A nurse on the run with her teenaged daughter ends up stranded in a small Maine town where something evil lurks in the second season of Castle Rock, Hulu's psychological horror anthology series that draws inspiration from the works of Stephen King. The series was a surprising breakout hit last summer, and this new season doesn't disappoint, bringing the same slow burn and unexpected twists leading to a riveting finale.
(Mild spoilers for season one and season two below.)
The fictional town of Castle Rock features in so many of King's novels that co-creators Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason thought they could use it as an organizing principle for their storytelling. The series is less a direct adaptation of King's works and more new stories set in the fictional town that occasionally bump up against various books. The biggest King influences for season one were The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile—in other words, a prison-centric setting with themes of crime and punishment. Shawshank tells the story of a prisoner's disappearance, while Castle Rock's focus is the mysterious appearance of a prisoner nobody knew about.
Season one opened with the suicide of the local prison warden, Dale Lacy (Terry O'Quinn) and the discovery that he secretly kept a mysterious young man—known only as the Kid (Bill Skarsgård)—captive for decades. Not only did the Kid not age, violent outbreaks seemed to follow in his wake. The show remained cagey about who the Kid was, whether he was a monster or a victim, even in the finale, with its distinctively King-like denouement.
The season highlight was the heartbreaking seventh episode, "The Queen," told entirely from the point of view of Ruth (Sissy Spacek), whose age-related dementia is rapidly worsening and affecting her ability to distinguish between the present and the past. (At several points, she walks out of a conversation in the present and into a different conversation in 1991.) The episode has deep personal resonance for Shaw, whose own mother suffered from dementia and died unexpectedly a few days after he started writing the series. I called it "the most beautifully constructed, superbly acted hour of television of you're likely to see this year."
Castle Rock's second season doesn't have a single standalone episode of quite the same caliber, but it still packs a punch. The source material this time around is King's award-winning 1987 novel, Misery, featuring one of his most memorable characters, Annie Wilkes, a psychotic (and murderous) former nurse.
In the novel, a middle-aged Annie rescues her favorite novelist, Paul Sheldon, after a car accident in which he breaks both legs. Paul's last novel killed off the central heroine of his Victorian romance series, Misery Chastain, as he had grown tired of the character and wanted to write crime novels. But his "Number One fan," as Annie calls herself, refuses to accept Misery's demise and holds Paul captive, forcing him to resurrect Misery in a new novel—or else. The 1990 film starred Kathy Bates as Annie, who won an Oscar for her performance, which included an infamous scene in which Annie chops off Paul's foot with an axe to ensure he can't escape.
Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) is a nurse with mental issues on the run from her past before ending up in Castle Rock. Hulu Annie's primary concern is protecting her daughter, Joy (Elsie Fisher). Hulu Joy finds a friend in local misfit Chance (Abby Corrigan). Hulu Reginald "Pop" Merrill (Tim Robbins) is the dying patriarch of the local crime family. Hulu Dr. Nadia Omar (Yusra Warsama) is a Somali refugee Pop adopted as a teenager. Hulu Nadia's brother, Abdi (Barkhad Abdi) has a tense relationship with their adoptive father. Hulu Annie has a violent encounter with John "Ace" Merrill, Pop's nephew. Hulu Annie will do anything, even kill, to protect Joy. Hulu Annie tries to dispose of a corpse at the construction site in nearby Jerusalem's Lot. Hulu Annie uncovers an underground burial chamber. Hulu A flashback to Annie's teen years with her father. Hulu Annie may have inherited her mental illness from her mother. Hulu Annie and Joy surrender to police. Hulu Ace and Valerie (Alison Wright) outside the infamous Marsten House. Hulu Pop realizes the truth of just what Ace and his followers are up to at the Marsten House. Read More – Source
