'From' Season 4 Episode 4 Recap & Ending Explained: Are Those The Dead Bodies In The Lake?

In From Season 4 episode 3, Fatima and Elgin came to an understanding (after the latter kidnapped her, took her to a cellar where she drank his blood, and then she gave birth to the Smiley creature), because they needed to get their narratives straight before people started questioning them about what went down on that fateful day. And a part of that understanding included Elgin bringing huge quantities of dirt into Fatima’s room while she was away venting her frustration on these abandoned cars. Acosta had become suicidal after learning that she was truly trapped in a town that had no beginning and no end. So, Boyd tasked Acosta with picking apart the storage unit of the town and looking for clues that could help them solve the puzzle everybody was stuck in, thereby giving her a purpose and keeping her from killing herself. Jim and the pastor’s funeral was a mess, because all these crows came out of nowhere and began cawing at the crowd that had gathered there. After that, Sophia purposefully misinterpreted Kenny’s words and accused the Matthews of destabilizing the Township. And while Sophia took off to live with Sara, the Matthews’ minds began unraveling. Julie, along with Randall, went to their old house to look for clues regarding story-walking. Ethan, with Victor and Jade’s help, started looking for the Lake of Tears; but that pursuit was derailed by the discovery of the Yellow Suit Man’s clothes. Tabitha tried to reach the lighthouse by going through the Bottle Tree, but she was stopped from doing so by Henry and the Boy in White (who warned that she was running out of time, for some reason). In addition to all that, when Boyd went to Abby’s grave to mourn, a hand reached out from underground and tried to drag him into the ground. What happened next? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

The Yellow Suit Has Confused Everyone

In episode 4 of From Season 4, we see that Boyd, Ellis, Jade, Donna, Henry, and Tabitha have gathered at the sheriff’s office to discuss the discovery of the Yellow Suit Man’s, well, suit. Henry says that Miranda used to paint the stuff that she saw in the Township, and one of her drawings featured a man in a yellow suit. That’s not the surprising part for Henry; he is shocked to learn that the Yellow Suit Man is probably real, and is haunting the town. Boyd shoots down theories about the existence of the Yellow Suit Man by saying that the outfit might have been abandoned by a former resident a long time ago, or it has been left there by one of the creatures, and has only been discovered now. Jade kinda questions Boyd’s stance, because even if he’s right, somebody or the other would have noticed it before; but given how they just found out about it means that it’s a recent development. Although Boyd doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, we know that Jade is right, because the Yellow Suit Man has in fact recently transformed into Sophia and entered the town. Anyway, Boyd says that they should stop theorizing, and instead focus on having a chat with Victor and figure out why the sight of that suit scared him so much; because him being scared means he knows something about the man who wore it. Henry says that he’ll do the talking, because if they all flock around Victor and ask questions, he’ll undoubtedly suffer a meltdown.

Henry Is Being Kept In The Dark 

Before leaving the sheriff’s office, Henry exclaims that he is lowkey shocked that stuff like the Yellow Suit Man, the Boy in White, and this town, which existed only in the paintings stored in his basement, are real. He doesn’t know how to process this, but since the Boy in White said they don’t have a lot of time, he knows that he has to move quickly, because he doesn’t know what will happen once they enter the final hours of the town’s existence. Once Henry has left the sheriff’s station, Donna wonders if Henry has any idea of what happened to Miranda, or that Tabitha experienced Miranda’s memories once upon a time; Tabitha assures her that he doesn’t. Boyd tells everyone in the room to put a lid on any further revelations; which means nobody will tell Henry about Tabitha and Miranda’s connection, Ellis will not talk about the yellow suit to Fatima, and everyone will keep working on their respective investigative assignments until they’ve achieved some clarity on this matter.

