In the world of Stephen King, Sissy Spacek is of course known as Carrie White. But with “Castle Rock,“ Spacek has ensured King fans will never forget the name Ruth Deaver.
There’s a whole lot happening on “Castle Rock,” now seven episodes deep, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about there being *too many* ideas at play. The show feels a bit disjointed and in danger of coming off the rails completely at any moment, with disparate storylines involving a mysterious young man and “the voice of God” out in the woods that have become increasingly hard to follow. But this week’s ‘The Queen’ brought a temporary silence to much of that noise, primarily focused on one character and her deeply heartbreaking story.
It was the best episode to date, and one of the finest hours of horror TV in years.
From the beginning, the heart of “Castle Rock” has been the relationship between former sheriff Alan Pangborn (a well-known King character) and Ruth Deaver, a decades-spanning love story that began when the two were young and continued when Pangborn returned to town as an older man. Prior to this week, Spacek wasn’t given all that much to do as Ruth, mostly presented as a detached character in the fog of crippling Alzheimer’s. ‘The Queen,’ however, presented many of the season’s moments from her own point of view, completely immersing us in Ruth’s fractured head-space for a psychological journey into the devastating inner workings of the disease. With the chess pieces Alan gifted to her as her only means of returning back to reality, the episode took us on a trip into Ruth’s mind, plagued by memories (both good and bad) that rip her away from the present and temporarily lock her quite literally in the past.
Countless movies and television shows have featured characters dealing with Alzheimer’s, but we almost always experience their mental anguish through the eyes of another character. Boldly, ‘The Queen’ does something I’ve never seen any piece of entertainment do before, visually conveying Ruth’s daily experiences in the way that she herself is experiencing them; the episode essentially presents those experiences in the way that horror movies do nightmare sequences, bringing a sense of understanding to the horrors of a real-life disease that plagues so many. As Ruth jumps between space and time and reckons with past and present, we go through all of it with her, the episode brilliantly depicting Alzheimer’s on both mental and visual levels.
‘The Queen’ would hardly work if not for its incredible performance from Sissy Spacek, who of course played a prom queen in the aforementioned Carrie (the episode’s title an intended wink and nod to King fans, co-creator Sam Shaw admits to EW). The episode is essentially a one-woman-showcase of Spacek’s talents, and it’s because she’s so good at conveying deep, complex emotions without saying a single word that Ruth’s confusion, fear and heartbreak is so gut-wrenching to watch. If any episode of television this year instantly made one of its actors into a shoe-in for an Emmy, ‘The Queen’ is that episode. Spacek that actor. Over 40 years ago, Spacek landed an Oscar nomination for playing Carrie White in Brian De Palma’s film, and if there’s any justice, she’ll be an awards contender for her return to King’s world. It just seems right, doesn’t it?
Of course, the major talking point of the episode is its final moments, wherein Ruth accidentally shoots Alan multiple times, killing him almost instantly. Long story short, Ruth gets it in her head that she has to kill “The Kid” in order to be free from the time loop she’s been in, and she mistakes Alan for “The Kid” and guns him down instead. The moment of Alan’s death is played beautifully by both Spacek and Scott Glenn, with the character gracefully accepting his fate in his final moments. Even in that moment, lying in a pool of his own blood and with the love of his life holding the gun, Glenn makes it clear that Alan is at peace. He still loves Ruth, and nothing in the world could ever change that. As ever, his bleeding heart feels nothing but pure love.
The true heartbreak comes in the follow-up scene, when Ruth’s mind takes her back into the memory of Alan arriving on her doorstep, years after her emotionally abusive husband had died. The two embrace, and Alan promises Ruth that he’ll never leave her. In the final shot, we see two of Ruth’s chess pieces on a dresser. The King has fallen. Only the Queen is standing. But Ruth doesn’t reach for them. Instead, she remains in the warm embrace of her happy past. Perhaps she’s choosing to stay in that moment forever. A silver lining to the disease that’s ruined her life.
How does “The Kid” play into all this? Was he really channeling Ruth’s late husband during the events of ‘The Queen,’ or was all of that happening inside of Ruth’s not-quite-reliable mind? Honestly, I have no idea. The character’s inclusion in the episode’s storyline was a bit off-putting for me, again a side effect of the season’s issue with having a bit too much going on at any given time. Here’s hoping we eventually get all the answers we’re craving. In the meantime, ‘The Queen’ was the first truly unforgettable hour of “Castle Rock” so far.
If it wasn’t already, the Hulu series is now must-watch television.
