FROM Season 4 Episode 5 Review: ‘What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been’

(Warning: Major spoilers for FROM Season 4 Episode 5 “What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been” ahead.)

FROM Season 4 Episode 5 “What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been” masterfully blends the absolute horror of introducing viewers to the series’ latest monsters with the blurry, shaky unreality of Jade’s mushroom-induced attempt to unlock more of his memories. It’s an hour that reveals a lot. It probably even answers many more questions than the series has since the Season 3 finale, but still leaves the most important questions—What’s real? What isn’t? And how, if at all, can the people make it home? Among others—tantalizingly close, yet so unbearably and frustratingly far away. After showing how Henry reacts to learning about Miranda’s fate, and with the repeated warnings from the younger version of Jade we meet on his long, strange trip, the episode also asks viewers to consider some important questions of our own.

Do we actually want to know? And are we absolutely sure we can handle everything that’s yet to be revealed?

MORE: Julia Doyle on playing FROMville’s wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Nothing to fear but fear itself…and creepy doll monsters

FROM Season 4 Episode 5 takes that anxious sense of “well, now WTF is that” that closed out the previous episode and plays with it in really clever ways. Everyone seems to know that something is wrong with the giant dolls they pull out of the lake—against the protests of Roger, who um…first of all, rest in peace. And second, turns out to be right—but they don’t grasp what it is they should be afraid of until it’s too late. In fact, it’s so far beyond too late, it would be hilarious if the big reveal wasn’t truly terrifying.

After stabbing one through the chest in an attempt to avoid future surprises, Donna finds nothing more than the type of rags and stuffing you’d expect to find inside a doll. So, she thinks maybe they were buried in the lake to act as scarecrows for some other thing down there. In any remotely normal situation, she might actually have made the right guess. But this place is about as abnormal as it gets, and it loves to f*** with people.

As everyone’s stuffing the dolls full of heavy rocks to try and bury them all over again, Tabitha has a flashback to a much smaller version of them. Donna notices and pulls her aside. But when Tabitha can’t actually grasp the thread of memory enough to unravel whatever she’s seeing and figure out the danger, she starts to unravel a bit herself. It’s frustrating AF, both to watch as a viewer—because really, imagine if Tabitha hadn’t been in denial from the second she returned to town the day Jade played the song at the bottle tree—and for Donna who, in a fun moment from Elizabeth Saunders, just exasperatedly drops those arms. Their conversation’s cut short because everyone else is ready to send those things back where they came from, and slowwwwly, we watch them drift away.

Ellis even wades into the water with them, pushing them out and away with a long stick. Yet, all the while, the threat remains. These scenes are too slow, too serene in a way that we know better than to trust at this point. The score increasingly fills us with a sense of dread, while the camera frequently does that great horror genre trick of making these people look like they’re equal parts being watched from afar and drawn ever closer to some horrifying unknown. In fact, as the dolls drift off, the camera draws way out, making Ellis and the people on the shore look like they’re about to be swallowed whole by the water itself. Or something in it.

As we learn by the end of FROM Season 4 Episode 5, though, the dolls themselves are the monsters in the lake. It’s such a brilliant way to deliver on all the scares promised by everything building up to the second that thing busts through the cabin while avoiding predictability. If anything, I wish the trailer hadn’t given us the briefest of looks at one of those things because it gives away the surprise, a little. Even so, the sequence hits just about as hard as the monster does when it brings the walls crashing down. Things seem normal for a few precious seconds—too normal. And then, just as Tabitha starts urgently demanding everyone get out of there because they’re not safe—in the middle of the night, no less, when they definitely won’t be safe outside…BAM! There it is.

And then all Hell breaks loose. It’s a rush through the darkness, a ripped jaw and doll-like fist pushed through Roger’s chest to get to the stuffing in him. There’s one, sneaking up on Patty in the instant everyone realizes she’s missing, then shoving her facedown into the fire. Darkness, and panic, and fear all combine with those closeups to highlight every tremble, every fear-widened eye. Donna tries to convince people to run “no matter what happens,” only to get attacked from behind. As a doll’s choking a Donna who’s already suffered a pretty hard bump to the head, Tabitha finally remembers the most important thing about these monsters—how to beat them.

