Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers
1 — The old man chained to the wall demands that Boyd fulfill their deal to kill him. Boyd points his gun around the room. He discovers two skeletons chained to the wall. Boyd asks where they are and who chained him to the wall.
The old man asks Boyd if he is from the town. He also says that he always thought the town was the worst part, and then he went through the tree. “Did you go through the tree? You go in one place, come out another. Sometimes you get stuck. Sometimes you get trapped. Now that’s when they get you. You have a kind face. What’s your name?”
Boyd shares his name with the old man who responds his name is Martin.
[This is intriguing. The old man Martin doesn't recognize Boyd, nor knows his name. In Season 3, in the chicken and the egg scene I alluded earlier, linked to who drops the rope for Boyd's escape from the hole -- Old man Martin recognizes the person and calls the name. My theory is that this person will meet Old man Martin in one of the time-dreamwalking seizures at some point in Martin's past before he is chained to the wall. We'll see if that theory pans out.]Boyd asks how long Martin has been chained to this wall. Martin replies it’s been a long time. He used to count the days, but he couldn’t bare to count the years. It’s been long since he has seen kindness. That’s why Boyd needs to leave before they come back. Boyd says he won’t leave without Martin. As Boyd inspects the shackles holding Marting’s left hand, he rolls down Martin’s sleeves and sees a military tattoo.
[The tattoo says: "USMC" -- which stands for United States Marine Corps. I rotated the image of his tattoo and identified the Marine insignia: An anchor with an eagle. The 4 stars means that Martin is a General in the US Marines Corps.]
Boyd asks if Martin is a Marine. Martin replies: “Semper Fi.” Boyd says: “Leave no Man behind. You help me, I help you. That’s the way it goes. You got it?”
Martin says if he wants to help him, kill him. Please.
2 — In the Diner, Donna guards the door with her shotgun. Bakta, the bus driver, says Donna hasn’t done anything yet she can’t undo. Donna warns her that if anyone leaves she has no idea what’s waiting out there. Donna says she knows everyone is upset, but they are not the enemy. The enemy is out there. Donna starts to explain about the fallen tree they saw on the road. Bakta asks how she knows about the tree. No one has told her they did. Donna replies everyone sees the tree.
3 — Night has come. Tabitha and Victor as deep in the forest. They can hear the monsters shrieking in the distance. Victor says they are too far from the town. Victor points to an abandoned truck. They will hide there until morning.
Victor tells Tabitha they must be quiet inside the truck. There is no talisman here. Tabitha asks whose stuff this is. He says this is his stuff. There are two truck seats, two tables, a cooler, golf clubs in its bag, a bowling trophy and other stuff. Victor says he comes here sometimes. Some parts of the wall have crayon drawing papers. There is food in the truck.
4 — Mari and Kristi talk in the Diner’s storage room. Mari is upset. “How could you? We were about to have lunch. Have you been here the whole time? It’s been six months. You never called, you never– you know, your parents and I, we came to the police. This whole time you’ve been less than two hours away, with these people. With shotguns. With that fucking woman (Donna). It’s like you’ve joined some fucking cult.”
Mari gets upset and says she needs to leave. Kristi blocks the doorway to prevent her exit. Kristi starts to describe this place and its rules.
5 — In the collapsed Matthews’s house, in the basement, Tom asks how Jim is. Jim responds he thinks he busted a rib. It’s getting hard to breathe. Brick wakes up. He’s trapped under debris. Things don’t go well, as he is one of the bus passengers and doesn’t know the rules of this place. The evening is here now. Brick panics and starts to talk loudly. Jim asks Brick to stay quiet. Brick can’t breathe. Jim says if he is talking, then he can breathe. Nice and slow.
6 — In the Tower ruins, Boyd searches for something to break Martin’s shackles. He tells Martin they have a doctor in the town. Martin says even if he manages to set him free, he can’t walk. Too weak. Boyd offers to carry him on his shoulders. Boyd shows him one of the talismans. We can be safe in the Town. Martin looks at him concerned. “You think that those things that come out of the forest at night chained me here? They are just the tip of the spear.”
