The Stand 2020 CBS all access---spoilers abound---watch the current episode before reading!

The Stand 2020

Episode 1

Spoilers Below











Well now. This is an apocalyptic version of the television moment we like to call too close to home. I don't know when this series was made (pre-Covid certainly) but there were so many references to current times. Occasionally I had the metaphorical shivers.

As for the show itself I very much like the structure which carries a time jumping approach. In other words, it isn't entirely chronological. While the show has plot per se, there's a greater lean towards character expression and a fair amount of not so subtle referential humor and irony. Also there is no shyness in terms of profanity.

Episode 1 focuses heavily on the triad of Stu Franny and Harold. But Harold gets the best attention. The structure of the episode mostly follows Harold. Harold is electric. The acting is good. Franny is presented as more or less depressed. But she finally accepts Harold's plan to get out of town. And Stu seems more loyal to the command structure than even remotely angry. Initially I thought this approach a mistake, but based on Stu's dreams this approach makes more sense.

As for the two powerhouses, we get glimpses of them. Mother Abagail only in a dream. Sadly though Hemingford Home has been moved to Colorado. As for Randall Flagg, he is initially presented symbolically in dreams. However towards the end of the episode, where Campion's escape is among the last scenes (time jumping in the extreme) RF first sticks his foot humorously in things, and then makes an utterly creepy appearance during  the one-car Campion caravan. Alexander Skarsgard here, without saying a word, exudes both charm and evil. So far he's an excellent choice for Flagg.

I forgot that CBS all access isn't a drop-'em-all network. We must wait until Xmas Eve for episode 2. That's too bad. I was ready to watch the whole thing right then and there.

What do you think?

episode 2

From what I hear through the grapevine The Stand 2020 isn't being well received. However it fits right in my wheelhouse. Especially the circular storytelling.

The characters who dominate this episode are Larry Underwood, Rita, Nadine, Lloyd and more of Randall Flagg. Harold Lauter gets a good scene. More on that later.

The main element of the story is the juxtaposition between Larry Underwood trying to exit NYC and Lloyd unable to escape prison after everyone's dead. Larry 2020 is more disillusioned a singer than the earlier model. That doesn't mean that he ultimately doesn't care. In fact he cares too much, which is why he makes some attempts to shut off his mind and heart by drugs and by wishful thinking. After Larry's mother dies, he sets out and bumps into Rita. Together they seem as though they'll make it far. The last scene with Rita of course means that Larry wasn't listening well enough. She goes how Larry might have gone were he not stronger. Larry finally (all throughout the episode) ends up in Boulder with Nadine and the mute boy Joe. Nadine lets us know that she already has an unfortunate connection with Flagg. Joe is actually the more interesting companion. Particularly in the scene where Larry Underwood knocks on Harold Lauter's door for a chat. Larry and Harold do chat. However Joe at the sight of Harold is horrified and makes some effort to slink away. A very good scene. One of the best in the episode.

Lloyd meanwhile is in prison and takes up some very creative post-Martha Stewart culinary habits. The actor who plays him is quite good. And the scene between Lloyd and Flagg which leads to Lloyd's "freedom" is excellent. The dynamic between the two is splendid.

One thing this series is doing well at is to identify Flagg's followers through their need to take revenge on the world. It's spelled out through conversation or in Harold's case through the loudest of soliloquys.

I think where the show might be losing viewership is in the oomph factor. The circular storyline may have something to do with that. Also some more time---which means more filming---could have been spent on presenting devastation. I think this is where the earlier incarnation of The Stand had a clearer vision. The current Stand is almost a memory play. Where the characters are actually in the present and their times in the past is how they remember getting to Boulder and therefore the action in the past comes across as blurry and dreamlike. And speaking of dreams they so far aren't as developed as was the miniseries from over two decades ago. I found those dream scenes poetic. These current dreams are more like quick symbols that we somehow need to wake up from fast so that we can return to waking moments. I think some of this is an effort to keep Mother Abigail as more of a mystery. And Randall Flagg too although he's becoming more substantial in the story.

I imagine episode 3 will focus on Nick and Tom. Nick is my favorite character and Nick and Tom are my favorite pair. We'll see what happens there...

In episode 3 we had some great hits some good hits and a couple of misses.

Great hits:

Anything to do with Nick Andros and Tom Cullen.

