John Griffin’s MGM horror series From is set in an enigmatic American town with no obvious entry or exit. This town is a pocket dimension without a specific location on the map that draws visitors from throughout the USA. Every time a person or group of people travelling along a forest road notices a tree in the centre of the road, they are forced to take a detour and wind up going in loops before realising they have been imprisoned in a loop where there is only one thing—a strange town. But the horror doesn’t stop there.
The village experiences a horde of violent, human-looking creatures that emerge from concealment in the forest at night when it is dark and go on the search for any living human being. The residents of the town hide from these nighttime monsters in basements or behind closed doors and bolted windows, while a mystery talisman with peculiar symbols guards them. The Season 1 finale of the From television series leaves a lot of intriguing things unanswered, which leaves a lot of them open to speculative or theoretical explanations. So without further ado, let’s enter the enigmatic universe and attempt to make sense of it using the indications that are scattered throughout the story.
From Season 1: Plot Summary What Is The Series About?
Two groups of people live in different parts of the town. On the one hand, there are residents of the actual town who adhere to rules and regulations and have a democratic system in place, and on the other hand, there is the colony house, which is maintained by Donna and where residents live like hippies and cultivate their own food.
Boyd Stevens (Harold Perrineau), a retired soldier who lives in the central town, serves as his own sheriff and is assisted by Kenny in upholding the law. Boyd patrols the streets with a bell in hand every evening before dusk falls to warn the townpeople to finish their work and lock themselves inside their various homes, which are guarded by a stone talisman hanging near the door on the inside. As the animals of the night try to entice the helpless souls and deceive them into opening the door, Boyd has encouraged people to secure their windows if they have any youngsters living inside. One such incident occurs at the start of season 1, when a young girl named Meagan lets a monster in while the intruder is convincing Meagan that the monster is her late grandmother. Meagan and Lauren Pratt are attacked by the horde of monsters as soon as they enter the door, and Boyd discovers their dismembered bodies the next morning.
Frank, who is also Meagan’s father and Lauren’s husband, went out that evening drinking with a friend. Boyd and Father Khatri decide to lock Frank in the box, a small iron shelter in the middle of the town without a talisman within it to protect the person from the night animals, as part of the punishment because of his stupidity, which resulted in the town losing two innocent lives.
A family of four is driving down a road in an RV outside the dimension when the father, Jim Matthews, unexpectedly notices a fallen tree in the middle of the road. As they approach the second road, the family realises they are travelling in circles and the only thing they can see is a mysterious town where mourners have gathered around the cemetery to pay their respects to Meagan and Lauren Pratt. The family decides to take the second route they saw a mile back and turn around to continue their journey.
Jim exits the RV and approaches Boyd for directions. Boyd advises Jim to follow the route and he would eventually locate the motorway. Boyd and Kenny place the spike strip on the road as soon as the RV pulls away in order to puncture it and warn the driver about the horrors they have soaked into. Before they can stop the RV, though, it is involved in a collision outside of town when a different vehicle being driven by a boy called Tobey loses its balance. Jim attempts to save the car by veering away from the RV that derailments and crashes into the woods, where a large branch pierces the leg of his small son Ethan.
Jim decides to stay with Ethan in the RV, where the town’s doctor, Kristi, decides to operate on Ethan, and Boyd stays back to save them from the monsters. Boyd and other town residents come to their rescue as they bring Jim’s wife, Tabitha, and their daughter, Julie, to the town along with Tobey.
The Matthews family and Tobey’s friend Jade, who was asleep in the car when it entered the unknown dimension, are also featured in the series. Boyd informs the newcomers of the town’s atrocities and requests that they select either the colony home or the central town as their long-term residence. The voice of these beings contacts a girl named Sara Myers, a waitress at the diner, as they broker a deal with her to carry out their instructions in exchange for a path home. Will any of these citizens be able to leave the enigmatic town and find their way back home, or will they be stranded there for the rest of their lives?
Warning: Major Spoilers
Hints That Pave Way For Possible Theories
From series Season 1 refuses to answer any question with exact certainty; however, while setting the premise in Season 1, it does leave a lot of hints behind for the viewers to ponder. Let’s talk over some of the key hints and what they might indicate.
