As the first episode of From begins, Boyd Stevens (Harold Perrineau) walks down the street while ringing a bell as people rush to get back home. Sara Myers (Avery Konrad) tells two guests at the dinner that they’re closing and it is time to go home. Once the guests leave, a jukebox on one of the tables begins playing. Outside, Meagan Pratt (Bella Martin) swings before her mother, Lauren (Ann Doyle), comes out and tells her to come inside. Meagan asks for five more minutes, but Boyd encourages her to go inside too. Kenny (Ricky He) plays chess with his father Bing-Qian Liu (Simon Sinn), and loses. A girl with an EMT shirt, Kristi, comes over to tell Bing it is time to go down to the basement. He gets upset and throws the chess pieces to the floor. When Gina (Jessica Barry) arrives, Bing is taken down to the basement. Outside, Kenny talks to Kristi and reveals his mother thinks his dad is going to get better.

When Kenny leaves, Kirsti goes back inside and checks something hanging by the door. Boyd watches a group of people outside a house in the distance. Kenny joins him and confirms it is all clear so he is sent home. Once the group goes inside, Boyd goes to the post office where we see a sign that says it has been 96 days without incident. Meanwhile, a man tries to get Frank Pratt (Bob Mann) up so he can go home. Tom says screw it because Lauren is going to kill Frank. Meagan asks Lauren whether her father is coming home like he promised. Lauren claims he gets a little forgetful sometimes before sending her daughter in to say her prayers. She curses Frank and goes inside too. Once Meagan finishes her prayer, she hears a knock on the window and her grandma asking her to come to the window. Megan says she isn’t supposed to. Her grandma promises not to tell and it can be their little secret.

She goes over and raises the curtain. Lauren walks in as Meagan tells the woman she doesn’t look like her grandma. Although Lauren tells her not to open the window, Meagan does anyway before she is attacked by the monster. After the intro, we join a family driving in an RV. Jim Matthews (Eion Bailey) drives while Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) sits next to him. Julie (Hannah Cheramy) keeps Ethan (Simon Webster) entertained using finger puppets to reenact a death scene. Ethan pleads with Julie to bring Norman back to life before getting his mother involved. Tabitha sits in front of Ethan and comforts him by saying monsters aren’t real so Norman is still alive. Frank finally gets up and decides to leave. He finds people gathered around his home leading him to believe Lauren roped them into another bakeoff.

Boyd comes outside and begins beating Frank in the face while reminding him he told him to nail the window shut. He takes him inside, scolds him for being a drunk, and makes him look at what he let happen to his daughter and wife. Boyd threatens to shoot him in the back of the head if he doesn’t look at it. Then, he tells Kenny to lock him up. Boyd goes downstairs where he tells Father Khatri (Shaun Majumder) that they’re all his now. As Khatri walks up the stairs, Boyd finds the ornament laying on the ground. Jim tells Tabitha he was thinking about the first time they drove up to see her folks. She was terrified her parents were going to hate him, but they didn’t. He sometimes remembers what it was like when it wasn’t like this. She asks him not to do that. He asks what before he notices something ahead. A downed tree in the road blocks their path.

Jim knows they’ll have to go back to the last exit and circle around. Ethan asks to be lifted onto the tree. He walks it while Jim prevents him from falling. A bunch of crows show up in the sky and begin circling around causing Ethan to ask what they’re doing. They agree to get the heck out of there. Boyd goes to Donna (Elizabeth Saunders) who says they had a deal that he wouldn’t come there anymore. He says he wants to see his son. He goes inside where he finds Ellis (Corteon Moore) creating a sketch portrait of Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) who is happy to see him. Fatima hugs him and agrees to give them a minute together. Boyd tells his son that they lost a couple of people last night. He tells Ellis who it was and suggests it’d be nice if he came to the service.

Ellis tells his father he is a little busy so he should go if that is all. Boyd says he’ll show himself out. Meanwhile, Julie loses signal on her phone while Tabitha wonders if they missed their turn. Jim tells Ethan that crows sometimes do crazy things and jokes around with him. Tabitha confirms she has lost cell service too. The RV pulls into Boyd’s town as the Matthew family notices that all of the vehicles have flat tires. They stop near where Father Khatri is saying a prayer for Lauren and Meagan. Jim gets out and approaches the funeral as Boyd tells the locals to leave these people be because he and Kenny will handle it. The locals ignore Jim as he tries to get directions from them. Boyd approaches and asks whether he has his family with him. Jim says yes before asking how he can get back to the highway. Boyd tells him to keep following the road right up the hill and he’ll see.

Jim gets back in and drives up the road like Boyd said. He admits the man didn’t say how long it’d be before they hit the highway. Julie tells Ethan it is called a murder when the crows get together like that. She begins taunting Ethan until Jim tells her to knock it off. Tabitha tells him they weren’t crows. Instead, they were ravens and a group is called an unkindness. The RV ends up back in the small town where the locals don’t want to talk to the family. Tabitha says they should just go because they probably missed the turn. A man in town approaches a woman who says it is the worst part when you still expect to find the road that takes you home. Sarah (Avery Konrad) tells her brother Kevin (Christopher Hayes) to go on because the animals aren’t going to feed themselves. Tabitha and Jim begin arguing about taking a wrong turn, merging, and being lost.