Donna Doesn’t Like Jade’s Mushroom Plan

Jade brings up the topic of him taking “magic mushrooms” to open his third eye and peek into the memories of his past incarnations, and Donna says that she is completely against it, given they don’t know what those mushrooms actually do. Boyd says that he isn’t okay with it either, but what other choice do they have? In the most realistic moment in the entire series, Boyd essentially states that they are four seasons into this nonsense, and they still don’t know the rules of this game they are playing against the makers of this town and those creatures. I say “realistic” because that’s what I have been saying since Season 2: how can a show keep beating around the bush for this long? And Boyd voicing that sentiment seemed like Harold Perrineau was questioning the writers and the editor forgot to cut it out because they thought it was an in-character moment. Well, regardless of what was going through Boyd’s mind when he said that, it’s evident that he has no intention of stopping Jade from ingesting those mushrooms, because the Township is in its end days and they have to try every possible method to crack the code. Boyd assures Donna that he’ll be by Jade’s side while he goes on the psychedelic trip; if things go sideways, he’ll help him out. Based on that assurance, Donna heads out on a food-gathering mission, and she takes Ellis along with her.

Tabitha And Jade Bury The Hatchet

Tabitha requests Boyd to step out for a few minutes so that she can have a private conversation with Jade about why he was in the woods with Victor and Ethan. Jade tells her about his Lake of Tears assignment, which has supposedly been given to him by Jim’s ghost, and then chalks it up to Ethan’s overactive, escapist imagination; which is stupid because, after seeing everything that has gone down, why would you disparage Ethan’s vision? What’s worse is that Tabitha seemingly agrees with Jade’s opinion about Ethan’s interaction with Jim; I guess she’ll know that Ethan is right on the money when it comes to the Lake of Tears stuff after she sees it with her own eyes. Well, with that out of the way, Tabitha apologizes to Jade about the harsh stuff that she had said to him in the barn when he came to her with his soulmate-reincarnation theory right after they had discovered Jim’s body. Thankfully, instead of telling her he forgives her, Jade says that she doesn’t need to apologize, because his timing was awful. After Tabitha leaves the sheriff’s office, Boyd enters and witnesses Jade scarf down three of those mushrooms. That’s insane, because I thought he was going to try one, judge its powers, and then go for more. However, as mentioned before, they don’t have the luxury of taking it slow; hence, Jade takes the three-mushrooms-at-a-time approach to see if it unlocks any of his dormant memories.

Tabitha Chooses To Find The Lake Of Tears

Tabitha gets home and hears Ethan, in his room, trying to contact Jim on the broken radio. When she knocks on the door and enters his room, Ethan hides the radio (which seems pointless, because Tabitha has already seen him carry that broken radio all the way home). Tabitha asks Ethan why he didn’t tell her about the Lake of Tears and why he went to Jade and Victor for help. Ethan straight-up says that he didn’t seek out Tabitha’s help because he knew she wouldn’t believe him (well, he isn’t entirely wrong) and he couldn’t give up on Jim (or his ghost) just because Tabitha thinks Ethan has imagined his conversation with Jim. Ethan says that he is sure that ghost-Jim’s theory about the Lake of Tears being the key to the townsfolk’s salvation is true, and he won’t stop until he finds this lake. Tabitha, probably feeling a little guilty about disparaging Ethan’s mission statement, tells her son to pack his bags, because she is going to help him find this elusive lake. Meanwhile, Julie is with Randall, going through all those books that they have acquired from the Matthews’ old house. Initially, they don’t find anything, but then Randall strikes gold as he finds the word “story-walker” in the book he’s reading. We get a very brief glimpse at this fictional character, whose name is Fred; he is an elevator repairman who spends his weekend walking through “stories.” Before Julie and Randall can delve further into this, Tabitha shows up at the bus, which prompts Julie to hide the books, because she doesn’t want her mother to know that she is on a personal mission.

Julie Wants To Bookmark The Chapters

Tabitha asks Julie to pack her bags and come with her and Ethan, as they are about to embark on a journey to find the Lake of Tears. Julie is understandably blindsided by this revelation, but she doesn’t want to abruptly bring her own mission to a halt to help her mother and brother. And Tabitha doesn’t want to leave Julie to frolic around in this hellscape with Randall of all people (which is understandable, given the things he has done in the past). That said, since Julie won’t budge, Tabitha tells Randall to step outside so that she can give him the “mom talk.” Once Tabitha is sure that Randall has “got the message” about not getting any ideas about boinking with Julie, she leaves. Then, Randall and Julie read the story of Fred, where they learn that he used bookmarks to pick and choose which stories he wanted to revisit. Julie proposes that they should replicate that method in town. Randall thinks that preposterous; which is just so preposterous at this point, because these guys have been here for 4 seasons and they still think certain things about this place are implausible. I mean, if I was trapped in a town that’s stuck in a time loop, and if someone like Julie told me that she wanted to use bookmarks to highlight certain “chapters” of this time loop, I would have instantly believed her. Well, Randall needs some convincing, but eventually, he gets on board Julie’s plan.