They were my favorite characters in the first tv incarnation, the book, and now here. What the story here adds to their relationship is some extra determinism on the part of Mother Abigail to bring them together. In this story however one of the best scenes in any of the 3 episodes so far is the attempted conversation between a very talkative Tom Cullen and an overwhelmed Nick Andros. Also this story does well with the connection that Tom and Nick have in terms of the dreams/visions of Mother Abigail. There is of course more of Tom and Nick to come. When they will joined probably in the next episode by two characters who are diametrically opposite in terms of sanity.

Randall Flagg meets Nick Andros---in a dream.

This is especially juicy. Randall Flagg the great seducer. Promises Nick hearing and speech if Nick worships him. But Nick knows a con man when he sees him. Nick angrily (with the middle finger) declines. Here though Flagg sort of has the last word with a warning that Nick's currently good eye in the vision will not be so good when he awakens. A particularly good touch in this scene was Flagg showing Nick distorted playing cards. Particular one with a bleeding eye.

Nick helping the man who destroyed his eye.

This was a strange lead up and follow through sequence but I liked it a lot. Nick's in a bar. He's deaf of course. And a little clumsy. He knocks over a lout's beer. The lout beats the crap out of him---and destroys Nick's eye. Later in the hospital (where Nick and Tom meet) Nick helps the same man who is now dying of the plague. By the way the depictions of plague sufferers are rather gross. I think the previous TV incarnation did a better job with this. Anyway Nick silently leaves the man who is berating him (while the man's handcuffed to a bed) because he thinks Nick is going beat him in return. But Nick returns with water and a cloth and attempts to comfort the man in his misery. Nicely done.

Nadine Cross as a child and then much later:

Nadine as a child was placed in a foster care facility. She and the other girls she was sharing a room with were playing this Ouija Board type gizmo called Planchette. The other three girls weren't getting anywhere with it until Nadine joined in. Then the Planchette went wild. It spelled out an entire message from Flagg that Nadine would be his queen. It was cool. Later Nadine as an adult and feeling alienated with the Boulder Free Zone repeated the Planchette but alone. The message was a second of a two-parter. The first part was in a dream where adult Nadine and Flagg were declaring their love for each other. And then Flagg told Nadine that she was in Boulder to be his eyes and then she was ultimately in Boulder to assassinate Mother Abigail and her inner circle. The Planchette part spelled out Harold Lauter as the vehicle of this assassination.

Good hits:

The first meeting between Stu and the current duo of Franny and Harold.

It was clumsy and suspicious on both Harold's and Franny's part and it ended with their not coming together. It played out the right amount of time and made sense. It did give enough time for Franny to check out how hot Stu is. And later in the episode Stu will see an unexpected vision of Franny.

The arrival of the crucified man.

This was okay. A little over the top at times. But he delivered a message from Flagg that he was coming for them. It served a dramatic purpose because unlike the previous TV incarnation this show isn't as interested in having all the inner circle people have a lot of conversations. They had one. In the Boulder hospital where the crucified man was being kept. But the conversation was contentious. Anyway the crucified man delivers his messages and ends up perishing. He's dumped in a mass grave  by Harold Lauter and Steve???? That was a nice end to this sequence.

Misses:

While the scenes involving the next two characters were fine I think the performances themselves are suspect and therefore the scenes were a bit diminished.

Nick meets Mother Abigail

This should have been primo. But it wasn't. Nick was fine. He was cautious. He had just met Flagg. However Whoopi Goldberg's Mother Abigail is just too wooden for the importance of her character. I think of Ruby Dee in the earlier incarnation who was so robust and devout and doubting and humorous and angry and sad and happy and well everything and by inevitable comparison Whoopi Goldberg just doesn't make it. She is one-dimensional and presented as mysterious without being compelling. A miss. Oh on a side note I think that the cornfields leading up to Mother Abigail aren't as good as in the past. They seem incomplete.

Stu meets Glen Bateman

These scenes were far worse because Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman is just horrible. It's as though Greg Kinnear is dancing out of his own pores and making Glen Bateman disappear. Again there is no way to avoid comparison. Ray Walston was a superior actor in his role way back when. Again he had dimension. Conversations between Ralston's Glen and Stu were much more dynamic and matched in acting styles. Now James Marsden is playing his own Stu adequately given that this Stu was presented as quieter and more loyal to the power structure and well looking for a purpose and a bit more culturally naive. But Kinnear's Bateman is so all over the place that no genuine connection between the two characters is made. I think they also needed more time.

