'From' Season 4 Episode 9 Recap & Ending Explained: Is Elgin Dead Or Alive?

In From Season 4 episode 8, Boyd found himself in a bit of a bind as he didn’t what to deal with first: the varicose veins appearing on Fatima’s belly or Jade’s odd plans to extract the bones of the Anghkooey children from the underground graveyard which just so happened to be the creatures’ lair. So, while Fatima got herself checked at the clinic, Boyd sat down with Jade and Kenny to discuss how they could enter and exit the underground graveyard without suffering any casualties. When Boyd didn’t like what Jade was proposing, he told him to do better and stormed off to the clinic. There he learned from Kristi and Mari that nothing was particularly wrong with Fatima and while almost everyone was of the opinion that they should do something to fix her, Mari felt that they should let Fatima undergo this transformation. Why? Because it might give the residents the upper hand in the fight against the creatures. However, based on Kristi’s analysis of Fatima’s vitals, there’s a good chance that she might be joining the creatures team instead of batting for the residents. Meanwhile, Boyd and Jade had a falling out because no matter what Jade proposed, in terms of their Anghkoeey bone extraction plan, Boyd shot him down and told him to come up with an airtight scheme. Since this was hindering any chance of making progress, Khatri’s ghost visited Boyd and told him to take some risks and trust Jade because if they did nothing at all, they’d be wasting whatever chance the residents had of escaping from the Township. Elsewhere in Fromville, Henry’s visions of being stuck in a care facility became more convincing. And it seemed like Henry was this close to believing that he needed to kill Victor in order to get out from that hellhole and reunite with his family. In addition to all that, the Man in Yellow paid Tabitha a visit in order to tell her that the plan to dig up the Anghkoeey children’s bones might just secure the residents’ freedom or it might trigger a cataclysmic event that none of them were ready to tackle. What happened next? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Boyd Believes The Anghkooey Bones Will Save Them

After her encounter with the Man in Yellow, Tabitha goes to Boyd’s chambers to tell him how he has created a dilemma about the digging up the Anghkooey bones. She points out that, given how the Man in Yellow had decorated her RV with Ethan’s drawings, it means that the talismans don’t work on him and that he can move around in broad daylight. Furthermore, she states that the Man in the Yellow is the one who has killed Jim (this is new info for the characters but the viewers already know this). Jade barges into this conversation to tell Boyd that his Anghkooey graveyard heist plan is the best one they got and they cannot waste time looking for alternatives because that’ll only prolong their suffering in this hellhole. Jade expects that Boyd is gonna argue with him but he agrees with what Jade is saying because what Tabitha has revealed about the Man in Yellow has convinced him that if they don’t start making some moves, he’s gonna start massacring them all. Boyd, Kenny, and Jade have a discussion with Donna about their graveyard expedition plan. Donna immediately says that she doesn’t like it because it’s too flawed. As Boyd and Donna go back and forth about the plan, Jade theorizes that they (the expedition team, to be specific) have to hold it out until the bones have been extracted because once they are out, the creatures are gonna scatter. He thinks that the creatures are afraid of the bones or it repels them like the talismans do, which is why they have been buried. So, once they are out of the grave, it’s gonna protect the gravediggers from harm. Donna says that even if that turns out to be true, what are they supposed to do after that? Well, that’s something that Boyd, Kenny, and Jade have no clue about; so, they choose to just focus on the bones for now.

