FROM Season 4 Episode 8 Is Preparing Us for a Major Death This Season

At this point, FROM is pretty much beating us over the head with the realization that someone will die this season.

That’s not a gasp-inducing revelation, since we’ve seen numerous deaths throughout the series. But there’s an urgency in the way they seem to be preparing us that is scaring the hell out of me.

Should we be mentally preparing ourselves to lose some of the town’s bigger figures? Is that where this has all been leading all along?

The end of a FROM season is an anxiety-inducing experience, even without the added stress of knowing that the people you enjoy are about to take part in a mission that could lead to more casualties and, more likely than not, will end with no one getting home, because we still have another whole season to go.

But we’ve always known the answers weren’t coming yet, and the missions to get home would most likely fail, but that’s part of the journey, and as we’ve seen with Tabitha, there is a way to get out of that place.

FROM Season 4 Episode 8 felt transitional, as in we’re finally staring at the endgame here, which is the big tunnel mission, all while smaller battles are also being fought away from the biggest piece of the story, like Victor and Ethan, Fatima, and Henry.

There was also Boyd’s hallucinations, which were wreaking havoc on him, all while he was trying to strong-arm Jade into coming up with a plan that wasn’t going to get people killed.

Boyd is wired to protect people. That’s always been clear about his character, and if you want to even take that back to his shooting Abby, let’s take it there.

He shot his wife to save his son. And to save the other people, she was going to shoot at that moment.

Even the box was designed to punish someone, yes, but only if they put other people in danger.

As the leader, his main agenda has been to keep people safe, and sending people down into a tunnel with the monsters on a mission they aren’t even 100% sure will work was never something he was going to enter into lightly.

But even knowing that, a leader’s job is more than just making decisions to keep people safe. It also means making the impossible decisions when it’s a matter of life or death, and the reality is that death is going to come no matter what you ultimately decide.

At that point, it’s more about making choices that limit the damage, and that’s an exceptionally difficult decision to place on anyone. Hence why Boyd was essentially fighting against it and Jade so hard.

This season keeps hinting at more carnage, and while I’ve officially stopped worrying about Kenny for the time being since he was just in danger during FROM Season 4 Episode 7, I’m still worried about others.

I’m wondering if it’s going to be a Marielle, or an Elgin, or an Acosta. Someone who’s become somewhat central to the storyline and whose death would be a surprise, but nothing to the level of Jim.

I don’t know that they’re going to deliver another massive death to close out the season.

Though, wouldn’t it be chaotically brilliant to kill off more than one person this time? I don’t want to put that kind of bad energy out into the universe, but it would be one of the most unexpected things to happen in a while.

Jade’s one-track mind can be a bit exhausting at times, because he wasn’t right, but he was also unwilling to think beyond his own ambitions. He knew they had to make this move, but, as Kenny had asked him, was he going to be one of the ones going down into that cave and risking his life?

The whole plan hinges on so many different things going right, especially in a way that leads to something good and doesn’t just piss the town off even more.

When Jade came to the big conclusion that the bottle tree was the answer, it felt like a pretty pivotal moment because that’s the kind of connection I believe will ultimately be the key to everything.

It’s all these various pieces coming together and fitting into a larger puzzle that will ultimately reveal the way home.

It’s Jade and Tabitha’s memories, Julie’s story-walking, Fatima’s ability to control Smiley, and all the other things people have learned along the way that give them the best chance of fighting their way out of the twisted web they’ve been encased in.

Speaking of Jade and Tabitha, is there a reason this season has forced them apart?  

They’re intrinsically connected, and yes, Tabitha was cruel in the aftermath of Jim’s death, but their minds and memories working together will always be better than going at it alone.

Tabitha’s got Ethan to deal with, and I get that, but the way they haven’t at all connected outside clipped conversations has been a little disappointing coming out of that massive FROM Season 3 reveal.