Julie Thinks The Town Is Leaking Stories Into The Real World

Julie says something interesting about the connection between the story books and the Township: it’s leaking. Yeah; it’s like bits and pieces from this place have been leaking out into the real world and entering the minds of people in the form of dreams or visions. Folks like Miranda and Ethan are visualizing all that through drawings, while authors are mythologizing it through children’s stories. Julie thinks that this is a clue to bypassing the “rules” imposed upon the townsfolk and saving Jim from the hands of the Yellow Suit Man; so they are gonna act on it. While Randall goes to get some bookmarks, Julie gives herself a makeover. Why? She says that long hair makes it easier for the creatures to grab onto her. I mean, Julie has a completely bald guy before her. If the creators and Hannah Cheramy really committed to this excuse for giving Julie a makeover, she would have gone bald too, then she could have “twinned” with Randall. Anyway, Julie and Randall go to the ruins and she explains that if the bookmark theory is right, then she’ll be able to leave a piece of paper with an “X” on it in the chapter she walks into; that piece of paper will disappear from her hand in the present timeline, thereby creating a bookmark in the past or the future, and she’ll be able to track it whenever she wants to. The “tracking the bookmark and bringing Jim back via the portal in the ruins” part of this plan is convoluted, but, for now, the focus remains on seeing if an object can be transferred from the timeline they are in to a different chapter.

Julie’s Bookmarking Maneuver Doesn’t Work

While Randall watches Julie suffer a seizure in the ruins and waits for her to draw the mark on the paper (which means that she’s about to drop the bookmark), Julie visits the concluding moments of the cycle where Miranda and Eloise supposedly died. As she is about to drop the bookmark, she spots the Yellow Suit Man devouring someone’s liver. When the Yellow Suit Man spots Julie, he goes after her. So, Julie quickly drops the bookmark and Randall pulls her out. When she checks the bookmark, it has no mark on it, which means that it is not tethered to the chapter she just visited, and that means this approach to story-walking is a dud. By the way, the manner in which the Yellow Suit Man charged at Julie made it seem like he didn’t know Julie; he thought she was another survivor of that cycle. In the first episode of From Season 4, the Yellow Suit Man told Julie that they have to stop meeting like this. So, maybe the recent altercation that we saw is chronologically her first meetup with the Yellow Suit Man, which is why neither of them recognize one another. The versions of Julie and the Yellow Suit Man that we saw in the beginning of this season must’ve encountered one another several times; hence the familiarity.

Sara Tries To Connect With Sophia

Sophia, who has moved into Sara’s house and has gotten her own bedroom, is seen going through the letters that were sent to the dead pastor (his name is apparently Pastor Dunne). Why? Maybe she wants to know more about the person she has just killed. Maybe she wants to make sure that her backstory sounds as authentic as possible if people start asking about her “dad.” Well, whatever the case may be, Sophia has to postpone that, because Sara arrives to check in on her and also asks Sophia why she wants to stay with her despite knowing what she has done. Now, in the previous episode, when Kenny asked the same question to Sophia (when she said she wanted to stay with Sara), I assumed that the despicable action that Kenny was referring to was the attack on Elgin, and I thought that Sophia knowing about that was a major hint that she was the Yellow Suit Man. But some of the viewers corrected me and said that Kenny wasn’t referring to the Elgin attack; he was referring to Sara accidentally murdering her brother, Nathan, and Sophia would have known about that because it was the talk of the town. But the issue is that Sophia hasn’t conversed with enough people to know of either of those incidents. It’s just that neither Kenny nor Sophia explicitly addressed which plot point they were talking about, which is why it seemed like they were on the same wavelength.

