FROM

Credit: MGM

The fourth season of MGM’s hit series FROM is just around the corner. The terrifying drama, starring Lost alum, Harold Perrineau, returns with its Season 4 premiere on Sunday, April 19.

There’s good news to go with the Season 4 release: Amazon and MGM Studios has already renewed the show for a fifth season. This should not come as a surprise. FROM is the most-watched TV show in the MGM+ roster which, as I’ve noted before, is not saying much. I’m always telling people to watch this show – which is hard to explain in the first place given it’s called FROM which is like naming a show THE – and most people have never even heard of MGM+ (which is why I keep arguing that Amazon should put at least all the older seasons on Prime Video, where it would surely be an even bigger hit. Just imagine if this was a Netflix show).

In any case, that’s the good news. The bad news is that the fifth season will also be the final season, though creator John Griffin was sorely tempted to extend it to a Season 6.

“There was a fair amount of soul-searching,” Griffin told The Hollywood Reporter. “But we all came to the realization that if we made that sixth season, it would be for us, because it’s just too hard to say goodbye.”

According to THR, writing has already begun on Season 5. Griffin told THR that “five seasons was always the goal” which is something the From fandom has known for some time now.

THR interviewed Griffin along with co-producers Jeff Pinkner and Jack Bender, who also directs many of the show’s episodes. Some interesting tidbits:

Pinkner says that a friend once told him that “TV is about making the audience fall in love with characters, and then watching them suffer.” This is a very astute observation. It reminds me of writing advice I was given once: Things have to keep getting worse before they get better. In any case, Pinkner goes on to say, “What I’ve learned is as much as the audience is watching for the answers to those questions, if a show is only built around that, there’s going to be dissatisfaction at the end. Either the answers are too elusive and frustrating for the audience, or they were too obvious. Ultimately, then, these shows succeed or fail largely on making you fall in love with the characters and where their journeys end up.”

This is very true, though I also think the answers to our many, many questions about Fromville and its residents and resident evils do need satisfactory answers. The problem with mystery box shows, and From is one of these, is that the questions are often so much more interesting than the answers. That is a good reason to make us fall in love with the characters, but we fell in love with Lost’s characters, and the ending was still a letdown (though I was much happier with it than much of the fandom).

Bender describes his first meeting about the show, which offers up another bit of what I’d call “good news" in that it sort of enforces the idea that the creators of the show and its writers have the ending all worked out.

“I remember my first phone call with John and Jeff, back when they asked me to join this party,” he told THR. “I asked them, “Okay, well, what’s the deal with this town?” And Mr. Griffin, who I had not yet met, started off with a description that made me go, “Oh my god, the amount of specificity in his head in terms of what and how and why…””

It’s that reference to specificity and the “what and how and why” that lead me to believe, or hope very dearly, that this was all planned out with a five season arc and answers to all these questions, and that while we certainly have to endure some filler episodes along the way (and those damn annoying extras) the final season will payoff in the end. I was hopeful about shows like Yellowjackets, but it’s become clear that after the first season that show’s creators had no idea what to do with the characters, especially in the modern timeline. I’m hoping that From will avoid this fate, and that we’ll get our answers and that everything will make sense and be resolved (or, if not resolved, at least concluded in a way that’s satisfying).

Look for my weekly recaps and reviews of From Season 4 here on this blog. I’ll be watching episodes weekly instead of watching all my screeners at once, because I like to experience this along with the fans and post my theories about Fromville and its denizens. You can read my theories about what’s actually going on with the Man in Yellow and the monstrous townfolk right here. Let me know your thoughts about the show and its mysteries on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You can watch the Season 4 trailer, and read my analysis of it, right here.