"Harvest" - Castle Rock S01E05 Review

So, we're at the halfway point in the show's first season, and... things happen.

The Kid is out of prison, after a seemingly pointless conversation between Porter and her superior about how she should make sure the Kid doesn't get out of Shawshank. So... Porter failed without even trying. That's nice.

Henry has Molly put the Kid up at her family's shirt factory. He leaves, goes to a home where a husband, wife and young son are celebrating their baby son's birthday. The Kid sneaks in and watches as the father goes berserk and kills his wife and older son.

The next day, Jackie (Jane Levy) comes into the factory and finds the Kid naked. This doesn't seem to bother her, because soon she takes him out in her gypsy cab and smokes crack while telling him about her backstory. Which in case you wondered, she's the niece of Jack Torrance from The Shining. Her real name is Diane, but she calls herself "Jackie" to bug her parents, who don't want to be reminded of their homicidal relative. Jackie also drops some references to other King works.

Meanwhile, Henry has a ringing in his ears. He attends a ceremony in honor of Alan dedicating a bridge to him. Ruth is set off by a dog barking at her and jumps into the river. Henry rescues her and she has some lucidity. Henry realizes Alan really does love Ruth. During the ceremony, two men watch Alan. Since they're credited as guest stars rather than co-stars, and one of them is Rory Culkin, presumably this is important. Maybe they're Low Men in (non-descript) Coats.

The Kid goes up on the roof to psychically "listen" to Castle Rock's pain. Or something. Molly finds him and picks upon what he's thinking. She ends up taking the Kid to Henry, who puts him in the family guest house. Where we find out the Kid can play the piano, and the Kid says, "I remember".

When Alan realizes the Kid is in the Deaver house, he goes to confront the Kid who is walking through the forest. We find out that Alan pulled Warden Dale over, discovered the Kid in Dale's trunk, and Dale convinced him the Kid was the source of evil in Castle Rock and should be locked up. So Alan let Dale go on his way, and has had nightmares about it ever since. We also find out the Kid hasn't aged in those 2+ decades.

In the end, the Kid offers to cure Ruth of her dementia. Henry is suffering from tinnitus (or... is he?) after Dennis' shooting spree at Shawshank. He also wants to fly his son Wendell out from Texas to meet with Ruth while she still mostly has her facilities. And calls his (ex?) wife Marret to get permission to do so.

There's also a mysterious fire sweeping through Castle County that the fire departments can't stop. A pilot apparently kills himself and two firefighter passengers and the Kid listens to the radio report afterward. So presumably the Kid drove the pilot to kill himself, just like he drove the father to kill his family earlier. It also leads to the weird image of half the attendees at Alan Pangborn's (Scott Glenn) ceremony wearing filter masks, presumably against the smoke. Which maybe connects to next week's episode title, "Filter".

The story becomes a little clearer with "Harvest", but one wonders what the point is. Granted, a lot of King's stories take a long time getting to the point and rarely have entirely happy endings. The Kid will probably be eventually killed in the season finale, although that raises the question of why someone didn't put a bullet in him nine episodes earlier. Like Warden Dale, who just locked him up for a couple of decades. We will also presumably find out who or what the Kid is. Fan theories include that the Kid is a pre- It Pennywise(since Bill Skarsgård as the Kid also played Pennywise in the newer It), either Randall Flagg or Randall Flagg Junior (the happy faces Dennis drew on the monitors, and the Kid's ability to inflict fast-killing cancer with a touch), or is somehow connected to Leland Gaunt from Needful Thing (since the Kid is... well, gaunt).

Most likely it's none of the above, since such a denouement seems a bit too-Stephen King fanwankish. This week the Kid does tell Alan he's not the Devil when Alan asks him. So presumably he's not the literal Satan. But the Kid certainly seems able to radiate evil, whether it's driving a father to kill his family or (presumably) cause a St. Bernard to attack a mother and child, turn a deputy into a strangler, or attract a demonic curio shop owner to town.

Perhaps the Kid just has an anti-Shining: instead of hearing people's thoughts, he can drive humans and dogs into murderous anger just by being present. Although how that translates into giving a cellmate fast-killing cancer is another story.

The show is a bit of slow burn, and filled with King Easter Eggs. Of which we get a repeat of several, which makes a sort of sense: King didn't set that many of his stories in Castle Rock. Four novels, five novellas, and four short stories. Plus lots of references. Since only the novels and a few of the novellas are well known, that means we get repeated references to Cujo and The Dead Zone.

Mostly the show is foreboding: we know eventually the Kid is going to be revealed as someone truly evil. And someone will act on what they know about him. And the first attempt will probably end in death (my money is on Alan making a failed attempt and dying), and Henry or Molly will take up the torch.

That also raises the question of if there can be or should be a second season. But hey, they're bringing Mr. Mercedes back for a second season. Short of rehashing the second novel, Finders Keepers. Which has nothing to do with Mr. Mercedes (Henry Treadaway). So apparently that will get a heavy rewrite. Either that, or they're dropping Treadaway, which is hard to imagine. It makes sense in the "Bill Hodges" Trilogy" of King novels, but for a TV series not so much.

So I'm sure Castle Rock will eventually get to the end of whatever story it's trying to tell. But it still seems awfully padded, with a lot of that padding being shout-outs to King's other works.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?