Mainstream showbiz has been so crowded with adaptations, remakes, sequels, and reimaginations of existing narratives that originality has been snuffed out of the equation a long time ago. In that context, coming across a mystery thriller as unique as MGM+’s From is surely an exhilarating experience. Chronicling the trials and tribulations of a group of survivors stranded in a godforsaken Midwestern American town, From is a riveting drama that has managed to keep its audience in a constant state of perplexity regarding the true nature of its central mystery even after the completion of its first two seasons. The only close comparison of the series we could draw upon was Damon Lindelof’s acclaimed sci-fi drama, Lost, as both series share common executive producers, Jack Bender and Jeff Pinkner.Â
Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, From remains criminally underrated and is yet to receive the appreciation it so richly deserves. The few ardent fans who have been hooked to the series from the beginning are eagerly waiting for the upcoming release of the third season, which is going to premiere later this week. Let us briefly discuss everything that happened throughout the first two seasons, which will help series fans to jog their memories and also new viewers to get well acquainted with the storyline itself.
Spoilers Ahead
Season 1: Welcome to Fromville
Occasionally, settings play as crucial a role in the narrative as the characters themselves, and the unnamed, undetectable town in From serves as a perfect example of this. The unfortunate ones who are forced to become its denizens, get guided by the whims of fate, and come across a fallen tree on the road. As they get forced to take a detour, the alternate road brings them to the nightmarish township, dubbed by series fans as Fromville, from where there is no escape – as if the town resides in its own pocket dimension. Any attempt to leave Fromville is futile, as the main street forms a loop that begins and ends in the town, and the surrounding wilderness, filled with mysteries of its own, is confusing and terrifying enough to discourage anyone even attempting to find an escape route by going through it. At night, ghoulish, murderous creatures of darkness roam about Fromville, taking the form of humans, luring and preying upon unsuspecting victims—which makes survival much more of a challenge than it already is. None of the residents knows how the town has electricity despite being cut off from the rest of the world or from where the occasional livestock arrive from the wilderness; they simply sustain themselves by making the best of whatever little freedom Fromville allows them. From, as a series also finds a strong emotional connection through family relations, as nothing spells out hopelessness and dread better than anticipating loved ones being subjected to a fate we ourselves fear to meet. The place remains an enigma to the residents, who do not know anything regarding the causality or connection between the events that take place in the township and, after a while, coping up with dread and despair, lose any interest in finding out either.Â
Newcomers Bring New Troubles
The present timeline of the first season introduces the major set of characters who are currently living in Fromville, who’ve been staying there for a prolonged period and have somewhat accepted their fate. Sheriff Boyd is the reliable, responsible leader who looks after the affairs of the town, and he was the one to figure out the usage of a particular type of talisman that can be used in homes to ward off the nocturnal monsters. Kenny Liu, the deputy, lives with his elderly parents and looks up to Boyd as a father figure. The town’s sole medic, Kristie, is a kind and caring soul, and Donna, the tough-as-nails co-leader, is protective of the people under her care. Father Khatri is a pragmatic, sensible man who often helps Boyd tackle troubling situations around him and manages the makeshift church in Fromville. Boyd’s estranged son, Ellis, and Fatima, a resident of the town, are in love with each other and in general are helpful towards others. The most interesting of the lot is definitively Victor, who has lived almost his entire life in this hellish township and has managed to survive on his own, and the cryptic, ominous paintings he had drawn during his younger days might hold the key to untangling the mystery of the town. But Victor’s frail mental state makes it difficult for him to share his knowledge about the place with others. As the first season begins, the Matthews family, Jim and Tabitha, who are trying to patch up their failing marriage, arrive at Fromville with their children Julie and Ethan and get into an accident with another newcomer party to Fromville, Jade and Toby. There seems to be a balancing force at work to maintain the capacity of people Fromville can hold, as the long streak of deathless days in Fromville gets broken the day both parties arrive at the town. Sara Myers, one of the residents of the town, starts receiving psychical messages from the unknown controllers of the township, under whose instructions she secretly kills Toby and allows monsters to enter the clinic, resulting in the deaths of a number of people, including Kenny’s father. A drunkard Frank loses his wife and daughter in the attack of one of the ghoulish creatures, and as he is put into the ‘Box’—a form of capital punishment for his negligence—the Matthews family shifts to their house. However, Julie, the rebellious teenage daughter of Jim and Tabitha, decides to shift to Colony House, a residence where not so family-oriented folks have formed a commune of sorts, with Donna as their leader. It goes without saying that after going through the initial feelings of confusion, denial, fear, and agony, the newcomers begin to accept and adjust to their new reality.