[This revelation means there are many factions or groups of monsters in this place the viewer is still not aware of.]Boyd wants to change subject. Asks where Martin is from. He is from a small town. Millbrook. Boyd slams the shackle with a rock. Martin says he is wasting time. Boyd is startled when he hears a music box starts to play nearby. Martin says: “They are coming. You don’t have time, Boyd. There is darkness in the forest. Nightmares you can’t even begin to imagine. Things we were never meant to see. You have to get out before the music stops.”
Boyd finds a ballerina music box on the ground in a room nearby.
7 — In the Diner, Julie is desperate looking outside the window. Kenny asks her to stop looking at the toppled house. This could draw the monsters’s attention to their house. Her dad’s best chance is to stay where he is until the morning. People used to hide underground all the time before Boyd found the talismans.
Donna sees Randall talking to two guys by the Diner tables making suspicious finger movements as if giving instructions to the guys.
8 – Two of the guys that ran away earlier, find the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar) and enter to take shelter. They still don’t know about the monsters.
9 — A black guy and a woman hide behind one of the abandoned old vans. Fatima can be heard calling out to the people that ran away.
Fatima and Ellis can’t find any of the bus passengers that ran away. Fatima yells to any of the runners that can listen to her voice to run. Ellis yells at Fatima, but she ignores him. Two monsters slowly walk toward them. Ellis forcefully pulls Fatima inside the Post Office (Sheriff’s Station).
Fatima hits the window with force trying to catch the passengers’ attention to no avail.
Hearing their screams breaks Fatima. She can no longer keep doing this.
10 — In the Matthews’s basement, Brick hears the screams. He asks if that’s the monsters they have been talking about. He panics and wants to get out of the debris. Jim and Tom try to calm down and ask him to stay quiet to not draw attention. He continues to talk loud and suddenly he spits out blood. Internal bleeding. This panics him further.
11 — In the Diner, Randall’s patience is over. He stands up and heads for the door. Kenny jumps at him and pushes him off the door. Randall says there are people out there, and the ones trapped beneath the toppled house. They have guns. They should go help. Donna says the guns don’t matter. Someone screams in the streets, and Kenny looks that way. Randall turns around and grabs Kenny’s gun and points it at Kenny’s face.
Donna points her shotgun at Randall and warns him he has no clue what he is doing. Randall wants to open the door. Donna warns him that if he does, he puts everyone in this room at risk.
12 — In the Tower ruins, Boyd breaks one of the shackles. Martin is almost free. The ballerina music box continues to play. Martin says: “You ever wonder if Abby was right? What if it’s all just a dream?” Boyd opens his eyes wide. He never told Martin about his wife or her name. Martin reels in pain and goes to the ground with his left hand still chained to the wall.
Boyd aids him back up, but as he grabs his right arm, he can see 9 long worms navigating back and forth underneath Martin’s skin. The ballerina music box stops playing. Martin yells they are out of time. He scratches Boyd with the shackle on his right hand. As Boyd bleeds, Martin places his own bleeding wrist against Boyd’s injury. “My blood is your blood now.” Martin collapses to the ground, lifeless.
Boyd is in a lot of pain. His left shoulder is bleeding. He leans on the wall and pulls a torch from the wall socket. Then walks past a door. Suddenly, the tower is gone. Boyd is in the forest among ruins. where the tower once stood.
Boyd can’t believe the tower is gone. He collapses to the ground and holds the torch steady seeking to balance his weight. He hears a bark and looks in the dog’s direction. It is the same dog Victor saw in his childhood and later in the present. The dog comes to Boyd and smells his hand. Then it runs away as if expecting Boyd to follow it. Boyd stands and follows its direction.
13 — In the Diner, Kenny fills a tea pot with water and places the pot on the stove. Mari walks past him followed shortly after by Kristi. She asks Kenny what he is doing. He is doing tea. She asks how he’s doing. It’s a difficult question to answer right now — he says. He asks if that’s her fiancé, and she confirms it. Kenny says he should go after her. It’s a long way to sunrise.
14 — In the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar), the two passengers, Kelly and Brian, wonder what the shrieks are. Kelly thinks it might be a coyote. Kelly says that’s not an animal. He says he grew up on a farm. He knows what an animal sounds like. They are interrupted by the knocking on the door. Brian hears a couple who ask for help. They arrived on a bus and need shelter. Brian goes to open the door ignoring Kelly’s plea not to.
