***The following is review and breakdown followed by a detailed recap of episode 302 of FROM, “When We Go.” It’s full of big spoilers. For a spoiler-free review of the season, please read our other review.***

As the town deals with Tian Chen’s death in episode two, the somberness can be felt everywhere. The opening scene with Harold Perrineau I once again found hard to watch in the best way as he breaks down over Tian Chen’s body. You can really feel his grief in this scene, and that feeling only continues to build as the episode goes on, from Boyd and Jade transporting her body to the church, to Kristi and Jade preparing her to be seen by Kenny. I also thought Jade’s moments with her were poignant. Even Donna breaking down really got to me. It was clear she was just dealing with it in her own way when she blamed Boyd at first, but it just adds more pressure on him. Will he eventually crack?

Once Kenny finds out, it was of course extremely heartbreaking and the radio playing a celebration song was just awful and likely the powers that be screwing with him. I very much liked that Boyd was willing to risk his life to blow up the caves with Kenny, and their subsequent conversation about Boyd being forced to watch was really powerful.

I was glad to see Sara interacting with the others a bit in this episode. I completely understand their hesitation, but you can’t help but feel a bit bad for her. I also appreciated her conversation with Julie and that maybe she can help her deal with things.

Speaking of Julie, I was happy to see her stand up to her father in the episode. They are all grieving, but him leaving was the wrong choice, and he needs to take more responsibility for things.

The other characters I probably should mention are Fatima and Ellis. Seeing her eat rotten food is concerning and it makes me wonder what is wrong with the baby, or if the baby is even human. I’m interested to see what Ellis thinks when he eventually finds out what she’s been doing.

For what is going on in the real world, this part continued to be what I was most interested to learn about as it was so unexpected. It was bittersweet seeing Henry realize there was a possibility that Victor could be alive, knowing that the rest of his family died. I do have to question though that he doesn’t ask about his wife or daughter. I guess it’s unspoken that they aren’t in the town, but it still seems like such an important thing to gloss over.

Hearing Henry talk about Miranda really answered quite a few questions, or at least seems to. She had hallucinations before they went to the town, which is interesting, especially since Tabitha saw the Boy in White once she was out of Fromville. What it does without a doubt though confirm is that the town and it’s craziness existed before Victor and his family arrived, so any lingering theory that it came from Victor doesn’t fit anymore. It’s also very interesting to think that someone came to the town on purpose. Does that mean that there is a path back for Tabitha to her family?

The last moments of the episode with Jim receiving the phone call of course were meant to be shocking and were, but to me they left more questions than answers, as Thomas was only a baby when he died. Not only that, but I was under the impression that it’s only been a year or two since he passed, although I don’t remember confirmation of an exact date, just that Julie was fifteen. Regardless, it definitely made a great cliffhanger.

I’m excited for the rest of the season but hope that there won’t be any more heartbreak in the near future, although, with this show, nothing is certain.

RECAP

Jade finds Boyd in the bar still handcuffed to the post, repeating something in Cantonese, Tian Chen’s bloody body on the ground. When he asks him, Boyd tells him that they put the key in his pocket, and Jade uncuffs him. Boyd immediately runs over to Tian Chen and drops on the ground, hugging her, likely in shock, yelling and crying that he’s so sorry.

Meanwhile, Kenny wakes up in the cabin to Jim calling him to come outside. He’s found crops growing in patches all along the lake, enough to feed the entire town.

Tabitha wakes up on Henry’s couch. He tells her she passed out on the porch. Scared, because he’s got a gun, she tries to leave, but he tells her to sit. He says that she showed up on his doorstep with a lunchbox his son left with a long time ago and she’s going to tell him how she found it. She tells him the story of her family finding the tree in the road and ending up in a town they couldn’t leave. She explains that some of the people have been there for years. She says that Victor gave her the lunch box three or four days ago; he’s alive and been stuck there all this time. He doesn’t believe her and says she can talk to the police. Tabitha begs him not to call them, because she will sound crazy, and she can’t tell them where the town is, because she doesn’t know. Henry says he already called the police, and they should be arriving in a few minutes. Tabitha says she can prove she’s not lying.

