Is anyone surprised by how quickly that spiraled out of control?

The minute Jim decided Randall was a person worth trusting during FROM Season 2 Episode 7, you knew it was going to go downhill at some point.

Though there’s something to be said for just how spectacularly bad things ended up at the end of FROM Season 2 Episode 8.

FROM loves a cliffhanger, and this one was certainly a wild one.

Randall and Donna have been butting heads since the jump, with Randall totally and completely unwilling to fall in line and accept what was happening around him. He spent so much time pushing back in the earlier parts of the season, and Donna didn’t have the time for it.

There were far more significant issues for Donna than Randall’s petulance.

His poor attitude hadn’t endeared him to many, and yet, Jim found him to be someone he could trust, the two conspiring together and trying to piece together the ins and outs of the town.

Randall was stuck on the idea of people in the town being in on the big conspiracy, and what should have been just a fleeting thought turned into a full-fledged investigation when he and Jim decided to interrogate Sara.

The idea that those who’ve died in the town could be a part of the experiment doesn’t make sense to us as the audience because while maybe Jim hasn’t seen the bodies, we surely have.

It just doesn’t make sense on the surface, and Jim seemed skeptical but not skeptical enough to drop it altogether.

Their decision to stay in the RV overnight and watch the monsters felt like a dangerous play, but Jim has been getting increasingly more and more unmoored as the season progressed. He’s wanted answers more than anything, willing to take the kind of chances most wouldn’t just to hopefully get one tiny step closer to going home.

When Donna walked in on Jim and Randall questioning Sara, I knew she would chase them off, and she didn’t disappoint.

Donna: You some kind of moron?
Jim: What?
Donna: What is wrong with you?
Jim: I’m just looking for answers. Same as everybody else.

Permalink: I’m just looking for answers. Same as everybody else.

Jim can try to play everything off like he’s just trying to get everyone home, but Randall has shown enough of himself by this point that I can’t imagine he was THAT surprised to see Donna tied up to that tree at the end.

Randall was clearly not going to let his theory go, and if there were one person in that town to be suspicious of, for him, it would be Donna. Aside from Boyd, she’s a leader there, someone who wields power and influence easily.

So, if you’ve convinced yourself there are people living amongst you helping move the experiment along, then Donna would be the perfect person to target.

Considering nightfall is soon, Jim still has busted ribs, and Randall does not seem like the kind of guy who believes in negotiating, things are looking terrible for all three of them.

Donna’s only saving grace may be the fact she never returned to Colony House, and with Julie and Ethan knowing Jim was headed to the RV, presumably with his new BFF Randall, Donna’s number one hater, maybe someone puts two and four together and heads out to the woods to find them?

Here’s hoping because Donna does not deserve to get one-upped by Randall!

Before she was knocked upside the head and tied up, Donna was having quite an eventful day! And she finally got let in on the monster secret, which kept getting more confusing and alarming.

Elgin’s bathtub nightmare was a dream, just as I suspected, and the music box dreams didn’t end with him, as Kenny experienced one of his own, complete with cicadas and a nasty burn.

Boyd’s encounter with Martin on FROM Season 2 Episode 2 has had long-lasting effects on him and those he’s told about it. I don’t see any other link between the music box and the people being affected to this point besides them being present when Boyd divulged what happened to him.

Now, isn’t the whole thing with cicadas that they emerge after a long period of hibernation, look to mate, and then die? Have they come to invade the town, cause some damage, and then disappear?

The fact Kenny saw them in his dream, along with the music box, and then showed up around the body of the monster, who was infected with the blood, just brings everything back to Martin and that damn cave. Something was unleashed on the town, and as it stands right now, there is no way to stop it.

It’s also interesting that something from one of the dreams came to life essentially and was being seen by the others.

No one saw the homicidal sugar plum fairy (maybe because Boyd didn't tell anyone about Martin yet) or that creepy ghost-like figure hovering above Elgin’s head. But the cicadas have been seen, so what makes them different?