- No Physical Location: John Griffin probably named the series from because the residents of the mysterious town cannot possibly answer the question, from which town they belong to now. Another point to be noted is that Deputy Kenny told the new resident, Jade, that every single one of the residents came from a different location in America. For example, he and his family were traveling in Austin, Texas, while Kristi, the medic, was in Detroit when she saw the same tree in the middle of the road and the same crows in the sky.
- The New Arrivals were predetermined: Sara Myers, who was contacted by these creatures, told Father Khatri that these nocturnal monsters have been inside this realm for a very long time and have been waiting for someone who would hear them and help them escape. These creatures also prophesied the arrival of Tobey, Jade, and Matthews family, which means that either they allure people to enter this realm in search of their messiah, or they have other sinister motives and have been probably lying to Sara Myers so that she would carry out their commands like opening the door of the hospital and attacking the new boy, Ethan Matthews. They even knew about the past lives of all the residents, as Sara Myers told Father Khatri about the bag he buried in the ground when he came into town that reminded him of the murder he had committed in the real world. Through these voices, Sara found out about Boyd s name from the army, where they used to call him Mr. Fish and Loaves.
- The Boy Dressed In White: In the entire Season 1, only three people spotted the mysterious spirit of the boy dressed in white. The first to encounter him was a resident of Colony House, Victor, who had spent his entire childhood in the realm and had been in there for the longest time. Victor often drew crayon paintings about the massacre, the white boy in the woods, and other symbolic images. He first saw the boy in his childhood when the two cars came into town, much like the incident with the Mathews family. Victor was quite puzzled when he found out that the new resident, Ethan, could see the white boy and might be the chosen one, just like him. Victor decided to share with Ethan all his secrets and the information about the mysterious lands he received from the voices in his head. Victor also showed him the farway tree in the woods that could transport people or things to different locations.
- The Wireless Cords: While struggling to find answers, Jim found out that there were no wires inside the cord, yet they transmitted power to the appliances, especially to the lamps inside the house. Tabitha plunged deeper and figured out that there were no power lines in the house and that these wireless cords just went straight down into the ground. In the basement, she also found a bracelet that she had made for Jim years ago, and there was no answer to how it ended up in this realm. Tabitha decided to dig the ground to find out where these wireless cords would lead to, and at the end of Season 1, she found out that they weren t attached to anything. Inside the tunnel, she found Victor, who used the farway tree on the night when the monsters attacked the colony house. He revealed to Tabitha that it was the place where these monsters used to sleep, and he already knew that Tabitha would come there.
- Mysterious Frequencies: In the dining room, the radio would pick up any frequency and start playing songs out of the blue. It was one of the weirdest things in the town, and it also brought to attention that the radio transmitter in the police station (post office) also picked up weak frequencies once in a while. Jim and Jade erected a transmission tower on the terrace of the colony house to contact the outer world, only to find out in the end that it was these creatures that controlled these frequencies as well. How and why? Nothing was revealed with certainty.
- No Holy Bible In The Entire Town: Father Khatri told Sara Myers there wasn t a single copy of the Holy Bible in the town, yet there were dozens of copies of Robert Ludlum and Judy Blume s novels. He found this extremely puzzling, and maybe this was the single piece of information that hinted that this realm or dimension could be an evil domain run by an occult group who had a horrifying symbol seen in many places throughout Season 1. If the dimension is ruled by some occult group or their deity, then it would also justify the use of the talisman that Boyd found in the woods, which had been protecting the residents from these creatures. While trying to catch a signal for the radio transmitter, Jade had visions of a few dead bodies hanging from the tree and a historical war gunman who tried to shoot him. In the forest, Boyd also found a few bottles hanging from a tree, inside one of which he found a piece of paper with the number 1864 written on it. It could mean that the history of this dimension goes back to a long period of time.
From Season 1: Ending Explained What Happened To Boyd, Sara, Tabitha, And Victor?
Because of the talisman, these creatures couldn t voluntarily enter the building protected by it, and so they started tricking people into opening the door for them so that they could feast upon them. In Episode 7, a creature called Jasmine tricked a resident of the colony house, Kevin, to open the window for her, after which the entire horde slaughtered people inside the mansion, and some fourteen people lost their lives in the ambush. The others who survived were mentally traumatized and lost all hope that they would ever be able to return home.
