Castle Rock: Local Color

July 29, 2018 3:51 PM - Season 1, Episode 3

Haunted by visions of her past, Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey) goes on a journey through the strange and dark underbelly of Castle Rock; later, Henry has his first face-to-face meeting with "The Kid."

This wraps up the first week of Castle Rock posts, covering the first three episodes. Regular posts will be Wednesday evening, following each new episode's release on Hulu.

Although I'm resisting labeling these posts as "Books Included" (since the show is more of a pastiche than a true adaptation) please feel free to share any insights you may have based on your reading/viewing of the King oeuvre.

posted by Strange Interlude (3 comments total)

The show takes a couple of interesting chances in this episode:

First of all there's the gamble it takes with Molly, who seems to be treading a path reminiscent of Lynskey's turn in 1994's Heavenly Creatures, with some elements of her role in last year's I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore in the mix as well. With a character like this there's a risk of turning the audience against the actor, and it's perfectly in Lynskey's wheelhouse. She did a great job of keeping us on Molly's side throughout, even with the knowledge of what she had done.

Secondly, there's the willingness to get weird, as we saw in the scene in the creepy masked children's courtroom. I have no idea if we're ever going to revisit that place or those kids, but it was a nice example of the show going just a bit beyond what is either logical or necessary for the sake of maintaining the atmosphere of King. In some ways, it's scratching my itch for more Twin Peaks, even though this show is clearly much more "normal" in terms of overall execution.
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:13 PM on July 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've REALLY enjoyed these first three episodes, and am waiting anxiously for episode 4 tomorrow.

I liked this quick summary of the easter eggs for Constant Readers, as a King fan who hasn't read ABSOLUTELY everything. Some things made my brain itch, thinking it was probably a reference to something, but I couldn't be sure. Others were more obvious. A few (Jackie Torrance) are fun to speculate about!
posted by terilou at 11:27 AM on July 31, 2018 [3 favorites]

Because of King’s many stories set in Castle Rock and the numerous adaptations thereof, a lot of the characters showing up in the series have appeared onscreen before. I noticed with some amusement that the role of Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn here) was previously played by Michael Rooker in The Dark Half as well as by Ed Harris in Needful Things.

Glenn and Harris were both in The Right Stuff — it is odd that two out of the seven Mercury astronauts would wind up playing the same character. I had this vague sense that someone else from that group might have wound up in a Stephen King adaptation. I was halfway right: Lance Henriksen has a role in The Mangler 2, a shoddy sequel to probably the shoddiest King movie. Incidentally, if you wonder how a genre actor as accomplished as Henriksen wound up in such a flick, I note that IMDb has him with 89 credits since 2010 and 12 more upcoming. I am guessing he does not say no to a lot of jobs.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:33 PM on May 22, 2019