Castle Rock is a Can’t Miss Series for Stephen King Fans
In preparation for the impending unveiling of the latest Hulu series Castle Rock, I got an early look at the first three episodes of the series. Among other things, what I’m left with is a show with true promise and potential that should enthrall long-time King fans and new-comers alike.
In many ways, Castle Rock has the feel of a Stephen King novel come to life, but perhaps not as well done.
A common occurrence in recent years has been to describe certain television series as ten-hour long films (or some such nonsense), but Castle Rock takes that in another direction and mostly for the better.
While still being somewhat episodic in nature, there’s a certain resemblance with its style and tone to that of King’s novels, an appropriate move given the conceit of the series. This isn’t merely a series set within the expanded universe of King’s stories but is matching the rhythm and tone of the books, as well.
Castle Rock, as mentioned, is an anthology series set in King’s titular town in Maine, which served as the setting for novels such as “Needful Things” and “Cujo.”
The obvious, but nonetheless interesting move that the series makes from the jump is to treat the town as a place that has actually endured so many of the things that happened from the films and novels.
This is a town that, on its face, doesn’t seem that unfamiliar to towns that some of us may have grown up in and long since left; towns that appear to be crumbling before our very eyes and have long since seen the hope for a revival.
That’s Castle Rock (the place) on its surface, but this is also a town that has barely survived events that readers of Stephen King will recognize. The dog from “Cujo” and the serial killer from “The Dead Zone” are mentioned at one point, making this something that longtime fans can point and be connected to, but this is also a series that the uninitiated can also enjoy.
While there are certainly recognizable staples of King, such as Shawshank Prison and fan-favorite Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn), newcomers can easily come in fresh from the cold into Castle Rock and not feel too many steps behind those that read decades of King novels.
It’s, overall, fairly good about walking the newbies through the larger conceit of the town, and it’s helped that IT is still fresh in people’s minds since that is working on a similar theme, which is that this is a bad place where bad things happen — possibly due to the influence of something altogether sinister.
In many respects, this will be a “Stephen King 101” course, whereas, for fans, this will be something that they can dig deeper into and spot the clever, and sometimes not, references that are sprinkled throughout.
Since this comes from the JJ Abrams camp, it’s hard to not take this back to the idea of his “mystery box,” a term that has so often been used to describe the way that he treats mysteries and the way they’re implemented in his shows and films, but this feels a bit removed from that.
Similar to the way that a Stephen King novel can be, it’s so easy to just get swept up in the tone and menace that the story is weaving you through that, at a certain point, you don’t really care what you’re being lead to. You’re on the ride and you’re fully prepared to just get swept up in it.
This is due in part to how engrossing the series feels, but also, and more importantly, to how captivating each and every performance is.
At the center, you have Andre Holland, who plays Henry Deaver, a death row lawyer that returns to his hometown of Castle Rock after a man (IT‘s Bill Skarsgard) is found unlawfully kept in a cage and only ever says Deaver’s name.
Holland makes for a good protagonist, delivering welcome bouts of bewilderment and dismay at the situations he finds himself in.
He has wonderful, and sometimes off-putting, chemistry with practically everyone he comes into contact with, most notably Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn), the worn and former sheriff with an unspecified connection to the larger plot, and Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey), a frazzled realtor who has a childhood history with Henry and possibly has telepathic abilities.
For the most part, Scott Glenn feels like he’s simply picking up his performance from The Leftovers and that’s more than enough to satisfy anyone. Glenn has a terrific wry sensibility that comes across very well in his interactions with Holland that really sells Pangborn as a possibly duplicitous person.
The actor who does the most with so little material is Skarsgard, a man who is largely mute and does so much of his acting with nothing more than the skittery nature of his eyes.
Although his presence in the series is minimal, mainly seen early in the first episode and in flashbacks or voice-overs throughout the other two episodes, Terry O’Quinn gives a wonderful grounding performance as Dale Lacy, a former warden that is linked with Skarsgard’s character and is aware of the unsettling nature of the town.
An interesting thing to note is that, with few exceptions, most of them have appeared in other King properties and you can see that a bit in the ease with which so many of them are able to give in to the creepiness that a series like this needs to operate in.
For someone like Sissy Spacek, who famously played Carrie in the titular 70’s film, this is like slipping on an old shoe.
Overall, these first three episodes of Castle Rock make for an extremely promising start that revels in its tone and mood in ways that does feel rather reminiscent of the author it’s based on.
What did you think of this episode of Castle Rock? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Castle Rock airs Wednesdays on Hulu.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.