The first season of Castle Rock came to a close on Wednesday, and I thought I’d give my view of the season.

Connections

If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s work, movies, short stories, or books then you’ll probably get a kick out of Castle Rock.  There are easter eggs and call-backs to many of King’s characters, places, themes, motifs, and the author himself.

If you’re not a fan, the story is still pretty enjoyable.

Castle Rock takes place in the town of the same name set in Maine.  King grew up in Maine and many of the central locations of his stories are set there.  

This particular story takes place in a very familiar location: Shawshank Prison from The Shawshank Redemption.

In that story, an innocent man, Andy Dufresne spends most of his life trying to escape the prison, which he eventually does by the close of that story.

Castle Rock picks up many years later in that same prison.  The series picks up with the new warden (played by Terry O’Quinn of Lost fame) killing himself.  As the new warden takes over, they find that O’Quinn’s Warden Lacey had sectioned off an entire section of the jail.  She orders the section to be checked out, and the officer (played by Noel Fisher of Shameless fame) finds a young man has been kept there in a cage.

So starts the series of downward spiral events.  

Throughout, the series tackle things that exemplifies King’s work.  There’s talk of the Scisma, vibrations, time travel, the shining, mind reading, messages from God, and other creepy elements that King does so well.  Some are done better than others in this series, for instance, the Scisma I was handled too well or developed enough, I don’t feel like.  I’m not sure what I would have done different, but when I watched it I felt like it was lacking.  

The Plot

Warning going further:  I try to stay away from major spoilers but I will be talking about the plot in general here.  Skip to the next sections if you don’t want anything spoiled.

The Kid, as he will be called for most of the season, tells the guards there that his name is Henry Deaver.  That would be all well and good, but apparently, there is already a Henry Deaver from this town and that Henry is a lawyer for death row inmates. 

In typical fashion, we find out that Henry Deaver has a past. When he was younger, he and his father went out to the woods one night.  Henry’s father is found, near death, and Henry goes missing for a while after that.  

These days, Henry hasn’t been home in a while, because it seems the town thinks that he killed his father.  But when he his called about he comes home to help.

In the prison, we see that evil follows this kid around.  Anyone that touches him ends up dead by the end of the episode.  Through the series, we are also told that The Kid doesn’t age, and we will eventually see years into the past where The Kid does indeed look the same.

As Henry comes home, we see that things aren’t how he wants them to be.  His father’s grave has been moved, his mother’s (Ruth Deaver) Alzheimer is getting worse, and she has been shacking up with the old sheriff of the town.

Acting

The acting in the show is top notch. Sissy Spacek’s depiction of Ruth Deaver I thought was an award-winning performance.  As mentioned earlier, Ruth Deaver is battling with Alzheimer’s and Spacek really exemplifies the frustration people battling that disease and those that love them, go through.  

When King creates characters, he usually roots them in some normal type affliction like alcoholism, like this but twists them into something more sinister.  This is still the case here where Ruth claims that she doesn’t have a disease, but has really just been knocked out of time.  She tells characters that she doesn’t experience time like normal people.

Spacek especially shines in the episode The Queen which focuses on Ruth and her experience through the timeline.  It has quick jumps to different parts of her life that had been established through the show up to that point.  It is meant to show us how Ruth experiences the timeline, but we also get some insight into the story.  

Sadly, we don’t ever really get a solid grasp on if she’s really someone knocked out of time, or if everything was just in her mind.  

Bill Skarsgard also does a great job with what little dialogue he has as The Kid.  Just like his turn as Pennywise in IT he makes The Kid creepy and mysterious without having too much to say.  

One thing I noticed though is for the first 8 episodes, The Kid moves with a lean to him.  His left shoulder always sat higher than his left.  It seemed to add to the character, but as we learn more about him and as the season winds down, that lean is gone and never really explained.  It’s a small tick, but one that I wish had been explained more.  It sure did look creepy when he moved.

All of the actors do a great job in their respective roles.  I think Spacek deserves some awards for what she brought to the role.

The ending

Spoil warning again.  Mostly about the last two episodes.

I feel like the ending was really episode 9 and 10, instead of just one.  You can’t really talk about one without the other.  

In episode 9 we get the backstory for The Kid.  According to episode 9, it turns out that he was never lying.  He is Henry Deaver, just from another Universe.  

Turns out that our Henry had traveled to another universe when he had gone out to the woods with his father.  This universe’s Henry had escaped from his abusive father when his mother had run away with the sheriff.  His life was very different, and he had committed himself to creating a cure for Alzheimer. 

Then our Henry crosses paths with other-word Henry and bad things start to happen to older Henry.   The audience is led to believe that crossing over makes you cursed, to put it in its simplest form.  

Older Henry tries to help our Henry get back to his universe, and in doing so gets stuck.  He eventually gets kidnapped by the Warden, who was on a quest from God and taken to Shawshank.  

While watching, and even now, I had a big problem with this from a storytelling perspective.  All season long, we were shown that The Kid was evil.  Anyone he touched winds up dead.  Even in the finale, The Kid seems to mind control others to kill each other.  It doesn’t seem like there is any good in him.  Granted, he had sat in a jail cell by himself of years, but still.  I think more could have been done to show that if this story of his was real, how he wasn’t an evil figure.  Where was the guy that created a cure to an awful disease?

When the Henry’s do start to trek through the woods to find the noise, and the way back to The Kid’s universe, Henry starts to recall how this was very much how his father and he had trekked through years before when he ended up crossing universes.  Henry turns on The Kid (who we get a quick glimpse of being something other than a human) and eventually holds him at gunpoint before we… cut to commercial.  

When we come back from the break, we see that things are back to (as) normal (as possible) for Castle Rock.  Our Henry has moved to Castle Rock and started to practice law there.  His mother has died in the year since and been buried next to the sheriff.  

We also see that Henry has The Kid locked back in his cell in Shawshank, which has been shut down.  Henry has been taking care of The Kid this entire time, unsure of what to really do with him.  As the scene closes, we get that creepy smile that Skarsgard is known for. 

Reaction

I thought the series started strong, and I liked all the connection to King’s work.  I haven’t read everything, but I have read some and it brought me joy when I would see a sign for something like Jerusalem’s Lot in the background.  

After Ruth’s episode though, I felt like things went downhill, just like a Stephen King novel.  There have only been a few King novels that I felt like had a strong ending. It seems like King just writes until he’s done, with no plan and no powerful ending.  Just like that, I thought this show fizzled.

And it did, but the further I get away from the finale, the more I think it had some great ideas.  Namely being the trustworthy narrator.

In episode 9 when we’re told the story of The Kid, it’s The Kid that is telling us the story.  The entire episode is him telling the story.  The writers did a great job of turning The Kid sympathetic.  After hearing the story, everything that The Kid had done up until then went out the window.  I was sorry that he was caught up in the entire thing.  I forgot that many characters were “told by God” that he was the devil.  

That final scene with the crooked smile though sits with you.  Looking back to write this review and thinking of all the evil things he did, made me wonder how truthful his story in episode 9 was.  And then I remembered he was the devil.  

The problem was that the writers didn’t connect the idea of the untrustworthy narrator.  Again, I’m not sure what I would have done to do that, but I think setting that up earlier would have helped the impact of the final scene.  

Should you watch it?

All in all, I thought the show was very enjoyable.  If you enjoy horror, and creepy shows like Stranger Things (which was inspired by King as well) you’ll like this show.  

If you like connected universes and Stephen King you’ll like this show.  

Stay away if you don’t like those things.

I’m looking forward to season 2, which will tackle a different set of characters and a different story.