From Season 2 Episode 9 Ball Of Magic Fire Explained- All The Burning Questions- The Music Box, Cicadas, And The Nursery Rhyme

The rules have changed in Fromville. Just when everything thought they had at least survival figured out, the town, or whoever is controlling the town, has thrown them a curveball, and nothing will be the same again. It’s the countdown to the season 2 final. From Season 2 Episode 9 reminded us just how scary things can be when we don’t understand the rules. Is Fromville simply a ball of fire that we don’t understand yet can’t live without?

Everything is a threat now. The monsters that come at night are the least of their concerns. The town is turning on itself. Invisible locusts, magical music boxes, and nightmares that come to life are making everyone tense. When tensions run high, people panic. That adds yet another layer of danger. If the town is dependent on a cycle and that cycle has started again, that means no one is safe, regardless of how thick their plot armor is. Some lives are saved, others are lost, and a whole lot of serious questions need to be answered. Here are all the essential details of From Season 2 Episode 9.

The RV and van gang questions

Randall is a mess of emotion and irrational paranoia. Jim shouldn’t have encouraged his aggression, but it’s too late now. Boyd shows up at just the right time and stops Randall from hurting Jim and getting Donna eaten but forcing the four of them to bunk down in the RV isn’t a viable solution. When the smiling monsters come, the plan is to try the poison bullets. Unfortunately, before they can get their theory, that damn music box begins playing. Randall runs out into the woods, and Jim, Donna, and Boyd are going to hotwire the van and drive back to Colony House. Just before Boyd leaves, though, he sees and hears Abbey briefly. She tells him to come back to him.

Are all of these people in comas, as some have speculated? Some of these pieces don’t fit like the group interaction. If this were only one person’s fever dream, we wouldn’t see what others do when they aren’t around the subject. The only other option in the coma theory is everyone in a coma is somehow linked together subconsciously. Think a shared lucid dream turned nightmare. The ages of everyone involved and the number of those trapped there make this unlikely.

More likely, the town preys on weakness and fear. Boyd would be the most troubled by seeing his dead wife, so the town manifested it. Does the town then give everyone what they would be affected by most? If so, everyone is in a lot of trouble.

Are the dead manifesting their fears in From Season 2 Episode 9?

Sara intuitively understands things about the town because she is tapped into whatever power controls it. She is convinced that those who die have their fears become part of the forest. This is a variation on the Victor is making it all happen concept. Instead of Victor doing this alone, it is everyone who lives and dies in Fromville. Nathan is dead, and he is terrified of locusts. Now locusts are swarming the town and looking for presumably three hosts. Is it a coincidence or another sign that everything is connected, much like Netflix’s Manifest? Nathan’s locust nightmare, Boyd’s bloodworm killing of the monster, which in turn gave birth to a swarm of locusts, and Elgin and Tabitha’s dream.

All of these things spawned from the same place. The only question is whether any or all of it is designed to help them get home or keep them trapped and the cycle going in perpetuity. Fatima is pregnant. She desperately wanted children but didn’t think it was possible. Is this proof that not everything is evil in Fromville, or will her pregnancy lead to tragic results making her loss even more profound?

Fatima’s baby?

Aside from wondering how Fatima is pregnant, there are two big questions. The first relates to Tillie, who is dying of cancer. She claims to be dying of cancer and gives Kristi a bottle of liquid morphine for when the time comes, but her behavior is suspect. Tillie acts thrilled to be trapped there. She dances in the rain and seemingly enjoys everything and everyone. What if Randall wasn’t entirely wrong about there being someone working with the town from the inside? That morphine was too tempting for Marielle. Could it have been brought there on purpose? Additionally, how does Tillie know Fatima is pregnant? Her reasoning that she has been pregnant four times and knows what a pregnant woman looks like is weak at best. Is she the next evolution of the smiling creatures?

The second question regarding Fatima’s baby is about sleep. Humans can’t go without sleep for very long. A few days are about all the further we can go without significant malfunction. If the hallucinations don’t get you, your body begins breaking down. It’s not pretty. If the locust taking three hosts is the end of the deadly nightmare, the problem is solved, but if not, what will they do once the baby is old enough to begin sleeping inside the womb? That would be horrific for a baby inside Fatima to be ripped to shreds.

Is Mari, Randall, and Julie dying in From Season 2 Episode 9?