15 — One of the monsters, opens the bus’s door. He caresses the head of the driver’s seat, then sits down and plays with the Steering Wheel. It seems this monster used to be a bus driver. He turns on the bus lights. This startles someone who is hiding in the back. The monster turns his head to look. Then smiles.
A couple of old people were hiding in the bus when they heard the screams. They think the monster is a normal person.
16 — In the forest, Boyd calls the dog “Gus” and asks him to slow down. He can barely stand. Boyd hears a shriek nearby and puts out the torch. Four monsters disguised as humans walk past Boyd without noticing him.
17 — In the truck, somewhere in the forest, Tabitha asks Victor about the Boy in White who told him to wait in the tunnels. Victor says the boy is his friend. For a long time the boy went away, but now he’s back. Tabitha asks how long he’s been here. A long time, but he doesn’t want to talk about how he got there. Victor offers chocolate chip cookies. He says he’s gonna look for some Pretzels he remembers seeing some time ago because the cookies are stale.
Suddenly, they hear a noise outside. Someone approaches. They hug together as the truck’s backdoor opens. It’s Boyd. Victor asks him to close the door. Boyd says it is okay. He takes a talisman from his pocket and shows it to them. Elgin asks for help. Boyd turns around and points the gun at the stranger. Behind Elgin, 3 monsters chase him. Elgin says they are killing people. Boyd signals him to come inside quickly. They close the door, and Tabitha places the talisman on the door.
Elgin apologizes. He should have stayed at the Diner. He was scared. Boyd points the gun at Elgin again. Who are you? He shares his name and says he came from the bus. Boyd is confused. What bus?
18 — In the Matthews’ basement, Jim asks Brick if he likes pancakes. When the sun comes up, Brick is gonna have the best pancakes he ever had. Tom says a joke. Jim laughs but his broken rib hurts. Brick begins shouting in pain. He keeps shouting louder. After a while, his mouth expels more internal blood. Brick dies.
Brick’s shouting caught the attention of one of the monsters before he bled to death. Tom turns his head to the side when he hears a wood tension noise. Tom is killed by the monster.
19 — In the Diner, everyone hears Tom’s scream and recognizes his voice. Julie cries and attempts to run to the door. She knows her father is in danger. Kristi holds her in time.
20 — In the truck, somewhere in the forest, Boyd asks Victor what he is drawing. He says it is good to draw things when one sees them. The puppet. So even if you forget, pictures remember. Victor sees beneath the truck door. The morning is coming up.
21 — At the Diner, the jukebox starts playing: “Who By Fire” by Leonard Cohen. The music wakes Julie. She opens the window curtain and sees the morning is here. She runs frantically out of the Diner toward her toppled house.
Julie finds Tom’s corpse in the front yard.
Jim Matthews is still alive, trapped beneath debris in the basement.
22 — Bakta, the bus driver, boards the bus and finds the old couple.
[The production was cheap here. Usually, corpses have a big empty hole from chest to belly. Their organs missing. Their back rib cage and backbone exposed inside the hole. The old man here still has his shirt buttoned up. On the seat, you can see a book titled: "Crumbs" by Jane J. Baker. The book doesn't exist in real life, but the author wrote books and episodes for Doctor Who -- including Trial of a Time Lord. Funny considering we later find out in Season 3 there is some timetravel shenanigans in the "From" TV series.]
23 — At the truck, in the forest, Boyd, Victor, Tabitha, and Elgin leave the truck. Boyd asks how many people came in his bus. Elgin is not sure: 20 – 25. The answer is 21. Elgin says the lady with the shotgun tried to get people to stay in the Diner, but once the house collapsed — Tabitha interrupts Elgin and asks what house. Elgin replies to the one across the Diner. This is Tabitha’s. She panics and asks Boyd what direction to the Town. He points at where the Town is.
Boyd tries to stop Tabitha, but he looks at his right arm, the one with the bleeding tourniquet, and sees two long worms crawling around inside his skin. Same as Martin.
[The truck side wall has a logo that reads: "Clairey's Canned Goods." This doesn't seem to reference anything in real life. But that explains where some of the canned Peaches in the Colony House come from.]
| FROM TV SERIES RECAP NAVIGATION | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEASON 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| SEASON 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| SEASON 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
