The Stand: The Circle Closes

Hi! My name is Kojak! I’m a character in the CBS All-Access limited series adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. I’m a dog!

The Stand: The Stand

“How long do you plan on going on with this?”

Watching the first seven minutes of this episode—after which I took a nap before trying again—the phrase “after-school special” kept bouncing around my brain. Glen Bateman arguing that Flagg crucifying people was a sign of weakness, not strength. Lloyd warming up the crowd, who laugh uproariously and on cue in their shiny, trashy clothes. It’s a simple, thoughtless picture of malevolence that doesn't succeed as realism or as allegory.

The Stand: The Walk

“We’re on this train now, to the end of the line.”

Well, at least one good thing happened.

The Stand: The Vigil

“There are still things worth losing it over.”

I imagine that if I were to interview showrunners Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell, it would go something like this:

The Stand: Fear and Loathing in New Vegas

“They told you it was wrong to want more.”

King doesn’t write characters in the literary-fiction mode, that remnant of modernism, in which neuroticism and navel-gazing therapeutic tics are meant to signify depth. He writes in a Dickensian mode. His strokes are broad and all the more human for it.

The Stand: The House of the Dead

“I’m sorry she turned out to be a bad person.”

Oh! It’s a Franny epis—oh, no. It’s not.

The Stand: Blank Pages

“Cavi-what?!”

The title of this episode refers to a passage in the book, unseen here, in which Nick Andros learns to read and write. It is the moment at which he becomes himself: no longer a blank page, but the author of that page. It is a lovely scene that draws on the structural discrimination Nick has faced, the power of a good mentor, and the way that communication is at the core of Nick’s character.

The Stand: Pocket Savior

“I’m real real.”

More than 70 signatories have pledged to boycott The Stand for its failure to cast—or even audition—a Deaf actor for the role of Nick Andros.

The Stand: The End

“The center will not hold.”

You know what 2020 needs? A trenchant commentary on abuses of authority, a heartfelt political and religious allegory about the necessity of being good in a fallen world, and an incisive portrait of the devastation caused by an epidemic.

The Stand

Episode Reviews | Cast |

Because what the world needs now is not love, sweet love, but a nine-episode miniseries about plague.

Episode Reviews

1. The End
2. Pocket Savior
3. Blank Pages
4. The House of the Dead
5. Fear and Loathing in New Vegas
6. The Vigil
7. The Walk
8. The Stand
9. The Circle Closes

Cast

Whoopi Goldberg (Mother Abagail)
Alexander Skarsgård (Randall Flagg)
Odessa Young (Frannie Goldsmith)
James Marsden (Stu Redman)
Henry Zaga (Nick Andros)
Owen Teague (Harold Lauder)
Jovan Adepo (Larry Underwood)
Amber Heard (Nadine Cross)
Brad William Henke (Tom Cullen)
Ezra Miller (Trashcan Man)

Stephen King's The Stand

I’m writing this review in the week between Lost’s “Follow the Leader” and “The Incident.” If all goes according to (my purely speculative) plan, I’ll be able to post it without any changes moments after the Lost season finale. Don’t read it until you’ve seen the finale, even if I’m wrong (which you wouldn’t know until you read it, or if you traveled through time, which would be so awesome).

This review, by the way, marks the first-ever, much-vaunted Lost Lit Summer Book Reviews. The purpose of these reviews is to... um... well, to review books that have something to do with Lost. And hopefully to reveal something about the books, and about Lost, by doing so. The purpose of these reviews is not to point out super-obvious parallels, except where we can learn something bigger and more purposeful from the parallels. There are many great resources out there that point of similarities in names, places, even themes. But I’m hoping to present something a bit more cohesive than just a list of data, although probably less useful.