Castle rock season 2 finale review năm 2024

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the finale of Castle Rock, "Clean." Read at your own risk!]

Throughout its second season, Castle Rock treated audiences to a grim new history of Annie Wilkes (portrayed by Lizzy Caplan in this iteration), and it was a dirty bird of a ride indeed. Sure, there were other Stephen King relics that got some new life during this stretch particularly when it came to Pop (Tim Robbins) and Ace Merrill (Paul Sparks) but Annie's grisly past was the natural centerpiece of Season 2, and Wednesday's finale treated it as such. After putting a pin (and some dynamite) in the uneven ghost cult plot, "Clean" finally bridged the gap between its new version of Annie Wilkes and the one we came to know and loathe in King'sMisery (an Oscar-winning role for Kathy Bates in the 1990 adaptation of the book).

In the finale, Annie joined forces with Pop, Nadia (Yusra Warsama), Abdi (Barkhad Abdi), and Chance (Abby Corrigan) to rescue Joy (Elsie Fisher) from being permanently body-snatched before freeing the fellow townsfolk from their colonial zealot queen. Before Annie and Joy could set off for a new life, though, Annie tried to cheer Joy up by reading from a random book she found, and it just so happened to be Paul Sheldon's Misery's Quest, the story that would inspire her deadly obsession in Misery. Later, we got to see her take a seat at the author's public event and menacingly declare that she was his "number one fan," a phrase that would ultimately haunt him. Paul Sheldon would indeed dedicate a book to Annie Wilkes before it was all said and done, and she was well on her way to making that happen.

Here's What That Castle Rock Season 1 Character's Return Could Mean for Season 2

Castle Rock could've easily side-stepped such a direct connection to Misery. It was probably enough to see her develop an intense connection to favorite stories as a result of her unorthodox upbringing, and the genesis of her disgust for profanity and sexuality was also made plain by the flashbacks to her relationship with her mother. It also explained plenty that she spent her whole adult life on the run after kidnapping Joy and thus never truly received treatment or proper medications for her very serious mental illness. Yet, there was still something intensely satisfying about seeing her pick up Paul Sheldon's book for the first time and become so attached to the story of Misery Chastain; her "good beginning" review was also a clever wink to what we'd just experienced with her story. By the end, it felt like the missing piece had been placed as we watched Annie Wilkes' face darken during her first in-person encounter with Paul.

It was already likely that she would survive the undead army that she accidentally awakened in Castle Rock -- it would be too much of a source material deviation to have her die off before she could torture poor Paul Sheldon, after all. Joy's outcome also seemed written, since there was no indication in the original story that Annie ever had a daughter (er, a sister whom she adopted after murdering her parents), let alone that the girl was still alive and was close to her during her brush with her favorite author. Annie was convinced Joy was an imposter and took her out to the lake to finish what she'd started all those years before when Joy was still baby Evangeline, submerging the child in water until she was done. We then watched as Annie discovered Joy's gloomy behavior was a byproduct of her secretly seeking emancipation from her, and she ran out to revive her. Thanks to the drugs she'd put in Joy's ice cream, the kid had no memory of Annie drowning her, so the two were finally free to enjoy their own little "laughing place" together.

However, the empty seat beside Annie at the book signing indicated Joy's survival was a figment of her imagination, and Annie's expression proved she would always be just one perceived slight away from hurting someone else the way she did her father, his mistress, and even her own child. She might have maligned the world at large for being dangerous and full of scoundrels, but Annie was always the real threat, especially to people she loved (read: wanted to control). That last shot made it clear that Paul was next... and now if you'll excuse us, we're warming up our copy of Misery to continue enjoying the story from here.

Lizzy Caplan portrays Annie Wilkes, one of Stephen King's most memorable characters—from the novel Misery—in the second season of Hulu's anthology series, Castle Rock.

