[Warning: General spoilers ahead]
The From universe has always retracted and expanded, losing and adding characters throughout its run. And as we’ve seen, it can sometimes return people from the world to the people trapped in town. Last season, it was Kristi who got Marielle back. And this season, Victor has been reunited with his father, Henry, who arrived with Tabitha when she came back.
Veteran actor Robert Joy plays Henry, the wounded father and husband who was emotionally hollowed out when his family vanished into thin air almost 40 years earlier. Joy has a long history of film, television, and stage work – it’s been a treat to watch him in Desperately Seeking Susan from 1985, which is in heavy rotation on one of the MGM+ cable networks, again after all these years against the juxtaposition of now playing Henry.
As Henry, he’s been a fantastic addition to the cast, portraying a man reunited with a son who grew up without him under extraordinarily terrifying circumstances and is now older than he was when he lost him all those years ago.
I spoke with Joy earlier this month about joining the series, and he came to the show as a fan. “Before I acted in that first scene, before I showed up to work on my first day of shooting, I had watched all 20 episodes,” he says.
“I was intrigued, as all the audience is, with the mystery of the show and the puzzle of trying to figure out what’s going on in this world, and the attraction of that. The first encounter between Henry and Tabitha is that you have people that are broken in different ways and there’s no trust. Certainly no trust left in Henry. He doesn’t trust anybody.”
Joy says that lack of trust is compounded by suspicions that he’d murdered his family. “He’s been vilified. It’s not just that he’s walked away from society, society kind of blames him for his family’s disappearance and there’s a shadow over him,” he explains.
“Maybe he killed them and got away with it. And all these people are showing up. [Producing director] Jack Bender told me that he’s been plagued with crime scene junkies. And he thinks that Tabitha is one of those people until he sees the lunchbox.”
“And then he wonders, is she somebody who somehow collects dark mementos? He doesn’t trust her at all. I keep imagining he’s been alone and in despair since the disappearance of his family for about 40 years. And [when he meets her], you see a 40-year-old carapace crack. And that was the appeal to me.”
Joy adds that faith plays a role in the bond they develop, too. “Trust is so important in those first couple of episodes. How can you build any trust? And then when you have trust, there’s this other thing that happens, which is faith. It’s all very religious in a way. And it’s no accident that the writers had Tabitha go to a priest,” he shares.
“Can we find faith, hope, and trust when we’re in this really dark place? And we do find the trust, we find the hope, but we don’t necessarily find a solution in any really quick way. We find more trouble. The whole series seems to me about how people face trouble when it seems unmanageable. And the only way they face it is when they trust each other and can build faith in their future together.”
Joy knew going in that he would land in town at some point, but he was happy to play Henry, wherever that took him. “It wasn’t something that I was concerned about. I just was intrigued that I would get to play the part of Victor’s father. Whether I stayed in Camden, Maine or ended up in from town was secondary to me,” he recalls.
“I thought this was an incredible, very rich situation. And I was hoping I’d end up that either I would get into From town or Victor would get out and we’d have a reunion. Where it happened, I didn’t care.” As we know, it happened at the end of last week’s episode, and we’re still not OK.
Joy didn’t meet Scott McCord, who plays Victor so exquisitely, beforehand. “I met Scott on the set the first time we had a scene together. And then after that it was easier when we had subsequent scenes because we already had a relationship. We built a trust and a faith in each other right away that first day,” he says. “So we approached the scenes in a very similar way and we’re very comfortable with each other. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s gonna happen next if hopefully we get back for Season 4.”
This Sunday, in “Shadow Play,” Henry accompanies Victor into the tunnels in search of Jasper, while the fractures in the Matthews marriage re-emerge, testing their children. Julie seeks refuge in the only thing that clears her head and finds an unlikely kindred spirit while Ethan joins Tabitha in helping a newly focused Jade solve the puzzle of the messages in the bottles.
Donna keeps busy working on a project to honor Dale’s memory (which, weirdly, nobody helps her with). Over at the clinic, Randall is back to being a tool, but Marielle gives him the benefit of the doubt. Kristi has potentially good news for Fatima and Ellis, which turns out to not to be exactly that, and the couple confides in Boyd.
Ennis puts the Polaroid to good use to document Colony House, while Kenny weighs a change now that he’s on his own. Alexandra LaRoche directs a script by Kristen Layden.
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. ICYMI, all of our previous coverage — almost 40 pieces — is here. Here’s a sneak peek of “Scar Tissue.” Note: The press site is calling this episode “Shadow Play,” so we’ll see what it actually is when it airs.
Photos courtesy of Chris Reardon/MGM+; videos courtesy of MGM+.
