FROM is giving me Daddy Issues
Just kidding, I already had them. Is Harold Perrineau taking applications for adoptees?
In horror tv series FROM, a group of people is trapped in a strange American town existing in its own space and time. The residents were all from and going to different places when they ended up trapped there. No one can leave. At night, the creatures living in the woods come out. What happens if they get someone is gruesome, and the pilot makes it brutally clear very early.
Boyd Stevens, played by Harold Perrineau, is the sheriff. He is the leader and represents authority - or at least one kind of authority, along with Father Khatri, the priest, and Donna, who leads the group sharing Colony House. They don’t always agree, but they have to work together for the common good. To survive.
Of course most of them have lost someone. If nothing else, they are grieving the life they left behind against their will.
As we get to know Boyd, we realize he is dealing not only with grief, but with guilt. He’s had to make a terrible choice, and he carries that with him. Constantly.
I’ve seen Harold Perrineau in tv shows for decades now, so it’s not like I’m discovering that he’s great, but something happened while watching FROM. In an episode of season 1 - it might even be the pilot, I’m not sure - Boyd encourages Kristi, the paramedic, to stay focused on the wounded kid she’s tending to, despite the danger.
He calls her kiddo.
She’s younger than me, but she’s an adult. Boyd being a fatherly figure for some residents is explicit in the show, so he calls her kiddo and that’s not really worth mentioning. And a lot is happening at that moment, so it shouldn’t have stuck in my mind.
Except, I felt a little jealous. “I wish Boyd would call me kiddo.”
I might even have said it out loud.
What the fuck?
First of all, you’d think I’m a little too old to want the encouragement and validation from a parental figure. But I guess that never stops, especially when you’ve never had it. I might just be too old to admit it without feeling shame.
Speaking of shame, I also found that whole thing a little disturbing because – I don't know how else to say it: I find Harold Perrineau hot.
I blame This Is Us for breaking my brain when it made me wish Milo Ventimiglia were both my father and my husband. Not to yuck anybody’s yum, but the whole “daddy” thing never appealed to me. So this is happening and I don’t like it.
In season 1, Boyd is grieving but mostly, the man is busy. He needs to keep the townspeople together. Protect them from the scary monsters (I should write about them, at some point). Deal with the newcomers. And as an audience, we’re also busy getting the lay of the land, understanding the stakes, getting to know the whole group. It’s a lot of people - and a very good cast.
So it took me a little while to see it. What was really keeping me riveted.
They’re all scared and in pain. Obviously. It’s a horror show.
But the way Perrineau plays Boyd, pain is always there. Like everyone else, he also has moments of confusion, hope, fear, anger, gratefulness. He solves problems, tries to connect with people, cleans up messes. Exerts his authority like a benevolent, very hot patriarch (help). He probably keeps so busy as a way to try and not feel the grief.
But it’s there, on his face at all times. Whatever else Boyd is feeling at any given moment, sadness is along for the ride. It cannot be hidden. He is hopeful and sad. Grateful and sad. Even anger, which can be so good at masking everything else, and a classic - whether we’re talking about men in real life or the way actors portray a character. But no, Boyd is angry and sad.
And because it accompanies everything else, I find it incredibly touching and very different from a lot of manpain we’re used to seeing on screen (and I WILL talk about manpain a lot, too. I’m not mocking. Well… Sometimes I am. But not always.)
It became more obvious to me in season 2, because Boyd is unraveling. But it’s always been there. That’s such beautiful work from Perrineau. It’s a level of vulnerability that is painful to watch, and I can’t look away.
All that with a very hot dad bod.
I mean, look at him. Also, the pattern of white in his beard: is that natural or does he dye his beard? I don’t know how beards work. I don’t care. It’s beautiful.
Look at his face. I love him.
It would feel weird and hypocritical to talk about my love for a fictional man getting shit done while in incredible pain and ignore that lately we’ve been seeing a lot of that in real life.
Men running towards buildings on fire to get whoever they can out. Men digging through the rubble with their bare hands. Men caring for orphaned children, playing with babies.
Instead of reiterating points that have been made brilliantly by others, I’m sharing here these excellent articles by two Substacks I subscribe to:
Our boys & men deserve to live, not just our women & children, by Ayesha Khan, Ph.D. for
How To Remain Engaged, Hopeful, and Angry in the Face of Global Horrors by Angelica Jade Bastién, for
I’d be lying if I said that I don’t use stories to escape, sometimes. But for better or for worse, I am terrible at denial, and I cannot not care. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. I care about the world, and stories are my way in. They help me make sense of the world, sometimes. Tolerate it, at the very least. A few times, stories have kept me alive. Literally.
And that’s the point of Rhymes with Genre: to share stories that move me, make me laugh, make me understand myself and others. Make me feel just a little less lonely.
And make me horny, apparently.
Stay tuned for more: mommy issues. Uncle issues. Health issues. Anger issues. All the issues. I got them.
This should be fun.
I’m a both/and as well. I have to feel all my feelings. I have to learn about what I heard/feel and then I have to decide how I feel about what I learned and felt. Then I have a story... I’m so excited you’re writing here, Albe!