***The following contains spoilers for 4x09***

On the penultimate episode of season four of FROM this weekend, it was revealed that Clara (Katerina Bakolias), who began as a background character, was, in fact, a mole. Sophia (Julia Doyle) came to Clara with black eyes, reminding her what she really is and of the deal they made, and now, she’s calling in the favor. Clara, both because she is scared, and in the hope of going home, helps Sophia by adding the entity’s blood to a drink she gives Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) in hopes of speeding up whatever is currently happening to her.

SciFi Vision spoke to creator and executive producer John Griffin, showrunner and executive producer Jeff Pinkner, and executive producer and director Jack Bender about how long that storyline had been in the works. According to them, it came organically. “I will say that that evolved, and it evolved out of the best version of our three-legged stool creative process,” explained Bender.

“[O]ne of the wonderful things about the process and this show…is that sometimes people emerge in ways that were unexpected,” Griffin added. Bakolias really impressed them and over time evolved to be a bigger part of the series, and it led to using her when they needed a character to perform a specific function. “[A]s Clara became a more important part of the show, and as we realized, oh, you know what, we want the Man in Yellow to have an inside track in the town… and as we were discussing who this should be, one day I got a text from Jeff Pinkner saying, ‘Clara should be the mole!’”

The three also talked about some other pieces that were added organically. “[T]he ballerina, the fact that the Man in Yellow (Douglas E. Hughes) is a shapeshifter,” added Pinkner. “There are, as John said, a litany of examples of things that have emerged from the awesome creative process of telling a story on television with a team of shockingly talented and brilliant actors, writers, and craftspeople, artists, in every department in our show.”

For the full interview with the creatives, watch the interview and read the transcript below. The season four finale of FROM airs Sunday on MGM+.




SCIFI VISION:   To start off, I want to know, how long ago did you plan for Clara to be the mole?

JACK BENDER:   Oh, that's interesting. I will say, because I'm not - I don't write the scripts, but I'm involved in the final scripts just creatively as one of the three exec producers here. And Jeff and John run the writer's room and brilliantly come up with the stories and the scripts. I will say that that evolved, and it evolved out of the best version of our three-legged stool creative process. And rather than get into the specificity of how that happened, it went from, we need something, we need, and boom, and boom, and boom, and back and forth, and we end up with her. That's how I remember it. Guys, is that accurate?

JEFF PINKNER:   Yeah.

JOHN GRIFFIN:   I can be a little bit more specific. First of all, one of the wonderful things about the process and this show, and Jack just alluded to it, is that sometimes people emerge in ways that were unexpected. The actress that plays Clara has been a wonderful discovery for us. She started off as a background person with a few lines, and really sort of evolved into one of those staples that our show doesn't allow us to really explore, the background, the residents in the background, but it's really important to always remember that this town is about more than just our staples. And Clara was a really wonderful opportunity to do that, and now we've got another opportunity this season with Patty (Trina Corkum). So, as Clara became a more important part of the show, and as we realized, oh, you know what, we want the Man in Yellow to have an inside track in the town, like, it would be great for the Man in Yellow, because, ultimately, you want somebody that your villain can play scenes with. Part of the wonderful nature of Julia Doyle's two-sided performance is that we get to see what's lurking beneath the surface, because she has someone in town to talk to. And as we were discussing who this should be, one day I got a text from Jeff Pinkner saying, “Clara should be the mole!” and he's like, “oh, it's brilliant, let's do that,” you know. And so it really, as Jeff said, as Jack said, it really, it started with the fact that the actor that plays [her], Katerina, the actor that plays Clara, is just so lovely and really emerged as part of our ensemble, and then we found a really unique way to use her.

JACK BENDER:   I just want to add one specific to this, and that is that it was one of our first episodes, if not our first, no, it was, when Jade, yeah, one or two, where Jade comes to town, and he's this pain-in-the-ass guy who's arrogant and wealthy, and the world is his obnoxious oyster, and he wants to take a ride around town, and he goes over at a scene where he goes up, to someone and says, “She has a bike,” and he just takes it, and there was a line or two that were very appropriate for him to just ignore, yeah, “Leave me alone. I'm taking your bike,” and I chose this young actress who was part of it, and she just nailed it, and when we saw it all, we went, “Oh my God, she's great,” and that's how her evolution started, and that's a wonderful part of the process of being able to make a show, having a universe of characters you're setting up, and the ones that need to rise to the top, do.

SCIFI VISION:   You make me wonder, was there any other things that were kind of big and important in the show that came organically like that, that you didn't plan from the beginning?

JOHN GRIFFIN:   There is a litany of those things. Go ahead, Jay, yeah.

JACK BENDER:   Do you mind?

JOHN GRIFFIN:   No, of course, go ahead.

JACK BENDER:   We were doing a scene where there was - in season two, right, guys?

JOHN GRIFFIN:   Yes.

JACK BENDER:   Yeah, season two, Harold [Perrineau] comes upon what the guys wrote was this music box, and it's playing this tune, and I said to the prop guy…it wasn't specified what the music box was, and I said, “Well, let's get a little, make it a ballerina, and we can break her leg, you know, one of those ballerinas spinning on the music box,” and we do that. And we shoot the scene, and Harold, and the music box, and the little ballerina turning in front of him, and I just said to the guys, “Wait until you see these dailies, guys, we gotta, the ballerina isn't finished,” and I left it to them to figure out. They agreed, and then the ballerina, they created this brilliant way to have the ballerina come to life in Harold's eyes, and that’s was part of the joy of this show, I will say.

JEFF PINKNER:   Yeah, Clara's emergence as a really important character, the ballerina, the fact that the Man in Yellow (Douglas E. Hughes) is a shapeshifter. There are, as John said, a litany of examples of things that have emerged from the awesome creative process of telling a story on television with a team of shockingly talented and brilliant actors, writers, and craftspeople, artists, in every department in our show. And Jack on the set, John and I in the writer's room, and producing the show, our sound team, our visual effects team, we have said from the beginning, and we live it, ideas come from everywhere. We have really talented people working on the show, and we want them all to be invested, and there are. We knew the skeleton and the basic contours of the story we were telling. All of the details have emerged out of process, and there have been so many discoveries along the way that we, you know, if we sat down and thought about it, we could spend the next two hours telling stories about how things came to be.

JOHN GRIFFIN:   And I think part of the design of the show is almost like, part of the intention was to kind of create this, you know, this canvas, this canvas of possibilities. It's almost like we created an architecture that would allow us to decorate it in any number of different ways and have these other brilliant people come in and add their decorations, and because we're all building the same house, we're all designing the same thing. And so, yeah, as Jeff could say, like, we could probably take up all your time, and multiples of your time, just going through the number of things that we've discovered. And that's been part of the joy, like, when the show surprises us, is some of the most exciting moments in making the show, because it's like, allowing it to be sort of like a living, breathing thing, as opposed to this rigid construct that we've had, you know, planned out, the minutiae of which we've planned out since the beginning. That would be very - that wouldn't be a lot of fun to make. Like, again, like having the idea, the destination, the architecture of it, firmly in place to allow for discovery, has been a big part of the fun of the show.