This is an overall dump of my thoughts during my first time viewing of From's fourth season's third episode, Merrily We Go.
FATIMA, STOP BEING CORDIAL WITH HIM.
Oh, yike. The Acosta/Abby parallel was shown in the trailer BUT if it's being brought up in the show by having Boyd get a flashback dream... Well, you hope that's for the dumbasses in the audience who've forgotten but it's very possible that it's actually manipulation because he's supposed to make the Acosta/Abby comparison (presumably as part of the townspeople imminently "tearing" each other apart).
Acosta, WHAT? "Whoever that was yesterday, that wasn't me." I am so sure you're just a weasel trying to distance yourself from every single awful and fucked up thing you keep doing, but now I'm stuck on... IDK, there's ghostly goings on here in some capacity. (Shit flying around Jim's house, Jim himself showing up to talk to Ethan...)
DO NOT let this girl manipulate her into giving you a gun. If you do want to give her just one bullet, that's fucking fine. BUT. Do not give her free access to a gun, and make sure you understand that if you do give her a bullet, she might not use it on only herself. She's already murdered one completely innocent person with a gun RIGHT when she first got here.
MIY, you're taking a tooth as a serial killer souvenir??? Surely a few hairs would be more subtle...
Hmm. You know, Jade asking for LSD because he heard about Miranda's trips pre-township... that actually put an interesting thought in my head. We know Jade and Tabitha were the parents of a child from the original sacrifice, but... are we sure that Jade is another incarnation of Christopher and Tabitha is Miranda? Have they explicitly said that they are sure they're Christopher and Miranda... not potentially Miranda and Christopher. Who's to say that reincarnation has to be gendered? Because if one of them is somehow predisposed to being 'changed' in some way or taken over or impersonated by the MIY or whatever... what if we're specifically being led toward looking at Jade as the potential threat when it's actually Tabitha?
That little boy's voice is already starting to get deeper, lmfao.
Yeah, see, and we've got a crow showing up at Jim's grave. We're doing Odin, baby, I don't know what to tell you.
Ah, shit. Unless it's a pun, and the crow isn't here for Jim's grave but for the pastor's. "A murder!!! (of crows)"
And I think a lot is going to be made of MIY's facial expression when the crows show up (uncertainty) BUT I think it's pretty key to remember that, hey, she's FAKING. She only ever drops the act once she's not only certain that she's alone but also when she specifically wants to break character for someone (or their corpse).
Yeah, they've styled the boy the same so it's harder to tell unless you're actually paying attention, but his voice is getting deeper, and his cheeks are losing baby fat, and his nose is getting sharper. That boy's started puberty, lmfao.
Yeah, see, you could argue that she's actually asking whether anyone's seen that shit before but it's so much more likely that she's asking to reinforce that it's new and important, and that her facial expression outside was just to CYA in case anyone looked her way.
Yeah, she's trying to "subtly" point fingers. 'When exactly did stuff start changing around here! When did it go from 'yay' we found the talismans, we're safe now, to 'ah even the talismans aren't enough anymore'?' Kenny remembers that it happened around the time his dad died (when Sara killed him!), but that was the night after Jim, Tabitha, Jade, and Jade's friend whose name I've long forgotten (Sara's first victim) showed up. (Yeah, see, she purposefully ignores the bit about Kenny's dad and EXPLICITLY says that 'oh, so you're saying shit got bad when Jade and Tabitha showed up.)
Wow, and she immediately tried to turn Julie against Kenny. (Interesting, though, that it kind of also immediately makes Julie and MIY enemies from their first conversation.)
YOU HAVEN'T TALKED MUCH ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED???? SHE'S YOUR FUCKING WIFE, WHY HAVE I SEEN HER HAVE A CALM CONVERSATION WITH THE GUY WHO DID THAT TO HER INSTEAD OF HER ACTUAL FUCKING HUSBAND!?!?!?!?!? (Don't give Acosta 'just one bullet', I'm so worried it's gonna end up in Fatima's head somehow...)
We haven't found out what Elgin's "helping" Fatima with, have we? He's not exactly stable, he could easily be convinced to help her harm herself or something worse.
Victor doesn't like the Brundles and thinks the water's creepy. Whereas it was one of the first places Julie went, and she and Fatima loved it, didn't they?
Interesting that in Victor's drawing "to remember Jim," Tabitha is wearing a yellow dress and Ethan himself is wearing a yellow-and-turquoise shirt. Is it depicting a particular day? Julie's wearing a green dress in the photo, and that's certainly not what she showed up in. She could've gotten a dress like that off Fatima... but I've never seen Tabitha in a dress, have I?
Julie, where the hell are you planning to go? But honestly shout out to Randall for redeeming himself by (hopefully) playing big brother to Julie.
Jade, honey, what are you doing?
DO NOT LET SOPHIA LIVE IN COLONY HOUSE.
