Castle Rock Review: The Mother (Season 2 Episode 6)

Annie finds that the truth can be a difficult thing to fight on Castle Rock Season 2 Episode 6, “The Mother.”

The truth can’t be altered or changed to one’s benefit when the lie is spread too thin. Rita’s arrival to Castle Rock places a direct threat on Annie’s relationship with Joy, as that truth, shrouded for so long, is now out in the open.

But surprisingly, Joy does not take it as a call to action against Annie. Joy’s choices become a central focus on the episode, as her uncertainty of who to trust leaves both Rita and Annie at a disadvantage. It’s a little muddy still if the suddenness of the revelation that Rita is her mother is leaving Joy numb, or if all of the distrust over the years has left her unable to trust even the truth anymore.

Joy turning to Annie in the woods, and Annie saying that both her version and Rita’s version have truth in them, shows that Joy still holds onto something with Annie. There’s still something there, despite her being her half-sister rather than her mother. Those years together won’t go away so easily. Another interesting wrinkle is Joy’s discomfort at Rita calling Annie her sister. She’s not ready for this truth.

But the main moment of the episode comes from the confrontation between Annie and Rita. Those scenes settle what the main issue really is: the book dedication. It’s Annie being passed over for someone else, which Rita is essentially doing to Annie again by trying to turn Joy to her side. From Annie’s perspective, there’s this sense that she knows she’s caught, but that she’s not ready to give up.

The episode continues leaning toward the darker elements of good not always winning out. Rita’s spent so much of her life stuck behind addiction and searching for Joy, and when she finally finds her, the FBI will not help her, and Joy is not willing to give over completely as initially expected. Rita appears to have spent so much time getting to this moment, and it’s strangely robbed of her, as though it’s not hers.

That Rita takes this and becomes bad herself is a trend on Castle Rock. Good people doing bad things is always a fascinating direction, and with Rita taking Annie off into the woods to execute her, it’s showing Rita as running out of options. That it leads to another fatal injury is ironic, and also shows another betrayal, this time through Joy.

Joy coming to Annie’s defense is a sign that despite all of the horrors over the years, there’s still a bond there. Joy’s go-to move appears to be to knock people out, though, which may cause issues if Rita is checked out thoroughly. Rita is rather still at the end of the episode, leaving her involvement now likely a dead end.

But the interesting thing about Castle Rock this year is that dead is never truly dead: it’s really only just the beginning. Will Rita end up joining the undead uprising? While it could lead to a fun second revenge tale, it does look like those who rise again don’t hold onto their past lives too tightly.

Ace’s conversation with the inebriated Annie makes mention of the ice cream scoop death as though it never happened. Or, at least, it did not happen to whoever is within Ace’s body. It’s mentioned as a dream by Ace, as though who now possesses him does not consider the reality Annie knows as truth anymore.

Ace’s possessor taking an interest in Annie not because of his body’s death but rather for her body for Amity Lambert, presumably his lover, is a fun twist. It’s not clear yet why there must be four days before the transition is allowed to occur; perhaps the rest of the town must be converted before Amity can be brought back.

It is an interesting revelation, though, that drug tolerance slows the effects of the change. With Annie’s cocktail, will she prove a more difficult target to convert, and will she one of the last few standing against the growing army?

Castle Rock Season 2 Episode 6, “The Mother,” takes some marvelously compelling drama and uses it through an emotional perspective to tell the tale of those who have lost so much.

By tying in a lot of the great work done on Castle Rock Season 2 Episode 5, “The Laughing Place,” and tying it to the present, the episode manages to make a case that both Rita and Annie are too far gone, and that Joy is trapped between a rock and a hard place. She makes a choice to help Annie, but may have lost her real mother in the process by complete chance. It’s a choice she will likely regret.

 

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Castle Rock airs Wednesdays on Hulu.

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