'From Season Three Episode Five' Review: Slow, but a good episode on the politics of the town

Last week's episode of From took us down a more action packed series of events after what felt like a rather sluggish start to the third season. We saw new arrivals into the town and finally the progression of the story as characters started to open up to each other and start discussing their thoughts and experiences in the location. This was after multiple episodes, and even the previous season, in which it felt like characters were constantly beating around the bush and keeping things secret from one another as everything around them began to fall apart. Our previous episodes had a character returning back to the normal world and interacting with another character's relative, a character that has been within the town for most of his life. Yes, I'm trying to avoid writing about specific events and mentioning character names as to avoid major spoilers for those catching up. But in general I'd suggest just not reading this until you have managed to catch up, so read on at your own discretion! Anyway, with this came the kickstarting of some of the stories from From, where characters and their histories are starting to have some weight and it's clear there's a broader series of events at play here. It has been hinted throughout the show, and it's something that has lead to a lot of questions that just never really went anywhere or had answers to. Moments in episodes that had something impactful occur would just never be referenced again. It seems that the tides are starting to change within the show, and it is something I'm really welcoming of.

The last episodes events showed us the outcome of the rotting food and inability to grow fresh crops to produce food for the town, this was met with a character also starting to notice an appetite for this rotten food, as well as for blood. This character is pregnant which brings a lot of suspicion around what's happening to the child and her body, leading to something far more sinister that nobody is really aware of. In the previous episode we saw her sticking her fingers into a gunshot wound of a dead woman just to taste the blood. Nasty stuff! But it was a completely different series of events that we had not yet seen before in the characters stuck within this town. Almost implying a strange connection with the monsters of the night that lurk the town with more vampiric nature. We don't know how these creatures are created or where they really come from, other than that they spend their daytime underground. So many theories are suddenly surrounding this one character. And her secrecy and actions are leading to a plot line that is far more unique to the rest.

Elsewhere, the characters are now struggling with the lack of action. Boyd controls the town but little is actually being done about trying to find a way out, and with a character leaving the town and finding their way back to it, it led to more questions as to how and why. Boyd now struggling to promote peace and stability within the community as everyone now wants to take turns jumping into a strange magic tree in the woods in hopes it'll send them back home. This power struggle has been fascinating to watch as everyone in the town starts to lose their patience. It shows the total fear and weakness in everyone as the strange events of the town continue on. Boyd constantly toyed with and reminded of the fact that he just can't save everyone. This frustration was mostly present through the episode this time, with episode five being more about Boyd's slow loss of control over the community as everyone questions his lack of action as everyone feels more stagnant. There was a scene with a new character which offered advice which actually made a lot of sense, but Boyd outright refuses to accept it. So we don't entirely see Boyd as a saviour, even he is losing some of his rationality in pursuit of keeping things together.

This question of power and motive has been part of the plan for a while now as the monsters have made it quite clear to Boyd that they're going to make this a psychological challenge for him, that realisation that people will die under his control and he can't stop it. That awareness that he will have to make choices over which lives get saved and which ones are lost. We saw this in a more direct manner at the end of the last episode, and here in episode five it's more about the choices others make that he can't control. The ending to this episode being incredibly strong in this regard, as we see someone make their own choice and end up dying as a result. In a rather gruesome manner, I should add! Quite unexpected. Which brings me to the next area of the episode: with more discussion taking place, characters are starting to share and notice things around them.

Victor's father has arrived in the town and immediately starts to notice the oddities in the town's layout: there's a sign which mentions a motel and a pool, there is a pool. But where is the motel? Things like this don't make much sense, which adds to the question of what the town is and how it has a layout. This side of things has rarely been discussed in the show, more so it is the surroundings of the town that are mentioned, which have still hardly been explored as new areas are discovered. I'm curious as to how this will continue to play out, particularly in how the characters are starting to question more things while also have more bravery in how they go about navigating the town. All that's clear: the more they do this, the more bad things will begin to happen. Over all, it was a slow but rather good episode. Not much happened but it was an episode that focused on getting characters to finally talk about things while also showing the outcome of the current power struggles in the town.