It feels like a long time since we were last hiding in terror from the demonic denizens who prowl the night in the nameless town where FROM’s residents are trapped. Somehow, it’s only been just over a year. It seems like longer, perhaps because this show is so dreamlike—so nightmarish—that after a while, it fades.
Well I won’t be forgetting tonight’s horrifying Season 3 premiere any time soon. Everything that makes this series so great was on full display in the opening episode, and this gives me hope that the rest of the season will be equally gripping.
You can read my Season 2 finale review here for a refresher. I called it an “almost perfect” season finale. No wonder it feels like it’s been such a long time since this show aired—we’ve all been dying to see what happens next!
In any case, as good as this show can be, it can also be frustrating for several reasons:
- Too many F-bombs! It’s not that I’m sensitive to swearing, it just starts to feel like the writers got too excited about this word in particular. F-this, F-that, blah blah blah. Well, there were some F-bombs in this episode but it felt like they’d reeled it in a bit, and the dialogue felt a lot more bleeping natural thanks to that.
- Characters don’t communicate! A friend shared a George Bernard Shaw quotation with me this week that I thought would fit splendidly into a discussion of FROM. Quoth Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This sums up the residents of Fromville quite perfectly. They. Never. Talk. About. Important. Stuff. Thankfully, this was not the case in tonight’s episode. When Jim (Eion Bailey—as Irish a name as you’ll find) tries to rush off to find Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno—as Colombian a name as you’ll find) Boyd (Harold Perrineau) stops him and they come up with an actual plan. Kenny (Ricky He)—oh poor Kenny!—decides to join him on his search as well. And later, when the crops are all dead and they desperately need food, Boyd and Donna (Elizabeth Saunders) have an actual discussion about what to do with the livestock. Yay for communication!
These are the show’s two biggest problems. The third is the amount of random extras who pop up, which feels almost like a loving homage to Lost. FROM, after all, is that show’s spiritual successor. We got several obnoxious extras in tonight’s episode, and they remain as annoying and ridiculous as ever. But this is a minor problem.
Of course, not all the communication that needed to happen actually did. Victor (Scott McCord) didn’t tell Jim about the Faraway tree he took Tabitha to, though he may not have done that for a good reason: Tabitha wouldn’t want Jim to leave their children behind and come looking for her, and he might be more likely to do that if he had a precise location. He does go off to find her, however, and finds instead a strange ruined homestead surrounded by these very, very creepy mannequins:
These have to have some deeper—and likely deeply screwed up—meaning, but we don’t learn what just yet. We do hear banging on the hovel our heroes hide in that night. Some new monster, perhaps.
That night, however, Jim realizes how foolish he’s being and tells Kenny that they’ll return to town at daybreak. It will not be a happy homecoming.
We also have Jade (David Alpay) looking more bearded than ever. I get the sense that almost no time has passed since Season 2’s finale, but Jade has a bushier—and grayer—beard and a longer, shaggier mane. I’ll chock it up to trauma.
Jade had a pretty scary experience in the cavern tunnels at the end of last season, with the kids all laid out like corpses murmuring “Anghkooey” over and over again, and the vines forming that strange symbol he keeps seeing.
In tonight’s Season 3 premiere, Jade is having something of a meltdown. Boyd and Kenny find him sprawled out on the floor at the bar, having strung together a makeshift replica of the symbol above him. He’s drunk, raving and—most importantly—not communicating with his fellow Fromvillians. It might be a good idea for him to take a team down there to see what they could find.
Tabitha, meanwhile, has emerged into what appears to be the real world. I was pretty convinced by various clues (if they really were clues) that she had simply found herself in another “level” of this twisted game, and that still could be the case, though it seems less likely than before. After all, she’s able to call her mother using a stranger’s phone. She also follows the address in Victor’s lunch box and runs into his dad (though the guy doesn’t look that much older than Victor if you ask me).
The doctor at St. Anthony’s hospital tells her she’s in Camden, Maine but the scenes are actually filmed at least in part in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. You see, I’ve been to Camden and it’s tiny. There are no 13-story hospitals in Camden. It’s a seaside town of 5,000 people with lovely colonial houses and a touristy downtown. Dartmouth is a city of 70,000. I just find it kind of funny when you’ve been somewhere that’s being portrayed in a TV show or movie and it’s so clearly not the same place.
