The Stand: The Stand

February 4, 2021 8:54 AM - Season 1, Episode 8

Risking everything, the Boulder travelers face off with Flagg's followers in New Vegas, among them a very different - and pregnant - Nadine. Air Date: Feb 3, 2021
posted by guiseroom (17 comments total)

I hate this show more every week.
posted by guiseroom at 10:49 AM on February 4, 2021 [6 favorites]

Boy, with an endorsement like _that_, I can't wait!
posted by Kyol at 12:57 PM on February 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

Boy, that did not go where I was expecting it to, at all. That was definitely “and Poochie returned to his home planet” level of thrown together ending.

Can’t wait for the coda!
posted by Kyol at 5:06 PM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I mean OK - Glen manages to get under Lloyd's skin and pointed out that the only power Flagg had was fear, but Glen wasn't afraid. Ok, that takes a chunk out of Flagg's armor. Then Larry gets Nadine to see herself for what she has become, and she realizes that Flagg is just using her, too. Another dent in Flagg's armor. Then they lead Ray and Larry into the pool and... And here's where I kind of wanted a moment for Ray? Instead, Larry double dips into sowing doubt, and then instead of Flagg losing followers some other way, uh.. God shows up and electrocutes everybody before literally nuking Flagg's followers.

Presumably a few feet of water didn't help Larry and Ray. So Stu gets to be the witness to the miracle, and Tom carries him all the way back to boulder with a broken leg?

Gollllllllllll-ly.
posted by Kyol at 5:57 PM on February 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

There's a certain amount of foreshortening that occurred, possibly because of the need to adapt a very big book, but I still think that the severe abridgment of the Trashcan Man's arc was not a great idea. And, in general, Flagg's long slide downhill had more time to develop in the book and therefore much more momentum. (And, again, I know that this isn't the book thread, so I'll stop there, but... there was potential for a lot more.) The lightning ball disintegrating the minions before doing so for Flagg was kind of anticlimactic and took too long. On the other hand, the kangaroo court scene was if anything an improvement over the book, in which Glen's last scene takes place with Flagg and Lloyd. There's a very Jerry Springer ambiance to it that rings true, and it also made for a satisfying moment when it got out of Lloyd's control.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:05 PM on February 4, 2021

Yeah, Trashcan Man basically seemed like, hey here's a guy that's a little too into blowing shit up, Flagg has him recruited and sends him out to get a nuke, and Trashcan Man brings it back to Flagg instead of the airfield because of reasons we didn't have airtime to show you. And scene!

I mean, basically all of the secondary characters were little more than sketches, really.
posted by Kyol at 7:36 PM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I mean at least I kinda understood Harold's motivations and I could kinda understand Nadine if I squinted just right, but most everybody else? whuf, yeah no idea - life letcha down, did it little buddy? That's OK, you can watch some guys kill each other in a swimming pool, it'll make you feel better.
posted by Kyol at 7:54 PM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Harold was the main character of this show.

Also, just a reminder that there is a books included thread.

There's a lot I'd like to say about this show with and without talking about the book (and the 94 miniseries) but honestly this show just isn't worth the effort.
posted by guiseroom at 8:50 PM on February 4, 2021

that was some unusual lightning.
posted by 20 year lurk at 8:55 PM on February 4, 2021

Yeah, I'll bop over to the book thread after the last episode. Honestly, the main draw of this version for me is that King was writing a new ending, so we'll see how that goes.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:43 PM on February 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

And here I was thinking the remake was less cheesy than the original miniseries. My condolences to the lactose intolerant folks in the audience.
posted by sacrifix at 10:07 PM on February 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

randall flagg dancing, tho
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:35 PM on February 6, 2021 [6 favorites]

M-O-O-N, that spells WTF
posted by biscotti at 4:44 AM on February 7, 2021 [6 favorites]

I just want to say that although I'm enjoying this series on a very surface level, the inattention to detail is really giving me the shits. I mean, I think Ezra Miller is amazing but he is totally wasted as Trashcan Man. The character was almost offensively under written. All he got to do was make a few skwerk noises and wear a revealing outfit. Ludicrous. More than anything, this epitomises how surface level this show is. He should have been magnificent in his uniquely fucked up way but he was .. bleh.
posted by h00py at 4:28 AM on February 12, 2021

This weird bullshit song "Feels Like in Heaven" feels like a crap electronic remix/remake of "Time After Time." I wonder if they had a rights issue.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:12 PM on March 28, 2021

One nice thing I will say is about Fiona Dourif, who played Rat Woman. If there is a better actor to play am updated version of the shrieking punk demon character, I do not know who that is. I wish she had gotten to do more. She has range. Not a lot of people can convincingly pull off that archetype anymore.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:15 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

whuf, yeah no idea - life letcha down, did it little buddy? That's OK, you can watch some guys kill each other in a swimming pool, it'll make you feel better.

The Vegas setup doesn't really make a lot of sense if you squint at it: like, it's an endless bacchanal of fucking and gladiatorial sports with a few guys down in the basement occasionally hauling the corpses away, but: who's feeding those people? who's keeping the lights on? Flagg's supposedly running the place but seems mostly disinterested in anything other than hovering moodily; Lloyd's supposedly Flagg's trusted right-hand man but seems to spend all his time capering and giggling. Who's actually doing any of the work here? How does this society actually function in any meaningful way?

And yeah, the point is that it doesn't, that Flagg's inducements are all flim-flam, that the people in Vegas are already becoming tired of his shit and that our folks making their stand simply throws that into sharper relief, that Flagg's grasp on power was always tenuous, that evil always defeats itself in the face of good. But I do feel it needs to be actually believable that Flagg's version of society could appear attractive and workable to his share of the survivors; and it's not here, what we got shown was just purely hellish.

This show has been a pretty bumpy ride for me: the opening episodes all felt quite rushed, the middle section in Boulder actually worked quite well, but the entire Vegas section: oof, that did not work for me at all.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:51 PM on May 20