The From season premiere left us with more questions than answers, concerning not only what the town is afraid of come nightfall but also who the people who live here are. In episode 2, “The Way Things Are Now,“ the viewer gets a bit more insight, mainly through the eyes of the new arrivals, the Matthews family. One thing is certain: the monsters that come at night might not be the biggest threat this town faces.
We follow the first night of the Matthews family as they are forced to split up. The Sheriff, the town medic, and the father, Jim, stay in the van as the young son, Ethan, struggles with the injuries he suffered in the crash. The mother and daughter, Tabitha and Julie, are taken by some townspeople to Colony House, where some people choose to live in this town. While the son is busy struggling with the pain of his injuries, Jim, Tabitha, and Julie are introduced to some hard truths of this town, and some of the truths are much stranger than fiction.
Inside the RV, the cramped quarters allow tension to build on different levels, with all eyes on young Ethan and the noise from the creatures outside. The Talisman provided by the Sheriff and his conversation with the medic confuse poor Jim even more. His worry for his son’s health is front and center, but he’s not quite sure what is outside or what the Talisman is, and no one will tell him what would happen if they got inside.
At Colony House, the house leader Donna (Elizabeth Saunders) gives Tabitha a cold bit of reality and facts regarding what happened to her and what is going on (sort of), which of course, Tabitha doesn’t believe. But she knows something is off. The whole family does. They’re just unsure if there is a threat from outside or if the townspeople have all lost their minds.
This episode is excellent for Deputy Kenny (Ricky He). We watch as he goes through so many stages of emotions, clearly not dealing with the most recent events very well. Added to that burden is the stress of dealing with his father, who has dementia, and their very strained relationship. Views of him bookend the episode in a very angry, stressed, and bloody state. This is explained very vividly, and it will be interesting to see how Kenny handles events in this episode when he is already on edge.
We get to spend some time with different people, including Father Khatri (Shaun Majumder), the Sheriff’s son Ellis (Corteon Moore), the disbelieving car crash survivor Jade (David Alpay), and a few more. They live in another reality, finding different ways to cope with their situation.
It’s interesting to see them all thrown together like this—new arrivals and townspeople—to watch their reactions and everyday demeanor. There is also a threat in the town, something no one knows about yet, and it is a kind of wild card in a situation that is already hard to wrap your brain around, never mind trying to live day by day.
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That is the beauty of a show like From. It has two threats to deal with, from outside and within, and it’s still unclear which is worse. These people live lives under constant stress and are filled with dread, and there is really no way for that to continue long-term without something terrible happening.
In “The Way Things Are Now,” we see the beginning of the cracks in the facade emerging in numerous ways, and people are wound so tight with tension that I can’t imagine a bright future ahead for many of them.