Summary
After recent deaths and disasters, From takes some time out for everyone to work through their problems in an episode that lacks big plot developments but contains plenty of interesting character moments.
From Season 4 hasn’t been immune to accusations of the odd filler episode, and if I’m being honest, Episode 8 doesn’t do much to reassure audiences that the end is in sight. Of course, the end isn’t in sight, which is why, as we’ve already explained, fans should probably get used to the idea that most of the key answers will come in Season 5. But that doesn’t do anything for us right now. While “Heavy is the Head” definitely lacks a key defining dramatic moment, though, it does effectively tease out more mysteries and provide some strong character moments, so depending on what you’re into, mileage may vary.
It’s also very much the morning after the night before, where a bunch of big developments happened, including Roger being brought back from the dead and rampaging through Colony House. That’s quite a lot to process! I will grant you that I don’t love how everyone is processing it, with Tabitha especially getting on my nerves, but I think we can all appreciate a bit of a comedown period while everyone works out what they’re going to do next.
Roger having died twice is the least of anyone’s problems, given the implications of that. The talismans obviously don’t work against everything that’s out to get the inhabitants of Fromville, and we’ve clarified that the totems don’t kill the Creatures, which Sophia is visibly reassured by. But there’s more to it than that. After her psychological connection to Smiley, Fatima has manifest varicose veins all across her stomach, which don’t seem to suggest anything imminently wrong with her, according to Kristi and Mari, but aren’t happening for no reason. Mari even has the temerity to suggest that Fatima’s burgeoning power might be a good thing, a way for them to fight back against the Creatures, but when Fatima returns to the clinic later, and her blood pressure and heart rate both suggest that she should technically be dead, Kristi’s argument that this probably isn’t a good thing starts to hold a bit more water.
At least Ethan is prepared — or trying to be, anyway. He took Victor’s warning about him potentially ending up as the sole survivor of the current cycle quite seriously, and wants Victor to impart all the knowledge he can about how to survive if that reality transpires. Frankly, he doesn’t have a great deal to offer beyond a truck full of canned peaches, a sharp stone, and some creepy stand-ins for his mother and Eloise, which Ethan can talk to if he gets lonely, but it’s the thought that counts, and Ethan is buying it. Tabitha, however, is not, which leads me — not for the first time — to my biggest issue with her this season.
I get Tabitha’s impulse to protect Ethan by shielding him from potentially alarming information. But Tabitha is trapped in an inescapable nightmare locked by the bones of dead children and haunted by monsters, so now isn’t the time for helicopter parenting. Ethan needs to have some idea of how to survive if it all goes wrong, and Tabitha’s insistence that neither he nor Victor will ever be alone again just strikes me as painfully naive. Sure, it’s a nice moment character-wise, especially seeing Tabitha being motherly to Victor, but this has been going on all season.
Right on cue, when Tabitha gets home, she’s lured by a ringing phone to the RV, where she’s confronted by the Man in Yellow, who, thanks to Sophia’s meddling, is back in his trademark outfit and has stuck Ethan’s drawings all along the outside. The MIY is pretty ambiguous, as tends to be his way, but he implies that Tabitha is about to do something that has never been done before. Uncovering the bones of the children might be the key to their salvation, but it might also unleash an unimaginable amount of suffering. The suggestion is that the choice of which might be Tabitha’s to make. I get the sense he’s trying to compel her to intervene and prevent the bones from being recovered.
And Boyd and Jade are coming up with a plan for that in From Season 4, Episode 8. The fact that the bone chamber only has one way in and out does present some logistical problems, though, and Boyd’s wavering sanity makes him less inclined to go along with any plan that might needlessly risk too many lives. “Heavy Is the Head” has that title for a reason, and finds the pressures of leadership getting to Boyd more explicitly than ever, with his visions of Abby and Father Khatri only intensifying.
And to be fair to Boyd, even the best version of Jade’s master plan is pretty risky. After a bit of reminiscing, he realises that there was a hole in the chamber’s roof covered by roots, which means the bottle tree grew atop it. His bright idea is to create two teams, one above and one below, and exactly time ripping out the bottle tree by its roots so that the team in the chamber doesn’t get trapped. There are so many ways in which that might go wrong that Boyd can’t help but dismiss it as “landscaping” instead of an actual plan, and he kind of has a point. But it might be the only option.
And then there’s Henry, who I strongly suspect isn’t going to see the end of this season. He’s trying to keep himself busy and curb his drinking, but he also keeps having visions of himself waking up in a care centre to Victor and Victor’s son, Sebastian. In that vision, he’s told that a bad acid tab rendered him virtually comatose, suggesting that all of his experiences in Fromville have simply been a dream. The only way to fully disconnect from the dream and live his happiest life with all of his loved ones alive is to forcibly sever the imagined reality, which seems to be leading him rather uncomfortably to suicide. Will he see through the illusion before that? We’ll have to wait and see, but early signs aren’t looking very promising.