She grabs a totem, stabs the thing that’s trying to kill Donna through the chest with the pointy end (ok, Slayer), and…now what. Oh, here comes another one—pretty sure it’s the one Ellis thinks he killed by throwing it in the fire to save Patty—and both of its hands are just giant balls of fire. I’m not sure why it simply turns and walks away, but since we’ve seen other monsters do that and now know why before, maybe we can guess? Unclear. But at least that particular nightmare is over.

And that, along with the way the series already went against expectations with the doll attack itself, is what makes this whole experience as interesting as it is scary. It really, really is a nightmare. Tabitha used to have nightmares of this place, and they turned out to not only be her real memories but also—if that flash of a young girl by the red rocks that we should be familiar with by now is any indication—we now know one more thing those dreams were about. There’s also this: “They said he gave them nightmares, so he threw them in the lake. But one day, that man died, and his nightmares…his nightmares came out of the lake.” Nightmares, of a place where nightmares are made real. Amazing.

MORE: Catalina Sandino Moreno the one thing Tabitha does that she could never do.

Because Jade got high

When it’s not going full horror show, FROM Season 4 Episode 5 leans heavily into the series’ mystery. Jade’s mushrooms finally kick in, and the result is a truly wild journey down the street, into the forest, up to Colony House, into those scary tunnels with the monsters and the sacrificed children, then back again. It’s as revealing as it is baffling at times, as hilarious as it is emotional, as blurry and shaky to ramp up the unreality of the trip as it is stunningly clear in the moments that matter most.

Knowledge never actually comes to us via a giant, blinking “ANSWERS” sign; we never know exactly where to go because there’s something pointing the way. Yet, that’s how Jade knows the shrooms he took are doing their job—how he knows he’s ready to learn, whatever it takes. But he has to actually ask the questions, the right ones, at the right time. (He also has to drink a skull full of blood from one of his past selves—no biggie!) And each step of the way, Jade has to make a choice.

Does he listen to his fear? Or does he listen to the rational part of himself, manifested as Boyd? (It’s a version of Boyd who Harold Perrineau plays…not quite the same as usual, yet not in any specific way I can possibly point out, other than to mention the extra tension he holds in his body, the extra caution he may urge.) Should Jade turn back when the trip becomes too dangerous or too emotionally devastating? Or, is it best to keep going because of that inner voice—that sometimes judgmental, often just silent and waiting, younger version of himself—the one that he knows, deep down, knows all? In the end, it’s some combination of all of the above, plus a haunting, heartbreaking piece of music he played for his grandmother the day she died.

Oh, right. No small detail here—every single buried memory is one he’s forgotten because it’s just too unbearable. The man is guided, more than anything, by his grief, and pain, and regret.

FROM Season 4 Episode 5 is nothing if not a chance for David Alpay to perform at his very best, and he seizes on that opportunity to show that his very best is right up there with the very best. Obviously, “Jade trips” is a setup for some pretty funny moments, and Alpay gives us those. The way he calls out for “Boyyyyyyyyyyd” when the shrooms first start to affect him is a favorite, as is his scrambling to get away from the spiders that appear out of nowhere, or that long wait and wide-eyed stare as he tries to come up with a word that will (insert pulling gesture here) pull him back. And, of course, the “ok!” followed, after a long pause, by “let’s go get weird” is a great, little moment.

The facial expressions, the way he moves through the space going from point to point—particularly on the approach to Colony House—it’s all fun stuff from Alpay. But the emotional moments are so powerful, it’s like all of that is background noise. Jade basically pleads with the universe as he yells into the forest for something, anything to show him what he used to know. And, in a very “be careful what you wish for” series of events, he gets exactly that—what he used to know, yet forgot.

When he first hears that song, rushes off to see his younger self playing the violin (always important for this character), Jade has such an utterly stunned, profound, grieving reaction to so much as uncovering the trauma. There’s something almost like awe there, as well. And when he explains to Boyd what he’s seeing…what a moment.

The way the pitch of his voice changes as he describes how he “just kept playing,” even when he knew his grandmother was gone, then gets overwhelmed as he talks about how he “just played and played and played,” only to just explode in grief, and anger, and frustration on “GODD**NIT. GOD! GODD**NIT. THIS ISN’T WHAT I ASKED FOR! I WANT TO REMEMBER. WHY WE’RE STUCK HERE. I WANT TO REMEMBER HOW TO GET HOME! I DON’T WANT THIS!!!” is just so agonizingly well done. But, well. Knowledge comes at a cost. It seems to be the case that, for Jade to learn anything, this is the price he has to pay. Remembering this.