Kristi is angry when Sara comes in the hospital, but she tells her that something happened the night before. The animals got out into the street, and Tian Chen died, and she didn’t know if anyone had told her. She tells her she’s sorry and then leaves. Marielle comforts her.

Boyd and Jade pull Tian Chen’s body through town to the church in a wheelbarrow as some of the townspeople watch, including Victor. Boyd carries her into the church as Jade follows and puts her on a bed in the back. He tells Jade that they need to make sure she is buried with her husband, because she would have wanted that. Jade says that Boyd was in the barn with those things and questions how he is still alive. Boyd says that they wanted him to watch.

Boyd comes back outside to people whispering and has a flashback as he walks back to the sheriff’s station of Tian Chen being tortured. Donna comes running up asking if it’s true and follows him into the station.

Meanwhile, Ethan is crying, and Julie is consoling him. He asks if Tian Chen will be okay. He wants to go see her and give her her blanket. Victor comes in the house, and Ethan tries to get him to convince Julie they need to help Tian Chen. Victor, who won’t help Julie calm Ethan down, puts his drawings in a bag and tells Ethan that she’s dead. He says he can’t stay there anymore. Victor says he told Ethan bad things happen there, and it’s not his fault he didn’t listen. He leaves, and both Julie and Ethan are now crying.

Back in the real world, Tabitha has had Henry search the internet for her family to see that she isn’t lying about them being missing. He doesn’t know how she’s doing it but believes she is lying. He isn’t convinced. How is she the one person who was able to escape? She tells him she doesn’t know, but Victor is a good man and saved her daughter. She thought if she saved the children locked in the tower it could somehow save Julie from what was happening to her. Suddenly something seems to click, and he asks her about the children. She tells him how she was seeing or imagining frightening children and that Victor told her they were locked in the tower and that if she saved them maybe she could help Julie from whatever she was going through.

The police show up at the door, but he apologizes, saying that he mistook a dog or coyote for an intruder. He puts down the gun and tells Tabitha that he bought it almost forty years ago, a few years after his family disappeared and he never had the courage to even load it. He says he’ll make her something to eat.

Back at the station, Boyd explains how they were ambushed, that the monsters were waiting for them. Irate, Donna asks how many animals they saved and if it was worth risking everyone’s lives. She asks how better are off they are today than yesterday. He questions that he had a choice and starts getting angry. He tells her that the animals are all they had. She tells him he’s wrong. The people of the town, their family, are all they had, and now they have one less. He questions what he was supposed to do, just stand there watching their only resource walk away? They would have starved. Donna says that they would have found another way. Boyd yells at her that she was the one who was ready to crawl in a hole because the crops were spoiled. He knocks the bell on the ground and tells her to get out. She says that she knows he’s right. He did the only thing he could do, and he lost, because the game there is rigged. She says she’s not angry at him; she’s angry at herself, because he told them someday they’d go home, and she was stupid enough to believe it. She’s upset and says she has to go take care of the cow before the meat spoils.

Fatima is throwing up again and Ellis tells her through the bathroom door that he wants her to go see Kristi as a precaution. Fatima says it’s just morning sickness and that she’s fine, until she spits blood into the sink and realizes her tooth has come loose. She pulls it out. She tells him he’s right, and they go to the hospital to see Kristi.

Only Marielle is there. They are hesitant to see her instead of waiting for Kristi, but she tells them she’s not a doctor, but she is a pediatric nurse and has dealt with pregnancies.

Boy is outside at the pool with the truck sticking out. Kristi talks to him. He says he can’t even remember who’s truck it was, because they’ve lost so many. Kristi says it was Danny and his girlfriend Shay. She tells him that what happened wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t want a pep talk, but she says she doesn’t care. When Sara tried to hurt Ethan, he told her it wasn’t her fault; it was the place, and that she was going to save a lot of lives. Kristi asks him if it was just to make her feel better or if he meant it. She says it isn’t his fault.

