Editorials
[Editorial] It’s Probably Time for “Castle Rock” to Actually Start Answering Some Questions, Yeah?
Eight episodes deep and only two remaining, this mystery box remains frustratingly closed.
Back in episode 5 of Hulu’s “Castle Rock,“ actor Bill Skarsgård’s “The Kid” essentially created a “Castle Rock” internet meme when he said to Alan Pangborn, “You have no idea what’s happening here… do you?” For viewers, this line of dialogue has become a go-to reaction to the series’ many twists and turns, as Hulu insists on keeping us all as in the dark as possible while still making sure we’re tuning in each and every week in the hopes of getting some answers. Instead, however, new episodes mostly ask entirely new questions.
At this point, watching “Castle Rock” has become like trying to put together a puzzle but there are so many pieces missing and someone keeps tossing pieces from other puzzles onto the pile.
Mind you, much like “Lost” (also produced by J.J. Abrams), part of the fun of “Castle Rock” is speculating and theorizing on the various plot threads, and I’ve personally had a whole lot of fun doing just that these last two months. Hell, there was one point where I was convinced Skarsgård’s “The Kid” was actually King’s “IT,” and another point where you couldn’t convince me that Sissy Spacek’s Ruth Deaver *wasn’t* Carrie White. The internet has been flooded with various fan theories, including everything from time loops to alternate universes.
But at what point do the mysteries of “Castle Rock” go from compelling to frustrating? And at what point does the series fall into the same traps that “American Horror Story” seems to every season, where there’s so much going on and so little of it makes sense that you just stop caring about the whole damn thing? With only two episodes remaining for the series’ writers to wrap everything up and bring it all together, I ponder, have we reached that point?
This week’s episode, titled ‘Past Perfect,’ was particularly loaded up with more questions, yet again introducing new characters and storylines at a time when the series should probably be hyper focused on bringing clarity to the table; after all, there’s only going to be one season of this particular storyline, with subsequent seasons set to tell entirely different stories.
“Castle Rock” kicked off this week with a proper introduction to husband and wife Gordon and Lilith, two characters we briefly met earlier in the season. The duo, on rocky ground in the wake of Gordon finding out Lilith was cheating on him with a much younger colleague, has purchased Warden Lacy’s home and turned it into a bed and breakfast that plays up the sketchy, murderous side of the notorious town. As it turns out, Gordon and Lilith are a murder couple in their own right; Gordon kills a couple staying at their home, and Lilith is surprisingly chill about it. Later, when Henry Deaver arrives at the house in search of answers, Gordon and Lilith team up in an attempt to kill him – an attempt thwarted by an axe wielding Jackie Torrance.
In a fun little homage to Jackie’s familial ties to one of Stephen King’s most iconic stories (Jane Levy’s character is the niece of Jack Torrance), Jackie slams an axe down into the top of Gordon’s head while he’s on top of Henry. The series has told us precious little about Jackie, and it sure was nice to finally see Levy playing a role in a major storyline.
The crux of ‘Past Perfect’ was that “The Kid” is *seemingly* making people in the town do horrible things, as both Gordon and Jackie seem to be under his supernatural control when committing barbaric acts they otherwise probably would never have; in Jackie’s own words, “I wasn’t myself anymore.” Sounds a bit like her uncle Jack, doesn’t it?
Is “The Kid” responsible for everything evil that has ever happened in King’s stories…?
So what else happened in ‘Past Perfect’, an episode loaded with unnerving intrigue. Let’s see. Henry discovered what we already know when he learned through annual paintings from Warden Lacy that “The Kid” hasn’t aged a day in 27 years, and “The Kid” also revealed to him that it was he who saved Henry 27 years prior… from a basement, he says. “I waited for you… for 27 years,” Skarsgård’s character tells Henry, while “The Kid” reveals something even more bizarre to Molly Strand: she’s… uh… wait… is Molly actually dead?!
“The Kid” explains to Molly, who is tripping hardcore on pain killers (props to the episode’s score in the final moments, which reflects Molly’s drug-addled state of mind in incredibly effective ways), that he knows her and she knows him, as he was present during her childhood. He also tells Molly that she died out in the woods of Castle Rock… and then, as the series loves to do at the exact moment it drops some crazy shit on us, the episode smashes to black and forces us to wait another week for hopefully an explanation but probably more questions.
“I don’t think [Henry’s] ready yet,” he tells Molly. “But you can help me.”
It may sound like I’m hating on “Castle Rock,” but the truth is that I’m only frustrated because I’m so intrigued and have become so invested in the series these past eight weeks. I’m also worried. Worried that too many ideas are at play and there’s just not enough time to wrap everything up. I’ll say this much. If “Castle Rock” ends up coming together in an even remotely satisfying way these final two weeks, it’ll be a majorly impressive feat. I don’t need *all* the answers, but here’s hoping the long, slow journey was well worth it in the end.
Oh and more Jane Levy, please.
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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