Sara’s connection with the unknown controllers gets her into trouble as she tries to kill Ethan in exchange for the freedom of the townsfolk and ends up killing her brother, Nathan, instead. Unbeknownst to everyone, Father Khatri, who had known about now fugitive Sara’s situation for a while, keeps her as a captive in the church, in hopes of using her psychical connection with the controllers to free the people of Fromville. Little Ethan befriends Victor and starts learning more about the town, which draws the ire of Jim, who considers Victor to be a bad influence on his son. Victor shows Ethan a strange Faraway tree that can teleport objects passed through it, but on a random basis, and it is revealed that both of them can see a strange Boy in White, who seems to be a crucial figure, as Victor had seen him during his younger days, when the then residents of the town were slaughtered within a night. Jade, one of the newcomers, an eccentric software engineer, tries to solve the mystery of the town by attempting communication by building a radio with Jim’s help and starts seeing a strange symbol and bloody vision of a Civil War-era soldier. Khatri trusts Boyd with the information about Sara being kept under his protection and shares his belief that her connection with the unknown controllers can provide them with clues that’ll help them escape this hellhole. On the other hand, Tabitha decides to search for the town’s source of electricity and literally continues digging deeper into their residence.
Colony House Massacre and Boyd’s Journey
On the first year anniversary of Fatima’s arrival to Fromville, Colony House gets ambushed by nocturnal monsters after one of the creatures manages to trick a resident, and the resulting bloodbath costs Khatri his life as well. Previously, Boyd had learned that he was showing early signs of Parkinson’s, and with Khatri’s demise, he now finds himself in a tough situation with the responsibilities towards the townsfolk mounting up on him. Boyd makes the tough call of traversing the wilderness with Sara’s help, however, ignoring the request of the townsfolk – who do not know yet that Boyd is accompanied by Sara. In a flashback scene, it is revealed that Boyd had arrived in the town with his wife and son, and his preoccupation with the welfare of the townsfolk and negligence towards his wife, Abby, resulted in the dread of the town getting to her mind, until the day she finally snapped and started killing residents, considering death to be the only way of escaping the town. To save his son Ellis from Abby’s murderous rampage, Boyd had to kill her.
Jade sees a particularly strange symbol in his visions, which he manages to trace back to Victor’s childhood picture with the help of Kenny’s mother, Tian-Chen, and it becomes increasingly apparent that the residents of the town are part of a certain cycle of torment, which has continued for a long while, with the batch changing with generations. After surviving through inexplicable mysteries of the forest, Boyd and Sara come across a strange lighthouse, and as Sara is able to see the Boy in White, she follows his command to shove Boyd through a Faraway tree, which transports him to a strange dry well. With the help of the townsfolk, Jim and Jade are able to build a tower atop Colony House, but while listening to the transmission picked by the radio, Jim is warned by an unknown controller speaking from the other side, who threatens him with his wife’s life. As Jim rushes back home to check up on Tabitha, he helplessly witnesses the house collapsing. Tabitha reaches the underground catacombs, where she meets with Victor, who warns her about the presence of the monsters in the underground. As the first season comes to an end, a bus full of people arrives at the town, hinting that the situation will inevitably get even more messed up in the second season.
Season 2: The Curse of Leader Transfers to Boyd
Getting out of the dry well, Boyd arrives at an old cellar room where he is confronted by a captive former soldier named Martin, who warns Boyd about the dangers Fromville has to offer and pleads with Boyd to take his life. Refusing to do so, Boyd tries to free him, ignoring Martin’s warnings about the arrival of someone(s). Eventually, a music box starts playing in the cellar, acting as a timer for a terrible situation, prompting Martin to infect Boyd’s blood with a parasite-like organism, and Boyd gets sent back to the wilderness.
Sara takes refuge in the town’s church, while Victor helps Tabitha escape the monsters in underground catacombs, who start waking from their slumber as night approaches. The newcomers of the bus do not adhere to Donna’s warnings about the town’s nocturnal troubles, and two of them get themselves trapped in the collapsed Matthews household along with town barkeep, Tom, and Jim while helping Jim look for Tabitha. A night of terror follows as Tom is viciously murdered by one of the creatures, and a trapped Jim has no option except to watch in silence. Boyd, having met Tabitha and Victor in the wilderness, survives the night with them by taking refuge in one of Victor’s hideouts and the trio returns to the town the next day. A number of newcomer bus passengers meet their grisly end after being attacked by the monsters at night, and among them, a young girl, Kelly’s plight turns out to be the most severe, as the monsters do not kill her outright, instead put her in a near-death condition. The seemingly mindless monsters often take pleasure in terrorizing and toying with their victims, and this was such an instance. Boyd eventually puts Kelly out of her misery but gets shocked to learn that the name of her boyfriend, who was killed by the monsters as well, was Brian. Boyd’s tragic memory of his war buddy, Brian Kelly, dying in his arms, emerges in his mind’s eye, and he can not help but think if their present predicament is intricately connected with their past. In fact, this happens with almost all the major characters, making us feel like someone omniscient is deriving a sick sense of pleasure in using the past lives of the townsfolk to break their psyche.
Among the newcomers, we meet Randall, a cocky, arrogant guy who considers the incidents taking place to be a cruel ploy on the part of the townsfolk; Elgin, a mild-mannered guy who was having premonitions about Fromville even before arriving at the town; and Tillie, an elderly woman suffering from cancer who is suspiciously cheerful about every situation and seems to have knowledge about what’s going on in the town. Marielle, Kristie’s fiancée, is one of the newcomers to arrive in Fromville, who is revealed to have resorted to addiction to cope with the loss of Kristie following her disappearance, and the duo go through a bittersweet reunion.