The aforementioned lost in translation thing happens during Sara and Sophia’s conversation. Since Sara doesn’t explicitly state which incident she’s referring to while questioning why Sophia wants to stay with her, Sophia can pretend she knows what Sara’s talking about. Another decent trick that Sophia performs is that, before Sara can get into the details of what she had done and why she thinks it makes her unworthy of being a roommate, she brushes the whole topic under the rug and focuses on Sara’s kindness. Sophia’s kind words overwhelm Sara, and she leaves the room to go and make breakfast for the both of them. As Sara is heading downstairs, Sophia starts muttering some spell, which causes Sara to have a breakdown, as she begins hearing those voices again which told her to kill Ethan. There were some theories about what might have caused the seizure that Sara suffered in the first season, but I suppose now it is clear that it was the Yellow Suit Man’s doing (it’s possible he’s causing every seizure happening in the town), and he is again turning Sara into one of his agents of chaos.

Sara Is Hearing The Voices Again

Sara is seen sitting all alone in the church, and Elgin walks in there, which leads to a bit of an awkward situation, because she’s the reason why he doesn’t have an eye anymore. However, since Elgin doesn’t harbor any ill-feelings towards Sara, the awkwardness dissipates, which allows Sara to ask him if he’s still haunted by the Kimono woman. Elgin says that he isn’t, but since that’s the first thing that has come to Sara’s mind after seeing him, he wonders if something’s wrong with her. Sara admits that the voices that were governing her actions in Season 1 are back, and they are telling her to go to the diner, pour out some water from the pitcher into a glass, take a sip from that glass, and then pour that water from the glass back into the pitcher. What’s the point of this exercise? Nobody knows. What I find interesting about this “task” is that it’s not difficult to perform, and that makes you wonder what’s the harm in doing it. However if you do perform this apparently simple task, you are letting fear and irrationality dictate your actions.

In Sara’s case, the threat is kinda real, because Sophia (or the Yellow Suit Man) is behind it, but given how we later know that Sophia used the voices just to see how subservient Sara is, it goes to show that sometimes our fear is a bigger threat than the thing that’s generating said fear. Speaking of Sofia, she’s spotted loitering around the pool, watching the tomb of that guy who got stuck in its walls after walking into the Bottle Tree. It’s lowkey hilarious that Kristi and Mari are looking at Sophia and empathizing with her, while Sophia is probably looking at the tomb and laughing internally because of how expertly she managed to fool and kill that guy. Then she falls into the pool and breaks her arm, probably to give Sara the opportunity to perform her task. Sophia tells the story of Abraham to Kristi and Mari while they are tending to her fractured arm (which is fake, because the Yellow Suit Man is definitely invulnerable). In the meantime, Sara watches the pitcher of water that she has “sullied” go down the drain. So, is there a point to all this other than showing Sara that she is spineless? Well, you can say that Sophia (or the Yellow Suit Man) is playing God, and she’s seeing the lengths the townsfolk are ready to go to survive. It’s a win-lose game, because regardless of what the people choose to do (whether they kneel to the Yellow Suit Man or defy him), the Yellow Suit Man will win and the townsfolk will lose. Maybe Sara and the rest of the people in there need to find a brand of courage that puts the fear of God in Yellow Suit Man, and that’ll be their salvation.

Fatima’s Actions Worry Kenny

Ellis leaves with Donna for the food-collection mission, even though he doesn’t want to; he wants to stay with Fatima and make sure that she’s doing alright. Donna gives Kenny the instructions that he needs to keep the Colony House safe, and she advises him to keep an eye on Fatima. Tabitha and Ethan join Donna’s crew too so that they can conduct their search for the Lake of Tears without triggering any alarm bells. As soon as Donna and her team leaves, Fatima goes up to her room, which has been almost filled with dirt by Elgin. She excuses Elgin, because apparently she has to work on that dirt all by herself. Later on, Kenny spots water leaking from the roof. As he goes upstairs to check the source of this leak, he walks into Fatima’s room and sees her making something out of that dirt, which is actually clay. The episode then cuts to Jade, who is supposedly tripping on those shrooms, and then we go to Boyd, who is going through Abby’s stuff. He takes out Abby’s wedding ring and observes the infinity symbol on it. All this is interrupted by Kenny storming into the station and asking Boyd to come to the Colony House with him. There’s a small comedic moment during this exchange where Jade asks Boyd if Kenny is actually in the room with them, because Jade thinks that he is imagining Kenny because of the mushrooms; Jade’s deeply disappointed that Kenny is real, because that means the mushrooms are doing nothing.

