‘Castle Rock’ Sees The Mystery Deepen With ‘The Box’
By Chris Evangelista/Aug. 1, 2018 7:00 am EST
Welcome to our spoiler-filled Castle Rock reviews, in which we explore Hulu’s new Stephen King-inspired series. (If you’re looking for a spoiler-free review of the show, click here). This week we look at episode four, “The Box.”
“Henry Did It”
The tender relationship between Alan and Ruth is contrasted with the slightly awkward relationship between Henry and Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey). It’s clear the two are growing closer, and Henry doesn’t seem at all bothered that Molly more or less stalked him for most of their youth. But Molly has a big secret – she’s the one who killed Henry’s father after the man was found at the bottom of a bluff and brought home in agony. While Henry and Molly are out at a bar having a beer, Molly comes very close to to confessing the whole “I killed your father” thing. But before she can, they’re interrupted by nervous, anxious Shawshank guard Dennis Zalewski (Noel Fisher).Zalewski wants to know why Henry isn’t doing more about the Kid, and makes it clear he wants to bring all of Shawshank down. As Zalewski tells it, Shawshank – like Castle Rock – is a bad place where people do bad things. In a later scene, we see a guard brutally beating an inmate for seemingly no reason as everyone stands around, indifferent. Indifference is a big theme in Stephen King’s work, and not just his Castle Rock stories. One of the major themes in It is how the town the book is set in – Derry – has turned a blind-eye to evil for centuries. That indifference has bled over into Castle Rock, and Zalewski is sick of it.He’s so sick of it, in fact, that it might be driving him insane. Within the walls of Shawshank – where Zalewski realizes he’s as much of a prisoner as the inmates – we watch the guard slowly coming unmoored. Is this a mental issue, or is there something more sinister at play here? Zalewski’s state of mind begins to deteriorate rapidly after an interaction with the Kid. He visits the mysterious prisoner in his cell, and assures the Kid he’s going to do everything he can to get him out of the jail. He then insists on performing a fist-bump with the Kid. The Kid awkwardly compiles, but we’re immediately reminded of a previous episode, in which the Kid warned his ex-cellmate to not touch him. The cellmate ignored this, and ended up dead – his body riddled with cancer. Did the skin-to-skin contact between the Kid and Zalewski set off something within the guard? Or is he just slowly going insane?No matter what the real answer is, Zalewski deteriorates rapidly throughout the episode, and begins indulging in bizarre behavior, like doodling smiley faces on the security monitors he’s in charge of watching. The one thing Zalewski is counting on to set things right is Henry. Unfortunately, putting his faith in Henry isn’t going to pay off.While doing some digging into Shawshank and his own disappearance, Henry stumbles upon the name of a suspect who was questioned in connection to the vanishing. A man named Vincent Desjardins. Henry heads out to Desjardins house, which resembles a nightmare factory. It’s a run-down, dilapidated building in the middle of the woods. One room has a piano that clearly crashed through the ceiling into the floor below. And out in the yard is a large, locked crate. Big enough to keep a dog in. Or a small boy.Vince Desjardins isn’t there, but his extremely weird brother Joseph is. Joseph just happens to have Henry’s police file, which he scrounged from the dump after a flood at the county clerk’s office. He also creepily tells Henry, “You know I never touched you”, implying that he definitely had something to do with Henry and his disappearance so many years ago.This is a huge lead, and Henry storms home to ask why Alan never investigated the Desjardins more closely. The way Henry sees it, Alan was a pretty shitty cop for not finding all this out for himself. Alan, in turn, has a pretty good answer for why he didn’t do a better job investigating Henry’s disappearance: he is dead-certain Henry murdered his own father. Alan says that as Henry’s dad lay dying on his bed, he scribbled out a note that read HENRY DID IT – as in, Henry was the person who pushed his father off the bluff, severely injuring him. The day after writing the note, Henry’s father was dead (of course, Alan doesn’t know that Molly is the one who actually killed the man). Rather than turn Henry in, Alan essentially covered a bunch of things up to protect Henry – and Ruth, the woman he loved.