I think episode 4 was sadly one of the weakest and not just because the Nick Andros and Tom Cullen relationship/dynamic was relegated to the end of the episode. That definitely needed more time---although with the circular time element of the episodes in general we may get more of the pair at a time when the ideas/themes/images of their past match their present time journeys which are now already separate.

What did work for me in this episode were a couple of things. Crazy woman who Nick and Tom meet up and who ultimately shoots at them was well played. She was great. An even longer scene with her might have been ideal. Of course that would mean a longer time on screen for Nick and Tom!

Also what was good was a play on the Hemingford Home locus. It wasn't a farm where Mother Abigail could still make her own bread but a Nursing Home where Mother Abigail was basically trapped---in a similar way perhaps to Lloyd---and I think there was a missed opportunity here to parallel the two. A longer scene---or more scenes---with Abigail and Nick and Tom might have been beneficial. Also Whoopi Goldberg's acting was a little better.

What did not did not did not work very well at all were most of the scenes involving the town of Boulder and the scenes depicting where Stu and Glen rescued Franny Harold and Dana.

What did work were the acting of the Nadine Cross and the Harold Lauter characters but the scenes themselves they were in were clunky---so that's on the writing.

What did not work at all---although the intervention of Larry to soften the crowd was funny---was the scene where the committee introduces itself to the citizenry. It was bad. It was unbelievable. It was dull dull dull. In contrast the parallel moments where the committee was discussing what to say to the citizens was more interesting---in terms of politics if nothing else---but in the end it wasn't necessary. Plus the scene further exposed Greg Kinnear's bad acting compared to that of the other four. Greg Kinnear in this scene reminds me of someone who walked away from a drink at the bar because he had just overheard a conversation that he thought he should be a part of. He is deeply incongruous.

What did not work at all either was the enlistment of the three spies---sadly Tom's enlistment as well. It was all too rushed and cursory.

As for the rescue scenes Owen Teague's acting was the best of the bunch. I believed in his obsession to rise above his inadequacy. But the choreography of the main bloody scene was horrible. And the villain was drippy. How can a villain be drippy? But he was drippy. He was villain-wannabe. The later outdoor conversation between Stu and Franny meanwhile was fine, but better than that was Harold's reaction to them from a seat in the back of the bus. His facial reaction was primo.

And again what worked better than it should have because of the acting but was a terrible choice in terms of plot was the murder of Teddy by Nadine Cross. It was just weak. It didn't serve any purpose. We knew Nadine was serious about her serving of Flagg so this further proof wasn't necessary. It was as though the writers though Hey We Need A Twist Way To End The Episode. No. Not this one. I think a better ending to the episode should have flowed from Crazy Woman and Nick and Tom to a far more dynamic first meeting with Mother Abigail where some revelation of her mysticism was brought forward. Maybe a vision of Mother Abigail herself from God that would have been inspired by the arrival the two unlikeliest of men (who would appear of her own dreams of conversations with God or just general foreknowledge) to appear through Hemingford Home's front door.  

And no Randall Flagg! A mistake!

In this episode there were some elements I liked but the overall presentation made this easily the worst of all four so far.

Episode 5. Here's where the time circular style of the show was thrown out the door for the sake of sequencing. Trouble is a lot of what was contained in the sequencing and was a mixture of some things uninteresting and a lot of things far too cursory. The only solid body in this episode's story telling was again Harold Lauter. In a variety of scenes he was the only one who could sustain because he has been given body in all the previous episodes.

Randall Flagg returns but I didn't find his scene with Dana interesting. Of course I knew what was going to happen. Everybody did. What the writers made Flagg though was ironic and faux-charming more than specifically frightening or menacing. Unlike in the series of old Dana never gets a chance to work her way to the top. Therefore she's presented as terrified as much as determined to be a good spy. Her acting didn't quite work for me. Nor did Alexander Skarsgard's if I'm being honest. And before that scene Lloyd and Julie are pretty chummy and without a less cursory presentation their scene didn't work either. And I didn't care much for Dana trying to communicate to Tom Cullen to run. I think something better like Flagg tossing Dana out the window and landing at Tom Cullen's feet. Now whether he could actually leave at that time I couldn't tell because the moon full or otherwise wasn't visible.

