A riveting finale with big revelations

On November 25, 2024By Littum

FROM

Credit: MGM

In the season 3 finale of FROM we got some very big answers to at least some of our burning questions about Fromville and its residents and why they’re here, although I’m not sure we’re any closer to solving this mystery. Maybe a little bit.

Yet with each new answer comes a new parade of questions. That’s a good thing! We have at least two more seasons to get through. We don’t want to know everything yet. Several pretty wild things happened in tonight’s finale. Let’s review each. Spoilers ahead.

Tabitha and Jade are Miranda and Christopher is . . . .

Tabitha, Jade and Jim

Credit: MGM

It is Jim who finally figures out what the numbers in the bottles mean: Notes. For some obscure and mysterious reason, whoever put the messages in the bottles couldn’t just put notes, but had to write numbers. I don’t know if I really need an explanation for this, but it crossed my mind. In any case, it’s very clever of Jim and a feather in his cap as Jade is always the smartest guy in the room.

They figure out the tune to the song and go to the Faraway Tree with Jade’s violin. He begins to play, and after a while the Anghookey children appear, drawn by the melody to where they stand. Only now can both Tabitha and Jade understand what it means: Remember. I guess this is some kind of spell that they just cast or broke (more pointing to my fairy theory) because they do remember. They remember who they are.

This was something that I felt was conveyed quite strongly last week when Tabitha suddenly had Miranda’s memories. Other clues – the bracelet, for example, that she showed up in Camden, that she had all the same motives as Miranda – have pointed to something like this for a long time now. Jade as Christopher was a little more surprising, but as soon as I realized Tabitha was supposed to be Miranda last week, I thought about how Jade is the only other person who has had such similar experiences. Why does he, and he alone, have visions of Jasper? Why does he see the same symbol as Christopher? All signs pointed to Jade being a reincarnation of Christopher.

They have returned to this town through many different lives, seemingly each time to try to save the children. I was also pretty sure the kids had been ritually sacrificed in some dark devil / fae / sidhe trade, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Here we get an answer: Parents sacrificed their children so that they could live forever. And they live forever, as the creatures that stalk the night, tormenting the townspeople before tearing them apart.

FROM

Credit: MGM

But what if they are killed? Well, that’s answered too. The evil beings who made this trade keep a useful bunch of people around. They can impregnate the women and grow a new being inside. This is what happened to Fatima. The baby was truly a monster. Fatima’s rescuers are too late. The kimono woman comes up from the hatch Fatima tried to open and gives birth to the “baby” – it looks more like a fleshy egg – and takes it back down. Boyd, always too brave for his own good, goes down after.

He watches as the egg opens, unfolds, and out of its grotesque membrane the creature, Smiley, is reborn in the midst of his loathsome companions. A lot of people theorized that this would be the outcome, so this isn’t a huge surprise (and there were leaks that I avoided, but a lot of people were spoiled). Still, it’s a pretty horrific moment, especially paired with the child sacrifice revelation. This is the immortality the evil fairies/demons gave to these horrible people. I suppose if you’re willing to kill children for eternity, you might as well be condemned to this gruesome fate – although, to be fair, neither of them seem unhappy. They rather seem to like being monsters.

FROM

Credit: MGM

Torture and mutilation of fool Elgin

Fatima’s rescuers did not find her by mistake. Ellis told his father, Boyd, that he suspected Elgin after the two searched for Fatima in last week’s episode. He made very suspicious comments about Fatima and her baby and how maybe Fatima is out there doing something to help. Elgin is a fool. He was completely paralyzed. His betrayal may not have caused Smiley’s return, and I’m not sure what anyone could have done to prevent the pregnancy from being terminated, but perhaps they could have destroyed Smiley’s egg. But then. . . did she just want to get pregnant again?

Anyway, Elgin won’t tell them where Fatima is, so Boyd gets some tools and starts torturing him. But even though he’s beaten, Elgin keeps his secret and tells Boyd to stop. It’s hard to see. The idiot Acosta shows up at one point and throws a tantrum. Even though she has the moral high ground, I still can’t stand her. She’s the worst, and the worst thing about this episode was that no monsters tore her apart.

As they talk and Elgin is left tied and beaten upstairs, Sara takes matters into her own hands. They hear Elgin screaming upstairs, and when they burst through the door, Sara is standing there. She tells them that she knew they wouldn’t be willing to go far enough. Only she knew how far they would have to go to break the hold that evil had on him. We see Elgin bloodied, his eye ripped out of his skull, Sara holding the screwdriver. . . .

