Summary
From Season 4 slows down a little in “Merrily We Go”, teasing out several mysteries but struggling to move the plot along in substantial ways.
From has enjoyed its central themes in Season 4, with the previous hour being very much about how knowledge often comes at a considerable cost. Episode 3, “Merrily We Go”, doesn’t quite have the same kind of unifying message. It’s probably there if you’re looking for something, but it’s a wider-ranging chapter, with a lot going on, and each various subplot ticking away steadily. The mystery feels richer and more layered, but it also risks feeling frustratingly inert. I wouldn’t call this a “filler” episode, since the way From works means that it’s basically impossible to have such a thing, but it only makes incremental progress in our search for answers.
It’s still replete with eerie clues and images, though. Again, thanks to the way this show works, it’s always difficult to tell what’s just a nasty-looking visual and what’s something we need to keep hold of for later, but the lack of surety is engaging even when the plot machinery isn’t churning at the usual speed. A murder of crows turning up at the funeral for Jim and Sophie’s dearly departed “father” has an ominous quality to it. Stuff like Sophia prying one of her “father’s” teeth from his dead mouth as a souvenir, or the rat that wriggles from the mouth of a corpse while Randall is crawling through the wreckage of Julie’s old family house looking for some books, probably doesn’t mean much but is simply unpleasant to witness.
Needless to say, Sophia is still knocking around making a nuisance of herself. She’s already beginning to use information she’s gleaning – like Kenny casually mentioning when things got worse in the town – to cause discord among the residents, particularly upsetting Julie, and then deciding she wants to live with Sara. Nobody’s any the wiser thus far, but it’s a fun source of tension for the audience. The Man in Yellow’s endgame is still a little unclear, which means we don’t quite know what the purpose of all Sophia’s snooping really is, but it’s definitely going somewhere.
There’s a lot less Boyd in “Merrily We Go”, but he, too, is working on his own little project, which is primarily getting Acosta to root through the personal belongings of the townspeople in the hopes that her detective training will allow her to figure out some kind of patterns of connections that have otherwise been missed. This might be a way to keep her busy and stop her from driving ambulances in circles, too, but whatever works.
It’s only really Ethan who takes some initiative in From Season 4, Episode 3. After the enigmatic instruction from Dead Jim to find the “Lake of Tears”, he implores Victor to help him find it. This involves travelling to the nearby lake where Jade is practicing some kind of meditation technique. The trio roams around for a while, not quite sure whether to believe Ethan or not, but it’s obvious that they’re onto something since the discovery of the Man in Yellow’s distinctive abandoned outfit sends Victor into a psychological tailspin.
Things are suitably mysterious for Tabitha, who’s trying to get through the Bottle Tree in the hopes of finding the lighthouse, but Henry continuously dissuades her from doing so. So, too, does the Boy in White, now looking slightly different, but remaining equally cryptic. Apparently, too much has changed too quickly, and what might have worked before no longer will. Fair enough.
The main downside of “Merrily We Go”, beyond the slow progress, is that it leaves a little too much time and space to focus on character drama, which is historically where From has fallen down a bit. There’s a notable lack of urgency that feels a bit silly given how recent and dramatic Jim’s death was; seeing everyone chilling in the diner doesn’t ring entirely true when so much is going on so much of the time. If it weren’t for Ethan, and to a slightly lesser extent Tabitha, it’d feel a bit like nobody was all that interested in going home at all.
A final note on Boyd. I mentioned earlier that he doesn’t have a great deal to do here, but the episode does close with him visiting Abby’s grave and almost being pulled inside it by a ghostly hand reaching through the ground. A real-feeling vision, or something actually real? Difficult to say, but it’s a nice reminder that the closer you sometimes look at things, the more they risk pulling you in.
