Castle Rock: The Big Let-Down

This might have spoilers. Please take care when reading.

I watched the entire Castle Rock Season 1, which in and of itself is an accomplishment for me. (Note, I did not watch the entire thing in one sitting.) I’m a little disappointed in the final episode, but not for regular reasons. The show had inspired me in a way, and then the final episode… well, read on.

The penultimate episode, called Henry Deaver, showed an alternate reality in which Ruth left the Reverend Matthew Deaver when he lost his mind. In this alternate reality The Kid is Henry Deaver, and the show opens with him running and sirens wailing, but it turns out he’s only exercising before an important meeting. He goes to the meeting in a suit and makes a presentation eloquently and he doesn’t seem the slightest bit creepy or unhappy. He presents a device that his company has been working on to combat the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. He’s a doctor and is inspired by his mother’s condition. After the meeting he calls his wife. In short, he’s happy.

He receives a call from Pangborn, who married his mother. Pangborn tells him that his father has died, so he goes to the house he was raised in to find a hoarder’s nightmare - nothing like the immaculate home we’re used to. In the basement he stumbles upon a small Black child in a cage - the Henry Deaver we know from our reality, but as a child. All of this opened doors to alternate reality theories, with universes crossing paths and people being flung from one to another, a real mind game.

This concept made me pause and consider my life. My thoughts focused on the trip I took in the 90’s to visit my brother who was stationed there with the Peace Corps. It was the best time of my life, and remains a highlight for me. It also was the beginnings of a problem that I’ve dealt, and will deal with, for the rest of my life.

This episode made me see my life very clearly with two realities. In the alternate one, my mother left my father when we were young and during my trip to Costa Rica I had self confidence, self esteem and I valued my life. My brother and I still traveled across the small, beautiful country, but I wasn’t the depressed, self-destructive, apathetic mess that I was in my own reality. If Mom had, indeed, taken us away from my father, would I have taken better care of myself? The alternate reality in my mind very clearly showed that I would have.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to bring anybody down here. We all make decisions based on our circumstances at the time and I do not blame anybody for mine, nor do I question anybody else’s here.

Then came the final episode, Romans. It becomes rather clear that the entirety of the previous episode was just a story that The Kid told Molly in order to get her to try to convince Henry to go to the woods with him. It didn’t work, and The Kid ends up back in the cage. None of that other reality was real. My whole personal revelation feels so false. I had made plans to look at the rest of my life and see how I could approach it with the same self-confidence that my alternate life had. I know I can still do this, but still. I feel cheated. My fictional happy future has been ripped out from under me by a twist at the end of the story, and I don’t like it.

When Inspiration Distracts

I decided that I needed to get back to watching Castle Rock because I want to catch up, not get further behind. Then, I considered how many episodes have been published and I began to get anxiety and almost scrapped the whole thing. I don't need this kind of pressure in my life.

So, I sat down and watched episode 3, Local Color, and then I continued with 4, The Box. 

The story is compelling and the cinematography is perfect. Somebody on the show could be eating a bagel and I'd be on the edge of my seat. There are a lot of dark rooms, a lot of cast shadows and light falling across faces. Camera angle is well thought-out, ambient sounds do their part to create mood. The closing of prison doors, the crunching of shoes on the ground, it's all used to make a chilling atmosphere.

I found my mind wandering. This is a common theme in my own life. I remember vividly being in kindergarten and first grade, staring out the window when I should have been doing school work. When I was even younger than that people would constantly catch me in a trance, daydreaming. This carries through to my adulthood, right up to this very day. Watching Castle Rock inspired something in me. It inspired stories of my own to tell, visual art I wanted to do. I was tempted at one point to turn it off because I wasn't able to pay attention as much as I should have been. But, I don't know that I would have actually sat down and written. I have a history of contemplating art, and never getting around to producing it. So, I made myself pay attention, stop trying to counsel the characters in what they should be doing and just be a spectator. I literally had to coach myself to just experience the show, to practice being the audience. Apparently this is a challenge for me - I'm not certain I was aware of this before now.

So yay! I've watched 5 episodes now. Wait, four episodes. I've only watched four episodes. I believe that there are currently 9 out there, so I seriously doubt that I'll be caught up by Wednesday when the next one comes out. But, I'm closer than I was. It's a struggle. Somebody needs to watch this with me.