This is an overall dump of my thoughts during my first time viewing of From's fourth season's first episode, The Arrival .
"There's no way to change a story once it's been told." Except that's such a meta cop-out. Time is just a dimension!
New person at the tree?? Who the hell is this guy!? And why didn't he see the crows?
Kenny, get the hell out of the tunnels before your dumb ass gets killed. You don't have Boyd's plot armor...
lmao, Kenny, why do you sound so bitchy about it? It's not like Fatima had a monster baby on purpose...
Girl, do these doors not LOCK? Get that bitch out of the room, and tell your friggin' doctor what's really going on before you have another goddamn mutiny on your hands!
Bro I do not want to see this old man striptease...
Boyd, what are you doing? What do you think you're going to shoot? Your dead wife already played the 'let's kill everyone here' game. Is that the point? Christopher maybe ended up killing everyone in the last cycle, and Boyd's wife nearly did it pretty soon after getting here, and now Boyd is clearly planning to do it himself. Is that the point of "breaking" him? The end goal of a cycle is to massacre everyone? (Is that what MIY means about the next bit being 'his favorite part'?)
47 living people in town. Does that matter? Are we trying to (or not to) get to fifty?
Is that actually the treatment for an eye removal??? Doesn't seem right. (I looked it up: you need to wait like a couple weeks with it moist and covered before stitching it potentially shut. Gotta make sure it's not getting infected! Stitching would trap the infection in.)
Now why is homie flooring it? Better yet: why is bro flooring it INTO THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE?? Dude was NOT intoxicated when he was at the tree. This is a fucking setup.
Oh, and he's got a "daughter" in the car with him. Nah, nah, nah. This is for sure a setup.
Oh, great, a long annoying scene focusing on a new character I literally do not care about at all.
The 'boo hoo my dad is (maybe) dead' thing feels definitely like a setup, too, given that they haven't realized Jim's dead yet. She claims he had a seizure on the way into town, and that's why he crashed. Sorry if you're telling the truth, kid, but I do not believe you!
I hate that I'm actually here for a Randall redemption arc.
Marielle looks old this season.
Also, interesting that immediately they're suspicious of the "dad." That leaves me fairly convinced he's not even really a dad. Is girlie actually the MIY? Can he shapeshift (or project a glamor)? Are they setting the dad up as a suspect to try to make people not believe him in the future?
Similarly: it's wild that Tabitha like 'yeah no, other people have been tricked before, so that shit we learned last season is probably just another trick,' which is like the BIGGEST conspiracy theory in the fandom right now, so if they're breaking it out right in the first damn episode, it's definitely not a 'trick'.
I can't believe I still find this man so hot with that awful fucking beard. Give him a goddamn razor, I'm begging! Jade, my darling, fix your poor pretty face! ðŸ˜
ALL! COPS! ARE! BASTARDS! Take that bitch out into the woods and make sure she doesn't come the fuck back, lmao.
And again: I do not need a scene about this cop bitch. Get outta here!
But boy does this doctor girlie stay motherfucking busy. And they didn't even get her down there for the fucking car crash!
Oh, boy, and now poor Victor's crashing out. (I'm just so suspicious of everyone and not enjoying that, lol.)
Kenny, stand up for yourself. (But also how funny is it if the King in Yellow stand-in is going to dismantle the town by pretending to be a teenage Christian fanatic, lol.)
Nobody is seemingly clocking that what just happened to Fatima absolutely qualifies as a fucking rape. The monsters raped her. Using your body to create a child against your will is rape. And now she's doing the typical 'post-rape shower scene' and nobody is paying any attention including her husband.
Boyd, shut the fuck up. Nobody cares about your boohoo. Who cares about 'beating this place'? We're playing frontier here. Embrace and accept! Adapt or die! Also, Ellis, bro, if you're not going to go support your wife, at least get your fuckass dad in line!
Kristi, your acting is terrible in this scene. Also, is that very clumsy foreshadowing? Fatima is being completely ignored right now, trying to shower away the post-rape/birth trauma, and Kristi's going on about 'somebody's going to hang themselves in the bathroom'. Girl, what?
Boyd, I'm so sorry, but I do not care. This is that toxic masculinity goddamn bullshit. Stop pretending you're Atlas. You're not a fucking messiah. Calm down, cry a bit, and get back to it when you're feeling better.
Bro, if you hear strange sounds inside your home at night in this town, move faster to figure out wtf is going on!?
Is Jim a fucking ghost, lmfao? No ghosts, I refuse to let you do ghosts!
Girl, you're so suspicious. And now that I think about it... very Sarah-coded. This is practically a recreation of the first episode. Skinny Amishy girl alone in the clinic while the person left in charge is occupied (asleep in this case), a driver who crashed today hanging on for dear life until Amishy girl comes and murders him for monstery reasons...
Also, I told you she wasn't really his daughter! (But hey, I said no old man striptease! Why am I looking at this ancient little butt?)
Bro, the preacher was already fucking creepy, tho.
"This is when they tear themselves apart." What else have they been doing, my good yellow man?
Also, side note: Victor said there was a point at which Christopher suddenly changed. Replaced by Yellowbro, maybe?