From

Credit: MGM+

The general stupidity on display in last week’s episode of From should have been enough red flags to prepare me for this episode. Alas, I was still not ready for the number of boneheaded moments we encountered.

First, there is the treatment of Victor. His father is dismissive of him, but Henry is being manipulated by the Man in Yellow to believe that he’s actually in a hospital and all of this is fake. I want to feel empathy for him, but I can’t. At this point, even bewitched as he is, Henry is driving me crazy.

Then, after Victor learns from the Boy in White, that Jade and Boyd intend to tear up the Bottle Tree, Victor tries to stop them. Instead of listening to the one man who has lived almost his entire life in Fromville, and taking his warnings seriously, Boyd and Kenny arrest him. Anyone who lays a finger on Victor is immediately on my enemy list, Boyd included. Maybe stop and listen to the man instead of just yelling and swearing and acting flustered and angry all the time. Tonally, this show is getting on my nerves.

The worst moment, of course, belongs to Elgin. Glancing through some old polaroids, he spots something that gives him pause. I knew immediately that this was a shot of Sophia. I said out loud, “He better not tell Sophia.” So, naturally, what does Elgin do? Does he think to himself, “Hmmm, this is pretty suspicious, I should go show this to Boyd or Donna”? No, no he does not. As Sophia chats with her conspirator, the hapless Clara (who apparently made a deal with the Man in Yellow offscreen when she first arrived in town) Elgin walks in and says “Hey look, this photo looks like you!”

“I wish you hadn’t seen that,” Sophia says ominously, telling Clara to lock the diner’s front door. I just wish you weren’t so absolutely idiotic, Elgin.

The episode ends with Jade and Tabitha in the cave, having just dug up the bones with tiny little shovels. Why did they not bring bigger shovels? Does the town not have these, despite all the agriculture operations? Who knows! At least they manage to move the giant stone lid from the sarcophagus. The monsters show up and the scene sort of awkwardly cuts off and the credits roll.

So far, the tree has yet to be ripped from the ground, so that’s something. Nobody has considered digging a hole instead. Maybe that wouldn’t be possible, but it seems like it would have been prudent to do one or the other before Jade and Tabitha went into the caves. I’m still confused by this plan, which feels entirely backwards.

I was thinking about how great Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay was in its first season. They managed to fit so much story in each 30-ish minute episode without any filler whatsoever. Every scene was written to push the story, scare us, make us laugh or flesh out characters. So much of From feels like conversations going in circles, repetitive and irksome. Widow’s Bay also manages to make each episode feel distinct, while this season of From has blurred together, especially in its back half.

Meanwhile, all the strong threads introduced earlier – the Lake of Tears, story-walking, etc. – have effectively been dropped. Was that trip to the lake with the giant evil dolls really the entirety of the Lake of Tears plot? How bizarre. And the fact that Julie has just given up on story walking because “I was just having seizures” is so enormously annoying, I have no words. At this point, almost every single character is just driving me mad other than Ethan and Victor, who nobody listens to. Fatima is okay also, but now she’s been poisoned by Clara and Sophia, so things aren’t looking great.

Whatever hopes I’ve clung to for a satisfying season finale are much diminished, slipping away as I type this out. I want this show to succeed. I want the final season to be amazing. But the lack of follow through in major storylines, the idiocy of the characters, the way that the show makes us dislike most of the characters more and more over time, all conspires against it. Alas.