Back in Boulder there was some strange nonsense. Franny and Stu host Harold for dinner so that Franny can get Larry to snoop around Harold's house. The whole premise was dumb. But what made it even worse  was when Nadine showed up at Larry's door before he was to head over to Harold's. Nadine basically wanted Larry to engage in copulation with her so that she wouldn't be virginal any more. The actor who played Larry showed some nice acting restraint here. Nadine was fine. But the scene seemed convenient. In Harold's house itself Larry found a locked door and reported that back to Franny and Stu. Trouble is Harold is or has become a video geek and saw Larry lurking around. Also Harold knew someone was there anyway. He figured out someone would be there anyway. He also before he left Franny and Stu's put a device in their bedroom. Kinky I know. But also of course self-destructive. Harold's one of the few characters who has been giving enough time to establish motivation.

Mother Abigail was here and there. Chastising Nick. Facing a vision of Flagg'wolf. That was fine. And then we have Mother Abigail praying to God and asking what she has done wrong. Well we would know what she had done wrong if the story had given the Mother Abigail character more time. My guess is that her love for Nick and the community at large was supplanting her devotion to God and God was none too happy? I have no idea. The wolf scene was cool though.

We got our first full vision of New Vegas. And of course it's a hotbed of sin and debauchery and greed but is it even remotely interesting? Not really. Again it's too cursory. The rise of New Vegas should have been made specifically parallel to the rise of Lloyd. But Lloyd is so much background.

Oh the closing credits. Blue Oyster Cult. Baby Don't Fear the Reaper. If you're going to play that song why not have Flagg play it during his meeting with Dana? Now that would have freaked her out to the nth.

So I think this episode is now the weakest because suddenly there was a complete abandonment of the time circular structure of the previous episodes. And plot and character were ostensibly left dangling in the air. I hope next week is better.

I'm debating whether to subscribe to CBS All Access. Sounds like the reviews are a bit mixed on The Stand.

MrBill60 wrote:

I'm debating whether to subscribe to CBS All Access.  Sounds like the reviews are a bit mixed on The Stand.

It's good where it's good and it's bad where it's bad. I'm afraid after 5 episodes it's heading towards a crib note version of book and previous show. I think I would wait. No reason to spend money only for this show. Discovery season 3 is good though! Maybe when the whole mini-series is done you can do a trial membership and then binge the mini-series and then cancel.

Episode 6. Better than episode 5. Trash Can Man is hilarious if underrepresented. And certainly late to the party. The star however remains Harold Lauter who is one of the few main characters who's supplied with enough discernable motivation.

Flagg was okay this episode but the writers made a mistake with how his trigger happy assassin was dealt with. Although the four henchpeople backing away when they knew Flagg was about to explode was quite priceless.

Mother Abigail goes on her pilgrimage into the wilderness. But I have no reason why except that God is no longer talking to her. So she says. But I don't feel anything. Pride is I assume the reason. What we do get however is a meeting in the woods between Mother Abigail and Flagg which in terms of the story and dramatic tension could have gone better. It was too quick and without enough tension and narrative foundation. It's like oh we just met in the woods.

Boulder is falling fast in terms of narrative cohesion. The blast was overplayed and CGI'ed to death. There was no appreciable build up. It was oh we need to get this done because CBS only gave us 9 episodes to work with. Too much time was spent on the cliche of would-be love interest discovering what a creep already-icky guy was and he had to lock her in the basement and she had to get away and warn everyone but was too late to save many including some one way more interesting than she was. Or her current beau. Larry and Joe have a good dynamic. And Nadine Cross is still good. But Harold is way better than all of them.

In Vegas the way that Tom Cullen's escape was presented was just dumb. He just should have vanished. And maybe the scene could have been flashbacked later.

I am hoping that the actual STAND will be better than what's come before it. I still contend that the removal the narrative strategy of the first three episodes led the rest of the tale to the depths of downhill.

Episode 7. By far the best of the post episode 3 episodes. Even so there seemed to be some serious fast-forwarding in order to shrink the necessary episode quantity to 9.