Fatima Is Making A Golem

Boyd and Kenny go to the Colony House, and while Kenny waits outside Fatima’s room, Boyd goes in and tries to get an idea of what Fatima is up to. Fatima says she’s building a monster; a golem, to be specific. Boyd passes on that info to Kenny; he says that it’s inspired by “religious folklore” (that Fatima has heard from her father) and is supposed to provide protection and hope to the people. Boyd tells Kenny that they should give her some space, but Kenny doesn’t want to leave Fatima alone with her golem, because he thinks it’s a symptom of a deeper problem. Kenny goes so far as to suggest that that’s not even Fatima in that room up there; she is something else entirely. I know that Kenny is talking about how pregnancy has transformed Fatima as a person, but if I take Kenny’s words literally, it’s quite possible that she is one of the creatures who looks like Fatima and acts like Fatima, but is not Fatima at all. The Fatima we know is gone, and she has been replaced by one of the Yellow Suit Man’s creations. Maybe she isn’t building a golem; maybe she’s making an actual monster that’ll destroy everyone and everything in the town. By the way, the golem folklore; yeah, that’s real Jewish folklore. While Fatima is seemingly focusing on the positive aspects of the golem, I think it’s important to point out that the golem is also synonymous with war, isolation, and despair. As per the Talmud, Adam (of Adam and Eve fame) was the first golem. In the 1600s, a letter was discovered which said that Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem made a golem to be his house-servant, who eventually killed the rabbi by accidentally crushing him. The most “classic” version of golem-lore is that of Josef, who was created by the Jews in Prague to protect themselves from the Roman emperor named Rudolf II, but then the creature apparently went berserk and whatnot. There are countless other versions of the golem myth that you can read online.

Fatima And Smiley Are Connected

Jade joins Boyd outside the Colony House and reveals that the mushrooms were quite useless. So, he focuses on the golem and compels Boyd to wonder what has gotten into Fatima. Boyd takes Kenny to Fatima’s room so that they can ask Jade’s question to her, and she says something about being connected to the Smiley creature; how she feels what he feels and vice versa. Since the Smiley creature derives pleasure from Fatima’s fear, Fatima is making this golem to not only sever the connection between her and the Smiley creature, but also so she can experience strength and courage. After hearing that, Boyd and Kenny let Fatima do her thing; Kenny even says that he’s gonna spread the word and advise everyone to leave Fatima alone for the time being. Now, something odd happens as Boyd is leaving the Colony House. He finds Abby’s ring rolling down the stairs. It’s unclear if it was in her pocket and it dropped out, or if it appeared out of nowhere. Either way, Boyd thinks he has had some kinda revelation; he takes Jade and heads back to the station. He goes to his bedroom, sets the ring he has just found on the stairs on the table, and then pulls out the ring that’s in Abby’s box. When he goes to match the ring he found on the stairs with the ring in the box, the ring from the stairs disappears. What’s this about? Well, it’s possible that Boyd’s Parkinson’s disease is acting up and since hallucinations are a common aspect of the affliction, maybe he’s seeing things that aren’t there. Alternatively, maybe the town is again playing tricks on Boyd’s mind and making him question everything by leaking stuff from other cycles of the loop into the present timeline. The infinity symbol is a reminder that this is a time loop. So, it’s possible that the ring Boyd found on the stairs is from a different timeline; it just bled into the one we are watching right now. When the timelines realigned or something, the alt-reality ring disappeared.