On the same tragic night, Father Khatri died in Boyd s arms after he was attacked by one of these creatures. Father Khatri had trapped Sara in the basement of his make-shift church and didn t want to kill her because Sara had been the only person who was able to communicate with these creatures, and Father Khatri thought that through her they would be able to get answers about this mysterious domain and the monsters inside it.
After Father Khatri s death, Boyd found out that he had been suffering from Parkinson s disease, like his father before him, and thus decided to risk his life to go into the forest with Sara to fulfill Father Khatri s last wish. When Boyd arrived in town, he curiously used to make trips into the woods, which were the dwelling places of these monsters. He was passionate about finding answers, but in his absence, his wife, Abby, lost her sanity and started shooting people. When Abby pointed a gun at her son, Ellis, Boyd shot her in order to protect Ellis. Ellis never forgave his father for leaving his mother in a time of need. Boyd, on the other hand, lost his curiosity and focused on protecting people and helping them adapt to their new surroundings after that.
The attack on the colony house acted as a sort of enlightenment for Boyd, who decided to go deep into the forest with Sara to find the answers that everyone had been struggling with. Meanwhile, Jim and Jade constructed a transmission tower on the terrace of the colony house to make contact with the outside world, but they only faced failure. As an upcoming storm hit the two, a voice that belonged to one of these monsters contacted Jim on the radio and asked him to stop his wife from digging the hole in the basement of his house.
At the house, as Tabitha dug further, the ground beneath her cracked open, revealing a hidden tunnel. As she gained consciousness, she found that the wireless cord wasn t connected to anything, thus proving the theory that the electricity inside the house was controlled by an invisible force or frequency. In the tunnel, she met Victor, who revealed that the boy in white had already prophesied her arrival. Victor informed her that these tunnels or caves are where these monsters sleep during the daytime to hide themselves from the sun or daylight. Inside the caves, Tabitha witnessed the same symbol and some mystical cave drawings that don t reveal much, except the crows, the trees, and the killings. Maybe in the second season, this tunnel will become instrumental in explaining the origins of these creatures.
Meanwhile, Boyd and Sara, who spent the night in the forest, witnessed a mysterious bright light and were attacked by someone, yet the talisman protected them. The very next morning, they found themselves in a forest that was filled with spider webs. They continued their journey, when Boyd suddenly had visions of his late wife, Abby, who was caught in a web. When Boyd tried to save her, a group of spiders attacked him, and one of them bit him too. After this mystical encounter, Boyd not only lost all hope of finding his answers but also felt dizzy due to spider poisoning.
Sara convinced Boyd not to lose hope, especially when they were so near to their goal, and thus they followed the source of light that they saw last night and finally witnessed a lighthouse and the sounds of horn blaring, probably from a ship in the harbor nearby. However, before they could unravel the mystery, Boyd lost all his strength and requested Sara to go back and inform others about their discovery. At that moment, Sara noticed the boy in white standing at a distance, who asked Sara to escape the wrath of the creatures with the help of the farway tree. Sara and Boyd both entered the bark of the faraway tree. However, a closing shot depicted that Boyd ended up in an enclosed space surrounded by thick rock walls on all four sides, leaving only the bare minimum space for Boyd to stand. At the same time, the radio in the dining room caught some frequency when suddenly the realm opened again and a new bus, the Grand Rapids Runner, arrived in town. It could also be surmised that the radio picked up signals whenever the domain opened or connected itself to the real world, thereby allowing the frequencies to enter their dimension.
Season 1 ended without revealing the fate of Boyd, Sara, Tabitha, and Victor, who got separated from their family and their loved ones. Boyd, who was trapped in an enclosed space, might die inside it if not saved by someone. For in the case of Sara, no one knows where she would arrive as Victor had told Ethan that farway tree is quite temperamental. Victor, Ethan, and Sara are the chosen ones who have made contact with the boy in white so far, and it can be surmised that the same boy may help them to protect the living and rescue them to their respective homes. Victor and Tabitha may also unravel some groundbreaking secrets about the monsters terrifying the lands, but before that, they have to first protect themselves from their attack. Their discovery may also establish if these monsters are prone to sunlight, which is why they hide in the dark tunnels during the daytime. The upcoming season of From will shed more light on the mysterious world while revealing the secrets of these lands and the origins of these nocturnal monsters who prey upon the living.
From is a 2022 Drama Thriller series created by John Griffin.