The best part of the episode and the series continues to be Harold Lauter and Owen Teague's acting. Sadly Harold met his demise in this episode but that demise was pretty much worthy of the character. It was Nadine herself who tricked Harold into spilling his scooter over the cliff. No Flagg in sight. It was as though Nadine couldn't see sharing praise from Flagg with anyone. I wonder if that trend will continue. Now that would be interesting. I don't like most of not all of the Vegas people anyway. If she bumped some of them off because she's now the Persephone of Vegas, all the better. But back to Harold. His impaled immobility and subsequent death were excellent. You felt the struggle. You felt the moment. I still can't say that about any other character in the entire series. He wrote his little farewell tale. No simple note apparently. And it was tragic. It was about a life that might have been had Harold been a different person for early on. Then bam he was done. A bullet by his own hand. He does get a cameo later in the episode. So there's that.

Now for Nadine. She had some excellent ethereal moments as the new queen of darkness. Much unlike the previous TV series, this Nadine was all in to be Mrs. Nadine Flagg. As I said, she caused Harold's death. In the book and in the previous show, it was Flagg. In the book Flagg said he couldn't abide traitors. In the previous show Flagg voiced no specific reason. I figure though it was also the traitor problem. Here Nadine topped Harold in the bad use of free will department. And she looked great doing it. More on Nadine later. She becomes even cooler.

Mother Abigail lives long enough to send forth into the wilderness Stu (in place of Nick who the blast blew up ---more on him later) and Larry and Glen and Rae (sp?). This is a different quartet from the book and the previous show. Replacing two of the previous white men are a black man and a native ameriican woman. I knew that was to be the case from the previews but still it was an interesting if not an obvious change up. After a mandatory speech from Franny which was a little lacking in sincerity, the four set off. The journey was fine at the very beginning---and the scene of Stu's injury was pretty good---but more time was needed on this journey to promote bonding among the four. Granted the bonding was weak to begin with due to some faulty narrative choices, but still this quartet needed more time than the episode offered. Greg Kinnear didn't annoy me as much, but he remained the weakest of the four actors. And Kojak the dog was ahead of him too. Speaking of Kojak, he returned to Stu rather than remained with him. Glen let him off his leash and bam he was gone. He ran back to the ravine. So far Kojak remains at the edge. Maybe next week he'll join Stu and his broken leg. Meanwhile I didn't think the scene with Glen Larry and Rae looking for Kojak was very good and it became even worse when Lloyd appeared in a stretch limo to drive the three pilgrims the rest of the way back to Vegas. It was just weak.

Better was after all the okay sex between Flagg and Nadine---which occurred in a hallucinatory fashion both in the desert and in Flagg's penthouse---and this was actually quite good---Nadine herself was after a bit of post demon-sex afterglow and a jab of pain in her uterus prime for the experience of being the queen of the depths. When Glenn Larry and Rae arrived at the Vegas Hotel, it was Nadine who was sent to greet them. She looked great. She looked joyfully possessed by all the woes of Pandora. And there was something crawling inside her womb and Nadine was elated to show that off to Flagg's and her three guests. Oh it was splendid. And that was the end of the episode.

The beginning of the episode was Trashcan Man extracting a bomb from underground and carting it off to Vegas. Trashcan Man is all insanity. There is no variance in character. Is there even a character? Is there just insanity?

And as for Harold's cameo, the four walkers discover his scooter and look down the cliff. There Harold lies. He is being consumed by vultures. Larry feels some remorse. Rae says screw him (I'm with her). But Larry stumbles down the short hill and finds Harold looking and smelling awful. Larry uses his own coat to cover Harold's face. Tender. Then Larry reads what Harold wrote before he committed suicide. A poetic tribute to a very lost life. But Larry can't abide the words enough to take Harold's notebook with him. Instead he leaves the notebook on a straggly branch beside the corpse and rejoins his friends. A fitting way to close out Harold. Again, and easily, the best character and actor and part of the entire series.

Oops forgot about Nick. This show followed the concept of the book and the previous show that Harold's words sent from across town right before the explosion fell on deaf ears. Nick himself, in some whimsical way at first, studies and taps(?) the piano as though he wants to hear any sort of beautiful sound, and then opens the piano to look at the mechanism I guess and there sees the bomb before a horrible cgi explosion. The scene was fine. But Nick was rather diminished in the series. He needed more time. Or more presented purpose. Sometimes it was as though the show was saying---oh and Nick's here too.

Episdode 8. Here is the actual Stand. Well. The only people I liked in it were Larry and Rae. In terms of characters and acting. They were solid throughout the episode.

