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Warning: Proceed with caution if you have not yet seen From season 4, episode 5 Jade’s love for Tabitha in From is one for generations — literally.

After season 3’s finale revealed that Jade and Tabitha are reincarnations of two of the town’s original inhabitants, previously Miranda and Christopher, who failed to stop the ritual sacrifice of children that created the curse that now plagues their lives, the draw between the pair becomes even clearer, with their bond forever linked both in previous timelines and the current one. While Tabitha is still grieving the loss of her husband, Jim, who died last season after being killed by the Man in Yellow, it’s not till season 4 that the generation-spanning love Jade has for Tabitha is really cemented.

ScreenRant‘s Tatiana Hullender spoke to David Alpay, who plays Jade on the hit MGM+ sci-fi horror series, about his relationship with Tabitha and his hope for them moving forward.

Jade Remembers The Emotion Of His Tie To Tabitha

Jade and Tabitha discussing the bottle tree numbers in From season 3 episode 6

It’s not just that Jade remembers his past lives with Tabitha, but also the emotional weight of loving her in every reincarnation. And while Jade is feeling that deeply this season, with Jim’s death still so fresh, Alpay tells ScreenRant Jade is going to have to “play his cards really carefully.”

David Alpay: I think that he’s got to play his cards really carefully. I think discovering that they have this really longstanding connection, that they’ve been together ostensibly for generations and generations and iterations and iterations. I think he not only remembered the fact of it, but I think he also remembered the emotion of it. And going into that first episode in season four, where he sees her for the first time, she’s like helping Sophia out of the car, and Jade kind of stumbles into the moment, and he catches her eye. It’s the first time he’s seen her since the revelation. To me, that was a very heavy emotional moment. I thought, “Okay, he remembers all of it. He remembers every time he’s lived. He remembers her every time. He remembers how he loved her every single time, even though she appeared as different people, which carries forward.”

Part of that love, Alpay said, is “backing off” a bit and letting Tabitha heal and exhibit some of that selflessness needed not to push her away.

David Alpay: And I think part of that love that he felt for her meant backing off a little bit and letting her deal with everything in her own time. And then also just not being too pushy when everything happens to Jim, because I think when you love somebody, you have to give them space to experience what they’re experiencing and not be selfish with how you love them. And I think that was beautifully constructed also by the writers as part of Jade’s evolution, too. I don’t think in the first season Jade would have been that kind of selfless. So yeah, it was a really beautiful moment to get to play, and yeah, I hope that landed with the audience.

What Jade Learns About Himself Through That Mushroom Scene

Jade yelling with his hands on his head in From season 3 finale

While the big breakthrough Jade has after taking mushrooms is still to come, having the opportunity to see his younger self was not only “trippy” for him, but for Alpay as well, who called the resemblance between him and the actor who played his younger self, “uncanny.”

David Alpay: Oh man, it was really trippy. I mean, just experiencing the younger self of it, the young actor that they cast, Vigo, to play young Jade, is just so good. He’s so good, and he was a joy to work with and looks so much like me. It’s kind of uncanny. And we just had a lot of fun playing together.

There was a lot of thought that went into creating that sequence, with both Alpay and the crew careful not to create a scene that depicted taking mushrooms in a way that was “too comic,” or cartoon-like, with everything from the colors to using practical effects all taken into consideration when crafting that moment for Jade.

David Alpay: And the whole sequence, that mushroom trip sequence, was very carefully crafted so as not to be too comic. We didn’t want it to be kind of like, too zany with like, strange colors and everything like that. So a lot of, to that end, a lot of the effects that were employed for those scenes visually were kind of in-camera. So, for instance, we did a whole bunch of camera tests to see what it would look like. We did green screen tests where I’d be walking backwards, and then that would be played in reverse, to see if that would affect sort of his gait and his dynamic. It would give the audience just, like, “Something is slightly off, but I can’t tell what. I know that I’m in a different sort of space.”

That was one of the tests, which I don’t think they employed in the final edit, but one of the cool things that they did do was take a piece of plexiglass, warp it with heat with like one of those heat torches and they kind of bent it and warped it and then they would just slide it back and forth right in front of the lens of the camera. So you think it’s a CGI visual effect where, like, the world is blurry, but it’s actually not. It’s completely in camera. It’s a completely practical effect. I love that.

