The Stand: The Vigil

January 22, 2021 7:09 AM - Season 1, Episode 6

While all of Boulder fears for Mother Abagail's safety, Stu organizes search parties to ensure her return, presenting an opportunity for Harold and Nadine. In New Vegas, Flagg recruits a dangerous new follower. Air Date: Jan 20, 2021
posted by guiseroom (5 comments total)

While I haven't commented a lot in these threads, because it's tough to not talk about the book in relation to individual episodes, I do have to say that Ezra Miller's version of the Trashcan Man is probably my least-favorite change in this adaptation. This miniseries seems to generally have problems with characters who don't have a lot of dialogue and whose drama is mostly interior--see also Nick Andros--but the weird peek into Trashy's mind when Flagg is contacting him, complete with what looks like a woman being sexually assaulted by a giant cockroach, just makes him more freakish instead of the more sympathetic and pitiful character that he is in the book. It's like the rubber monster mask that they'd put Flagg in in the 90s adaptation: it's distracting at best and completely kills the mood at worst. You could see someone sending the book's Trashcan Man out into the desert to find munitions in general; sending Miller's Trashy out specifically to find a nuke, unaccompanied, is toting the idiot ball in the worst way.

The rest of the ep is pretty good, with the impending bomb forming the center of the action. I appreciate their giving Harold and Nadine some apparent doubts about what they're doing. I also found Tom's way of leaving Las Vegas more plausible, if also more gruesome.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:06 AM on January 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm dumbfounded by the choices made for Trashcan Man. It was bad and uncomfortable to watch. It's also like, why would Flagg entrust this person for anything? At least Lloyd understood.

I do wonder if Ezra Miller is such a big name now that maybe he came in with this crazy interpretation and no one told him to tone it down or try something else. I really hope this wasn't a collaborative effort. This was probably my least favorite episode yet.
posted by guiseroom at 5:08 PM on January 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm disappointed in Trashcan Man too. In fact, pretty much everything on the bad side of town is too cartoonish to take seriously at all. Here's hoping just a little bit of subtlety will creep in before the end.
posted by h00py at 5:40 PM on January 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is not the books included post (there was a full season post). This is the problem with fanfare, I came here wanting a robust discussion ....instead its all about the failings from the books
posted by Lesium at 4:27 AM on January 27, 2021

i was just glad to not hear any songs by the pixies at a particular climactic moment.
posted by 20 year lurk at 12:04 PM on January 29, 2021