Suddenly Kenny comes running up the road with the food with Jim behind him. No one knows what to say. Boyd comes over. They know something is wrong. Jim asks about his kids, and Boyd says they are fine. Kenny asks who’s blood is on him and asks where his mother is. Boyd tells him they should go inside and talk. Kenny just starts calling to his mother from outside the house. He won’t let them tell him what happened. Everybody just stands there as he runs off. Kristi tells Boyd she’ll go after him.

Kenny goes into the diner. Kristi comes in. He’s upset but says he’s okay as he walks in circles and eventually sits at the counter. He asks where his mother is, and she tells him she’s in the church. He tells her that he needs to sit for a minute.

Marielle asks when Fatima last ate; it was a few days ago. Ellis says she can’t keep anything down. Ellis, uncomfortable, asks Marielle how she’s been doing, and she asks if he means since she went through withdrawal or that the place mind raped her. Marielle says that she knows it’s scary, but they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. She says Fatima is severely malnourished, which is why she lost the tooth. She has really bad morning sickness, and they need to get her eating again. She says she will get her some medicine to help with it, but as far as she can tell, everything is fine.

Back at the diner, Kenny tells Kristi that when things got bad his mother used to always say no matter how bad it gets they will never have that day again. He asks if she suffered but says she doesn’t have to answer. He says when he thinks of his dad now, all he can see is his body in the basement and says he doesn’t want it to be like that for her. He asks if she can make her look like her, look nice. She’d be really upset if she didn’t look like her. Kristi says she will. She tells him if he needs anything to have someone get her, and she leaves. Suddenly the radio starts playing “Celebrate Good Times,” and he breaks it.

Jim comes home. Julie tells him about Tian Chen but he already knows. She’s upset and says it’s not okay. Ethan almost died too. She says he should have been there and that it can’t be like before. She can’t be the fill in parent while he loses his shit. Jim says he was looking her their mother, and Julie says that their mother is gone. He says she doesn’t know that, but Julie says people can’t survive at night without a talisman and she’s been gone four days. Julie says that she knows he feels bad he didn’t stop her, but she can’t do it again. When Thomas died they fell apart, and there was no one there for Ethan. She was only fifteen. She needs him to get it together.

Back in the real world, Henry tells Tabitha that his wife was hearing voices before she disappeared, children locked in a tower that were calling out to her to be saved, and she was terrified of them. He only ever told the detective, who died twenty years ago. He shows Tabitha his children’s room and talks about how it ripped his life apart. He didn’t care that everyone believed he did it, just that the last words he said to them were to clean their room or no tv. He went to work, and when he came home they were gone. Henry says that he doesn’t know how Tabitha knows about the children or has Victor’s lunchbox or faked the articles. The only explanation that makes sense to him is that she’s telling the truth, which means his family is still alive. Tabitha tells him she thinks she was sent there to find him, but he tells her that he thinks she was sent for what’s in the basement.

Jade is sitting with Tian Chen when Kristi comes in, because he didn’t want her to be alone. He says that she made him tea. Kristi looks at her broken body. She says that she has to fix her before Kenny sees her but doesn’t know how; she’s not a mortician. Jade says he’ll help her and that he used to play dress up a lot as a kid.

Fatima and Ellis return to colony house. She takes the medicine from him and convinces him to go help his father, and he leaves. Nikki is on the porch going through the rotten crops which they are going to try to use for composting to help the bad soil. She apologizes to Fatima for how she treated her. When she leaves, Fatima sniffs the food and grabs a piece. Hiding on the porch, she eats the rotten food and it works, so she sneaks away more, eating it down quickly.

