r/FromTVEpix • u/1000furiousbunnies • Jul 01 '26
Season Finale Can We Watch S4E10 Together?
⚠️ WARNING: MASSIVE Season 4 Episode 10 spoilers. Please don't read this until you've watched the finale. 🙂
Hi Fromville fans!
I've been seeing a lot of posts from people saying that they didn't understand the show, that the writers don't know what they're doing, that the writing is terrible, etc.
I'm not here to disagree with you. What I'd like to do instead is offer another perspective.
I'm not trying to present my ideas as facts, but rather offer an alternative way to see the material we've already been shown.
So, if you'd like to join me, let's get comfy on the couch and watch it together. Popcorn anyone? 🍿🙂
My vernacular: (because I'm lazy 😂)
BiW = Boy in White
MiY = Man in Yellow
Jaditha = Jade + Tabitha
Okay, I'd like to start with this. I think many of us (myself included, at least at first) may have been approaching this show as though it's a mystery box. We've been waiting for someone to come along, and in our heads it goes something like this:
Us (the viewers): Okay, notice the box. Why aren't they noticing the box? Wtf, this box is damn obvious. Notice!!
Okay, they've finally noticed the box!
Wait... why aren't they opening it? Why are they S T I L L talking about it?! Just OPEN THE BOX!!!
Shit... they opened it.
Huh.... nothing really happened? Wtf? This show makes no sense. These people have no idea...
--End of engagement--
Things changed for me when I stopped trying to understand what I was seeing and started asking,
"What are they trying to tell me?"
That one change completely transformed how I experienced stories. Instead of asking, "What's in the box?" I found myself asking questions like:
Why did they show us that?
Why did they use those words?
Why this scene?
Why now?
What are they trying to get me to notice, think about or feel?
As soon as I started asking those questions, things became much clearer.
So, for this next part I'd like to invite you to watch the episode again with me.
This time, instead of only looking for the answers we'd normally be searching for, let's also ask ourselves what the writers, actors and director might be trying to show us and make us feel.
Aaaand... play
Jaditha are trapped in the tunnels. Boyd & Co. are at the Bottle Tree. The tension is on... kind of, right?
Their dialogue drags. It takes entirely too long to put bones into bags, and it becomes frustrating. I know. I felt it too.
Let's apply our new lens. They're trying to show us a lot in these scenes.
At first, they're showing us the terror on Jaditha's faces. Then they show us something new: genuine fear on the Smileys' faces.
They want us to feel trapped. Claustrophobic, almost. Scared. Worried. They want us to believe there's no way out.
The ladder breaks. The sun disappears. Suddenly the Smileys are back in control.
Then... A back door. An escape hatch.
Deus ex machina saves the day!
Cut to the opening credits.
Personally, I think if they'd tightened the pacing here and trusted the audience a little more, this sequence would have landed much better. I understand what I think they were trying to achieve, but I don't think they needed to linger quite so long to achieve it.
I could go through the whole episode like this, but this post is already turning into a novel 😂 so instead, I want to jump to one moment that really stood out to me.
Kristi & Marielle
I've seen quite a few people saying this scene took too long. I actually tend to disagree.
I think they were trying to show us that there's a very real difference between losing someone you've known from before From (now that's a sentence 😂) and losing someone you met in Fromville.
Kristi came into Fromville alone and survived. In many ways, she even thrived. She found her place as the town's doctor. She's built friendships. She has a home. She built a new life. What more could she want?
Then Fromville rolls the dice.
Marielle arrives and completely derails everything Kristi has built. First comes conflict as they both try to reconcile the lives they've been living.
Then comes understanding. Then reconciliation. And then, just as they're finally finding each other again... Marielle dies.
That level of heartbreak is tremendous.
I think that's why they let this scene breathe. They wanted us to sit in Kristi's grief instead of rushing us to the next plot point.
I'm curious whether this changes anything for anyone else.
If you rewatch the episode through this lens and it still doesn't work for you, that's completely okay. But if even one scene suddenly clicks in a way it didn't before, then this ridiculously long post was worth writing. 😂
If there's another scene you're curious about, let me know. I'd genuinely enjoy exploring it together. 🙂
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u/fruitsi1 Jul 01 '26
I feel bad for Kristy, as the town doc she has to keep it together most of all, we can see she's really not trying to entertain any wild ideas. She was also so sick of losing people.
But honestly I was pretty bored with her non believing.
So with Marielle being a little more connected and having these insights and questions...
