Castle Rock

Episode Reviews

Oct. 23, 2019: “Let the River Run”

Annie Wilkes and her daughter, Joy, literally crash into Castle Rock for a spell, flipping their car over as they drive through. The pair don’t stay anywhere for very long, and Annie’s not planning on sticking around here, either. She hopes to get a job as a nurse, steal several bottles of antipsychotics (for her own worrisome condition) and take off as soon as she can. Meanwhile, Ace Merrill fumes at the new Somali mall being built: His own shoddy warehouse holds several Somali businesspeople and their stalls, and that new mall is going to cost him business.

Someone kills a man with an ice cream scooper. Yes, that’s right: In one of the most disturbing deaths I’ve seen on television, the killer jams the scooper into the man’s mouth, then hammers it bloodily into the back of his throat like a spike, eventually suffocating the victim with the scooper. Annie, we learn, killed someone in the distant past. In flashback, she runs to a rushing river in a bloodstained shirt and, later, she hallucinates that a dead man with a bloody face (presumably her victim) is chasing her.

A guy firebombs a Somali-owned home, requiring fast work to extinguish the blaze by the occupant. A pit opens up in a construction area, leaving someone hanging precariously from a ledge. A character is apparently dying of cancer. We hear rumor of “massacres” and “kids vanishing into thin air” in nearby communities. Guns are brandished. A car crashes, and later we see one of the occupants with a small cast around her arm.

A girl writes and sings a song that she says is about witches—as in the Satan-worshiping witches that lived in the region long ago. (She tells Joy that those witches could be “buried right under our feet.) We hear derogatory references to Somali “prayer rooms” on talk radio, presumably denigrating Islam.

A local hospital serves both Castle Rock and the nearby community of Jerusalem’s Lot. But while Salem’s Lot patients run the gamut, we learn that 70 to 80% of those from Castle Rock are overdose cases. (The hospital’s drugs are kept securely locked because of that.) Annie steals drugs repeatedly in flashback, and schemes to do so again in Castle Rock. A cancer-ridden man smokes a pipe that, it’s insinuated, is infused with medical marijuana.

Characters say the f-word more than 20 times and the s-word another dozen or so. We also hear “a–,” “d–n,” “h—” and “d–k.” Jesus’ name is abused once.

Sept. 11, 2018: “Romans”

In the Season One finale, The Kid attempts to lure Henry into the woods, believing that “the sound” is actually a portal to another dimension, one that he calls his “home.” When Henry refuses, The Kid takes on a new evil shade, turning to Molly (Henry’s psychic childhood friend) for help, but not before things in Castle Rock go quickly south. Henry’s flashbacks increase and he finally remembers who killed his father. At the end of the episode, a young woman is introduced as the possible new focus for the second season.

The Kid foretells the deaths of many. People are brutally stabbed, shot and killed in other ways. (A man is seen with an axe in his head and a woman is run over by a bus.) Dead bodies lie on the ground, covered in blood. Characters hear death threats and uncover , mysterious murders, and a woman contemplates suicide. Buildings explode and are consumed by fire. A man crashes his car after it’s attacked by ravens.

There is a brooding sense of fear over Castle Rock as omens take various forms. Henry remembers his father quoting Romans 6:23 (“For the wages of sin is death…”) and plotting to kill his unfaithful mother. We hear other discussions about sin, heaven, the voice of God and the desire to live a pure life.

People smoke cigarettes. An empty wine glass sits on a table. Jesus’ name is misused once. The f-word is heard more than ten times and the s-word three times. Other profanities include “b–ch,” “a–hole” and “h—.” There are multiple crude references to the male anatomy. Women wear revealing outfits.

July 25, 2018: “Severance”

After the warden of Shawshank Prison kills himself, his successor decides to open up a long-closed cellblock and finds, much to her consternation, a man caged up in its dank bowels. Fearing a public relations nightmare, she wants the guy (who’s not a prisoner) to simply disappear in the system. But a conscientious security guard calls Henry Deaver, a death-row attorney in Texas, to help the man. Henry, however, has his own dark history with Castle Rock, one that he’ll be forced to face.

The warden’s suicide by a hanging of sorts (in his car) is brutally depicted in a way that manages to decapitate him. We don’t actually see the rope pull off his head, but blood sprays across the dashboard of his car, and it’s pretty clear what’s happened. Later we hear that he was, in fact, decapitated. (One prison official jokes that the deceased warden should receive “10% off” his funeral costs).

A woman dies—badly—via lethal injection, jerking around when the drug fails to work as designed. Several prison guards are shown, through black-and-white security cameras, dead in the prison’s halls, blood pooling around their bodies. A mouse dies in a trap. A police officer uncovers a dead deer, wiping snow off its open eyeball. A live chicken is held over a hungry alligator, with the chicken thrashing and cawing in panic. Jokes and references are made to suicide, murder and death.

It’s suggested that the old, dead warden was a “perv,” and that the mysterious man was his sex slave (using a more obscene descriptor). When a man takes a shower, we see the upper part of his torso and a bit of his rear. A middle-aged woman buys drugs from a high schooler: He’s attracted to her, seemingly, but she tells him that she’d have to have kids in order to qualify as a “MILF.”

Someone pours himself a glass of whiskey. A woman fondly remembers how, as a kid, her dad would get drunk and drive his children to watch alligators. “Sometimes, I’d get to drive the car home at the end of the night,” she remembers. A coffee can is filled with cigarette butts, and we see a man smoke a cigarette. We hear mention of alcoholics and drug dealers, along with allusions to possible racism, too.

A woman ponders what happens to memories when we die. “Wherever you go next, does the tape get erased?” (She admits she actually hopes it does.) A street preacher blares a message over the radio. Henry visits his father’s old church, walking past its stained glass windows, and mentions to someone that his dad used to lead Bible studies at the prison on occasion. Crosses hang on walls. We hear references to heaven and Ecclesiastes.

We hear about a dozen f-words and at least six s-words, along with “d–n” and one abuse of Jesus’ name.

Aug. 15, 2018: “Filter”

Henry’s son, Wendell, comes into town. Henry attempts to retrace his childhood memories to understand the “ringing sound” that haunts him. Ruth returns from the hospital after attempted suicide. Henry’s client, “the Kid,” warns Pangborn that Ruth may not have much time left to live.

Molly Strand tells Henry, to his disbelief, that he hated his father as a young child and wanted him to die. Additionally Molly tells Henry that she and he are “one and the same,” and that she also wanted Henry’s father to die.
Henry and his son have a broken relationship that, to this point, Henry seems unable to mend.

A group of men talk about hearing “the voice of God.” Scripture is read after a burial and the minister says that “death is swallowed up in victory.” Ironically, deathly omens (such as birds crashing to their demise and someone looking as if he’s being smothered) pervade the episode, and many residents of Castle Rock seem to be fearfully waiting for their own deaths. A man is locked inside a small space and a former convict is admitted to a psych ward. The radio announces that Psych ward burned to the ground, killing some of the patients and releasing others. A man’s arm is covered in blood.

Half a dozen f-words are heard. Other profanities include the “s-word” as well as “d–mit” and “a–hole.” Jesus’ name is misused once.