They also wanted to give the impression that while Jade had taken mushrooms, the experience he was having and the hallucinations he was envisioning were “very real to him,” keeping the moment far more grounded and less comedic than scenes depicting taking hallucinogens usually are.

David Alpay: They got their hands dirty and found old school ways that back in the day, they would just like rub Vaseline or something on a lens to make it look kind of spacey. So getting to be part of that was kind of special, and it was really old school. And then, just to keep it grounded as much as possible and to not go into this kind of like, “Jade’s tripping on mushrooms,” but just to keep it like it’s everything feels very real to him, so that he could experience it more deeply and not just forget about it.

Everything Else David Alpay Said About From, Including Jade’s Viral Cat T-Shirt

Jade leans on a wall in the station in From season 3, ep 1

ScreenRant: So, I was really fascinated by the reveal of reincarnations, Jade and Tabitha having come back here every time. How early on did you learn about that? Did you learn about that when you read the script, or was it told to you beforehand?

David Alpay: We had a pretty strong sense of it, a pretty strong sense of something kind of leaning in that direction towards the end of the previous season when we discovered the meaning of Anghkooey. I think that was kind of like a breakthrough moment that we did remember, and that was because we’d experienced it so many times, but we left it there, and that episode ends very abruptly afterwards. But yeah, going into the season, I’m sure everybody said this over and over again. They don’t really let us know anything until the scripts come out, and then scripts come in batches of two ’cause we shoot two episodes at a time. So it was kind of like that. Just little bits and pieces.

ScreenRant: Now Jade has this cat shirt that he wears very often. What is the story behind the cat shirt, either in the real world or in Jade’s life?

David Alpay: I can’t believe how much this has taken off. It’s become like a viral thing in and of itself. And I know that there’s people on Etsy selling cat shirts now. The idea was that I had one costume change throughout all of season one. He had a blue and white striped shirt. He had these capri pants and socks with no shoes, and that was his look. And at one point, I think most of the way through season one, I asked Rachel, “Hey, is Jade getting a costume change? It’d be nice to maybe wear something else.” She said, “Yeah, come on in. We’ve got a bunch of racks of clothes that we want to try on.” And I found a cardigan, not unlike this one, actually, a green cardigan at a thrift store in Halifax, where we film, and it was like one of these beautiful Halifax thrift stores and East Coast knit sweaters, fisherman sweaters.

And I come in, and I go, “Oh, these are cool outfits. How about this, though? This is kind of fun. Feels nice and cozy, something Jade might wear just to be cozy.” They’re like, “Okay.” So they got three of those, done. And then I said, “And as for a t-shirt, I have this idea.” I think I’d seen a meme online, and it was like a little kitten, a little fluffy kitten, kind of a timid kitten, like the Cottonelle kitten, but he’s imagining himself to be a brave kitten. And right above him, in a fuzzy sort of imagery, there’s another kitten who’s a little bit more brave, perhaps on a branch. And I thought, I want Jade to be wearing that shirt. Can we get that shirt? Can we get that meme on a shirt? ‘Cause without saying anything, with never drawing attention to the fact that he’s wearing a kind of goofy shirt, and I want it to be bright pink.

Can we do bright pink? And I never want him to draw attention to it. I don’t want … It’s like he’s rummaging around, he grabs the shirt, he doesn’t give a crap what anybody thinks about it, but sometimes the way people’s pets kind of look just like them, I thought he should wear something that emits what he feels like on the inside, which is a kind of cat-like persona. That’s his spirit animal. So he’s a little gruff. He likes to be alone. People bother him. I had a cat growing up, and that’s exactly how he was. And then I had a dog later in life who was exactly like my cat.

ScreenRant: Oh wow.

David Alapy: I’ve never had … As much as I’ve tried to love animals, the feeling isn’t necessarily reciprocated, but I keep feeding them and petting them anyway. So Rachel Grant, who’s a brilliant costume designer, went off. She came up with five or six different iterations of cat shirts, and then ultimately, the decision was with her and MGM, and they picked the purple one with all the cats represented. And I’m like, “Okay, that works.”

ScreenRant: Incredible.

David Alpay: And I get to wear it every day, and it’s so awesome. And it just takes the edge off, I think. Even though he’s become this haggard-looking thing, he gets to wear a little cat shirt, and I think it’s great. I think it’s awesome. So are all the people getting those, and wearing them, and celebrating Jade.

Check out more of our From coverage here:

New episodes of From air Sundays on MGM+.