Meanwhile, Sara’s presence gets discovered by Kenny, who confronts Boyd about it. Eventually, Kenny learns about Sara’s involvement in his father’s murder at the hands of the monster and gets infuriated at Boyd for keeping this incident a secret from him. Sara’s misery continues as she is now loathed by the Matthews family for her past actions, and later by Kenny’s mother, Tian-Chen, as well. After a heated argument with one of the Colony House residents regarding a shortage of supplies results in Ellis getting stabbed, Boyd, Kristie, Fatima, and Elgin rush to the clinic to save his life. As they start getting flanked by the nightmarish creature, Boyd makes a desperate move by infecting one of the monsters with his blood parasite, resulting in the monster’s death as the rest of the monsters back away. Following this incident, Kenny somewhat patches up his relationship with Boyd, and Kristie performs an autopsy on the desiccated body of the monster, and finding nothing to be of importance, collects its blood for possible usage in the future. Ellis is treated to normalcy, and Fatima is revealed to be pregnant with his child—a surprising revelation given she was supposedly unable to bear children. Donna, affected by the emotional pressure caused by the series of events taking place in the town, believes that their effort to undermine whatever existing order there is in Fromville is the root cause of all their present troubles. Boyd’s action of killing a monster was an act of defiance against whoever controlled things in Fromville, and soon enough, the township starts generating new problems as a way of punishing the act of disobedience.
Jade and Tabitha’s Visions
Jade makes the wise decision of questioning Victor about his past and his connection to the strange symbol to get clues from his knowledge about the township, but often his approach to communicating with Victor results in the latter’s paranoia getting triggered. Victor eventually reveals details of a former town resident named Christopher, who had orchestrated mass killings of the townsfolk back in the day, right after seeing the strange symbol time and again and getting controlled by an otherworldly presence. Tabitha has started seeing visions of hideous-looking children and a strange cairn ever since returning from the underground catacombs, and as Jade reveals his visions to her, Tabitha informs him about her visions being connected with the underground catacombs. The duo approach Victor, trying to pry any substantial information from his troubled mind, and eventually Victor reveals that he had lost his mother and sister during the last cycle of events—and the terrible trauma of the incident prompts him to refuse to speak about the incidents with anyone.
Randall, with his wayward attitude, had continued to prove to be a nuisance to the townsfolk, and his conspiracy theories about Donna, Boyd, and every leading figure being a mole of the system resulted in him often locking horns with them. To prove his nonsensical theory, Randall tries to keep Donna captive outside the safety of a house or talisman, just as the townsfolk experience a new threat with insects attacking and killing people in their sleep by bursting out of their bodies. Boyd and Jim try to solve the disagreement between Randall and Donna, and as they are forced to spend the night outside in the abandoned RV of the Matthews, the monsters start appearing but inexplicably get stupified after the aforementioned music box starts playing out of nowhere. Panicked out of his wits, Randall tries to escape but falls into a catatonic state after suffering a strange possession, prompting Boyd, Jim, and Donna to flee to safety. Elgin informs Boyd and co. about an ominous message from the Boy in White, he had seen in a vision, which warns about getting rid of the music to save the lives of three persons afflicted by the sleep terror. His message proves to be true as Julie, Marielle, and Randall are the three victims of the sleep terror, and Boyd starts trying to come up with a way to save them. Taking Kenny and Sara, who have made amends in the meantime, Boyd tries to return to the cellar room of Martin, where he had seen the music box, and eventually, he alone manages to arrive at the location—where he finds the music box and all three of the victims mysteriously chained to the walls like the man whom Boyd met during his first visit to the same cellar. Inside the dungeon, Boyd sees a vision of Abby, who tries to convince him to let go and accept their fate, mentioning it to be the only way to get rid of the town’s troubles—but refusing to do so, Boyd goes on to destroy the music box, freeing the trio from their afflictions as a result.Â
To find a possible connection with the symbol he has been seeing continuously, Jade decides to venture underground, where he sees seven hideous-looking children seemingly performing a ritual as they chant ‘Anghkooey’ in unison. Tabitha has been receiving visions of the children as well; she interprets this as their call for help and starts believing that in order to escape from this nightmarish existence, she needs to help these children. With Victor’s help, Tabitha reaches the lighthouse in the wilderness where Victor’s mother had gone to save the children all those years ago, followed by her daughter, Victor’s sister—resulting in Victor losing them forever. Following the voices of the children, Tabitha enters the lighthouse, and reaching the top, she comes across the Boy in White, who, mentioning this to be the only way, shoves Tabitha through the glass panes of the lighthouse, and she takes a great fall. Tabitha wakes up to find herself back in the outside world, seemingly freed from the hellish existence in Fromville, but the concerns for her family and all the people still trapped in the town persist in her mind right after. As the second season comes to an end, we are not certain whether Tabitha has indeed escaped, or this is a higher form of some sort of simulation that might have been the controlling force in the Fromville—answers to which, along with numerous other questions regarding the mysteries of the township, will be revealed only from the third season itself.