Donna is cutting up the cow when Ethan comes in looking for Victor. He asks if that’s the cow that died; he’s never seen what things look like on the inside before and asks if that’s what Tian Chen looked like. He says everything is covered in snow and he thinks she would like that. Donna just tells him that Tian Chen loved him very much.

Kristi and Jade are cleaning and preparing Tian Chen when Sara comes in with a dress. She tells them that the two of them used to try them on dresses in the storage room at the diner, and it was her favorite. Tian Chen said she was going to wear it the day they all went home. Kristi thanks her, and she leaves.

Boyd comes in the bar to find Kenny filling jugs of alcohol. He tells Boyd he’s going to do what he’s going to do and doesn’t want to talk. He’s going to the tunnels to find the monsters and is going to burn them all. He thinks it will work since they burned the other monster, but Boyd reminds him that monster was dead. Kenny says he doesn’t care. Boyd just says that he will help him. At the entrance to the tunnel, Kenny says that Tabitha and Victor said they are everywhere down there. Boyd says that Jade went down there after and didn’t see any creatures. Boyd thinks maybe they left or went deeper in. He tells Kenny that this is how they want them: angry and stumbling around in the dark. He says that if they find them, there’s a good chance they aren’t coming back, but if this is what he needs to do, he’ll be there with him, and they will take out as many as they can together. Kenny says he can’t stop thinking about how scared his mother must have been and alone she must have felt. Boyd tells him she wasn’t alone and admits that they forced him to watch. He says that he couldn’t help her, but she was strong and brave and that she kept looking at him. Boyd tells him in Cantonese what his mother said, what he had been repeating previously. Kenny tells him that it means “Take care of him. He’ll be alone now.” Boyd consoles him and hugs him saying that he has him and tells him they should go back.

Back at the church, Kristi and Jade have finished. He says to Tian Chen, “You’ll come with us when we go,” referencing their discussion in the other episode last season about his grandmother.

Kenny and Boyd come in. He sits with his mother.

Meanwhile, Julie comes over to Sara and thanks her for helping her and Ethan. She tells Sara that something happened to her (meaning the cicadas) and she thinks the place has gotten in her head now. She’s scared what that might mean; she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Sara says it’s ok she can say it, and Julie says that she doesn’t want to end up like her. Sara says she wouldn’t either and that she’s there if she wants to talk.

Back in the real world, in Henry’s basement, Henry tells Tabitha that he and Miranda had been hippies but gave up the drugs and drinking when she got pregnant with Victor. However, one day years later on his birthday, she wanted to take a stroll down memory lane, so they took the kids to her parents and dropped acid for one last trip. That’s when the voices started and she started seeing things. She painted everything she saw.

There are tons of paintings in the room of the children, the symbol from the talisman, the diner, the lighthouse, a man in a yellow suit, a soldier, colony house and more.

Henry says that Miranda said it was like she’d been chosen. She said it was a place that was everywhere but you couldn’t find it if you tried. Somewhere you could stumble into from anywhere but never find a way to leave.

During Henry’s voice over the scene changes to show Tian Chen’s funeral. Henry continues that in the place there were people who were lost and afraid who found themselves living in a nightmare that they couldn’t escape, fighting a battle they knew they couldn’t win. She said they were holding on to hope, and when that hope was gone, they held onto each other. She said that of all the people who would find their way to the place, she was the one who had been chosen to free the children, but she wasn’t the first. Others were chosen before her. She could see each and every one of them, and they all had failed. None of them had set children free or gone home. Henry says that if she’s seen the children, then he guesses she’s been chosen now too. He asks her how she got out. Tabitha picks up a painting of the Boy in White.

Back outside the church, Ellis talks to his father. Boyd says that they can’t keep sitting around and waiting to see what happens and that he needs his help: they’re going to catch of those things.

Ethan asks his dad if they are still going to live in their house now that Tian Chen’s gone. He says they will take it one step at a time. While the kids go to feed the animals, he goes inside where the phone rings. He picks it up and hears, “Dad? It’s Thomas.”