September 1st, 2024 | Devon Kash

Another COnservative Show Hiding In Plain Sight

The third season drops this month on Paramount Plus.

Streaming services are loaded with shows and series that explore conservative themes and destroy woke tropes, but one of them caught me off guard this year. A lot of new shows and movies are finding ways to embed right-wing themes in their plots, and this is one of them. As wokeness faces growing backlash, we're seeing more producers use their platforms to gently pushback against modern narratives—while still using the same woke mechanics to draw bigger audiences. Recent examples include Dune and this freaky little gem you may have heard about on Paramount Plus.

The show is called From and it takes place in a mysterious town that traps everyone who stumbles in. Because it comes from one of the producers of Lost, the show has a lot of similarities—but it has foul language and lots of gore. Furthermore, it would be classified as a supernatural horror. If you like unravelling a supernatural mystery and ingesting quietly conservative themes, you're going to like this one.

The show has a typically diverse cast that includes a multitude of races and sexual identities, making it check all the boxes required by Paramount. But it still manages to show us the failures of liberalism and the importance of a strong justice system.

The main character is a black guy (Harold Perrineau) and his deputy is Chinese. There are at least two gay couples and an abundance of liberal themes—but under the surface, the show explores the realities of excess liberalism, mob rule, godlessness, weak justice, and more. From the beginning, we see a sheriff ringing a bell and enforcing the town's curfew. That sheriff also happens to be an ex marine.

The show exemplifies the importance of rules and order in a scary world filled with killer monsters that come out at night to prey on the weak and stupid.

Without spoiling too much, the first few episodes explore themes of capital punishment. Torn between his own conscience and the rules he put in place, the sheriff visits the town's priest for guidance—only to be rebuffed and convinced to uphold the laws he created. Later, he tries to break his own rule while still keeping a facade in place for the citizens. However, the person he seeks to make an example of declines his kind gesture and chooses to accept his fate in “the box”.

The people are divided into two groups, one lives in the town under the sheriff, and the other lives in a mansion referred to as the Colony House. Everyone who arrives must choose where to live.

The town is a place of order, where everyone has a job and their own house. The Colony House is basically a hippy commune where everyone shares clothes, food, and lovers. In the first few episodes, we catch a glimpse of the free-range liberalism inside the Colony House, as people have sex and share open spaces. To the audience, it eventually becomes evident as a place chosen by disgruntled, spoiled teenagers who resent their parents.

Both groups are faced with the frightening reality of monsters that come out at night, but can only kill them if someone lets them inside.

Locking their doors and hanging “talismans” by the door keeps the monsters out. The monsters are seemingly nice and kind human beings—until they're not. On occasion, a child or weak adult will let one inside. To prevent this, residents keep their windows covered with curtains to avoid seeing the monsters and, thus, being tricked by them. Impressionable children are most at risk, so the adults go out of their way to protect them from seeing or hearing the monsters.

Does that sound a little familiar?

One of From's most obvious themes involves the impressionable nature of children and the need to protect them from manipulative predators. The opening scene from the first episode kicks the show off with this theme. Whether it was intended or not, this theme reflects our modern problems and controversies surrounding the manipulation, exploitation, and grooming of children by seemingly friendly predators.

The show's first episodes also explore the importance of a father and his role in protecting his family.

Not knowing the facts and being ignorant is every newcomer's downfall in this show. Every new and unwitting resident is immediately confronted with having to believe the outlandish idea that monsters will come out at night and eat them—and that they will never be able to leave. With every new resident, the veterans are faced with the task of convincing them that this conspiracy theory is true. Eventually, those who refuse to listen always find out the hard way.

The third season of From lands on Paramount Plus this month, which means you can binge the first two if you haven't already.