The Yellow Suit Man Ate Miranda

Henry finds Victor pacing around the Colony House, trying to ascertain if the woods have moved or not. In the first season, Ethan had noticed Victor doing that, and he had explained something about judging which stage of the cycle they were in by measuring the distance between the Colony House and the trees which, much like the rest of the town and the woods around it, were always shifting ever so subtly. Victor used to take these measurements on a regular basis, but in Season 4, he has realized that he has lost track of this phenomenon. I guess now that the Yellow Suit Man has entered the arena and the Boy in White has warned that the townsfolk are running out of time, Victor has restarted his practice of checking if the town is changing. Victor doesn’t exactly describe why he’s doing what he’s doing to Henry, but Henry joins Victor and performs this task with him in the hopes that he’ll eventually open up about why he soiled his pants when he saw that yellow suit. That plan works out swimmingly because, after determining that the trees are probably moving much faster than they used to before, Victor takes Henry to that container he used to live in. After getting there, Victor starts digging until he unearths a bag which has drawings of the Yellow Suit Man in it. Victor reveals that he had actually befriended the Yellow Suit Man because he thought he was one of the residents. But, during the final moments of his cycle, Victor found the Yellow Suit Man eating Miranda, which is when he came to the realization that the Yellow Suit Man isn’t a resident but a monster. As Henry goes into shock, we finally understand why the sight of that suit made Victor soil himself.

Tabitha Is Still Processing Jim’s Death

While en route to the farming area, Donna asks Tabitha what she is up to. Tabitha talks about grief and how she is still processing Jim’s passing. But since she’s an adult, she isn’t giving into delusions like the Lake of Tears bringing back Jim. Hence, she is afraid what’ll happen to Ethan once he learns that the Lake of Tears isn’t real, and that Jim can’t be brought back from the dead. Okay, maybe Jim can’t be resurrected, but why is the Lake of Tears being real, and the idea of it being a passage to the real world such a stretch for Tabitha? Again, they are in a town that’s stuck in a time loop and monsters come out at night to try and gobble them up (so far, this season hasn’t featured a lot of monster action by the way). Then how is a Lake of Tears so unbelievable for Tabitha? It’s so stupid. Anyway, Donna sees that Tabitha is getting emotional; so, she tells her crew to take a break so that they can all have a breather. Donna (who has read the letter that Tabitha had left for him) also uses this opportunity to dissuade Tabitha from going on any suicide missions. Ethan interrupts Donna and Tabitha’s conversation by directing their attention to an injured bird. Ethan says that they need to take that bird to the Lake of Tears, and its waters will apparently fix it. Tabitha doesn’t want to break Ethan’s heart yet, so she allows him to take the bird under his wing. Eventually, they reach their destination. and while Donna takes her crew to get the food, Ethan and Tabitha go to the lake nearby to save the bird. 

The Lake Has Dead Bodies

In episode 4’s ending, Tabitha and Donna scoop water out of the lake and pour it over the bird. At the same time, one of Donna’s crewmates finds a massive rope hidden in the ground. When he tugs at it, everyone spots something bubbling in the middle of the lake, and then something pokes through its surface. It is extremely unclear what that is, because the episode immediately cuts to credits as that thing appears. If I have to take a guess, I’ll say that it’s the dead bodies of people who dove into it thinking, much like Ethan does, that it had some kind of powers. However, the water doesn’t actually give life, it takes life. So, next week, if we see that bird breathe its last, then this theory of mine will be confirmed. What about that rope then? Well, if it’s connected to what seems like a mass of dead bodies, I’m gonna guess that some people tied themselves to that rope and dove into that lake in the hopes of finding an exit route to the real world. Does that sound plausible? I think so. Someone must have told them that this lake is the key to exiting this time loop, and they took it a little too literally and just tried to swim their way to the real world. By the time they realized that this isn’t that mythical Lake of Tears, it was too late, and they drowned and died. Or those might be the residents of the previous few cycles whose bodies have been dumped into that lake by the Yellow Suit Man or the creatures so that the town looked clean before the next victims arrived; and it’s foreshadowing for what’s gonna happen to the current residents of the town. My last guess is that it’s some kinda lake-bound creature that’s meant to protect the passage to the real world, and Donna’s crew has prematurely awoken it. Now, it’s gonna chase them around town until it gets sleepy and leaves them alone. What do you think that Donna and her friends have unearthed? Let me know in the comments section below.

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