Tabitha Has A Crisis Of Faith

Meanwhile, Tabitha returns home to give Julie and Ethan the same pieces of info that she gave to Boyd. That prompts Julie to question how Tabitha plans to use the knowledge she has acquired through reincarnating several times to stop the Man in Yellow. When Tabitha fails to answer, Julie says that the Man in Yellow’s wrath is inevitable. She reveals that she has seen a vision of the Man in Yellow once; she thought she was seeing the future, and she was gonna change the timeline of events to save Jim from being killed by him, but she has apparently come to the realization that all of it was just a figment of her imagination caused by a seizure. Julie gets so agitated that she takes off the talisman and questions its effectiveness, given how it didn’t stop the Man in Yellow from entering their house. To bring their conversation to a close, Julie advises Tabitha to stop fighting to get out of the Township because the place or the entity that controls the place feeds off of that hope. The more they try to leave, the more they end up hurting themselves and each other; and that satiates the Township as well. If they stop trying, maybe the Township will get bored and chuck them out of there. It’s a defeatist mentality but I totally understand where Julie is coming from. Tabitha goes out to the porch to chill out for a bit and Ethan arrives to ask her if it was really Jim that advised him to search for the Lake of Tears or something/someone else. Tabitha responds to that question with the show’s all-time favorite phrase, “I don’t know.” Ethan lowkey refutes Julie’s theory and says that the Township lies and scares the residents so that they don’t believe in the clues that can help them get out of there. Based on that theory, he advises Tabitha to take the hints that she gets through her visions on face value and act on them. Tabitha embraces Ethan and this tender moment is ruined by the appearance of the Anghkooey children. Either they are there to agree with Ethan’s statement or they are telling Tabitha to put that damn talisman back on the doorframe.

Henry’s Visions Get More And More Confusing

At Colony House, Patty offers some cookies to Henry which don’t look very appetizing because Patty has made them with the ingredients that are readily available in the Township, not the ideal ingredients. So, Henry says that he doesn’t want any. Still, Patty places the plate-full of cookies on the sofa that Henry is sitting upon, just in case someone else wants to try them out. Once Patty is gone, Henry picks up one of the cookies to eat it and that’s when his vision is reactivated, and he finds himself back in that care facility having a burger and french fries with Victor. Victor brings up the fact that Henry mumbles the names of Boyd, Donna, and Ethan in his sleep, thereby establishing the notion that the care facility is Henry’s reality and the Township is a figment of his imagination. Victor then wonders if Henry has given any thought to the plan of killing the fictional Victor who is keeping him tethered to the “visions” of the Township. The imaginary Victor makes it seem like he’s making that suggestion because he wants his father to stop believing that the Township is real, but the truth of the matter is that it’s the Man in Yellow using the image of Victor to convince Henry to kill his son. And the more this fictional Victor tries to get Henry to murder the real Victor, the more agitated Henry gets, and he slams his hand on the burgers, which causes him to snap back to reality where he realizes that he has dropped Patty’s cookies on the floor. 

Victor finds Henry in that distraught state and tries to check what’s going on with him, but Henry just bolts out of the house without conversing with Victor. By the way, does the use of cookies remind you of the Oracle scene from The Matrix, which is famously about living in the real world or living in the fictional reality created by machines so that they can use you like a battery? The chances of the residents turning out to be human batteries for robots are low but not zero. Going back to the plot, Victor visits the cenotaphs of Miranda and Eloise to process the fact that Tabitha is his mother’s reincarnation. He also talks about the turmoil that Henry is going through. And that’s when the Boy in White appears before him. He tells Victor to stop the graveyard expedition because it involves uprooting the Bottle Tree. Of course, the Boy in White doesn’t explain why it’s important to keep the Bottle Tree untampered and I have run out of guesses at this point. The best I can do is say that the Bottle Tree is probably an exit route or the exit route from the Township. Yes, it takes you to random places but it’s also the only thing that can take people to the Lighthouse, which then leads you to the real world. If the tree is gone, the connection to the Lighthouse will be severed, thereby trapping the residents forever.