Crying
Henry is, understandably, upset by all this. He doesn’t remember pushing his father off that cliff, but if his father said he did…maybe he did. Distraught, Henry turns to the only friend he has in town – Molly. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault,” she tells him “You were just a kid.” She’s a good person, that Molly Strand. Except for the whole “killing Henry’s father” thing…Molly and Henry spend the night together, and in the morning, Henry decides enough is enough. He wants out of town, and he certainly doesn’t want to confront the fact that he might be responsible for his father’s death. It’s time to get the hell out of Castle Rock, which means it’s time to wrap up the Kid business. Rather than wait for a hearing, Henry decides to advise the Kid to take Warden Porter’s original settlement offer, and get out of jail immediately. First, though, Henry calls up Zalewski to give him the news that he’s leaving town, and that he won’t be helping Zalewski bring down Shawshank anytime soon.Zalewski gets the voicemail message from Henry just as Henry is showing up at the prison to meet with warden. Weary, beaten down, and clearly out of his mind, Zalewski gets a gun and proceeds to stalk around Shawshank, shooting down guards. This is a brilliantly constructed scene – we witness nearly the entire massacre via the security monitors Zalewski has spent so much time staring at. Rather than be bogged down in the blasts gunfire, the entire scene is scored only to the sound of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” It’s haunting and hypnotic. And it ends very badly. Zalewski eventually makes his way to the warden’s office, where he tells Henry, “I want to testify!” Immediately after uttering those words, a flash grenade is thrown into the room, sending out a blast of light. As this happens, more guards come rushing in – one of whom fires off a shotgun right next to Henry’s ear, immediately causing a painful ringing within Henry’s head.When the smoke clears, Zalewski is dead. And Henry is left understandably shocked. It’s clear that any plans he had about leaving town immediately are going to be put on hold. There are just too many damn mysteries in Castle Rock to leave now.
‘Castle Rock’ Sees The Mystery Deepen With ‘The Box’
By Chris Evangelista/Aug. 1, 2018 7:00 am EST
Welcome to our spoiler-filled Castle Rock reviews, in which we explore Hulu’s new Stephen King-inspired series. (If you’re looking for a spoiler-free review of the show, click here). This week we look at episode four, “The Box.”
The Box
“Henry Did It”
The tender relationship between Alan and Ruth is contrasted with the slightly awkward relationship between Henry and Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey). It’s clear the two are growing closer, and Henry doesn’t seem at all bothered that Molly more or less stalked him for most of their youth. But Molly has a big secret – she’s the one who killed Henry’s father after the man was found at the bottom of a bluff and brought home in agony. While Henry and Molly are out at a bar having a beer, Molly comes very close to to confessing the whole “I killed your father” thing. But before she can, they’re interrupted by nervous, anxious Shawshank guard Dennis Zalewski (Noel Fisher).Zalewski wants to know why Henry isn’t doing more about the Kid, and makes it clear he wants to bring all of Shawshank down. As Zalewski tells it, Shawshank – like Castle Rock – is a bad place where people do bad things. In a later scene, we see a guard brutally beating an inmate for seemingly no reason as everyone stands around, indifferent. Indifference is a big theme in Stephen King’s work, and not just his Castle Rock stories. One of the major themes in It is how the town the book is set in – Derry – has turned a blind-eye to evil for centuries. That indifference has bled over into Castle Rock, and Zalewski is sick of it.He’s so sick of it, in fact, that it might be driving him insane. Within the walls of Shawshank – where Zalewski realizes he’s as much of a prisoner as the inmates – we watch the guard slowly coming unmoored. Is this a mental issue, or is there something more sinister at play here? Zalewski’s state of mind begins to deteriorate rapidly after an interaction with the Kid. He visits the mysterious prisoner in his cell, and assures the Kid he’s going to do everything he can to get him out of the jail. He then insists on performing a fist-bump with the Kid. The Kid awkwardly compiles, but we’re immediately reminded of