A nurse on the run with her teenaged daughter ends up stranded in a small Maine town where something evil lurks in the second season of Castle Rock, Hulu's psychological horror anthology series that draws inspiration from the works of Stephen King. The series was a surprising breakout hit last summer, and this new season doesn't disappoint, bringing the same slow burn and unexpected twists leading to a riveting finale.

(Mild spoilers for season one and season two below.)

The fictional town of Castle Rock features in so many of King's novels that co-creators Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason thought they could use it as an organizing principle for their storytelling. The series is less a direct adaptation of King's works and more new stories set in the fictional town that occasionally bump up against various books. The biggest King influences for season one were The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile—in other words, a prison-centric setting with themes of crime and punishment. Shawshank tells the story of a prisoner's disappearance, while Castle Rock's focus is the mysterious appearance of a prisoner nobody knew about.

Season one opened with the suicide of the local prison warden, Dale Lacy (Terry O'Quinn) and the discovery that he secretly kept a mysterious young man—known only as the Kid (Bill Skarsgård)—captive for decades. Not only did the Kid not age, violent outbreaks seemed to follow in his wake. The show remained cagey about who the Kid was, whether he was a monster or a victim, even in the finale, with its distinctively King-like denouement.

The season highlight was the heartbreaking seventh episode, "The Queen," told entirely from the point of view of Ruth (Sissy Spacek), whose age-related dementia is rapidly worsening and affecting her ability to distinguish between the present and the past. (At several points, she walks out of a conversation in the present and into a different conversation in 1991.) The episode has deep personal resonance for Shaw, whose own mother suffered from dementia and died unexpectedly a few days after he started writing the series. I called it "the most beautifully constructed, superbly acted hour of television you're likely to see this year."

Castle Rock's second season doesn't have a single standalone episode of quite the same caliber, but it still packs a punch. The source material this time around is King's award-winning 1987 novel Misery, featuring one of his most memorable characters, Annie Wilkes, a psychotic (and murderous) former nurse.

In the novel, a middle-aged Annie rescues her favorite novelist, Paul Sheldon, after a car accident in which he breaks both legs. Paul's last novel killed off the central heroine of his Victorian romance series, Misery Chastain, as he had grown tired of the character and wanted to write crime novels. But his "Number One fan," as Annie calls herself, refuses to accept Misery's demise and holds Paul captive, forcing him to resurrect Misery in a new novel—or else. The 1990 film starred Kathy Bates as Annie, who won an Oscar for her performance, which included an infamous scene in which Annie hobbles Paul's feet with a sledgehammer to ensure he can't escape (a watered-down version of the book, where she cuts his foot off with an axe and cauterizes it with a blowtorch).

• Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) is a nurse with mental issues on the run from her past before ending up in Castle Rock.
• Annie's primary concern is protecting her daughter, Joy (Elsie Fisher). Hulu
• Joy finds a friend in local misfit Chance (Abby Corrigan). Hulu
• Reginald "Pop" Merrill (Tim Robbins) is the dying patriarch of the local crime family. Hulu
• Dr. Nadia Omar (Yusra Warsama) is a Somali refugee Pop adopted as a teenager. Hulu
• Nadia's brother, Abdi (Barkhad Abdi) has a tense relationship with their adoptive father. Hulu
• Annie has a violent encounter with John "Ace" Merrill, Pop's nephew. Hulu
• Annie will do anything, even kill, to protect Joy. Hulu
• Annie tries to dispose of a corpse at the construction site in nearby Jerusalem's Lot. Hulu
• Annie uncovers an underground burial chamber. Hulu
• A flashback to Annie's teen years with her father. Hulu
• Annie may have inherited her mental illness from her mother. Hulu
• Annie and Joy surrender to police. Hulu
• Ace and Valerie (Alison Wright) outside the infamous Marsten House. Hulu
• Pop realizes the truth of just what Ace and his followers are up to at the Marsten House. US Senat
• Annie and Joy attempt an escape. Hulu
• Joy succumbs to Ace's weird cult. Hulu