NO THAT'S EVEN WORSE, DO NOT LET SOPHIA LIVE WITH SARA, EITHER.
Julie, honestly, I'm not gonna be happy if you get Randall killed at this point, and that's psycho, honestly, but I'm enjoying your dynamic with him far more than I ever expected to. Because honestly I think that's really where this show excels: team up dynamics! But it doesn't utilize them damn near enough!
Oh, interesting. If we're setting Acosta up as playing detective with the leftover shit from people, then she could be the one to catch Sophia. Which could be nice, since she's very anti-Sara. So let's just go ahead and redirect that toward the person who's actually the monster that Sara is supposed to be.
Tell me you're not poking around in Donna's bedroom while she's not there?
But if there's one dynamic I don't really need... it's Henry and Tabitha. I barely like her with Jade, and I love Jade. I just like Henry for how nurturing he is toward Victor; I don't think there's anything he can do to make Tabitha of all people interesting.
And this bitch is already planning to LEAVE HER CHILDREN immediately after their father's funeral to go search for the lighthouse again. Chrissake, just go. I'm so done with you, lmfao.
"I'm gonna find the lighthouse and take my kids home." "How?" "I'll go through the bottle tree." "Dale died that way." "Yeah, but what if the bottle tree was only meant for me?" THEN HOW WILL YOU TAKE YOUR CHILDREN HOME?????????????
HENRY SHE'S GOING TO GET YOU KILLED.
TABITHA, DO NOT TELL HIM THAT YOU'RE HIS REINCARNATED WIFE, YOU ARE NOT HIS WIFE. HIS WIFE WAS HIS WIFE. (Honestly, I'm not convinced Jade isn't his reincarnated wife.) LEAVE HIM ALONE.
Instead of trying to get your wife to open up to you, you're going to makeshift rage room her? lmfao, you're a whole fucking buffoon.
I feel like those old school cars would just break your bat pretty quickly. Also, stop throwing glass everywhere, lmfao!
Yeah, see, look at this. We've got Tabitha leaving with Henry, but meanwhile Jade is wandering around with Victor and Ethan. Y'all are all mixed up together into one big reincarnation family wreath. I'm not buying that it's as simple as boy is boy, girl is girl.
Good to see that Ethan is still the world's worst actor even while he's hitting puberty. How much money is this little shit making, and his parents can't put him in some acting classes?
Uh, Victor, are you okay, baby?
VICTOR, YOU FOUND THE MAN IN YELLOW'S YELLOW. And you clearly recognize it, but... Will that be helpful at all. Also, Jade, I love you. The minute he realizes how terrified Victor actually is, he goes from impatient to compassionate on a dime.
SARA, DO NOT LET THIS GIRL INTO YOUR HOME. Sara is a huge asset to the town (they wouldn't have saved Fatima in time without her, and that's just the most recent thing), and I think we're right on the brink of outing Sophia as MIY, which means she's going to potentially be in super close proximity to Sara when she's outed, putting her in perfect position to kill Sara as one final potential 'fuck you'.
Also... am I insane or was that body supposed to have been the bartender? Because that doesn't look anything like him.
Fatima, what are you fucking scheming. Why are you having Elgin... get you dirt? Why do you need dirt?? I don't even have a good guess for this one, lmfao.
As a general rule, I just don't think people should be going through holes in random trues. You shouldn't go through portals to start with! Let alone "natural" portals.
Correct judgment in your voice, Henry! "Oh, you left a note, they'll be fine with both their ridiculous parents dead!"
Oh, boy. The former College Freshman in White has arrived lmfao. "Why do you look so different." "No, no, stop asking, the writers don't have an answer for that one." But interesting that Henry can see him.
"You're getting so close now, but I'm afraid you're running out of time."
How does Victor know about the MIY? Did he replace Christopher last time? Show up after the massacre? I'm sorry, darling, but you're gonna have to spill.
Jade do not eat random mushrooms off the ground! Finding what you think is the exact thing you need is never not a trap! You know good and goddamn well that living in this town—or even just being in the mental state that you're in!—isn't going to be conducive to a good acid trip!?
Oh, we're doing a lot of stuff with corpses this episode. Randall finding the corpse under the house, Boyd getting grabbed by his wife's corpse... I mean, I assume Boyd is hallucinating, but there's no way to know that for sure. Also, the town buries all their bodies rather than trying to destroy them, so if the bodies were to be utilized in any way (a literal manifestation of the town tearing itself apart—living residents vs. dead ones)... well, the bodies are all right there. I think it'd be a terrible narrative decision (zombies were overplayed a decade ago), but not out of the realm of possibility... We don't know for sure what happened to all of the bodies after Victor's cycle's massacre, after all, do we? Just that he said he couldn't bury them. Maybe the MIY fucking ate them or something, which is where he remembers the MIY from?