[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
From came out swinging with the Season 3 premiere when the monsters killed off the Fromville matriarch, Tian Chen while making an incapacitated Boyd watch her die. Although he felt her death acutely, it’s her son Kenny, who we immediately worried about in a twofold way because now he’d lost a second parent in the same terrible manner, and again, Boyd was tangentially involved.
Last week, I spoke with Ricky He, who plays Kenny, about this latest gut punch for his character, and how despite the enormity of it, he’s in a much better place emotionally to handle it. He says he didn’t know until he saw the script for the premiere what was happening, although he’d been tipped to expect something big this season.
“We don’t know anything until we get the scripts. With Tian Chen, there was a unique situation where when we were doing the Season 2 premiere, a couple of us had a couple drinks in us, and I won’t say who, but somebody said to me, ‘Hey, you’ve got some great stuff lined up for Season 3.’ And I said, ‘What? What are you talking about,'” He recalls.
“And then we waited through the strikes, and still at that point, it wasn’t even a possibility in my head that they were gonna do that. It wasn’t until we arrived in Halifax, we were waiting to get our scripts, and then there were some whispers. I forgot how it circulated, but somebody had said, ‘I think Tian Chen’s dying.’ And it wasn’t until I read those pages that it became real. It just didn’t feel like it was possible, and then it was all too real.”
While we would have fully expected and accepted Kenny going atomic on Boyd when he learns the answer to his tragic question, ‘Whose blood is that,’ he instead grieves with him and takes consolation in the fact that she was not alone. “[With] the loss of his father in Season 1, I think there was a little bit of self-inflicted shame. Maybe subconsciously, Boyd was a father figure to Kenny. And so having lost his father, he felt like, ‘I was too busy playing sheriff with this guy who I’m treating as my dad when I should have spent more time with my dad,’ He explains.
“And then at this point, having lost both his parents, Boyd is really kind of the only pillar alongside Donna, but in terms of somebody that he feels really understands him and can understand his loss, especially once he finds out that Boyd had to suffer through watching it happen because as rageful as Kenny can get, he’s not oblivious to the fact that Tian Chen is a meaningful person to everyone in town. She’s someone that is deeply loved, not only by Kenny, but by Boyd, by Jade, by the Matthews family. And so, I think it’s a reaction to all of that in real time.”
And of course, last season, Kenny was also wounded right out of the gate when his budding romance with Kristi short-circuited the moment her girlfriend, Marielle, stepped off the bus. He says Kenny’s learning to live with that, and the core relationship between him and Kristi still holds.
“I think that at the end of the day between me and Chloe [Van Landschoot], then also Kenny and Kristi, that we established between us that there’s always going to be love that persists between the two of them. And whether that’s romantic love or platonic love, I think it is kind of like real-life relationships. It kind of rides this complicated fine line. And certainly for Kenny, it probably leans more towards romantic,” He shares.
“But there was a realization for me as an actor and preparing for that in Season 2, as well as for Kenny, I think, which is in a twisted, messed up way, maybe that’s why we’re stuck here. Maybe we’re meant to end up in this place to meet each other. And in Season 2, when Marielle arrives, it becomes abundantly clear that no, these two people are destined for each other, because what are the odds that we show up in this place?”
“What are the odds of, not only did you show up, but the person that you love shows up? That’s never happened as far as the people in the town know. And so I think for him it’s like, ‘Okay, so you must be soulmates or something.’ There is a little bit of, at first it’s shock, and then, it’s the pain of accepting that. And then it’s the acceptance of, ‘Well that’s okay. That’s okay.'”
With Jade and Kenny reunited on the mission to gather food and now trapped overnight together, we get to see that relationship continue in the wake of losing Tian Chen. “I was lucky to have been able to work a lot with Dave Alpay in Season 1 because Jade’s character almost kind of became like a foreign exchange student. In the same way that Boyd is kind of a surrogate father to Kenny, Jade is kind of like a surrogate brother to Kenny,” He says.
“He’s the immature older brother to Kenny, where it’s like, ‘God, get your life together. Mom says dinner’s ready, let’s go.’ Those little interactions are so fun. And obviously a special place in Tian’s Chen heart and vice versa. I think through this grief that Kenny’s going through, he’s reminded that not only is she a really important person to him, but that she’s someone that the town shares a love for, and that she’s very central to everyone.”
“And I think that it almost helps him almost grieve in a communal way with Jade in particular. But it has been very exciting working with different characters and interacting with different characters. And of course we have some new cast members coming in and Kenny gets to work a lot with the new cast, as well.”
The strike delays pushed production to the middle of winter in Halifax, and He says it was a challenge for him and the rest of the cast. “It was brutal looking. It was brutal to film. It was brutal to live in. The cast loves Halifax. It is beautiful. The people are the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. We’ve all really built a community in a second home there. But the winter just … I felt like John Snow north of the wall,” he laughs.
“I’m from Vancouver where, when it snows it’s not that bad. Harold grew up in New York and Corteon and a bunch of the cast are from Toronto and Winnipeg and things like that, where you’re used to these winters, but even for them, it was like, ‘This sucks.’ I was unmotivated to get out. And being outside, we’re dressed to look like we’re dressed for the winter and we’re warm, but none of the clothes that we’re wearing are proper winter clothes. Most of the challenge is like a ‘don’t shiver’ challenge. Do the scene but just don’t shiver.”
The cast of the series are very active online with the fanbase, and He loves seeing the various theories floating around. “A favorite theory that I recently saw maybe a couple days ago on I think Reddit that I think is really interesting is that the children are selecting their heroes, which I think is fascinating. Maybe all the residents in town were selected by the children as heroes to save them. Because a good majority of the characters [have a noble backstory],” he explains.
“Boyd obviously as an ex-Marine and a very resourceful ex-Marine, is capable of being their hero. Nathan was driving in from saving Sarah from her domestic abuse relationship. Father Khatri literally saved a child, well, you know, beat a child’s father to death, for abusing the child. And then Kenny and his mom were picking up and rescuing his father from being lost to dementia. So I think that’s kind of a cool idea. I don’t know how much stock that holds, but it’s a neat idea.”
Sunday night, Season 3 continues with “There and Back Again,” which would certainly seem to be applicable to Tabitha and Henry after the closing moments of last week’s episode. While that plays out in terrifying From fashion, we also check in with Victor and Sara as he explains his plan, and watch the Matthews family gets tipped off in an unusual fashion.
Boyd lays out his plan with Randall and realizes he is actually an untapped resource as a pretty keen observer out there by himself at night. Up at Colony House, Fatima is increasingly uneasy and soon has reason to be beyond her personal situation.
Out in the woods, Kenny, Kristi, and Jade have a reasonably quiet evening to talk about losing Tian Chen and Jade opens up about the demons that have been haunting him. The episode is written by Kristen Layden, new to From and alumni of The Morning Show and Blindspot, and directed by Jack Bender.
From Season 3 airs Sundays linearly at 9pm/8c on MGM+ in the US and on Paramount+ via Prime Video subscription channels in Canada. It drops on the MGM+ app at 12:01 am ET. All S1 and S2 episodes are available in the US on MGM+ online and via the app and on Prime Video, and on Paramount+ in Canada. ICYMY, all of our previous coverage — 30+ pieces — is here. Here’s a sneak peek of “There and Back Again.”
Photos courtesy of Chris Reardon/MGM+.
