tried to help them with Christopher and that they need to learn for themselves and it’s the only way they’ll understand.

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I assume whatever it is they are trying to do with this plan should show them the importance of the BT and its significance moving forward in terms of helping them get out of here and going home.

I also think (or hope) that this is the catalyst that shows everyone that Victor actually does know what he's talking about with how this place works, and that they should be utilizing him more moving forward. He fricking HAS to be useful at some point, or else they've wasted an awful lot of screen time on him.

But the more I read back into my notes on the first page, the more I think they may have this shite planned out better than I think they do. if they can start connecting back to things we've seen and heard in previous seasons, that would be great and make the show even better for me.

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Like maybe in the past Eloise was a storywalker akin to Julie, and that's why Victor thinks she disappeared.

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Oh, I like that theory.

Although Victor doesn't think she disappeared...he knows she was killed by MiY at the Bottle Tree because he saw him eating her. And she went to the three because Christopher didn't believe the BiW that the BT was their way out of there...so when Victor told Miranda about it, she left him and Eloise in the cellar to go to the BT and check it out. Then Eloise left to follow her and the BT is where they were killed.

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Remember the weird, cheerful older lady Tillie who came on the bus, and knew Fatima was pregnant?

That was actually the MiY, right?

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Damn, could be. Definitely could've been MiY fricking with "the game" and toying with the residents. But I do think Tillie was actually just Tillie when Fatima killed her. So maybe MiY was acting as Tillie to stir things up and have people not trust her, and that indirectly led to Fatima accidentally killing her?

These are great discussions btw. It's not to have more traction in From threads.

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a red herring

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BTW, Victor is the epitome of an unreliable narrator.

One could say he's been smart enough to survive FROM for 40 years.

But another could say he's been stupid enough to have been trapped there for 40 years.

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Wasn't Eloise his little sister?

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Yeah, not sure on the storywalking, it's just a guess.




I think when we see the talisman there are eight children represented, but only seven are currently there, which means one child survives each time.

That child could be the Boy in White, Victor, and maybe (or supposed to be) Ethan?

If that's true, his sister may also be the storywalker each time.