Season 2 of From premiered in April 2023, and it picks up right where season 1 left the town, still trapped, still surrounded by whatever is out in those woods, and still refusing to give anyone a straight answer. This season adds a wave of new residents to the mix, and honestly, it is a mixed bag. Some of them earn their place fast, others feel like they are still auditioning for relevance. The story itself still holds up, but season 2 is where a few of the show's habits started to wear on me.
This post contains spoilers for season 2.
The Plot
The season opens with Boyd missing, which throws Donna and Kenny straight into crisis mode as a busload of new arrivals shows up with no idea what they just drove into. At the same time, Victor and Tabitha go digging through the tunnels underneath the town, and that whole thread sets the tone for how disorienting this season gets early on. From there, the show spends its first couple of episodes just trying to survive one long night in the diner, with Jim and Tom stuck trying to keep a terrified bus passenger from getting everyone killed.
Once the newcomers settle in, the season shifts into the stuff that actually matters long term. Kenny and Ellis stumble onto something gruesome out in the forest, and Boyd starts dealing with a condition that only gets worse as the episodes go on, something the show takes its time revealing instead of rushing. Sara's return puts Boyd in an impossible spot, Jim starts putting together a theory about the town that nobody wants to hear, and Victor and Jade end up striking a bargain that tells you a lot about how far people are willing to go just to get by in this place.
The back half of the season is where things get genuinely tense. Colony House starts cracking under the pressure of a coming food shortage, the clinic turns into the site of one of the season's scarier nights, and Boyd and Kristi try to make something useful out of what looks like the death of the Nightmare Creature. Jim's alliance with Randall becomes a bigger and bigger problem, building toward a plan that puts the whole town at risk, and by the time the finale rolls around, Boyd is out of answers and the residents are bracing for what feels like the end. Tabitha, meanwhile, holds onto the idea that the children might be the key to getting everyone out, which is one of the more interesting threads the show leaves hanging going into season 3.
What worked:
The cliffhanger. If you thought season 1 ended rough, season 2 is going to knock you upside your head. The show clearly knows how to close out a season on a gut punch, and it did not hold back this time. That alone tells me the writers understand pacing at the macro level even when the week to week pacing gets shaky, which I will get into.
The new characters are a mixed bag, but the ones that land, land well. Randall in particular adds a volatility to the show that it did not really have before, he is the kind of character who makes you nervous every time he is on screen because you genuinely do not know what he is going to do next, and that unpredictability is good for a show that can sometimes feel too controlled. Some of the other new faces will probably need another season to fully click, they are set up but not fully used yet, so I am reserving judgment there rather than writing them off.
Victor and Jade's storyline also stood out to me this season. Watching Victor navigate a bargain with someone outside his usual circle added a new layer to a character I already loved from season 1, and it is a good reminder that the show still knows how to use him well even when the plot around him gets busy.
What didn't:
My biggest annoyance this season is the lack of communication among these residents, and it is honestly baffling at this point. You are in a town you cannot leave. Monsters come out at night. The radio works with no batteries in it. Strange things keep happening constantly. And people still will not tell each other what they know because they are worried nobody will believe them. That is one of the dumbest things I have seen a group of adults do on screen, and Boyd is the worst offender. He can tell Donna things, she has proven herself trustworthy over and over, but he keeps choosing to sit on information instead, and it makes an otherwise smart character look reckless for no good reason.
The story also drags in stretches this season. More questions keep piling up, but the answers are not coming at the same rate, and at some point that stops feeling like intentional mystery building and starts feeling like the writers do not actually know where they are going yet. I am willing to be patient with a slow burn, but a slow burn needs to feel like it is heading somewhere, and a few episodes in the middle of this season felt like they were just killing time until the next big reveal.
The acting issues from season 1 are still around too. I have mostly made peace with it at this point, some performances just are not going to hit as hard as others, but it is worth noting that it has not really improved.
Rating
8.0 out of 10.
Season 2 still has everything that made me fall for this show in the first place, the dread, the mystery, characters like Victor who keep giving me a reason to care. But the communication problem among the residents genuinely frustrates me at this point, and the pacing in the middle stretch drags in a way season 1 never did. It is still a strong season, just not as tight as the one before it.
Am I the only one yelling at Boyd to just talk to Donna already, or does the silence bother you too?
Tell me I'm not alone on this one.
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