Castle Rock Review: Harvest (Season 1 Episode 5)

Castle Rock Season 1 Episode 5, “Harvest,” proves this is a series that will continue to get better with each passing episode — because it has done just that.

This isn’t to say that Castle Rock is a perfect show, by any means. At its core, this is a story about a town that is downright messy, a concept that “Harvest” is all too happy to delve into.

Castle Rock as a town has so many divots and dark histories. While this provides a fascinating and grotesque backdrop for the series, it’s still something that the citizens of the town have to contend with on a daily basis. Throughout all of the novels by Stephen King that he set in Castle Rock, it’s easy to forget that each of those incidents leaves a scar.

That is essentially the point of “Harvest”: that the past — especially for this town and its inhabitants — is inescapable and inexplicable.

Henry isn’t able to shake this reputation he has for himself dating back to when he went missing, while Molly is thrown together with the one person who makes her gift unbearable. Alan is congratulated for his past work as the town’s sheriff, yet he can’t stand it.

Even Jackie, someone much too young to remember most of the gnarly events of the town, has made it her mission in life to not only become the unofficial historian for Castle Rock, but for unseemly horror in general. This is also a woman who changed her name from Diane to Jackie to honor her uncle, Jack Torrance — who you may recognize as the lead character of The Shining. Talk about a dark past.

The standout of the episode is certainly The Kid, who gets plenty of quiet, chilling moments throughout. He provides perhaps the most terrifying sequence in the series thus far when he enters a house during a birthday party for a young boy and watches in the shadows as the parents devolve into a violent rage.

The camera is aimed directly at The Kid for the entire scene, focusing on him but not necessarily showing events from his perspective. Most of what makes that scene work so well are the occasional glimpses of Bill Skarsgard’s face, which betrays so little about what’s going on in his mind.

This creepy moment also teases the idea of madness spreading like disease in this town and suggests that maybe Dale and Alan were right about him — maybe The Kid is the devil. Perhaps it is possible that he has been quietly influencing Castle Rock in ways like this for years and that his captivity is why it’s been so quiet in recent years, as Jackie states at one point.

The increasing characterization of The Kid is also interesting. This begins to come into focus as Alan has him at gunpoint at the end of the episode and claims that The Kid hasn’t aged at all in twenty-seven years. Not only that, but he can fully speak and has a larger agenda in mind.

Some Stray Thoughts:

• The prison video is narrated by a man named Hadley, which is likely a reference to the guard from Shawshank Redemption.
• The voice on the other end with the Warden is Richard Schiff.
• The birthday boy’s name is Gordie, another likely reference to Stand By Me.

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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