a previous episode, in which the Kid warned his ex-cellmate to not touch him. The cellmate ignored this, and ended up dead – his body riddled with cancer. Did the skin-to-skin contact between the Kid and Zalewski set off something within the guard? Or is he just slowly going insane?No matter what the real answer is, Zalewski deteriorates rapidly throughout the episode, and begins indulging in bizarre behavior, like doodling smiley faces on the security monitors he’s in charge of watching. The one thing Zalewski is counting on to set things right is Henry. Unfortunately, putting his faith in Henry isn’t going to pay off.While doing some digging into Shawshank and his own disappearance, Henry stumbles upon the name of a suspect who was questioned in connection to the vanishing. A man named Vincent Desjardins. Henry heads out to Desjardins house, which resembles a nightmare factory. It’s a run-down, dilapidated building in the middle of the woods. One room has a piano that clearly crashed through the ceiling into the floor below. And out in the yard is a large, locked crate. Big enough to keep a dog in. Or a small boy.Vince Desjardins isn’t there, but his extremely weird brother Joseph is. Joseph just happens to have Henry’s police file, which he scrounged from the dump after a flood at the county clerk’s office. He also creepily tells Henry, “You know I never touched you”, implying that he definitely had something to do with Henry and his disappearance so many years ago.This is a huge lead, and Henry storms home to ask why Alan never investigated the Desjardins more closely. The way Henry sees it, Alan was a pretty shitty cop for not finding all this out for himself. Alan, in turn, has a pretty good answer for why he didn’t do a better job investigating Henry’s disappearance: he is dead-certain Henry murdered his own father. Alan says that as Henry’s dad lay dying on his bed, he scribbled out a note that read HENRY DID IT – as in, Henry was the person who pushed his father off the bluff, severely injuring him. The day after writing the note, Henry’s father was dead (of course, Alan doesn’t know that Molly is the one who actually killed the man). Rather than turn Henry in, Alan essentially covered a bunch of things up to protect Henry – and Ruth, the woman he loved.
Crying
Henry is, understandably, upset by all this. He doesn’t remember pushing his father off that cliff, but if his father said he did…maybe he did. Distraught, Henry turns to the only friend he has in town – Molly. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault,” she tells him “You were just a kid.” She’s a good person, that Molly Strand. Except for the whole “killing Henry’s father” thing…Molly and Henry spend the night together, and in the morning, Henry decides enough is enough. He wants out of town, and he certainly doesn’t want to confront the fact that he might be responsible for his father’s death. It’s time to get the hell out of Castle Rock, which means it’s time to wrap up the Kid business. Rather than wait for a hearing, Henry decides to advise the Kid to take Warden Porter’s original settlement offer, and get out of jail immediately. First, though, Henry calls up Zalewski to give him the news that he’s leaving town, and that he won’t be helping Zalewski bring down Shawshank anytime soon.Zalewski gets the voicemail message from Henry just as Henry is showing up at the prison to meet with warden. Weary, beaten down, and clearly out of his mind, Zalewski gets a gun and proceeds to stalk around Shawshank, shooting down guards. This is a brilliantly constructed scene – we witness nearly the entire massacre via the security monitors Zalewski has spent so much time staring at. Rather than be bogged down in the blasts gunfire, the entire scene is scored only to the sound of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” It’s haunting and hypnotic. And it ends very badly. Zalewski eventually makes his way to the warden’s office, where he tells Henry, “I want to testify!” Immediately after uttering those words, a flash grenade is thrown into the room, sending out a blast of light. As this happens, more guards come rushing in – one of whom fires off a shotgun right next to Henry’s ear, immediately causing a painful ringing within Henry’s head.When the smoke clears, Zalewski is dead. And Henry is left understandably shocked. It’s clear that any plans he had about leaving town immediately are going to be put on hold. There are just too many damn mysteries in Castle Rock to leave now.