Well. That’s the price, plus the whole drinking and spitting up spider-laced blood from a skull, plus the drugs, plus the terrifying imagery of the monsters lowering him into a stone coffin with the lid pulled over him…but we’re not to the last part yet!

There’s a breathless, bewildered quality to Alpay when Jade spots three of his past selves playing the violin on the porch. Later, there’s an extreme desperation and disbelief, bordering on hopelessness, when he demands that his childhood memory explain to him how they stop it this time. Jade sees his own fate staring up at him, he knows the people—not the creatures—kill him, and he just doesn’t know how this helps. Obviously, the final, horrifying moments in the tunnels and the shock back at the post office when it turns out that he and “Boyd” (or, rather, his idea of Boyd) never left, are excellent moments, too.

But it’s seeing death, remembering death—either his grandmother’s or his own—that bring the most life to Jade and the most truth, buried in all the fantasy and horror that is FROM, to Alpay’s performance. There’s probably a lot of meaning viewers should take from that. Or, we can just enjoy the trip that is FROM Season 4 Episode 5, try to figure out what kind of baggage Jade had to tear away from that door to the tunnels in the basement of Colony House, and hope the series didn’t just foreshadow the monsters finally getting him. Because if it did…[expletive and threats deleted].

MORE: Last season, we interviewed David Alpay about that big revelation in the finale.