Kenny, Boyd, and the others heard that tell-tale sound before that man emerged from the house, bloody, screaming, and throwing up. So did the cicadas attack someone? Have they been awakened from their slumber to feast on the town?

You’ve got to love how you can’t get through a single hour without 73 more questions popping up as you watch!

Boyd will have to find a way to get back to that cave where he met Martin because that’s where everything began. The transfer of blood, the music box; it all started there, and if I had to guess, that’s where it will have to end.

You think those things that come out of the forest at night did this? They're just the tip of the spear.
Martin [to Boyd]

Permalink: You think those things that come out of the forest at night did this? They're just the tip of...

He’s probably going to have to venture out into the forest again and hope for a miracle if he wants to find it again, but it does seem like the only answer they may get lies in that cave.

Martin told Boyd to get out before the music stopped, but he didn’t, and he brought something evil back with him. He will have to start at the beginning if he wants to find a path to the end.

The other significant development during this From Season 2 hour involved Victor taking an unfortunate trip down memory lane, remembering the night he lost his family and became the sole survivor of that retched town.

You can easily forget sometimes just how stunted Victor is due to his lack of childhood and intense trauma because you see him from the outside as an adult who should behave in a certain way.

But Victor has lived most of his life surrounded by chaos, pain, and death. For everyone else there, the town is a nightmarish horror that they’re desperate to escape. And it’s still that same nightmare for Victor, but it’s also his home.

It's the place that housed him and raised him for so much of his life. I don’t think he’s not desperate to leave, even if he acknowledges the town as his home, but he doesn’t have a “home” to go back to like everyone else does.

The only way he’s survived for as long as he has was by employing his own set of coping skills.

In that kind of town, it’s so easy for the lines of reality and fantasy to blur, and Victor has always used his pictures as a memory bank. A way to look back and chronicle what he’s seen as a means of telling a story and keeping his memories straight.

I don’t blame Victor for trying to bury so much of the night everyone died because who would be trying to remember that?

But the race to get home has reached a fever pitch for everyone. Poor Victor has seen so much and been through so much that, above all else, he wants to protect himself and others because he saw people look for answers and do all the things these people are doing now, only for it to mean nothing in the end.

The key to dealing with Victor is not treating him like he’s only useful for his memories. Tabitha is kind to him and doesn’t demand. She simply asks and receives if Victor is willing to share.

Taking her out to the car cemetery and allowing himself to feel all the emotions of that night was a huge moment for Victor, and Scott McCord is simply brilliant in this role. He has to do a lot of acting without words, and you can feel every emotion when he’s on-screen.

Thinking about that night, Victor lost not only his mother and his sister but his innocence, too.

Eloise’s drawings came with a surprise in the form of a tower drawing, struck with yellow overtop. And when I saw that, my immediate thought was that lighthouse Boyd and Sara saw on FROM Season 1 Episode 10.

Knowing Tabitha, she will now be on her own quest to find the tower, especially since she already believed the children she saw were useful.

But venturing off into the woods hasn’t turned out well for anyone yet, and it’s not exactly like there is a map to get to the tower either.

My guess? She’s going to have to get those scary children to lead her there. But then what?

Does “saving” the children really bring them home?

We’ve got two more episodes left this season to find out!

Loose Ends

I can’t wait for Boyd to find out he’s going to be a grandfather. We keep getting robbed of certain scenes like Fatima telling Ellis she was pregnant, and I hope we get to see a moment between father and son.

A silver bullet is just about the only way they can test their theory with the bile, but how will they make it exactly?

Jade is going to end up inside that tunnel, isn’t he?

Victor gifting Ethan his old jacket was perhaps the sweetest moment ever. I also love how protective Ethan and Julie are over Victor.

That song Kenny heard when he answered the phone in his dream was hard to hear, but there was something about three and stopping the melody. Are the three Kenny, Marielle, and Elgin?

I’m very curious about where things end up for Sara by the end of this season because I think she will continue trying to leave town. There isn’t a place for her there as things currently stand, and no amount of stitching will fix that.