FROM

Credit: MGM

This week’s episode of FROM moved the needle in a few small ways, but wasn’t quite as revelatory as the first two episodes of the season. That’s okay, not every episode can drop some big new reveal like last week’s Lake of Tears or Julie’s first foray back into the time travel arches. There’s still plenty to go over for Season 4, Episode 3, “Merrily We Go.”

The title of the episode could mean a lot of things. My initial reaction was to think of the song: Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream…merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream" which, of course, is sung in a round style, with different voices coming in at different times. I can almost picture those creepy kids singing the song to Tabitha and Jade.

There is also a 1932 film titled Merrily We Go to Hell which certainly sounds like this show, though the film’s story is nothing like it (it’s all about alcoholism, adultery and so forth).

In any case, there’s a tendency to try to glean meaning from episode titles when sometimes they’re just titles. So what happened this episode? Here are some highlights.

• The town holds a funeral for Sophia’s “dad” and Jim, but as Boyd starts to give his eulogy, crows descend. They alight on nearby rooftops, cawing murderously. It’s the first time this has happened in town. Normally, everyone sees the crows at the fallen tree when they first find themselves on the border of Fromville. Why have the crows come to town? It seems pretty apparent that Sophia / The Man In Yellow has summoned them, and this is just one of many ways she’s trying to unsettle the townsfolk.
• It’s pretty clear that Sophia’s goal is to poke holes in the town’s defenses, though mostly their psychological defenses. She twists the stories Sara and Kenny tell her and then tells Julie that she heard the bad stuff only started happening when the Matthews family arrived. She gets the reaction she wants, as Julie flips out at her in the diner.
• Kenny ultimately takes Sophia to live with Sara, which seems like a really terrible idea. Of course, Kenny doesn’t know that Sophia is an evil demon-fairy-monster-thing, but given the Many In Yellow’s influence over events, it’s safe to say that he (it?) likely had at least something to do with the voices in Sara’s head telling her to do terrible things.
• Boyd tells Acosta that he reminds her of someone he couldn’t save. He’s clearly referring to his wife, which makes me wonder if they actually had a really terrible marriage even before she wigged out and shot a bunch of people. Boyd tries to give Acosta something meaningful to do when she asks for a single bullet, clearly intended for herself. You’re a better man than me, Boyd. I’d have given her the bullet.

• Ethan asks Victor to help him search for the Lake of Tears and they encounter Jade floating in a pond, trying to meditate in order to remember his past lives. He’d asked Boyd for acid earlier, but of course the town sheriff is not carrying hallucinogenic drugs. Fortunately for Jade, the forest has its very own supply of magic mushrooms.
• During their traipse through the forest, Victor spots the Man In Yellow’s discarded canary suit and has a nervous breakdown. He wets himself, he’s so terrified when he spots these clothes. Clearly, the Man In Yellow was here before, and almost certainly he had something to do with the massacre that left everyone in the town dead except for young Victor. Given Victor’s reaction (he’s even more terrified by this than pretty much anything else he’s seen) whatever the Man In Yellow did, it was bad.
• The Man In Yellow isn’t the only monochromatic character looming large in Episode 3. Tabitha has decided to go back to the Bottle Tree which is also a Faraway Tree. She wants to use it to get back to the Lighthouse, but Victor’s dad, Henry, urges her not to. He even blocks the entrance with his body to stop her. He’s rightfully worried that she’ll end up in a concrete wall, dying miserably and leaving Julie and Ethan orphaned. Their argument is interrupted by the Boy In White who tells Tabitha that she “probably” can’t get back to the Lighthouse that way anymore. “You’re getting so close,” he tells them, “But you’re running out of time.” I’m with Tabitha when she tells him to stop talking in riddles. But fairies always talk in riddles.
• Ellis takes Fatima out to the abandoned cars and brings a crowbar and a bat with them. He thinks giving the cars a good beatdown might help her process some of her trauma, which is a sweet gesture. It seems to help at least a little bit, but Fatima has other plans. She’s employed Elgin to go out and gather dirt which he brings back to the Colony House attic and piles up for her. We’re not sure why just yet, but she tells him they’ll need a lot more. My mind immediately went to her eating habits in Season 3, but with the Smiley baby gone, I don’t think she’s eating rotten stuff anymore.
• Boyd visits his wife’s grave and talks to her ghost for a bit – until a hand reaches out of the dirt and tries to drag him down. It’s a freaky moment but I have no idea what it means, how it ties into the larger story at this point. Was it his wife’s hand? A monster? I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out.

Finally, Julie and Randall head back to the Matthews old, now-collapsed house in order to retrieve Ethan’s backpack from the rubble. It has his books in it, which she thinks might have clues to story-walking. Randall goes down into the cellar instead of Julie, chivalrous guy that he is, and we get a pretty tense scene of him navigating his way through very unstable beams and ruins. A corpse is still down there, as are some rats. He manages to get the backpack and the books, and I suppose we’ll see if they really do help Julie’s story-walking quest next week. Currently, both Matthews kids are on their own quests: Julie is time-traveling while Ethan looks for the Lake of Tears. I wonder if these two things are related, and whether they’ll ultimately have to work together. At least they both have helpers.

I suspect we’ll get more info on Victor’s experience with the Man In Yellow next week or at least soon, and we’ll see what happens with Sophia and Sara. It can’t be good, whatever it is.

I do think Tabitha is onto something with the Bottle Tree and the Lighthouse. Her journey back to the real world was a little unsatisfying, both as a viewer and certainly for Tabitha herself. Also, her previous self, Miranda, was headed for the Bottle Tree when she was killed. The big difference? Miranda, if I recall correctly, was headed there at night. Is it possible that the Faraway Trees (and other aspects of this dark place) behave differently at night? That could shine a light on why the monsters only prowl at night also, since there’s really no indication that they can’t go outside in the day. Maybe it’s a choice. Maybe the night time is the only time you can find an escape hatch.

I’m certainly dying to find out more. This season has been pretty solid so far, with characters mostly communicating pretty well and everyone making a real effort to find out more, even with the “Knowledge comes at a cost” warning. The real hero is Acosta, of course, who drove that ambulance around in circles four times because she’s such a good person. What did you think of this episode? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.