In King's novel, it's clear that Annie suffers from schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder. Paul Sheldon discovers a scrapbook of newspaper clippings hinting that Annie was accused and acquitted of killing infants at a hospital maternity ward in Colorado and may have murdered as many as 30 people. Castle Rock's storyline focuses on a youthful Annie (Lizzy Caplan) on the run from an unspecified past with her teenaged daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher). Annie takes stints as a nurse in various hospitals and stays just long enough to steal the medication she needs to keep her mental illness in check before hitting the road in search of a utopian vision she calls the "laughing place."

Naturally, the pair ends up in Castle Rock, and Annie takes a job with the hospital in nearby Jerusalem's Lot—the second of King's trinity of fictional Maine towns, the third being Derry (the setting for IT). When Annie's killer instincts get the better of her, she tries to dispose of a body at a local construction site and uncovers a hidden burial site linked via a tunnel to the abandoned Marsten House. (King fans may recall the Marsten House was home to the vampires in the 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot.) And she inadvertently awakens something evil that has been lying in wait for four centuries.

Caplan gives a fantastic performance as Annie, capturing the character's trademark awkward earnestness, lack of direct eye contact, stiff gait, and odd speech patterns and phrasing ("dirty bird," "cockadoodie," and the like). It's a very human (and humane) depiction of someone struggling to control her mental illness. Annie may be a little crazy, particularly when her meds run out, but she's driven primarily by her love for Joy and proves to be a formidable opponent to anything that would threaten her daughter.

Season two also stars Tim Robbins as a veteran named Reginald "Pop" Merrill. Despite his late-stage cancer, he wields a tight hold on local commerce with the help of his two nephews, Ace (Paul Sparks) and Chris (Matthew Alan). Pop also adopted two Somali refugees as teenagers, now grown: Abdi (Barkhad Abdi), who is building a mall in Jerusalem's Lot, and his sister, Nadia (Yusra Warsama), the medical director at the hospital where Annie works. The family gets sucked into the supernatural threat facing the town(s), too. Over the course of ten episodes, tensions flare, secrets are revealed, and we learn the true nature of what Annie awakened.

As always with a Shaw-created show, the writing is strong and emotionally evocative. It's intricately plotted, with strong character development. Granted, for the first several episodes of the season, the two narrative threads—Annie and Joy's relationship and Annie's secret past, and whatever the hell is going on at the Marsten House—almost don't feel like they are part of the same series. The Annie storyline feels far more compelling—especially the flashback episode, "The Laughing Place," which acquaints us with Annie's childhood.

But gradually the two threads converge as we learn more about the town's history—including an unexpected twist that provides a link between season two with season one. Here's hoping Castle Rock gets a third season so we can learn more about this common element loosely tying the anthology's storylines together.

What does the ending of Castle Rock season 2 mean?

The camera pulls back to reveal that Annie is on her own and Joy isn't there at all, she's only there in Annie's mind. So we're left with the revelation that Annie killed Joy and moved on as if everything between the two of them was normal.

Why did the kid smile at the end of Castle Rock?

That last-minute smile seems to suggest that the Kid is not who he says he is — and that might mean that everything he said last week, and throughout the season, is untrue. It throws into question everything we thought we knew about “Castle Rock.” In Henry's eyes, clearly the Kid is not who he says he is.

What happened to joy at the end of Castle Rock?

In the water, Annie finally follows through with what she started when her half sister was a baby and drowns Joy — in her mind baptizing her and cleansing her from any remaining impurity. After she murders her, the nurse finds a goodbye letter letter from Joy, explaining why she has to leave.

Is Castle Rock season 2 any good?

Like its impressive and satisfying inaugural run, this latest season of Castle Rock is filled with clever writing, delightful callbacks to King's book universe and terrific performances. It's a dark ending, to be sure, but the right one.