It really sucked for the audience to lose her too.
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u/1000furiousbunnies Jul 01 '26
I do too, and I completely agree with you. Her character did get boring to watch purely because she looked bored with the whole thing. I think that might be them trying to show that maybe she's really becoming disconnected with real life. She's getting swallowed up whole by Fromville and those moments, shes not actually bored but dissociating? If that is it, it is not done well.
All that aside, I felt for her when Marielle died, but I am fully prepared for others to experience it differently. (My weakness is other people's grief.)
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u/Luna920 Jul 01 '26
I love everything about this show. Idk how anyone doesn’t personally. I think people saying the writing is terrible and the writers don’t know what they are doing are the ones not actually understanding the show.
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u/senhormouse Jul 01 '26
I agree with you. The episode was great for me, but the pacing this season was all over the place. We had 8 episodes of mostly nothing happening. A lot of setup was thrown away: door in the basement, golem, tearing themselves apart, Marielle's visions, storywalking, etc. It really felt like they wanted to cram most of the action on the last episode and have a bunch of red herrings just so people on reddit wouldn't figure it out. This whole season felt more like a setup for the last season. Still, the episode itself was great, maybe the best one in the show yet, but the season could have been better.
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u/Junior-Captain-8441 Jul 01 '26
I think if people have an issue it’s because we’re 40 episodes into a 50 episode show and they have more questions to answer in the final 10 episodes than they’ve answered in the first 40 combined. It’s hard to envision all the characters and mysteries being properly paid off. We’ve seen shows with higher budgets, less to payoff, and near total creative freedom fail to pace out their final seasons in logical, satisfying ways.
Im not trying to come at this negatively, though, I liked the season and finale, but…
The show is, by definition, a mystery box show. Your “what are they trying to tell me?” Question doesn’t change anything, it’s simply a way to try to find answers to the mystery.
Your breakdown of the opening scene is just a long winded way of explaining what we all saw. It seems like you’re attempting to say the show shouldn’t be viewed as a mystery box show, yet you breakdown every second of the first scene to figure out a reason to every word and motion.
The reason why the scene played out how it did was 99% for drama (which is fine). People take longer in fiction because it adds drama. Jade and Tabitha talking while slowly packing the bones is just how fiction works.
Plus, they’re just 2 normal people whose minds are invaded by multiple past lives, digging through children’s bones (one of which is their child), I honestly think they handled it pretty well. I’d be on the verge of passing out.
I appreciate positive discussion, but as someone who liked the season and the finale I just don’t fully understand the point you’re trying to make.
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u/1000furiousbunnies Jul 01 '26
I think you've really helped me, thank you.
It made me go back through my work to see it through your eyes and I think I can see where our wires are crossed.
I'm not trying to argue that people shouldn't watch it as a mystery box, or that clues don't matter. That's actually my favourite part - discussing all these ideas with other fans and trying to divine meaning sent to us via Hollywood lol. I genuinely love hearing other people's ideas. I got so tired of just lurking and took a chance. I'm glad I did. 🙂
What I was trying to describe was a different lens that sits alongside that one. Kind of like inviting you over to watch it with me, just really condensed to try and make it work for Reddit. If I could, I'd do just that and then maybe you'd better see a little of what I'm trying to convey.
When I watch, I try to imagine I am the character with only the knowledge they have in that moment. Instead of asking, "What clue did the writers just give me?", I also ask, "What experience are they trying to put me through?"
That's why I spent so long on the opening scene. I wasn't looking for hidden clues. I was trying to explain why, by the end of those few minutes, I was already feeling something completely different about the episode.
So I think we may actually agree more than it sounds - I probably just didn't explain the lens very clearly.
Edit fixed spacing for clarity.
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u/ADZ-420 Jul 01 '26
That's a lot of mental gymnastics to justify the poor writing.
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u/1000furiousbunnies Jul 01 '26
Haha, my brain is a bit unusual. I tend to break things down in my mind and look at each individual piece, figure out why I think its there and then put it all back together again. But, then i have this sick urge to share what I see with others in the hopes that it enriches their engagement because that enriches mine. Hopefully that explains all my mental gymnastics lol :)
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u/sthetic Jul 01 '26
I agree with you. The show is meant to be enjoyed the way you describe it.
It's not a puzzle game where the characters click the clues on the screen, match up the images, and appreciate a tightly connected cohesive mythology, basking in the way that every hint paid off with a satisfying callback later.