This review will contain spoilers for the Prime Video/MGM+ series FROM, moderate spoilers from season one, mild spoilers for season two.

When I was little one of my most frequent recurring nightmares was about these… creatures that would come at night. When night fell you had to hide, and hide well. You had to tuck yourself away under a bed or inside a cabinet and you had to be more still than you’ve ever been in your life, because if they found you, they’d kill you.

Imagine my surprise when I started the show FROM on Prime Video (via MGM+) and that was basically the plot of the show. And one thing about me is that I love the macabre, so getting to watch a show practically ripped from the darkest corners of my psyche actually sounds incredibly appealing to me, so I devoured all ten episodes of season one in two days. I then immediately started season two, only to learn the entire season wasn’t out yet; this was bittersweet because it meant I had to wait week to week for new episodes, but also it meant I could prolong my enjoyment of this spooky mystery series.

Me when I realized I was caught up and had to wait a week for a new episode.

FROM begins with The Matthews, a family of four in an RV, off to start a family vacation. But after running into a felled tree in the road, their detour lands them in a town that seems to be stuck in time; a quiet street with an old-fashioned diner and just a handful of buildings. Their plan is to drive straight through this no-stoplight town, but no matter how many times they drive out, they end up driving right back in again. The residents watch patiently, having seen this too many times before, and wait for them to realize that they’re stuck in this town.

And the thing about this town is that these… creatures come at night. When night falls you have to hide, and hide well. If they find you, they’ll kill you. Luckily for this town, they no longer have to tuck themselves under beds or inside cabinets, because they have talismans that will protect them as long as they’re in some kind of sealed enclosure, like a building with all the doors and windows closed, or an RV. The creatures wear the faces of old timey humans, a milkman, a paperboy, a housewife. People who look like they could have been the original residents of this town. They smile unnerving smiles and ask you to let them in with sickly sweet voices. The trouble is, if you do let them in, if you open a window or a door, if you are stuck outside at night, they won’t JUST kill you, they’ll eviscerate you.

Before the Matthews rolled into town, the residents, who had all arrived at various points over the years, were basically just living to survive. They had developed relationships with each other, rules and ways of life. They had some people living down in the town proper, running the diner, a makeshift church, and a DIY clinic. They also had people living up in a mansion on the hill called Colony House, which was more of a hippie commune with less rules, and where the sheriff didn’t have jurisdiction. The town was self-sufficient, growing crops and creating rituals and customs and a new way of life. They were adapting.

But the Matthews don’t want to adapt, they want to get the hell out. They start asking questions no one has asked, start trying things no one has tried, and start to shake the town awake. Part of one of my theories is, while a lot of them wanted to leave or were missing loved ones, not a lot of them were actually, deep down, in a rush to get back to where they came from. I’m not even sure why the Matthews were so keen on it; they were going on “one last hoorah” before the parents got divorced after the stress of losing one of their children became too much. But we also have a priest with secrets, someone who found out she can never get pregnant even though that’s something she wanted, someone who was having a hard time in med school, someone on the way to rehab after a relapse, etc.

Aforementioned med school student is Kristi, who is running the clinic; though clinic is a generous word. It’s really just one gal doing her best with whatever meds she can find from people who show up and what little knowledge she can glean from her unfinished training and textbooks she found, all in a building that used to be a post office.

I swear she usually looks more doctory than this. I just liked this look.

Kristi is queer, I believe bi+, because she was engaged to a woman before she got stuck in this town but also has a flirtationship with the town deputy, Kenny. That is, before the aforementioned fiancée, Marielle, shows up in the Season 2 premiere.

Some fun facts I learned while researching for this review (which, FYI, is HARD; as much as I love this show, the name of the show is idiotic when it comes to SEO, as it’s nearly impossible to find out specific information about a show whose name is just A RANDOM, SINGULAR PREPOSITION): The actors who play Kristi and Mari, Chloe Van Landschoot and Kaelen Ohm, respectively, are both queer in real life, and both use she/they pronouns. Chloe Van Landschoot is also a nurse in real life, and they are actually who we have to thank for Kristi being queer at all; when she was cast, she saw that the role they were playing reflected a lot of herself, except for the part about her being married to a man, so she went to the powers that be and basically said hey, Kristi is queer, she left a woman back home instead, and the powers that be thought that was a great idea and ran with it. So thank you Chloe!

“So I’m gonna love you like I’m gonna lose you, I’m gonna hold you like I’m saying goodbye.”

Kristi and Marielle’s reunion isn’t without its struggles, though Mari’s arrival answers some questions about the outside world, for example that time is still passing for them, and that they don’t know where their loved ones went. To Mari, Kristi just vanished one day without a trace. And of course at first, it looks to Mari like Kristi has just been hiding out in this strange town and not coming back of her own free will. Which is a devastating possibility she never considered while she was running around with Kristi’s favorite shirt in her bag. Kristi’s disappearance is eventually what lead her to relapse (she was the one on the way to rehab) but one thing I like about her story is that Mari was already clean and sober and doing well when she met Kristi, so it wasn’t that she was dependent on Kristi, it’s that sometimes life events are too hard to deal with on your own when you’re sober, such as the love of your life disappearing seemingly out of nowhere and having no idea if she left you, was kidnapped and is being kept in a basement somewhere, died on purpose, died by accident, or got stuck in an inescapable hellscape of a town where you can check out any time you’d like but you can never leave.

I’m a fan of the big button down vibe.

What’s more, Kristi and Mari aren’t the only ones giving us queer content on this show. Fatima is a pansexual babe who is in love with the sheriff’s son but also kisses another woman full on the mouth for funsies; it seems like monogamy is not the vibe up at Colony House. And the teen daughter of the Matthews family, Julie, sees her do this, she asks if she, too, could kiss Fatima, but when Fatima hesitates (probably because despite them seeming kind of close in age and Fatima taking Julie under her wing, Julie is a teenager and Fatima is not), Julie runs away. It’s never addressed again but I’d say that puts her firmly in bicurious, at the very least.

Fatima, on top of being a pansexual babe, is also one of the most grounded and chill people in this entire town. I love her and I don’t blame Julie for wanting to kiss her.

These queer characters and moments all serve as part of the fabric of this story; their being queer isn’t made to be a huge deal, no one has to come out, Kenny never makes it a thing that the person he’s sharing Kristi’s attention with is a woman not a man, etc. But they’re still important to the story. It’s another clue in the mystery, that whatever force is collecting these people, it’s collecting all kinds. People of all genders and sexualities, all races, religions and even ages. There are many theories about what’s going on, both from town residents and also from my own brain, but no matter which is right — whether it’s a social experiment, supernatural hullabaloo, whether they were selected for a reason or were unlucky at random, etc — it’s always nice to be included.

I’ve seen some people compare the show to Lost, which I suppose is fair, and it does have some overlap in creators and cast — and the bare bones “strangers stranded together for mysterious and supernatural reasons trying to survive/escape” plot is the same, sure — but it has a different vibe to me. This show is dark and spooky and I think arguably the worst man in town, Jade, explains it best when he says it’s like they have a bunch of pieces from the middle of a puzzle but they have no idea what the picture is supposed to be. Each episode drops more puzzle pieces, and I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to put them together.

Lately I’ve been finding myself drawn to shows that, in one way or another, are about surviving in impossibly difficult circumstances, and people somehow managing to find hope, love, and connection despite the terrors of the world around them, and this show falls firmly into that category.

Both seasons of FROM are available now on Prime Video.

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