Seconds later, they end up where they started. Jim turns around and tries going in the opposite direction. Kenny asks Boyd whether he thinks they’re ready. Boyd tells him to go ahead and get the strip. Jim and Tabitha see a car in front of them. He has to swerve to avoid hitting the car, but ends up wrecking anyway. Jim comes through and begins checking on his family. Julie seems fine although she banged her back. Ethan says he is stuck and it looks like he has a branch or something sticking through his leg. Tabitha hasn’t moved or said anything. Jim is pinned into the driver’s seat because of a tree that went through the windshield. The man in the other vehicle gets out and stumbles around. He approaches Boyd and Kenny to tell them about the accident. Boyd instructs Kenny to get Khatri and Kristi to help. Boyd runs toward the RV while Kenny deals with the new guy.

The man makes it to the clinic where he tells Kristi his name is Tobey McCray (Colby Conrad). Gina agrees to take over. Another man tries to pull himself out of the back of Tobey’s car. When Boyd approaches to see if he is okay, Jade (David Alpay) tells him he has an amazing face. Since Jade seems out of it, Boyd decides to handcuff him to the automobile. Boyd checks on Jim and the others while telling them more people are coming to help. He climbs onto the RV, opens the door, and climbs inside. First, he checks Tabitha and confirms she is okay. He looks around and decides to help Julie get out of the RV first. Father Khatri and Kenny try to get Ellis to help them because it is going to be dark soon. Although he is angry with his father, he agrees to help. Gina takes care of Tobey while telling him to rest since she’ll be back soon.

Bing tells Gina he doesn’t like him because of the mess he made. She begins taking him downstairs while Ellis and the others arrive at the site of the accident. Kristi begins checking on Jade immediately. Julie is pulled out of the RV and propped up nearby. Once Boyd hears Kenny nearby, he tells Julie that the calvary is here. Jade tells Kristi she is beautiful while she makes sure he can squeeze her hand and move his legs. Ellis notices the car has New York plates and remembers that Sara and Nathan were from New York, but Kristi thinks they were from Boston. As Ellis climbs down to the RV, Kristi checks to see if Jade has taken anything. Kenny tells Kristi to get down there because it looks pretty bad.

When Father Khatri sits down to offer Jade a drink, Jade tells him they’re all so beautiful. Sara checks on Tobey at the clinic. She helps him take a drink and promises it is okay because he is safe now. Ellis and Kenny pull Tabitha out of the RV. Tabitha and Julie check on each other before Tabitha feels faint and nearly crashes. Kristi tells Boyd that he is stable, his airways are clear, and his pulse is strong, but he has a table leg through his thigh. They can’t just yank him out of there so they’ll need at least an hour to do it right. Boyd pulls out the ornament and asks whether Kristi can stitch the kid up in the RV although he isn’t sure whether that’ll work or not. Kristi believes it’ll work. Once she climbs into the RV, she finds Jim holding his son. She shows Jim how to support his son’s neck since they can’t rule out a spinal or neck injury. Kristi recommends Jim go outside and talk to his wife.

After he goes outside, Boyd tries to convince them that they need to go inside somewhere. Boyd pleads with them because he doesn’t want to bury any more kids. Sara is still sitting next to Tobey who asks if everything is okay. She says no. Tobey begins saying he shouldn’t have done something. As he begins freaking out, Sara leans over and kisses him. She says this isn’t his fault before jamming a knife or screwdriver into his neck killing him. Boyd tells Ellis to cut the handcuffed guy loose if he causes him any trouble. Ellis suggests this is suicide. Boyd doesn’t say anything about that and only encourages Ellis to take care of the family. Tabitha tells Jim they can just get Thomas and leave so Jim has to remind her that Ethan is the one stuck in the RV. Jim tries to explain everything to Tabitha, but she still doesn’t trust these people. Kenny interrupts to say they have to go right now.

Jim goes back into the RV where Kristi asks if they have any lamps or lanterns. Boyd holds onto the ornament hoping it’ll protect them through the night. He goes inside and finds out that they’re almost ready to go. Boyd asks for a blanket before hanging the ornament while explaining he is doing his best to protect the RV. On the way back to town, the truck runs over the spike strips. Father Khatri insists it’ll be okay because they can make it to Colony House. Kenny tells them to run as fast as they can no matter what they see. Jim tries to find out what Boyd meant when he said keeping the RV safe. Boyd insists there are things he won’t understand. Ethan wakes up and complains that it hurts before he begins convulsing. Kristi tells Jim what to do while Boyd is instructed to keep covering the windows. Boyd hears a haunting noise outside that convinces him to peek out.

Boyd says they’re coming as we see a group of people walking toward the RV.

 

From Review

It is difficult to say whether From will turn out to be a worthwhile psychological, horror series, but the first episode had some good moments. The premise is equally interesting and silly so viewers will need to eliminate any critical thinking to enjoy this. Obviously, there are a lot of glaring questions about the town and its people. In order words, you could poke endless holes in the narrative that this is anywhere near realistic.

Still, it’d be equally silly to believe the writers were going for something realistic since it is a horror series with monsters. The series is a champion of diversity, but unfortunately, that hasn’t improved the acting because it is bad on many fronts. This was only the first episode so it is hard to say how things will turn out. Regardless, the premise is interesting enough, the pacing was good, and this could always get better.

The opening episode scores a 7 out of 10. Find the latest recaps of From on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support the Reel Mockery project by following this link.