Cause I'm currently to lazy to write a detailed, serious opinion about this show, I am just gonna keep it to the following: I just love how some moments in the show just make you feel like "What the fudge?" in such a satisfying way!
Looks like Shawshank is gonna have to reset its "Number of Days Without an Incident" count back to zero. Elsewhere, I've always been a Scott Glenn fan and he continues to turn in a terrific performance here. And finally, this one, more than any of the first three, seemed to arrive at Castle Rock via a David Lynch detour.
wow this episode...so many new questions especially that ending...if one paid attention to earlier episodes they might've seen something familiar. i love the way this is unfolding. cant wait to see what will happen next
[5.9/10] So I think I’ve figured out the latest big stumbling block for me with Castle Rock, which plummeted back to earth after the heights of the prior episode. I just don’t really care about the central mystery.
Castle Rock positions itself as a mystery box, one where we’re constantly teased and goaded to try to figure out what happened with Henry Deaver when he went missing as a kid. And I, for whatever reason, am just not interested.
I know it’s supposed to be the key to a grand conspiracy, one that presumably has ties with Pangborn and Warden Lacey and this guy Nick who can seemingly possess people. But honestly, I’m just not interested, and it’s hard to put my finger on why.
Maybe it’s just that the here and now is far more interesting. While I’d be up for a backstory flashback episode sooner or later, I’m much more compelled by a depressed and corrupt city where everyone looks the other way, of a young man who has to deal with both his infamous past and the color of his skin in lily white Maine in a place he tried to run away from, and of the tense family drama of his dementia-ridden mother and his testy relationship with his would-be stepdad who, by a contrived coincidence, is the same man who found him when he was a kid.
Honestly, give me that show, possibly even sans all the supernatural elements at play here. Sure, I love what the show’s done with Molly Strand and her psychic gifts as psychological maladies, and I appreciate the metaphor of literal fantastical evil being swept under the rug as a metaphor for how towns look the other way from the uglier parts of their histories. But man, the story of a man coming back home to deal with his new family situation and the town he tried to forget is way more compelling than this tired true crime-aping mystery the show as a whole, and this episode in particular, is devoted to.
Again, the glacial pacing doesn't help, both with respect to plot and within a scene. As I’ve said before, I can appreciate a good simmer, but very little happens in this episode, and the scene-by-scene construction in “The Box” is lax and saggy as well. I know the show was going for a slow-spun creepiness as Henry investigates and interacts with the Desjardin fellow, but it left me looking at my watch.
The strength of the show continue to be individual performances. The tension between Henry and Pangborn, the sublimated anger between him and his mother, and the affection but pain between him and Molly are all the core relationship and assets of Castle Rock. This episode is particular showcase for Sissy Spacek, who dots back and forth across the lines between dementia, brilliance, and a shuttered painful past with perfection.
And while the set up for it is clunky, the final scene with Dennis the good prison guard’s rampage is a shock and artfully done (although a bit overdone). Honestly, it feels like a shock for a shock’s sake, something to spur Game of Thrones style water cooler chatter, which feels a little gross given the subject matter, but it got a reaction, changes the status quo dramatically, and had real verve, which distinguishes it from most of Castle Rock.
I’m still not on board with this show, but “The Box” at least left me more sure about what I want more of and what I want less of from it. Give me more Deaver melodrama, more of Henry and Molly together (plus more darkly funny scenes of Molly trying to sell houses!), and more illustrations of the ugliness that places like Castle Rock try to elide. And give me less puzzling and teasing over events from thirty years ago, less ponderous scenes full of leaden dialogue, and less of the Twin Peaks meets True Detective vibe that Castle Rock aims for but can’t master.
Shout by RothSothyBlockedParent2018-08-02T19:48:26Z
I want to "touch" up on the part where they fist bumped; this is just my speculation, but it seems dangerous to even interact with the kid in the cell, and touching him would be the catalyst that would drive you completely mad as if the kid is in control of the body. I have an inkling, and imagine what would happen if Molly were to touch Henry.. Maybe she did that one time, and that's why Henry has no memory of the murder. What if both Molly and the kid has the Shining ability, but are completely opposite of one another.