More FROM Season 4 Episode 5 reactions

“Are you insane? Something floats up from the bottom of a nightmare lake, and the first thing you want to do is drag it ashore?” POINTS. WERE. MADE. Also, how interesting is it that FROM Season 4 Episode 5 gives that particular truth away right from the start, when we only think people are standing around and arguing? Look at how Roger describes it: “A nightmare lake”! Genius.
The physical effort every single actor puts into pulling on that rope…is both impressive and, in retrospect, yet another warning.
Ethan just gently wrapping that dead bird up for burial. A sweetheart.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”
Oh, hey. Check out Tabitha being a mommy, all gently stroking her little boy’s hair in comfort when he’s disappointed about not finding the right lake.
“Are we gonna be ok?” That long beat Sandino Moreno takes before “I hope so” is, uh, telling. Tabitha not only doesn’t want to lie to Ethan about this but…I’m thinking she knows bad sh**’s gonna happen. Also, nobody’s ok here. Let’s be real.
“It’s a little more direct than I expected.” “…ok?” Effortlessly funny, yet Perrineau also makes sure we know how serious the situation is at the same time.
Jade is shaking when he comes back to himself from that (first) spider attack.
I just think that Randall telling Marielle about the “long story” and storming up those clinic stairs behind Julie…
OH NO. NOT THIS AGAIN.
Can I just say, as a blanket rule, I love how talented this entire cast is with their physical performances. I don’t think there’s a single actor on FROM who’s afraid to just…go there, to put their whole body into it. I took this note when Kaelen Ohm was acting out Mari being back in chains, bent just so, screaming and shaking in that ambulance like she was back in that cave with Julie and Randall in Season 2? But I mean…overall…this series has an embarrassment of riches in terms of not just acting but fully performing and becoming.
See also: Saunders doesn’t just put a knife in the chest of that big doll. She jams it in, forcefully, like Donna’s actually having to cut through flesh and bone.
Anyway. Tag yourself: I’m Donna with the exasperated “Jesus” after first seeing those things.
“Jade.” Love the faraway-sounding “what?” here.
“What, do we just walk around the forest all day waiting for the trees to start talking?” AND HE GIGGGGGGLES AT THAT. Oh, ok Jade is HIGH-high. That’s the good sh**.
“You’re right. Ohhhh.” Gonna need a gif of the facepalm and the unhinged grin, to be honest.
“Show me what I used to know! That I can’t remember. Show me what’s in here that’ll help us leave.” First, what he can’t remember. Then, what’ll help them leave. FROM Season 4 Episode 5 gives Jade both of those things, in that exact order.
Seriously thought my mind was playing tricks on me and went back to listen to that song from the Season 3 finale again, thinking this piece was somehow part of that. Whatever it is, gorgeous. This series does not underestimate the importance of a good score, and I very much appreciate that.
A lot of the blurry imagery in FROM Season 4 Episode 5 is because of the drugs. When he hears that song and remembers when his grandmother died, though, I’m pretty sure the blurring is from, you know, all the tears.
The baked stage whisper on “it’s the guy from…”
This editing is cool AF. The boy, the skull guy, Boyd…round, and round, and round we go as Jade whirls between them.
“STOP PLAYING THAT SONG!” (Don’t.)
Every single time he whirls around to find Boyd right there and Boyd’s like “???”
“Doesn’t that mean remember?” “Yes.” “So, drink it.” “Easy for you to say.” “Jade. The blood is not real.” Just deada**.
My God, the force of that retching. AND THE BLOOD.
“Sh**.” “Why sh—? You’re not the one who had to drink it.” “I told you not to. You don’t get to pick and choose your memories. Now, you’re going to see. Things you don’t want to see.”
I love the short scene with Kenny and Fatima. Ricky He does a really compelling job of showing that Kenny’s freaked the F— out, yet trying very carefully not to show it (and failing), and it’s obvious Fatima appreciates that he’s trying. Both times she thanks him, she’s very, very genuine about it.
“What does that feel like?” “Terrifying…in a way I can’t really explain. Every night, I…I go to that window, and I look outside, knowing that one of these nights, I’m going to see him standing there. Staring back at me.” “What happens then?” “I don’t know.” Just beautifully soft and vulnerable from both, especially Pegah Ghafoori who carries Fatima’s overwhelming fear and confusion really gracefully.
“Once in a while, I stop and think about the type of things that have become normal for us.” You and me both, Ellis…you and me both.
“If this is too much, we can still go back.” And then. Music.
“I warned you. The answers you sought come wrapped in painful truths.” Baby Jade is annoyed and accusatory AF here.
This kid is just fantastic throughout, by the way.
I…would absolutely be cracking up at the past version of Jade that got crushed by that giant AF rock, just hanging out with his violin perched on top of it like it’s at rest and ready to go when he is…if everything else about the moment wasn’t so heavy.
(Ok. To be honest, I giggled a little. It’s still kinda funny.)
So, Henry has a point here: “With so much time just sitting around worrying if you’re gonna survive the night, you can’t forget to live.” And then, clutching at Victor’s arm: “You—you have to live, son.” THE SHAKING IN HIS VOICE.
…but I really, really have a problem with the “what is wrong with you?!” given how Victor has been through so much trauma and relates to the world in such a childlike way because of it. As his dad is stumbling drunk, falling apart, totally making a scene at Colony House, it’s obvious Victor wants to do something and just…has no idea what. He doesn’t know how to connect with people in that way after years of being in this place, with nothing but drawings, ghosts, and horrors by his side. So, I just…that one line hurt.