In this hour, Tabitha was knee-deep in Ethan and Victor’s business, and I’m finding myself disagreeing with her a lot this season, even though it’s very easy to understand where she’s coming from as a mother.

Speaking about Boyd’s role as a leader, a parent is the ultimate leader in life. They guide, protect, and prepare their children for life beyond adolescence and also beyond them.

Tabitha, now a single parent stuck in a nightmare, had her young, impressionable son thinking that he had to take a crash course in how to survive a potential mind-bending apocalypse because Victor had planted the seed in his head.

But they’re living in a nightmare. They’re living in a reality where similar things happened in the past, leaving a young boy surrounded by dead bodies, with no one to hold his hand or make him food, outside of a ghost-like vision.

It’s fine not to want to scare Ethan because it is scary, but my goodness, part of me wishes there were a bit more action at this point rather than blind faith.

Now, that action would not have shown Ethan how to dress dolls in his dead family’s clothing, but I do think there was valuable information to be gleaned from Victor; unfortunately, there was just no middle ground.

Tabitha’s promise to keep both Victor and Ethan safe—her two children, in an abstract sense—was heavy-handed, but it still landed because both desperately needed to hear it.

Of course, all moments of sweetness must be balanced out with terror, and Sophia was on demon time the entire hour.

It’s been hard to understand what exactly Sophia’s mission has been all season because she’s kept her cards close to the vest. Yes, she has stoked flames and gotten into people’s heads, but it’s pretty obvious she has the power to do a lot more than she’s shown, yet that doesn’t seem to interest her right now.

The very fact that she had to seek out the yellow suit and return to her natural state would lead me to believe that the town is on the path to a breakthrough, and that’s why The Man in the Yellow Suit had to pop out and make his presence known to Tabitha to derail that plan in some way.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am far from a time-travel guru, but from what I gather, this exact scenario has played out before; however, there could be more than one ending. Is that what he’s trying to tell Tabitha?

He and Tabitha have a history, that much is clear, and thinking back to when Julie encountered him in the aftermath of the massacre that left Victor alone, I’m becoming more and more convinced that her ability is the key to achieving a different outcome this time.

If there’s any information she can draw from the past, it could be the key to what they need to do now.

If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. But what’s the point of engaging with this series if you don’t have some fun theories to run with?

Elsewhere during this one, Fatima was seeing the physical effects of her experience with Smiley, and, of course, it was going to have some consequences, and a physical one made the most sense.

It’s interesting that Fatima felt physically okay, but her body appeared to be breaking down. Her curiosity about slowly turning into one of the monsters seemed like a valid fear, because we don’t actually know the exact process by which those people became monsters.

We assume the monsters were once the parents of those sacrificed children (or at least I do), but what if there’s another way to be made into them? Or what if what Fatima went through is the first time that’s ever happened in that place, and now something else entirely is about to take over her body?

With only two hours left this season, to say I have conflicting emotions would be a massive understatement, because it feels like we are hanging on the edge of a cliff, creeping closer and closer to falling.

There’s so much at stake this season, and the weight of unanswered questions has never felt heavier.

Loose Ends

• I know Kristi comes from a good place, but what Marielle was saying to Fatima didn’t seem all that crazy. Emotions were heightened, but even Fatima saw the potential good in what she could do, and pointing that out didn’t warrant Marielle being talked down to.

• Father Khatri remains the only hallucination who has ever made sense. Boyd keeps trying to shoo him away, but he needs him now to help him see beyond his somewhat narrow perspective.

• Everything about what Henry is going through feels like it’s getting us to another Abby 2.0. Eliminating the anchor will be code for killing himself or someone else to wake them from the dream, and I am absolutely panicked about this whole storyline.

• Robert Joy is doing amazing work this season. The entire conversation at Miranda’s grave was incredibly moving and shattering.

You can tell this season is building and building to something we’re probably not prepared for. For all the guesses in the world, I bet the final hours will still leave us gasping.

Let me know all your thoughts and guesses in the comment section below!

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