This is an overall dump of my thoughts during my first time viewing of From's fourth season's fourth episode, Of Myths and Monsters.
So, first thing's first: I saw a spoiler on Reddit this morning. Apparently Fatima's (maybe?) trying to make some kind of a golem or something? Like, maybe it'll turn out to be just like a totem of some kind (maybe a hint at how I'm pretty sure those things at the lake have imprisoned something, like maybe a resident has to go through something super traumatic related to one of the monsters and that's how they "learn" how to get rid of them or lock them away?), but I saw several people in the sub say "golem," and she's specifically gathering dirt instead of, like, wood or something, so... it's giving clay protector except for that she's not a Jew. 🤷♀️
Anyway! Somebody else yesterday posted a little theory about thinking MIY was going to frame Sara for pushing her into the pool, but I don't think so? (Oh, also: maybe the empty pool is the Lake of Tears, though, and the lake where they found the crops is just a red herring for the audience and a trap for the characters?) What I think it's going to be is more along the lines of Sophia beginning to show symptoms similar to Sara's because she's deliberately setting up this cycle thing, comparing Acosta to Abby and Sophia to Sara so that Sophia can put herself into the kind of position of trust that Sara's managed to earn with Boyd (and, if MIY's lucky, with the town too—which Sara certainly never managed).
We've got Boyd and Jade both in yellow shirts while we discuss the MiY's suit. But Boyd's being annoying right off the jump, so thank you for standing up to him, Henry. I can't believe how much I love having him in this show.
Oh, good, we're keeping Fatima in the dark because "she's dealing with enough as it is." That's you wife.
Who's creeping around outside the window??
"Are you seriously okay with him taking magic mushrooms that he found in a haunted forest?" I love you, Donna, lmfao.
Boyd sucks right now. I don't think he folds well into Tabitha's nonsense. He's good at his own nonsense and at managing the town, but the BiW nonsense is just... I dunno, he starts feeling closer to Acosta. Like, who invited you, Captain Know-It-All?
Sara, don't get yourself killed. And MIY, what's your scheme with her. Don't you dare be nice to her just so that you can break her heart later.
What, you're casting spells now? Oh, you're casting spells on Sara. Fuck you? But good to see some quasi-confirmation that MIY sent those messages.
ANYWAY. The theme song... I've been stuck on the guy in the yellow next to the woman in the dress who's next to the dog, and since we just saw both Jade and Boyd in yellow shirts while discussing the MiY's discarded suit... maybe that's an intentional parallel? Was that one of Miranda's pictures? One of Ellis's? (I've not forgotten that he has a very Adam-and-Eve painting of the two of them up in his room—and that it shows up in the intro, too.) Maybe the town is intentionally doing archetypes, and both Jade and Boyd are intentionally being slotted into a particular "father figure" or similar archetype? (Maybe there's something to do with Boyd having a child, albeit an adult child, in the town? But Henry wasn't in yellow in that scene, and he's the other man who currently has a child in town... Hm.)
There's also a yellow house that looks like it's caught up in... wind? In the opening. Was that Tabitha's original house that collapsed?
Oh, let's see. We've also got a shot of someone with their chest burst open and one eye missing (same eye as Ellis is currently missing). That could be a reference to the cicadas, maybe, since they made that one girl explode or whatever (I barely remember that plot point, tbh, so I definitely could be misremembering stuff). But it goes from that drawing directly to a drawing of a skeleton on fire, which is not something we've seen at all so far in the show. And then a shot of two dementor-looking things (that I always assumed were meant to represent the monsters' in their more monstrous faces) with a child hiding under their bed. Is that just a vibe, or something we should be expecting? Then a keyhole with an eye peering through. Then a bloody-clawed hand reaching out toward naked Fatima and Ellis... which in retrospect is probably foreshadowing that the monsters would be "taking" taking their baby. Then a figure in a yellow shirt staring into??? It could be someone looking down at that chimney Boyd got stuck in, or someone staring into a House of Leaves-y hallway... or maybe that secret room in the root cellar??
Then we have four flashes of monsters. One is like... a blank-faced thing? Then one crying blood. Then a toothy boy. Then a black humanoid made of scribbles (one of the dementors from before?).
Jade, you're literally not his dad and not at all equipped to be a dad, but you're a better parent than either of Ethan's actual parents ever were, so go off, king.
Babe, you have no idea what the dose of those might be, you could literally fry your brain. 😭
"Why did you go to Jade and Victor and not come to me?" Bitch, you literally keep trying to abandon your children, stop asking stupid af questions you're not going to hear the answers to!?
Tabitha can't function with some man to be angry about, no wonder she never actually left the husband she hated, lmfao. Also, is Julie eighteen yet or not? We're keeping her in this nebulous child space because they don't want to clarify how long we've been here.
We're doing so much setting up of everyone going out to the settlement (Lake of Tears, I'm assuming?) that I'm worried now that we're going to be losing someone while everyone's split up. Like, Elgin and/or Fatima's gonna do something that gets colony house decimated or else something awful's going to happen at the settlement.
"Why would the trees be moving?" I mean, good question. "I haven't been paying attention, and I should have been paying attention." You know, that's actually a really good point, Victor. Maybe that's the purpose of bringing Henry here. He's the last thing you care about more than monitoring the weirdness; maybe Henry got pulled in specifically to distract you? (Which has me worried that you're only going to get proper answers by virtue of losing your dad, and I'm going to be devastated in anything happens to either Victor or Henry. I'll happily sacrifice virtually every other character before I'm ever okay with anything happening to them!)
