This article contains spoilers for MGM + ‘s From Season 4, Episode 5
We have now reached the halfway point of Season 4, and things have grown darker and more complex. To that end, new ideas and storylines were introduced while others were still being expanded, which, admittedly, makes it hard to keep up with everything that was going on.
The lore that has been built is still expanding, with additional mysteries being uncovered, and it’s a complicated web to tie together. The actors are doing their best with the material, which still feels dark and disturbing. It goes without saying that you might never look at scarecrows and dolls the same way again after this episode.
There are two major storylines in From Season 4, Episode 5, with a few scattered details to ensure the viewer knows things haven’t been forgotten. Jade (David Alpay) finally goes on his magic mushroom trip to find answers, and, with Boyd (Harold Perrineau) as his anchor, discovers answers to questions he never had, painting a grim outlook for the town. Meanwhile, the group sent to retrieve more food discovers a secret in the lake that proves just as dangerous as the creatures that emerge at night.
Jade stumbles through the forest, guided by his mushroom-enhanced senses. He runs into a younger version of himself, who also becomes a guide. Eventually, the hallucination takes Jade, his younger self, and Boyd to Colony House, where he sees four dead people, all playing the violin. He comes to realize a couple of things.
One is that they weren’t killed by the creatures at night, since they weren’t torn apart. Two is that he was one of these individuals in past lives, going back many years. With the help of his younger self, he is shocked to discover that it was the people of the town who killed all of these versions of himself, gone mad with anger, confusion, and frustration.
While shocking to them, it makes perfect sense given what Sophia (Julia Doyle), aka The Man in the Yellow, has been up to and continues to do in the town.
Speaking of Sophia, she continues her mission to divide the town’s people and fill them with fear and frustration. She takes turns moving through different people, twisting Kristi (Chloe Van Landschoot) and Mari (Kaelen Ohm) while eavesdropping on Julie (Hannah Cheramy) and Randall (A.J. Simmons) as they argue over how to exploit Julie’s power to story walk.
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Sophia knows exactly what she’s doing, having done this many times before, and she takes a perverse pleasure in it. However, she’s not a fool, either. As she sees the people of the town find another clue, she wastes no time in making sure she can either twist it to her advantage or distract them with something else.
Meanwhile, the party goes out hunting for food after discovering the rope that pulled something up from the lake. They vote to bring whatever it is ashore, only to discover it is three large stuffed dolls, similar in shape and design to scarecrows. After a flashback from Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) in which she recognizes them, and a group discussion, they decide to put them back in the lake, fearing they were left there to guard something.
However, later that night, the dolls come to life and attack the group, killing one, injuring another, and nearly killing others. Tabitha manages to kill one with a spear, recalling how from a past encounter. They lose another town member but gain the knowledge to fight back, which, in the end, might be an acceptable trade-off.
Jade’s mushroom trip ended with the discovery of a hidden door in the basement of Colony House that led to tunnels. At the end, he found what could be best described as the hive for the creatures that come at night, and there he discovered where the kids had been sacrificed, the ones they had tried to save.
Once again, we had another episode that continued the ebb and flow of one step forward, two steps back. “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been” gives us new problems, death, and possible hope on several levels, which may be the most important thing of all.
However, From is now walking a thin line, juggling so many plot and character storylines that it remains to be seen whether this can all come together coherently and not just end up a mess.
