FROM has found its stride again in the back-half of Season 3. I was getting a little worried there in the middle, when the show seemed to flounder, bogged down in frustratingly dour character moments, arguments, bickering over who killed who and so forth. Thankfully, things have picked up considerably as we near the season finale. Just one more episode to go, and then the agonizing wait for Season 4.
Some highlights:
- Jim is back to being cool Jim again. He’s fully backing Tabitha now. He’s actually quite calm and reasonable when he confronts Randall, who is also calm and reasonable, telling Jim to teach his daughter how to drive since none of them will make it out of here alive anyways. I’m more convinced than ever that this arc—Jim being a real prick most of the season and finally coming around—is bad news for his survival. Still, it’s nice to see Jim back to his old self. We get a lot of nice moments between him and his family, including a trip to the RV with Ethan. “Things happen here, things we can’t control. This place wants us to blame ourselves,” he tells the boy. “How we face those things, that what matters.” This sweet moment is interrupted by a call from Fake Thomas over the radio. “Please don’t leave me alone here,” the voice says. “Come on, dad,” Ethan says. “You were right, it’s not him. It’s not Thomas.”
- Victor, frustrated that his memories about Jasper and the Boy In White have been so muddled and unhelpful, decides that the right thing to do is go chop down the Faraway Tree. The Boy In White shows up and tells him to stop. He tells him that he tried to help Christopher and it didn’t work, and that it’s time they figured all this out on their own. “I thought you were my friend,” Victor pleads. “I am your friend,” the boy replies. “Tell me what to do,” Victor says. “Don’t cut down that tree.”
- Jade and Henry have a nice talk. Henry says that Jade reminds him of Victor. He asks what he would do if he were in Henry’s shoes. “You’re trying to figure out how to fix him, right?” Jade says. “You can’t, because he’s not broken. Victor is the product of what this place made him. Victor has been surviving here for decades. He’s been shaped by this place. He’s Tarzan, growing up in the jungle. And you’re the guy who comes along and makes him feel like an asshole because he doesn’t know how to eat with a fork.” It’s exactly what Henry needed to hear—much like Henry’s speech to Jim last week was exactly what he needed to hear. Jade has really grown as a person since he arrived, quickly becoming one of my favorite characters, but also one of the most dynamic in the series.
- Boyd organizes a search party to look for Fatima. They pair off and set out, and Elgin offers to help Ellis in order to ensure he doesn’t find her. It’s not a very smart move. He acts pretty suspicious.
- Acosta continues to be incredibly obnoxious. She almost draws her gun on Victor . . . for being upset? She’s genuinely the worst.
- Julie and Tabitha pair off and Julie reveals what really happened in the ruins. It wasn’t a dream. She tells her about the man chained to the wall and hearing her and Victor in the tunnels. I hope she tells Boyd, then he’d realize that Julie was the one who threw him the rope and they’d both realize that yes, this is a time portal and they can use it to help. I do think that time travel, or at least Julie time-traveling, will be a big part of Season 4.
As they talk, one of the dead children appears outside of Victor’s trailer and beckons for them to follow.
Inside Fatima’s prison cell, she’s found a trapdoor in the floor which she tries desperately to open. I don’t think this is a good idea. Whatever is below this room can’t be good. As she tries to dig, the Kimono Woman appears. “What do you want from me?” Fatima shouts. The woman shushes her, then presses her to the bed and covers her mouth with her bony hand to keep her quiet.
Tabitha and Julie follow the dead girl to the root cellar. “Someone’s down there,” Tabitha says. As she enters, a wave of dizziness passes over her, as though she’s remembering something. Inside, they find Victor standing in a corner and this must be an homage to The Blair Witch Project, I mean look, here’s Mike at the end of that film in perhaps its most haunting and famous shot:
Here’s Victor when Tabitha finds him:
“Victor?” she asks. “This is where it happened,” he replies. He now blames himself for his mother, Miranda, and sister dying. He was the one who told them about the children, after seeing Christopher and the Boy In White. “Victor, it wasn’t your fault,” Tabitha says. “You were just a little boy.” She hugs him, and the dizzy feeling returns.