Fatima, are you fucking flooding the house? Girl, why you always gotta be up to something now? Remember when you were just a fun hippy?
Why is that tripping my brain up? Wedding band with an infinity etching? Did I see that somewhere else recently?
Do not leave Jade alone while he's tripping, I'll literally kill you.
No, Elgin, I do not want you anywhere near Sara. We're not bonding. She took out your fucking eye because you kidnapped a woman, stop pretending she's the one who did something wrong? And Sara, don't you dare tell Elgin of all people that you're dealing with this.
Oh, that's... interesting. The MIY just wants Sara to, what, put a tiny bit of backwash into the water at the diner? That is so small that it doesn't seem like it could actually do anything? So maybe it's trying to get Sara to kill herself to protect everyone? That one person hanged themselves in, what, season two or three, so it wouldn't be a 1:4 parallel like the other stuff... Maybe it's trying to get Sara to isolate herself like Martin? Did he show up at the end of season one or the start of season two?
But Sara, this is the kind of thing you do need to tell Boyd about. Boyd isn't great with Jade and Tabitha's nonsense, but he's great with yours. (Also, I assume that Sara's not going to do anything and Sophia will be the casualty, and whatever little thing happens to her is going to be used to pressure Sara into doing something much more serious in the future. Like, instead of taking a sip from the pitcher and pouring it back, taking a sip from the lake or something?)
"Just sit down and don't go anywhere," he says to the man actively tripping balls. Very responsible trip monitor, Boyd!
Girl, it looks like you're making a snowman. A dirtman. "I'm making a monster." Oh, boy, it sounds like you've fucking cracked.
Brah, how do you "make a bookmark"? But you're in yellow again. Like papyrus tan, I guess, but still.
What if everything in the town "has been seeping out." Hmm. I like that. But this is the kind of shit that drives people insane. Like, you think you know the right way?
Yeah, okay, cool, so you want to build your own little ghetto's golem but here's the thing: you explicitly intro'd the idea as "making a monster." You literally made a monster last season. You could easily be being manipulated into creating a brand new monsters type!
Hey, Kenny, stop acting like a person is supposed to not change after being kidnapped and forced to give birth to a monster? "That's not the Fatima I know." Bitch, shut up?
Tabitha, shut the fuck up. Say something interesting or get the fuck off my screen.
Dying CGI bird? This... feels like a trap.
Oh, boy, now what's MIY up to. At least people are paying attention to her, I guess, but...
Sara, GO TALK TO BOYD! Just GO TELL BOYD.
Bus driver still exists, at least. But we're just wasting time until Sophia can pretend to fall into the pool and get hurt or some dumb shit. But very interesting that this implies she will magically know whether or not Sara will comply, despite not being there to literally see it. Oh, and poor Sara immediately goes and does what she was told. :( This is why you should've told Boyd. :((
I think you should be up there telling her to do it somewhere besides colony house, where forty other people will be in danger if something goes wrong.
Oh, hmm. The totems with the vines or whatever coiled around them are a bit similar to the black scribbly guys in the opening?
Julie, they couldn't buy you a real wig? All they could afford was Party City???
Girl, you just made those silly rules up.
Ugh, god, that wig looks fucking crunchy. A proper wig is like, what, $100? Why can't anyone on TV ever buy a real wig??
Are we in the past or the future? This has gotta be Victor's cycle's massacre, right?
Oh, he's eating a liver? Like he's an eagle, and the townsfolk are Prometheus... (What's the bird that Ethan's got? Not an eagle, I hope?) [ETA: Like the town as a collective is Prometheus, and the MIY is the eagle eating its various livers...]
Okay, this is sad and all, but thank fuck this is what Henry was crying about in the season trailer. I was really worried he would be crying over Victor dying or something.
Oh, great, Sophia's intentionally being a religiously crazy ("this is a test from god! we have to prove our devotion!") as possible. And immediately bringing up the Abraham story? Wonderful.
Hmm. That's actually also interesting. Apparently the Abraham story involves a ram being sacrificed in place of a person. That's what was in MIY's bag after Jim's death. That further convinces me that Jim is coming back... and makes me a bit suspicious that Jim is actually MIY...?
Ah, shit, and the water pitcher gets poured into the sink. That's being paralleled with the "I just wanted to see if you would do it" message of the Abraham story, but I've got a more important question: if we don't know where the electricity is coming from, we certainly don't know where the water's coming from—or where that fucking drain goes. We're taking this as "oh, nothing happened, I was just testing you," but what if it's actually like... well, now whatever was "in" that pitcher is now in the entire reservoir? Or the Lake of Tears, if it exists. Or worse: the water Fatima's using to build her "monster"? Something something "breathe life into" the golem. (Cause like a golem is supposed to be animated with a word... but Abrahamic nonsense has people being created from dirt, too.)
Oh, and now Abby's ring has just fallen out of nowhere in colony house. It's giving 'the dead aren't gone.' Which is what I've been thinking since Jim died, but... it's getting worse.
...if there's two rings right after Julie tried to create a bookmark, maybe it worked?
...or maybe Boyd is just hallucinating the second ring? MIY or whoever is just trying to convince him that he can't believe his eyes anymore? (Well, convince is a strong word. If he's hallucinating at all, he can't trust his eyes...)
Oh, boy. We're gonna put this stupid bird in this stupid lake. It's giving baptism.
Oh, ew, what this this rando just dig up? And why are you pulling on that random rope that goes into the lake, are you crazy???? Don't dig shit out of the lake!!! Don't dig shit up, period! 😭