Interview: Elizabeth Saunders on Donna’s ‘FROM’ Season 4 Episode 6 Health Scare, ‘Fairly Violent Unraveling’ To Come

(Warning: Our Elizabeth Saunders interview continues major spoilers for FROM Season 4, up to and including, Episode 6 “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.”)

FROM is, by its very nature, a series where we expect people to die violent deaths at the hands of the Creatures that come out at night and/or various other nightmarish entities found in the forest. (The most recent discovery? Giant, monstrous dolls.) But in FROM Season 4 Episode 6, something painfully normal nearly robs Colony House of its fearless leader—and viewers of a fan favorite character—when Donna (Elizabeth Saunders) suffers a heart attack. In what’s actually a shocking twist for a series like this one, Donna survives. Just…not without the series scaring fans with the “what if” for most of the hour. The same goes for Donna’s fellow leader, Boyd, who admits that he has no idea what he’ll do if she doesn’t survive and also shares a fond memory of Donna from his first night in FROMville.

When Fangirlish interviewed Elizabeth Saunders, our first question was whether she had that same “oh, thank God” reaction to Donna surviving as the rest of us. (Last season, David Alpay reminded us that actors on this series generally learn the story “one episode at a time.”) “The only reason I wasn’t surprised is that I was warned,” Saunders told us, “and I was really grateful.” She also shared she’s had her own fear of this kind of situation “for many, many years. So, if they hadn’t warned me, I would have been pretty freaked out.”

Asked if it was at all difficult as an actor to remain present for so many big, emotional moments from Harold Perrineau’s Boyd while being unable to respond at all, Saunders pointed to how “great’ and “safe” the FROM set is. “I get to be the listener,” she said. Which, of course, led us to asking how much listening—or hearing—Donna actually does in that situation. “I wouldn’t be surprised if something turned up in a script that I—that Donna—had heard something. But my take is that she’s not hearing it…it’s not filtering in.” Then again, “who knows?”

…speaking of not knowing. Donna’s been managing Colony House all this time with nobody having a clue about what’s in the basement. “I just…everything that happens, I’m like, ‘just like life!'” she joked. But, really, there’s some truth there because “when people say they’re going to, you know, close everything off…there’s always a chink in the armor. There’s always an Achilles heel. There’s always a back door.” And, maybe most importantly, “no one’s impenetrable.”

So, how does Donna deal with the near-death experience, the hidden door, everyone still needing to find a way out of town, and…some disturbing revelations that might pop up along the way? Elizabeth Saunders described “a fairly violent unraveling. It’s like taking a skein of wool and not just unwinding it. But, you know, when you pull wool apart, and then, you find more knots.” And the more you think, “‘this is it. I’ve got it,'” the more you just keep finding “more and more big knots. That’s how it resonates with me this season.”

MORE: We also interviewed David Alpay about Jade’s trip, Hannah Cheramy on Julie’s storywalking, Catalina Sandino Moreno on the things Tabitha does that she “would never,” and Julia Doyle on playing the Man in Yellow’s “Sophia” disguise.