Almost certainly not. However, they might wish they were soon. Anyone who has seen Alien knows things gestating inside us that don’t belong in us make messy exits. We will have to see whether something worse than locusts comes from them or if they become carriers for the blood worms. I think they are doomed to become like Martin unless something is done to alter the life cycle.

The music box

Several people have heard the music now. It isn’t saved for just those with blood worms. Boyd thinks it signifies danger. Bad things happen every time he hears it, which makes that plausible, but the monsters might also be affected by it. Why did they stop when the music was playing, but when it stopped, they began moving again? We know that music plays a vital role in whatever is happening, but we don’t know whose fear it belongs to. Boyd knows it spells danger every time he hears it, though.

Elgin and Tabitha’s dreams

Both Elgin and Tabitha have dreams about the town. We know Victor has also had dreams. He draws stories his mother told him and images from his dreams to keep them from slipping away. Tabitha dreams about the same tower Victor’s mom visited to save the children. What children, how many, why they are trapped there, and who did it, we don’t know yet. Tabitha is convinced the children want her to help them, not scare her.

Elgin dreams of the Boy In White and the nursery rhyme. He also has dreamed of the pond and a monster woman trying to drown him. If the BIW is trying to help them, that could mean the others are too. Fatima has a baby growing in her, but we don’t know if it is human. If everything is a cycle in Fromville, couldn’t the baby be a monster? Maybe the next step in the town’s evolution is the birth of a monster by a human. Perhaps even a human/monster hybrid? Does carrying the baby turns her into a monster, which is why the creature that tried to drown Elgin in his dream looked like her? Is that what the creepy ghost children are? Are they experiments gone wrong, or are they the ghosts of the children locked in the tower?

The cycle of life. It’s often brutal and defines our concept of life and death. For things to live, others must die. In Fromville, that is true, but the living and dying parts are a lot messier. The cicadas we heard last episode are back in From Season 2 Episode 9 with a vengeance. They came from the dead monster’s body and appeared to be looking for new hosts.

Did the cicadas come from the blood worms?

It appears Boyd’s blood worms grew into cicadas. Those locusts are flying all over town, looking for three hosts to inhabit. Will they become the next three poor souls chained to the wall like Martin and his two friends? Was Boyd supposed to be the carrier before he gave his worms to the monster? Is that what changed things? Sara knows the town has changed. The rules don’t apply anymore. There is no point they are safe. Nighttime is when the monsters play, and they can’t sleep in the daytime as their nightmares will come to life and kill them.

Every living thing has a life cycle. From infancy to death, they follow a specific pattern in insects that can be bizarre as they grow from pupal or worm-like stages to beautiful butterflies. Human pregnancy is just as wild. Would it be all that farfetched to assume the cicadas are a part of the life cycle of the town? If those that have the blood worms must be preserved in groups of three’s forever, then when Martin died, they needed a new host. When Boyd passed it to a monster, it created an aberration. That could be why Mari, Randall, and Julie acted differently than Boyd when he was infected. Assuming their infestation doesn’t kill them, I wonder what will come from them.

The nursery rhyme

They touch. They break. They steal. No one here is free.
Here they come. They come for 3. Unless you stop the melody.

The locusts have claimed three. Marielle, Randall, and Julie have all had locusts fly down their throat. There have been several deaths, including Paulas, so the nursery rhyme must be speaking directly to the three that will act as hosts for the locusts who will morph into blood worms. Why does the nursery rhyme sound so accusatory? Is something mad about our group being in the town? Was it not designed for humans, and their presence has disturbed the equilibrium? Do the music box and the locusts control everything?

By the end of From Season 2 Episode 9 things look bleak. The locusts have claimed three victims. No one seems any closer to figuring out what is happening, and there are a ton of game-changers. Fatima’s pregnancy, Elgin, and Tabitha’s dreams, Sara’s fears, and the fact that the bile bullets didn’t seem to do anything are all looming. Kenny has found an uneasy peace with Sara, but too many things are changing simultaneously. Ethan is right to be angry and scared. Life is not a fairy tale, and the Cromenockle will not save them unless Ethan can manifest it and save them all.

No one really knows if they are all about to die again or if things can and will be different. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. The only thing we know for sure is all roads lead to an explosive From Season 2 Finale. Find all our From coverage here.