The Stand itself was a caricature of terrifying. It was weak. I liked one element but the rest felt clumsy and thrown together.

The element I liked of course had to do with the characters and the acting of Larry and Rae. I believed their mission and purpose and their isolation and confusion and their fear and their anger and their resolution and their strength and finally their acceptance. It was the water of course---their drowning in it---that gave them their grace if you will. They drowned while evil Vegas humanity burned. And were according to story (and scripture I imagine) brought up to Heaven---although unlike the previous tv incarnation there was no voice of Mother Abigail leading the way. I guess this actually makes sense as Mother Abigail (more effectively in the previous tv version) chided herself for her pride.

The rest of the scene was, as I suggested, bad in comparison. Too much fake vile energy of the blood-thirsty masses. Too much fake energy of God's justice descending from above. It was too action-film video game. The people fleeing while perhaps realistic cheapened the affair. And then the demise of individual characters who profited from the false prophet was just too extra. I think they could have just been swept away in the masses and presumed destroyed by Trash Can Man's misdelivered bomb.

Or was the bomb misdelivered? An interesting moment was Trash Can Man looking up at the night sky while God's lightning bolts and such did their work. In TCM's eyes it all seemed like a magical phenomenon. The ultimate pyrotechnic display. He was happy. I wonder if God or someone got into TCM's confused head and convinced him to detour the bomb from the airport to the trial. I'm unsure. But why not? The radiation I suppose could have stewed up TCM's already scrambled brains. But why not follow Flagg's lead and corrupt allies to do the enemy's bidding? Sure. Why not.

One thing I liked was the circle sculpture hanging above Larry and Rae and the water that was drowning them. Symbolic I suppose. I wish it wasn't destroyed though. That would have been a good visual---it hanging over the pool.

Meanwhile I hated Greg Kinnear in this episode. His acting was dreadful. His character has been so underrealized the entire series. In this tv version he was shot in a ridiculous mess of a court trial. The previous tv version demise of Glen Bateman was so much better. Both in terms of acting and in the isolated prison cell---a similar one that kept Lloyd a prisoner until Randall Flagg freed him.

Speaking of Flagg he wasn't particularly good in this episode either. He was an arbitrary mix of victory and defeat and irony and certainty and vengeance and fear. The story didn't know what to do with him. Nadine fell into a similar fate. Her coolness from the previous episode became a drippy oh no you tricked me and of course the suicide. I wished she had stayed firm with Flagg and that labor hadn't started yet and she was killed before Flagg by God's lightning bolt wrath, depriving Flagg of his horrible spawn and then apparently his life as well.

Compared to Vegas Stu and Kojak in the pit was more successful. It was more matter of fact, particular in the case of Kojak being God's agent and convincing Stu not to commit suicide and then fending off what I guess was the last remnant of Flagg (the wolf). Then of course Tommy shows up. With only the fanfare of the Vegas explosion. Kojak is currently leading Tommy to Stu. The 9th and final episode will be about their dynamic.

In Boulder, Joe has turned into quite a mystic. He reports that Flagg is no more. Franny goes into labor right after that. I wish her labor could have been better timed to match Nadine's labor or better still pre-labor death.

Overall Larry and Rae saved this episode from being a disaster. In fact if the episode was even more from their pov's, it would have been superior. But this version of The Stand has been a hit or miss operation from the start. When it relied more on vision, it rather thrived. When it relied more on details, it faltered severely.

Oh and yes I got the ironic symbolism of Glen's head being rolled into Larry's isolation while being chained up in the depths of the hotel kitchen as John the Baptist. How could anyone miss it? It was so symbolic! And so ironic! Anyway though it was one of Greg Kinnear's better acting moments. I'll give the scene that. Larry was of course great.

Episode 9. Well here I feel at a disadvantage as episode 9, the finale, involves the King alternative ending. or extra ending(?), to The Stand, which I've never read.

I don't think this was too bad of an episode. It had a mixture of the realistic and the mystical and the fantastical. However one flaw is that the realistic is sort of crammed into whatever space the mystical and the fantastical happened to leave for it. Therefore I don't have any understanding at all as to why Fran and Stu would ever leave Boulder so soon for a trip back to Fran's hometown. Nostalgia's one thing, but cross-continental travel seems far too dangerous with only a baby and a dog to serve as fellow companions. There was no time in Boulder for anyone to reflect on or discuss what happened way out west in Vegas and what the implications are of a presumed city and demon destruction. There was no real time for real people. There was no routine. There were no seasons. There was just departure so that there would be enough time to fill the episode with what was to follow: the mystical and fantastical.