Time Is A Flat Circle
And suddenly she’s in a memory. We see Miranda telling her children that she loves them. Tabitha pushes Victor away and runs outside. “No,” she says. “That’s impossible.”
Then she’s remembering, but her memory is Miranda’s. She’s running through the woods to the Faraway Tree. When she gets there, she turns and Smiley is there. He turns into a monster and leaps on her. Tabitha screams and begins sobbing. The credits roll.
They were so close to rescuing Fatima. But boy oh boy, this is a massive revelation. Tabitha isn’t just seeing Miranda’s past, she’s having her memories. This can only mean one thing. Tabitha and Miranda are the same person. Tabitha is a reincarnated version of Miranda. She’s come back to Fromville to save the children, but she’s only just realizing that now. She also had dreams of the little girl and the stones, which means that it’s entirely possible—likely even—that Miranda was a reincarnation of another person who was in Fromville before that.
This brings up as many questions as it does answers. We have Julie time-traveling, Tabitha a reincarnated version of Miranda, the Boy in White as a helpful spirit, the Kimono Woman as a dread spirit, etc. etc. etc.
Are some of the other residents of Fromville also reincarnated versions of past selves? One in particular seems likely: Jade, who sees the screaming Jasper doll and who even encounters Christopher this week as he works on his bottle tree. Christopher also saw the symbol that Jade sees. Could Jade be a reincarnated version of Christopher? What was the relationship between Miranda and Christopher? And was Christopher also just another reincarnated version of someone else?
Certainly the reincarnation theory works from an age perspective. Tabitha is 40. Victor is 54. Miranda would have died when he was a boy, and could have been reborn as Tabitha some time after that. Jade is also 40, meaning he would have been reborn at approximately the exact same time as Tabitha. People have been floating romance theories about these two, but I think this goes much deeper.
The Fae and the Otherworld
I’m also leaning toward another theory about the town and the evil that exists here. What if we’re dealing with faeries? Not faeries like Tinker Bell, but the darker kind. The kind that trap you in fae and torment you forever; the kind that steal children and replace them with changelings. The kind that make dark promises in exchange for horrific bargains. We know that the children were murdered by the ones who were supposed to love them. We learned that when Victor traveled down memory lane and witnessed the conversation between the Boy In White and Christopher. But why were they murdered? Given the stone tablets, it appears to be some kind of ritual sacrifice.
Why would parents sacrifice their children? What horrible gift would evil faeries—we could call them demons, if you prefer—trade for child sacrifice? I get the feeling that the creatures in the town might be explained by the answer to that question. Another big question: Who, or what, is growing inside Fatima? Speaking of changelings and reincarnation, I can only think of one dead creature that could come back, and the Miranda memory seems like a pretty big clue. And if Smiley is reborn, could this be another clue as to the dark bargain the parents of the murdered children made with the faeries?
So Fromville is actually the hellish Otherworld of the fae, ruled by wicked faeries who torment their prisoners and play terrible tricks on their minds and feed off their fear and take great pleasure in twisting everything toward their dark purpose—whatever that may be. But are all the faeries evil? The Boy In White seems to be an exception. Perhaps there is another, deeper conflict at play. Some war between good and evil, where evil is clearly winning.
But all of this—ancient ruins that are a gateway to time, mysterious Faraway trees, enchanted music boxes, child sacrifice, inexplicable pregnancies, cryptic bottle messages—strikes me as a very diabolical take on a modern fairy tale. I suspect that we’ll get some very big answers—and more questions, of course—in next week’s Season 3 finale. Maybe we’ll finally learn what the heck Anghkooey means.
Read my review of last week’s episode right here. Past reviews below:
What do you think? Does this make any sense? Do you have any theories of your own? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
