Castle Rock is burning. Not just because of the wildfires raging across the hills that surround the town, either, although their hazy orange glow, reflected in the skies above, gives this new episode — “Harvest” — an appropriately infernal vibe. Consider the opening flashback, in which Henry Deaver seeks treatment for the unexplained ringing in his ears that’s plagued him on and off since he was a teenager. “I guess everyone thinks they grew up in the worst place in the world, huh?” the doc asks with a smile. In the lawyer’s case, of course, the answer is a resounding yes. But the implication, via a smart script from Lila Byock, the dreamy direction of Andrew Bernstein and the inclusion of real-life, ripped-from-the-headlines horror that’s become part of this show’s dramatic schematic, is clear: Everyone did grow up in the worst place in the world. The world is not a nice place to grow up in at all.
I reviewed episode five of Castle Rock for Rolling Stone. There’s a lot I think is admirable about this show—it handles the Everyday All-American Evil that’s King’s specialty in a way that feels current and urgent rather than nostalgic and corny, and the cast of fine actors is taking the material seriously. But in the end, it comes down to what kind of villain the Skarsgård character is, doesn’t it? And we don’t know that yet.
Tags: castle rock, horror, reviews, Rolling Stone, Stephen King, TV, TV reviews