Tabitha also visits a priest because she can’t think of anyone else she can talk to and her story is, obviously, pretty crazy. What Victor’s dad will think of it remains to be seen. Whether this is in fact the real world, or just some ghastly illusion, also remains to be seen. The one remaining clue that Tabitha is still trapped is the boy in white. She spots him in the street and he waves, but when she tries to find him he’s gone. Is she just seeing things? The prisoner Boyd encountered at the end of Season 1 said that the town was just the “tip of the spear” so I would not be surprised to learn that this “real world” is actually a cruel and deceptive deeper level.
Speaking of cruel, we finally come to the Season 3 premiere’s horrifying final act. Night falls and the monsters come out, only this time they don’t just bang on walls and try to trick their way inside. Instead, they go to the animal pen and the barn and let out all the livestock. When Boyd and Jade see what’s happening, they rush out to the street to try to get the cows and sheep and goats back to the barn. Victor and some others join them, including Tian-Chen (Elizabeth Moy). As they struggle to get the animals to safety, the monsters appear.
Young Ethan (Simon Webster, who doesn’t look a day older) spots his favorite goat, Alma, out in the street and rushes to the door to save her, and his big sister, Julie (Hanna Cheramy) isn’t quick enough to stop him. The creepy old lady forces her way in and the children run. “Don’t you want to play?” the monster asks, her face transforming into the vampire-monster she is behind her fake visage. She screams a blood-curdling scream. Outside, Sara (Avery Konrad) grabs the kids and they hide in some bushes. Other monsters come, and they run to the street where everyone’s favorite hot head, Randall (A.J. Simmons) hails them and they get to safety in the bus.
Victor starts pushing the sheep into the bar and Boyd, Jade and Tian-Chen push and pull at the two cows. A monster walks up to Jade and rips the cow’s throat out, leaving him in shock. Victor grabs him and pulls him to the bar and to safety.
Boyd and Tian-Chen push-pull the last cow to the barn, slam shut the door and Boyd slaps a talisman down to protect them. But the monsters are already here, laying in wait. “You said this place couldn’t break you,” one of them says ominously. They grab him, slashing his arm and then cuffing him to a post. Tian-Chen is dragged across from him. “We’re not going to kill you,” the monster tells Boyd. “That would be too easy.”
The slaughter begins. One of the monsters rips out a chunk of hair and skill from Tian-Chen’s head. She’s speaking frantically as Boyd tells her to look at him, it’s going to be okay, you’re so strong. Thankfully, we don’t see what they do to her. She screams as Boyd watches and the screen goes black and the credits roll.
RIP Tian-Chen. You were brave and fierce and always tried to do the right thing. You kept the diner running, and stood up to the mob of annoying extras. Poor Kenny is an orphan now.
All told, a thrilling return to one of my favorite TV series. Yes, I’m sure that many of the little annoying things that bothered me last season will rear their ugly heads again. No, I don’t think we’ll get the town meeting I keep asking for so that everyone can put their heads together and figure out what to do. But if the episodes continue to be this tense and exciting, I’m here for it.
Scattered Thoughts:
- Elgin (Nathan D. Simmons) is still having problems sleeping. The ballerina demon thing is gone and can’t harm them, but he’s still seeing her in his nightmares. Could this be a natural result of all that terror, or is she not as dead as we hoped?
- Victor pulled his gun on Randall this episode, and then Boyd took the gun from him. I still maintain that every time a gun is drawn in shows like this, it hints at things to come. Chekhov’s Gun. Will Victor have need of it later and not have it, or will someone else get hold of it, or will Boyd’s life be saved thanks to having it? Then again, Boyd seems to be safe for now: The monsters don’t want him dead just yet.
- Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) is having bad morning sickness thanks to her pregnancy, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a natural baby. She wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant, and unlike the Lost island and its healing powers with Locke, I think this place is entirely malevolent. Demon baby incoming . . . .
I’ll add more scattered thoughts if they come to me. For now, what did you think of the Season 3 premiere? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
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