Boyd Meets Kristi And Sara

Kristi tells Marielle to keep an eye on Fatima so that if her heart stops, she can get to her in time to administer the epinephrine shot. In the meantime, Kristi goes to Boyd to give him an update on Fatima. That concerns Boyd a lot but since there’s no immediate fix for Fatima’s problem, especially since they don’t have the adequate medical tools to check what Fatima is actually suffering from, he says that they should simply focus on getting out of the Township. If the graveyard expedition works, they’ll be able to escape this hellscape, drive Fatima to the nearest hospital, and get her the care that she needs. Until then, they simply have to keep her stabilized and that her health doesn’t deteriorate. Furthermore, Boyd wants Kristi to come with the expedition team and tend to anyone who gets injured at the dig site, while Marielle looks after Fatima. Boyd’s words don’t inspire any confidence in Kristi but she doesn’t have much of a choice but to do what Boyd is asking her to do. Boyd goes to the church to pray to Christ for Fatima and the rest of the residents in there, which is interrupted by Sara (because Kristi said that Boyd was looking for her). Boyd relays everything he has learned about Fatima to her and then he brings up the fact that, when Fatima went missing, Sara told him that “the voices were laughing.” Boyd’s assumption was that they were laughing because they knew that they had won by acquiring Fatima and the residents had lost. Since Boyd and the residents managed to bring back Fatima from the brink, that must mean that the residents have won and the voices have lost; and Boyd wants Sara to confirm that theory because she’s the one who can hear the voices. However, Sara says that she doesn’t know if the residents are the winning team because her connection to the voices have been cut off. Since Sara can’t help Boyd with this matter, she offers to go to the graveyard mission with him and his crew; Boyd accepts Sara’s candidature. 

Jade And Tabitha Enter The Tunnels

Boyd goes to Jade’s HQ where he demonstrates how the crew can use the radio to communicate with each other via Morse code. Victor barges in there to tell them to cancel their graveyard expedition plan, especially the part which involves uprooting the Bottle Tree. When Boyd refuses to listen to Victor, he walks out of there in a huff, and Boyd goes after him to apprehend him before he ruins their plan. Tabitha sees all this and comes to the conclusion that she and Jade should be the ones who should exhume the bones. Why? Because, as per the lore, they are the ones who failed when it came to saving those children’s lives. Boyd finds that hard to digest, so Tabitha points to the talisman and says that the drawing on it is actually a reflection of the arrangement of the Anghkooey kids’ graves. And in that engraving, there are 2 extra marks which, as per Tabitha, represents her and Jade. After some more hesitation, Boyd embraces Tabitha’s idea once she says that the method they go about with their expedition plan matters the most (she kinda echoes Sophia’s words about the importance of figuring out the specifics of a plan before executing it). Later that night, Boyd informs Kenny that he’s not going into the tunnel because if things go south, he needs someone to help Donna run the Township. Kenny isn’t okay with it but he accepts the duty he’s being assigned. The following day, Tabitha and Jade enter the tunnels, use a tarp to close off the digsite, and put a talisman on it so that it can’t be penetrated by the creatures. Boyd and the rest work on uprooting the Bottle Tree. Jade and Tabitha unearth the bones and are about to load into the bags they’ve brought, which is when they realize that they have been surrounded by the creatures. Given how the tree hasn’t been uprooted yet, Jade and Tabitha have to rely on the talisman and the bones to keep them safe.

Sophia Gets A Hold Of Clara

After terrorizing Tabitha, the Man in Yellow transforms back into Sophia and then approaches Elgin and Clara as they are taking down the US flag so that the rope that’s been used to hoist can be used in the Anghkooey graveyard expedition, which involves the uprooting of the Bottle Tree. She does nothing to impede their work but when Clara takes off to go to the shed, Sophia goes with her. And when nobody’s looking, Sophia changes the color of her eyes and reminds Clara about the bargain their deal. Now, correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think we’ve seen a scene of Clara communicating with the Man in Yellow in his actual form or in any other form in this season or any of the previous seasons. Maybe this deal was struck off-screen. Anyway, going back to the plot, Sophia takes Clara to Sara’s house and, after checking that Sara’s not home, she orders Clara to come with her to her bedroom. She secretly picks up a knife along the way and it seems like she’s gonna slaughter Clara. But no, that’s not the case at all. Sophia uses it to slice her and Clara’s palms and then she transfers her blood into Clara’s body through that wound. Before doing all that, we get some vague details about Sophia and Clara’s “pact.” Apparently, when Clara stumbled into the Township, she had a hard time believing it was all real. That’s when Sophia or the Man in Yellow helped her acclimatize. In addition to that, Sophia promised her that if Clara would help her out, she’d let her go back home. Hence, Clara wonders if this blood transfusion is her ticket out of there. It’s obvious that Sophia has no intention of letting her leave. Hence, she postpones that discourse and simply tells Clara to focus on the task at hand. 

