SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for From Season 4, Episode 5.

MGM+‘s From Season 4, Episode 5 is midseason perfection, because when it comes to revelations, this just delivered in dividends. We went on a big journey with Jade, learned a lot more about his past and those creepy, bloodied people he’s been seeing since Day One. Things are going to be a lot easier here on out, narratively speaking, if you’re familiar with three specific Twilight Zone episodes: “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, “Nightmare as a Child”, and “Come Wander with Me”. The result is an episode that feels perfectly attuned to From‘s unique brand of horror while also being reflective of the history of horror.

You’ve just crossed over into Fromville

Appearing as Sophia, the Man in Yellow has already told us that his favorite part is “when they tear themselves apart.” It’s the oldest trick in the book for a reason. Humanity has a tendency to eat its own tail, and all it takes are a few seeds of discord, a puppetmaster in yellow pulling the already frayed and emotionally-charged strings. As the town grapples with new monsters and bigger threats, the greatest danger of all may simply be forty-seven scared people backed into a corner. (As a side note, the numbers 4, 7, 11, and 47 keep coming into play, and it can’t be just a coincidence.)

For Twilight Zone fans, this is where “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” comes into play. Yes, it was the aliens stirring the pot, but they never enacted any violence on their own. It was the neighbors who turned on each other and began attacking. However, as the previous versions of Jade revealed, it’s always the people of the town who kill him each time, not the monsters themselves.

The reveal of Jade seeing his past versions would not have been possible without the aid of himself (in this Jade timeline) as a young child. Young Jade leads adult Jade to Colony House and shows him the lineup of his past murdered selves, insisting that Jade, deep down, knows who they are. This impactful moment not only recontextualizes everything Jade’s been experiencing since very literally his first day in town, but harkens back to the Twilight Zone “Nightmare as a Child”, where a grown-up Helen is visited by her younger version, Marky, though she can’t quite seem to remember herself. “I’m you, Helen, I’m you,” Marky pleads, needing to impart knowledge to Helen that will save her life, just as this knowledge may be the key for Jade.

“Come Wander with Me” was a Twilight Zone that felt Lynchian before David Lynch. Though often overlooked, it is one of the creepiest, more surreal entries in the series. It plays with time itself, the looping of time, the question of whether a story can be changed, and musings on fixing your fate. In it, Floyd Burney, “The Rockabilly Kid”, comes to a small town in search of a song but ends up, instead, part of a song and a dark narrative he can’t escape. After committing a murder, he tries to run away, but his fate is already written in the song, and he can hear it playing back to him. “Don’t run,” Mary Rachel, a woman in love with him, pleads. ‘Maybe this time, things might be different.” How many times has he done this? How many times has Mary Rachel storywalked and tried to change his fate? It always ends in death for Floyd Burney and, seemingly, for all of the past Jade versions, but if this time he doesn’t run, if this time he does something different for the children, can he change his fate?

From reminds us why it’s truly a horror show

Further, this episode showed that the writers are smart not to rely on the same monsters and scares over and over. As iconic as the smiling townspeople monsters are, the number one rule of horror is that fear thrives on surprise, and so repetition can only lessen the scares each time. Back at the lake, Donna and her crew experience true terror that not even the talismans can protect them from. Those creepy dolls are an iconic new horror image. That is a scare that no one could have seen coming from how the show began, and they were genuinely terrifying, a true childhood nightmare brought to life.

If you ever worried that the town and woods had nothing new to haunt your nightmares with, rest assured, you’ll find new terrors ahead. It certainly still feels like a place adjacent to Forbidden Planet, except everyone is Morbius, the town is the Krell, and the forest is the id, with the fears of the deceased being absorbed by the trees, as contemplated by Sara. More and more, the 1950s monsters prove to be just the first line of terror.

Marielle dropped the biggest bombshell, which some may have speculated on but is truly the most horrifying truth about the town. Ever since way back in Season 2, when she was chained up in the ruins and hearing the unrelenting screaming up through now, still hearing it, it was never just the past haunting her or some monsters torturing her. When you die in the town, you still stay trapped here, tortured forever. There truly is no escape, which sets the stage for some very creepy reveals going into the second half of the season. As a mid-season twist, it’s one that is filled with dread — and makes for a tantalizing tease for where the rest of the season could go from here.

From airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on MGM+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of MGM+.

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