I liked the mystical. Particularly the nerve and grit of a younger version of Mother Abigail. She was apparently waiting in the cornfield for Stu and Fran. I wish she had been in the entire series because she upstaged Whoopi Goldberg by a mile. Her impatience with Stu was especially delightful.

As for the fantastical, I liked but a little less the power play an apparently still lurking Flagg (in a more spectral form I suppose) was having with Fran who was clearly pushed down a deep well by Flagg although I don't think the appearance of Flag was necessary. The well itself was fraught with peril, which means that the realistic element of this episode should have taken the lead. The conversation between the spirit Flagg and the dream-spirit Fran was fine and creepy enough, but Fran was perhaps too assured of herself, which I think fast-forwarded the outcome too much. Fran's dreamy spirit should have been as symbolically broken as her body was. She can still tell Flagg to push off, but she should be physically weak even in spirit form while she does so.

Meanwhile I just didn't like the entire island scene---from beginning to end. I would have preferred more of a tale as what Flagg specifically is---and that could have happened in the conversation between Flagg and Fran. They both should have been weak. I think in fact this should have been Flagg's last hurrah and whatever metaphysical powers he still had he chose to try to corrupt Fran because Stu and he happened upon Mother Abagail's pre-nursing home turf. I think with Fran's rejection of him Flagg should have at least merely crawled onto the island and by luck and fate either be saved by the inhabitants or not. I would have preferred him to have in fact died by the hands of the so-called primitives simply because they viewed Flagg as a mere intruder. Instead we get more Flagg murdering someone and then floating in the air and becoming godlike before their eyes. No I would have preferred some other villain to take Flagg's place, whether that villain was supernatural or merely human. Or have Flagg without much strength left at all crawl onto some atoll void of all humans and have to wait there for some stray ship in the future to discover him and then to reunleash him back onto the world. I found the inhabited island untouched at all by Captain Tripps far too narratively convenient. Flagg clearly needs an audience. I would have been more interesting to me if he never got one again or had to wait, as I said, years for a sudden ship.

One thing that this episode I thought was going to return to was the more successful narrative structure of showing something of the final outcome and then circling back to the details. Stu shows up in Boulder. Why not go back and promote a dynamic with Tom. Instead, no. It's skipped over. Here is where at least one more episode would have helped. Stu is in this series presented as a normal guy who doesn't automatically come up with great insights as to what happens in the world; however, following a nuclear bomb in Vegas, which Stu should have been able to identify, Stu should have come up with a certain amount of insight. Tommy showing up was an obvious clue. Kojak guiding Tommy to Stu. No, Stu ended up as a tagalong to Fran's journey (based on her prominence in the finale). I would have been fine with Stu, after all the events, thinking everything's back to normal, and after more time, agreeing to Fran's strange request ultimately to return to Maine---via Nebraska of course. The whole story needed a more solid Stu to be the story's human (realistic) guide.

In the end I was willing to watch the Series but I think I would have preferred bingeing all the episodes as there was too much inconsistency in the entire series to carry off a one episode per week structure.

One thing I ended up doing was to rewatch some of the series from the 90's. It's just better. Also I enjoyed the commentaries. I wonder if this series will have Steven King return in a commentary format. I wonder what he thought of the piece.

Great review, and it helped me decide never to watch it. While the original TV adaptation had it's flaws, sloppiness wasn't one of them. King didn't beat the reader over the head with a juxtaposition of Nick in a jail cell in Arkansas and Lloyd in prison and neither did the miniseries, but to do so would have been a temptation.

Well TBC I am glad to have done some service to the SK universe!

I love The Stand. Both book and original TV series. But the strengths of this version against the weaknesses only remind me of how much better this version could have and should have been.

I enjoyed it. Very cheesy production but when it comes to Stephen King, the overall concept is almost always undeniably compelling.

Big John wrote:

I enjoyed it. Very cheesy production but when it comes to Stephen King, the overall concept is almost always undeniably compelling.

Glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed some of it. Owen Teague as Harold Lauter the most. I would recommend the original book or the earlier tv series more than this however.