Though Stephen King himself was not involved, the first season of Castle Rock, based on King’s works with more Easter Eggs than most people could count, had the hallmarks of a Stephen King novel in that it had a very high concept, two outstanding episodes, some slow moving ones, and ultimately a pretty mediocre ending. One thing the first season was a true iconic King character, sure there was an old version of Alan Pangborn and Jack Torrance’s niece.
The show seemingly set up season two with an end credits scene with the niece heading out west, presumably to Overlook Hotel. Instead the show remains in the titular town though no one from the first season shows up in the second season (that I have spotted anyway, halfway through). Granted they did set up multiple universes in the first season, so we may not even be in one of the two universes we saw last season. But there are references to the Warden killing himself and fires that happened last year. But the setting is the same, we do see the bridge that Ruth jumped off and the bar Jackie Torrance hung out in. Though Shawshank Prison has been shut down.
So no familiar faces this season but there is one very familiar famous name: Annie Wilkes. Yes the main character of Misery and made famous on screen by Kathy Bates. Lizzy Caplain (Cloverfield) is a younger version of the character still rocking the same shoulder length hair cut (flashbacks shows Annie has been wearing the same hairstyle from grade school). Oh and she is also crazy with fits of anger.
We are introduced to Annie and her daughter Joy (I have a bold prediction about her at the end of the review) and they are running away from something with Annie taking temp nursing jobs along the way to get some money and steal some anti-psychotics to keep her sane. But a car crash in Castle Rock, now celebrating its four hundredth anniversary, forces the duo to stay a little longer than Annie would like.
Annie has multiple run in with Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption) and his family while in town. Everyone calls him “Pops” though no children of his own, he did help raise two nephews and two Somali refugees who lost their parents to war. Paul Sparks (Boardwalk Empire) plays the nephew who rents out a place for Annie to stay and is in a blood feud with his “brother” who lives in Jerusalem’s Lot (Salem’s Lot is also a part of this season as well of the theme of rebirth… I think, Annie is not proving to be a reliable narrator) who both want a part of Pops’ minor crime racket and is portrayed by Barkhad Abdi (who utted the iconic line, "I am the captain now" in Captain Philips).
Season two of Castle Rock is a little more even that its predecessor which means there is nothing as great as the two stand out (though a fifth episode flashback comes close) but there are no boring parts that plagued parts of last season. The new season is missing a Jackie Torrance character; Jane Levy sure added some much needed levity to the show. But this is a very different type of story and different type of storytelling because it is at times if we are seeing Annie’s psychotic breaks or if what she (and the audience) seeing something that is actually happening. Still, Lizzy Caplan is great in the role as she knows she is slowly going crazy no matter how hard she tries to avoid it.
But here is my bold prediction; Lizzie Caplan is not the Annie Wilkes we read about in the books, after this Annie dies, her daughter takes the name and goes on to torture authors. Or maybe she will meet up with Jackie Torrance out west and we will eventually get a Castle Rock season populated by all relative of famous Stephen King characters.
The first three episodes of Castle Rock are on Hulu today with a new episode premiering every Wednesday.
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