Julie Time Traveler

Ethan and Julie

Credit: MGM

Julie and Ethan have an interesting conversation where she picks his brain about this experience in the ruins and he tells her in so many words that she is special and can travel to different parts of history – and potentially change things.

We actually see her do this at the end of the episode when Jim – feels a bit like a third wheel after learning that Jade and his wife are reincarnations of people who have children together and are reborn again and again and always find one in the end. another – wanders back to his crashed camper.

Julie appears, panicking, but she looks different. “Sheep!” she screams. “Can you hear me?” Her hair is short. She is wearing different clothes. There is She tells him to run. “This is where it happens,” she says, which is confusing at first. Not where it happens, but when it happens. She tells him that it is not safe for him to go to town. “I have to change the story,” she says, almost as if we’re in a dark fairy tale.

Jim is definitely not sure what she’s up to. It’s too late for him, either way. I’ve suspected that Jim was going to die all season. They made him such an ass for the most part, and then gave him a nice redemption arc where he starts being cool again and even solves a big puzzle. Of course he is a guest.

The man in yellow

Credit: MGM

As he tries to understand what Julie is saying, a figure appears. “To was one hell of a song,” says the man. It’s the same voice Jim heard on the radio. But this is not one of the creatures. He is standing in broad daylight wearing a yellow suit. His face is thin, his hair is gray. His eyes are pools of black. He smiles ominously as he strolls closer. “That jade sure can play,” he says.

Jim pushes Julie away and tells her to run. She probably should have approached this differently. Instead of running to him and telling him to run, she should have called for help and run away. No doubt he would have chased her. Maybe she’ll try it next time.

“This didn’t have to happen, you know,” says the man in yellow. “Knowledge comes with a cost.” Jim grabs a stick.

“I tried to warn you,” the man says. He knocks the cane away and lifts Jim up against the overturned RV, knocking Julie away. “Your wife shouldn’t have dug that hole, Jim,” he says, ripping Jim’s throat open. Julie screams. The credits roll, playing a different song (or a different version of the song?) than we usually hear, even more mournful than usual.

So who is this man in yellow? In my fairy theory I discussed last week, I talk about the possibility that there are both evil and good fairies in this place. The Boy In White is a benevolent spirit of sorts, but he is nowhere near as powerful as the evil spirits. The Man In Yellow would be his counterpart, the central evil governing events in this dark Otherworld. He is the most sentient of all the beings we have encountered, and I wonder if it is his sorcery that infected Sara, that created the evil music box, that sent the Kimono Lady to Elgin and Fatima that created the cicadas, etc. etc. etc. I wonder if he is doing all this himself or if he is part of a group of evil beings.

Whatever he is, he’s terrifying. This was a powerful end to the season and sets the stage for a truly different fourth season, now that Miranda and Jade have their memories back and presumably a whole lot more knowledge about the city and its mysteries. Given Tabitha’s dreams of being the little girl at the red stones, we can assume they have been doing this for many lifetimes, possibly hundreds of years. We also know what motivates Julie to return to the ruins and become a time traveler: her father’s death. I’m really excited to see how it’s going to play out next season.

Henry and Jade

Credit: MGM

The only break we get from this relentlessly grim episode of torture and monstrous evil is a really nice scene between Henry and his son, Victor. Victor takes his father to the burial site of his mother (Tabitha now has three children to worry about!) and sister, Eloise. He tells Henry that it is all his fault that they are dead. “You don’t have to be my father anymore,” he says, and it’s the saddest line in the entire show. Raise your hand if you want to jump through the screen and give him a big hug. I know I did at this point. Victor needs all the hugs.

Luckily, Henry is in full dad mode. He grabs Victor before he can leave. “Don’t ever say that again! Do you hear me? I’m your father. I’ll never stop being your father. Your mother did what she did because she loved you. She was trying to protect you. That’s my job now , okay? That’s my job.”

All in all, I thought this was a great season finale, although perhaps not quite as riveting as Season 2, as Tabitha finds herself back in the real world and Jade finds the stone tablets and symbol in the roots of the Faraway Tree. in the caves. Still, it’s pretty big to finally meet the man in yellow. Giving the voice a face, this show gives its central antagonist long overdue. And the reveal about Tabitha and Jade and the kids is also huge, though it mostly serves to remind us that not only have they been here before time and time again, but they’ve died trying to save the kids. They have failed every time. Will this time be different?