Robert Joy puts on such a masterclass through this whole sequence, though. The way he staggers through that place, gets up in people’s faces, and seamlessly transitions between his overly-enthusiastic “Leaving on a Jet Plane” rendition into so much pain? Such great work. I also adore the bit where he kinda accidentally falls and hits that super discordant note.
But poor, poor Victor. Look at all the times Scott McCord starts to reach out but stops himself, just hovering and fretting, and looking so sad and scared there. And then, when Victor melts down over his dad screaming and tossing chairs over and fighting with Kenny…mannnn.
“What’s the fire for?” “Hold on. Are you telling me you didn’t bring marshmallows?” I LOVE HER. In this place, to make Ethan feel like it’s just an adventure and they’re just gonna have some s’mores??? Total queen sh**.
“Are we gonna be ok?” “…of course we are.” Very different answer than Tabitha’s, even with the hesitation.
“I like it when you’re here. It’s just not as scary when you’re around.” That little smile and wink from her! I absolutely melted.
SHE IS SO GOOD WITH HIM.
FROM if you take Donna away from us…
Sooo, about Julie and Randall’s argument. First of all, it’s subtle, but Doyle lets us know how much “Sophia” is loving every second of it. Second, I like how we change perspectives a few times so part of the fight gets muffled, while other parts are loud and clear. But overall, it’s like…we know Julie can actually do this thing. So, is Randall fighting her on it because he’s just scared like she says? Does he hate seeing her suffer? Is it something Sophia is doing?? What is the reason.
I’m leaning toward the hating to see her suffer bit, though. Because, um. He only goes way out of line and brings Jim thinking she’s stupid into it after this part: “I watched you have two seizures in two days, all right? You’re literally frying your own brain. So why don’t you tell me what’s more likely? That you’re—you’re traveling through chapters of a story? Or that one of these days, you’re gonna have a seizure that doesn’t stop!”
There’s also something to be said for the Big Bad living for Julie and Randall having trouble in…whatever it is they have, and Mari trying to hide what she’s going through, thus staring a lovers’ quarrel, back to back.
Hannah Cheramy on Julie’s storywalking.
That sobbing from Ohm, though.
No but how does nobody see this b**ch’s intense look here???
…oh, right. They’re kinda busy hearing all the suffering (Mari) and worrying about their girl (Kristi).
More with movement impressing me: The slow, dreamy way Jade puts his hands to his neck when he sees Christopher’s neck wound.
“It’s always the same. Once they learn the truth of who you are, that it was you that the children were calling for? First, they blame you, then they hate you. Eventually, they kill you.” I kind of hate how I would’ve been fine hearing this in Season 1. But now? LEAVE MY JADE ALONE.
“For Tabitha, it’s worse.” See also: The Man in Yellow ate Miranda.
“Yeah. I’ll take care of him.”
Victor never breaking focus when he looks at his dad in that bed and reaches in his pocket to give Kenny the drawing…ouch.
“I never should’ve told him.” As if McCord wasn’t already showing us how guilty Victor felt…now this. My heart.
Interesting that Jade just…avoids “Boyd” asking him why he was talking about murder.
“Boyd…do you see a door in that wall?” “…yup.” Again, I’d be cracking up if I wasn’t so invested in everything that’s going on.
“Everyone. Every single person that died here. That’s what it was like for me when we were in the chamber. All I could hear, all I could feel, was the suffering of every single person who’s ever died here. I kept telling myself it wasn’t real. That it couldn’t be. But when the radio came on, it’s like all of that pain and…horror just shot through me again.” Such a great episode for Ohm.
“You’re a prophet.” “…what?” LOOK AT THAT DISGUSTED LOOK.
Girl, STFU.
“This is different, Kristi. There is something old here. Something…ancient. And it’s feeding off our suffering, and it doesn’t stop. Even after we die, we are still trapped here. And we never get to leave.” Ok but I’m gonna need “never” to not be a thing.
“Sometimes, I forget he’s just a kid. He’s always seemed so grown up.” “He’s always been like that. Jim used to call him The Little Professor. So curious and full of questions.”
“How much longer til sunrise?” “Five minutes less than the last time someone asked.” Let Donna rest! SHE IS. AGGRAVATED.
Is that a song? A chant? Whatever it is, it’s eery AF.
No, seriously, this is some nightmare fuel sh**.
But I love that you can like, see, even though it’s dark. And the fire on that thing’s arm is particularly well done for contrast to all that darkness.
Totally breathless, terrified: “What just happened?” “I remembered—I remembered how to hurt them.”
MAYBE WORK ON THAT REMEMBERING SOME MORE.
“Boyd! The f** are you???”
Someone gave Alpay the challenge to find out how many ways Jade could shout for Boyd, and he said, “bet,” huh.
“Tell me how we save them when we’ve already failed.” The motion.
Super cool shots in the tunnels, especially with the darkness closing in behind Jade as his little light glows in front of him.
“You should’ve listened to Boyd. But you were never really the smart one…were you?” Is this…is Jade insecure? We know he’s f**king brilliant???? Do we not?
That is. A STRUGGLE with the monsters.
Whew, scream king!
“Jade…you never left.” WHAT.
Check out how slowwwwwwly Perrineau walks in this last scene, like Boyd’s approaching a wild animal with extreme caution. Smart.
“I know what we have to do to go home. I know how we can save the children.” HE IS INSPIRED.
…and Boyd’s like “WTF is wrong with this man.”
Ok but how.
Next time? We save the children and then have a season and a half of warm fuzzies?
No? Ok then. Rude.