Clara Gives Fatima A Poisoned Drink

Sophia’s task for Clara has nothing to do with the grave digging operation because apparently Sophia wants that to happen; she knows that it’s gonna backfire, as Boyd and his crew won’t follow the rituals that make the Townships foundations, and lead to a lot of casualties. She actually wants to give Fatima a little nudge. A few minutes later, we see Clara standing in front of the clinic and pouring her tainted blood into the “health” drink that she has made for Fatima. Marielle is in there too and, for the love of God, I don’t know why she doesn’t prevent Clara from giving Fatima that “family remedy.” Kristi had told her to keep Fatima stable. So, why the hell would she agree to letting Clara give her a drink whose ingredients are a mystery? Even if it didn’t have any blood in it, Marielle should have told Clara to not give Fatima something that could affect her health. Maybe Marielle is under some kind of spell that’s been cast on her by Sophia or the writers forgot that she’s supposed to be smart. Anyway, Clara gets Fatima to drink that juice. Fatima doesn’t find it to be appetizing, but she keeps consuming to, I guess, not offend Clara; once Clara’s job is done, she leaves the clinic. Again, health-wise, she’s not fine. She was well within her rights to reject that drink. The writers just had to make everyone act stupid to progress the plot. Meanwhile, Sophia goes to the diner to spend the night with the other residents who are preparing all the equipment they’re gonna need for the expedition. Bakta notices Sophia choosing the song that she wants to listen to on the jukebox, which is something that no one else has been able to do. It’s a pretty big hint that Sophia isn’t a regular resident of the Township but I guess Bakta brushes it off as an unimportant anomaly. And when nobody’s looking, Sophia damages one of the links of the rope ladder that the grave diggers are gonna use to climb out of the graveyard. Back at the clinic, Fatima’s health worsens, her hair starts falling out, and her stomachache gets intense, which has obviously been triggered by that damned drink. The vein-like marks on Fatima’s stomach look a lot like the ones on the bodies of the Man in Yellow, the creatures, and even the Anghkooey children. Hence, it’s possible that her time as a resident of the Township is over and her time as a piece of the Township’s recurring narrative has begun.

Elgin Is Probably Dead

In episode 9’s ending, while most of the town is focused on the expedition, Elgin is seen carrying out his duty of looking for clues that can unearth the identity of the Man in Yellow. As he is going through polaroids stored in the diner’s storage room, he comes across a photo of a girl who looks very similar to Sophia (Boyd’s hunch that old items will have the key to figuring out the Man in Yellow’s identity turns out to be right). He spots Sophia in the diner and approaches her to address this revelation, thereby interrupting her conversation with Clara about the fact that Jade and Tabitha have gone into the tunnels. Sophia is angry that the residents have figured out how to extract the Anghkooey children’s bones safely. Elgin finding out that Sophia used to live in the Township during one of the previous cycles sends her over the edge and she starts moving towards Elgin with malicious intent (after telling Clara to lock the doors of the diner). It’s unclear if Sophia has killed Elgin or not. I think she will because she didn’t grab onto Elgin’s hand to pull him into a hug, right? However, Elgin’s death isn’t gonna be straightforward. I think she’s gonna turn him into one of her puppets and send her to the gravedigging site to keep Tabitha and Jade from bringing out the bones and stopping her (or the Man in Yellow’s) plan to massacre the residents. If Boyd and his crew manage to get Tabitha, Jade, and the bones out of the graveyard before Elgin or some other monstrosity gets to them, then they’ll be in the safe zone. Otherwise, everyone’s toast. As for Sophia’s picture, it’s evident that she has infiltrated the residence in the previous cycles with the help of this innocent identity. She got herself photographed because she didn’t expect anyone to find that picture and make the connection between the girl in the photo and her. And I guess she knew that if somebody found out, she’d simply kill them; and that someone is Elgin. By the way, that polaroid also seems to feature someone who looks like Julie. Does that mean that Julie can actually story-walk and she’s gonna use that photo as a bookmark to travel to that point in the timeline of the Township and kill Sophia? It’s possible. Well, those are my thoughts on the semi-finale of From Season 4. If you have any thoughts on the same, let me know in the comments section below.

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