When From began, Lost alum Harold Perrineau was the show’s biggest name, and his character, Boyd Stevens, seemed to be in charge of the eerie town its characters are trapped in. In From‘s early days, Boyd was the Township’s de facto sheriff, instilling order, justice, and community in the ragtag group of survivors.
Boyd rang the nightly bell to usher everyone back indoors, settled disputes either by mediation or force (the macabre “Box” was a punishment of Boyd’s invention), and, in doing so, created some semblance of normalcy for everyone else, despite the vicious monsters that emerged from the woods after nightfall.
As the star of the show and the group’s only emerging leader, it stood to reason that Boyd would be From‘s most important character. However, as the show has gone on, Boyd’s influence over the group has waned, and other, more developed, nuanced, or thought-provoking players have become just as essential to the Township’s mission of returning home.
In fact, Boyd has, at times, been a detriment to other characters’ ideas to further their understanding of From‘s major mysteries. The loss of his wife has made Boyd averse to risk, and his fear has given way to obstinacy as he shut down several key plans from other characters.
This has been particularly evident in relation to Jade, who, in From season 4, did more than any other townsperson to uncover the Township’s secrets and find their passage home.
Jade Is From’s Most Evolved Character
Jade has become a fan favorite in From’s later seasons, a feat that is especially impressive considering where the character began. Jade arrived in the Township in the pilot episode at the same time as the Matthews family. But while the Matthews were a terrified and sympathetic nuclear family, Jade was rich, entitled, pompous, and dismissive.
Even though the friend that he was travelling with died shortly after their arrival (at the behest of the voices in Sara’s head), Jade remained convinced that the entire situation was an elaborate, expensive escape room that his friend had coordinated purely for Jade’s own amusement. It took Jade longer than any other arrival the show has seen to grasp what was really happening.
After that, Jade became a drunk, letting himself go as he struggled to wrap his mind around his new normal. However, a visit from an apparition of From‘s deceased bartender served as a wake-up call, and Jade suddenly dedicated himself to solving the puzzle of his strange surroundings.
Through his obsession, Jade proved his intelligence and persistence, and while he remained prickly to those around him, his ultimate good intentions became clear. Jade’s relentlessness also set him apart from the other townspeople, many of whom had their own short-lived theories and hyperfixations.
By the end of season 4, Jade had not only made real, tangible progress in untangling the Township’s mysteries; he had also learned that he was at the center of its ancient cycles. His newfound bond with Tabitha, which even went so far as to make Jade willing to sacrifice himself for her, cemented the evolution of his character, making him not only useful to the group’s mission, but lovable as a person.
Jade Is The One Really Putting From’s Puzzle Pieces Together
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From Abby’s conclusion that the Township is merely a dream which drove her to murder, to Randall’s theory that it was all a psychological experiment which led him to render the group vulnerable to the monsters, Jade is far from the only character who has attempted to deduce what the Township really is. He is, however, the only one who seems to be on the right track.
After discovering that the bottles on the Bottle Tree contained slips of paper with numbers inside them, Jade became fixated on figuring out what the numbers meant. With the help of Tabitha and Jim, Jade eventually deduced that they corresponded to music, allowing Jade to play a song that unlocked his and Tabitha’s memories of past cycles.
This also led to the realization that Tabitha and Jade have returned over and over again with the objective of saving the souls of the “anghkooey” children, who were sacrificed in exchange for the monsters’ immortality. This newfound knowledge was substantial progress for the group, but they were again stumped as to how the deceased children could be saved.
While methodical deduction and sheer persistence helped him solve the mystery of the numbers, Jade then took a different approach to access more memories from his past lives. Tripping on mushrooms enlightened Jade that the previous cycles ended with the Township massacring themselves, and that the key to their escape lies in rescuing the children’s bones from the tunnels before that happens.
This is all much more information than any other townsperson has been able to glean from their bizarre surroundings, and Jade has also consistently acted on his newfound discoveries with plans to put that information to use.
Additionally, not every townsperson has yet been shown to have a clear symbolic purpose for being there, but Jade and Tabitha are uniquely central to the Township’s ancient lore as the only two people who have been reincarnated and returned for every cycle. With his decisive action propelling the story forward and emotional relevance to the Township, Jade is certainly From‘s most valuable player.
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