7 Reasons Why 'From' Season 4 Was Just The Worst

Another season of From has come to an end and it seems like we still have no clarity about what’s going on, why we should care for these characters who are stuck in the Township, or what’s the point of this whole series. The showrunners keep stacking one mystery upon another in the hopes that people are going to stay hooked all the way to its fifth and final season. Well, their strategy is right because they have a dedicated audience who keep coming back for each season, asking questions, deciphering riddles, and having a jolly good time. Hence, I am clearly in the minority here when I say that I am frustrated with this show. I mean, the premise was nice. But then they did nothing interesting with it. They keep introducing plot elements that have the potential to lead to something mind-bending and phenomenal, and then there’s nothing. I am only covering this show because it’s my job or else I would have abandoned it in Season 2. I am glad that it’s coming to an end with Season 5. However, until that arrives, I have to give Season 4 the label of “worst season so far,” and here are 7 reasons why.

Spoiler Alert 

Lake Of Tears

What was the Lake of Tears? Jim literally came back from the dead and told Ethan to find this Lake of Tears. And what did Ethan do? He searched for a literal Lake of Tears. He even roped in Victor and Tabitha into that mission and neither of them thought that this lake could be something figurative or mythical. All of them just kept looking for an actual lake. I would have been fine with that if they wouldn’t have given up on it so randomly. As soon as the Man in Yellow entered the picture, they just dumped that whole subplot, Jim never showed up again, and Ethan got sidelined completely. Why not make one mystery item the center of each season, explore it in its entirety, and then let the characters succeed or fail at doing something with it? I want to say that Season 5 is gonna bring up the Lake of Tears again and give it some kind of a payoff, but if it doesn’t, I won’t be all that surprised.

Golem

What was the point of the Golem? How do you spend multiple episodes on something and then do nothing with it? And it’s not like they treated Fatima erecting the Golem just as an activity that she was doing to distract herself from the fact that she had given birth to the Smiley creature. They legitimately made it seem like it’d be integral to the plot. The show kept insinuating that Fromville had the power to make one’s wildest imaginations come to life. Given the similarity in the proportions of the Golem and those life-sized puppets, it seemed like they were gonna fight each other or something. It’s possible that that was the plan. But then maybe the showrunners realized that they had spent all their budget on the life-sized puppets and they can’t bring the Golem to life. Now, it’s probably stinking up Colony House as the water and the clay is seeping through the wooden floor. What was even the point of that?!

Story-Walking

Oh my god, the story-walking! When you are going episode to episode, the subplots in From don’t appear all that stupid. But when you reach the end and think back on all the stuff that the showrunners threw at the wall, it just baffles you. Much like the last two plot elements, Julie and Randall spent an ungodly amount of time on story-walking. I’m gonna be honest, I got hyped when Julie talked about how she had read about story-walking in a book, and how that concept might’ve “leaked” from Fromville and entered that author’s mind as a dream or nightmare, which meant that what they had read in a book could be executed realistically in Fromville. And then all it led to was an epileptic fit. To be clear, they might explore it in Season 5 but why drop that subplot so suddenly? I mean, Julie went from taking big leaps to painting Sophia’s room, arguing with her mom, and consoling her brother. Regardless of how you look at it, this is just bad writing.

The Puppets

The life-sized puppets were great. They looked menacing. They did some great damage. And then they disappeared from the plot entirely. They could bypass talismans and whatnot and all it took was a stabbing with the totems to send them packing? Why? I am sure it was a budgetary issue. I don’t know if the puppets were entirely CGI or a mix of practical suits and CGI, but I have a feeling that they were ejected out of the narrative so suddenly because of financial constraints. But then, what’s the point of introducing a plot element if you don’t have the budget to show it on the screen? Also, From is MGM’s most profitable series. How does it not have the budget to feature life-sized puppets throughout the season? Are they afraid that if they get too much money, they are gonna end up becoming like Stranger Things? The design of the puppets is so simple that they could have done it with practical suits and some VFX retouching. I don’t know, man.

Sophia

Sophia could have been or should have been such a gamechanger. Every week, in all the recap articles, I kept giving this excuse that the reason why she didn’t go into massacre mode immediately, even though she could, was because she enjoyed the slow burn nature of the script that she was writing for the residents. But by the end, I really got bored by her antics. Henry’s vision seemed like a rehash of what might’ve happened to Abby. She possessed Sara but then did nothing with her. I don’t know why she had to take such an elaborate path to poison Fatima’s drink. Why did she give Elgin such a brutal death while just toying with Sara and Clara (who was a totally minor character)? And then she just dumped all those talismans into the Faraway Tree? Throwing away the talismans seemed like the most pivotal thing she had done all season. People would have died anyway; I can’t call her an interesting character just because she killed a bunch of people.

Reheated Mystery Box Nachos

From is so obsessed with creating mystery boxes that it doesn’t really care about anything else. Usually, with each subsequent season, shows try to experiment with the visuals, sound design, action sequences, editing… you know, everything that you are seeing and hearing through your screen. Meanwhile, this show has remained consistently bland. If you look at all the behind-the-scenes videos, you’ll see so many talented crew members on the set. And when you watch the show, it looks like a film school project. Why? I don’t know. It’s like the showrunners think that all these mystery boxes are their USP and they don’t need to do anything else to stand out. Sure, that might work with their dedicated fan base. But what’s the cultural footprint of From? Regardless of what everyone thinks about how Lost (Jack Bender and Jeff Pinkner have executive produced both of these shows and Harold Perrineau is a main character in them) concluded things, it’s an impactful chapter in pop-culture history. Is From on that level? Will it be on that level after Season 5? No.

The ‘Widow’s Bay’ Eyeopener

The biggest reason why I believe that From will never be on the level of Lost because it made the mistake of airing at the same time as Widow’s Bay. When that Apple TV show released, and became an instant hit among the general audience, the common sentiment was that it’s what From should have been. And they were right. Widow’s Bay had more creativity in its first season than all 5 seasons of From combined. If I was involved in the making of From and I saw Widow’s Bay “mogging” me so brutally, I would have been ashamed. How did From not have an episode dedicated to one character? How did it not have a flashback episode centered around a completely different set of characters to recontextualize the actions of the present day characters? Why doesn’t it switch genres? Why doesn’t it have a single frame which I can screenshot and show to my friends to highlight its technical mastery? Why doesn’t it do anything interesting? I don’t know about the makers of From but I would have been up at night asking these questions.

Final Thoughts

Everything after Season 1 has been abysmal, and Season 1 wasn’t good to begin with. I say that Season 4 is the worst one so far but it’s been consistently horrible since Season 1. And since this is what its fans want, and given how this is what the creators are capable of delivering, I don’t hope to see any sudden improvement in Season 5. I genuinely feel like I’m watching a different show than the rest of the crowd. I have been clocking in every week to witness this nonsense and I am truly fed up. By the way, the show has the potential to stick the landing because it has literally done nothing for the past 4 seasons. For this IP, the only way to go is up. If they have some interesting visual storytelling, decent narrative swings, and solid performances, I assure you I’ll be back here next year, or whenever the next season releases, dubbing Season 5 as the best of the lot. If they deliver yet another nothingburger, I’ll dub it the worst. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Season 4 of From. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to let me know through the comments section below.

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