Editorials
The Annie Wilkes Origin Story Reaches a Perfect Conclusion in “Castle Rock” Season Finale
“I’m his number one fan.”
The very concept of “Castle Rock” – a series set within Stephen King’s Universe, though not beholden to directly adapting any of his stories – allows the writers to play with different storylines and characters from King’s work, and on that particular front, the second season was far more compelling than the first. Whereas the show’s debut season casually brushed up against stories including The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption, the second season drew inspiration from Salem’s Lot and plucked its central character out of Misery. And it’s the story of Annie Wilkes that the season ultimately brought to a satisfying conclusion.
Titled “Clean,” the season finale directly tied the show’s version of Annie (played to perfection by Lizzy Caplan) to the Annie from both King’s novel and Rob Reiner’s film, making it clear that this season of “Castle Rock” was very much an origin story for the Annie Wilkes we all know. Oddly enough, that was something of a surprise twist for the season, as the show’s Annie had up to this point been, in a surprise twist unto itself, a sympathetic protagonist.
Through fleshing out the Misery villain’s backstory, the writers of “Castle Rock” have been able to take a much more nuanced approach to the depiction of Annie Wilkes than Constant Readers are familiar with, exploring the mental disorders and tragic life events that ultimately turned a loving mother into a murderous monster. Relayed to us in the 1994-set episode 5 (“The Laughing Place”), Annie’s mental illness was genetically inherited from her mother, who took her own life in an attempt to kill both Annie and herself. As for Annie’s father, he was accidentally killed by Annie all those years ago, and the standout fifth episode also informed us that Joy, who Annie has raised as a daughter, is actually Annie’s half-sister – the daughter Annie’s father had with Annie’s tutor in the wake of Annie’s mother killing herself.
Despite it all – and “it all,” I must remind, includes Annie attempting to kill her tutor after accidentally killing her father, very nearly drowning Joy when she was a baby, and murdering a man with an ice cream scoop – the Annie Wilkes we’ve gotten to know in the second season of “Castle Rock” has been a sympathetic character rather than a stone-cold killer, which has been the season’s single most interesting quality. The latter half of the season has even positioned Annie as something of an unlikely hero, one of the few forces of good helping to save the town of Castle Rock from complete annihilation at the hands of evil forces from the 1600s and a mysterious man who has been influencing the show’s events since season one.
But “Clean,” after wrapping up the season’s main storyline perhaps a little bit too quickly and easily (more on that in a little bit), brilliantly reconciled the young Annie Wilkes of “Castle Rock,” a complex depiction of a mentally-unstable mother trying to hold it together and protect her daughter at all costs, with the more unhinged Annie Wilkes of Misery.
After saving Joy from the supernatural forces threatening the future of Castle Rock, Annie took her “little love” across the border to Canada, in search of the “happy place” they’d been looking for. Annie believed she had found it when she took up a job as the live-in nurse for a bed-ridden man at his lake-front home, but the dream became a nightmare when Annie started to believe that Joy was still in the grips of those evil forces. Her mind warped by her mental illness, Annie ultimately ended up drowning her beloved daughter in the aforementioned lake, fulfilling the tragic and seemingly inescapable fate that her own mother had passed down to her. It was as if Annie was only ever out-running that inevitable horror.
Upon realizing that her mind had betrayed her, and that Joy was very much still Joy when she killed her, Annie finally lost touch with reality completely, imagining an alternate reality wherein Joy didn’t die and they went on to live a happy life together. The final scene of the episode saw Annie (and Joy by her side, if only in Annie’s mind) attending a book signing for her new favorite author, whose work she has only recently discovered: Paul Sheldon.
The episode left us with Annie sitting front row at the signing, totally alone but believing her daughter is sitting next to her. “I’m his number one fan,” Annie says to herself. Of course, we know where the story goes from there. Now that she has killed the one thing that was keeping her from falling over the edge, so to speak, Annie Wilkes has truly become Annie Wilkes. And Paul Sheldon has no idea what’s coming to him in the very near future.
Above all else, the second season of “Castle Rock” has been an Annie Wilkes prequel story, introducing us to the iconic character at three early stages of her life and providing us with more of a window into her mind than we ever really had before. As a child, her dyslexia made her an outcast at school, leading her parents to make the decision to home-school her. As a teenager, Annie’s life was rocked by multiple tragedies, including her father leaving and her mother trying to kill her, not to mention the death of her father by her own hand. And as an adult, much closer to the events of Misery, she took the life of the only person left in the world that she truly loved. But not before discovering a new purpose in life, and a new person to devote all of her attention to. That being Paul Sheldon, whose words come along at just the wrong time to make an impression and capture her heart like only Joy did before.
It’s up to the individual Stephen King fan to decide whether or not any of this is canon to King’s work, but if you let them, the ten episodes of this season of “Castle Rock” admirably serve to enrich the experience of revisiting Misery – either book or movie. Thanks to strong writing – Annie’s dad being a writer who referred to her as his “number one fan” while she was growing up was a real nice touch, as was Annie being distraught over his finished novel not being dedicated to her – and Lizzy Caplan’s Emmy-worthy performance, it’s not at all hard to imagine this Annie Wilkes becoming the Annie Wilkes played by Kathy Bates in 1990, and that’s a testament to how much of a treat “Castle Rock” can be to King fans if it continues down the path of more directly drawing inspiration from his most iconic works.
On the flip side, what wasn’t all the satisfying about the season two finale was the way the overarching storyline was wrapped up, with our heroes saving the day and blowing up the Marsten house within the first 20 minutes of the episode. The season had overall struggled with weaving together all the different storylines at play, and while last week’s “Caveat Emptor” brought everything together quite perfectly, this week’s finale felt like it was in a rush to move past the plight of Castle Rock and get into the Misery prequel its back half was dedicated to. We still don’t really know who Bill Skarsgård’s character is and none of the characters really got much of a sendoff aside from Tim Robbins’ Pop (who was able to heroically sacrifice himself for a second time thanks to a silly plot convenience that was probably put to use one too many times by the show), making it feel like the season really needed two episodes to wrap everything up but unfortunately only had one at its disposal.
That being said, the second season of “Castle Rock” was considerably more satisfying on the whole than the first, and the handling of Annie Wilkes’ storyline, in particular, brought the show to heights that it was never quite able to reach in season one. It’s as if the creators have cracked the code and figured out what kinds of stories the show ought to be telling, and that makes the future possibilities both endless and incredibly exciting for the King fans watching.
Here’s hoping enough fans did watch this season to warrant another renewal from Hulu, as there are countless other iconic King characters deserving of this small screen spotlight.
Editorials
‘The Vampire Lestat’ Concert Event Launches New Season With The Ultimate Expression Of Fandom
There are thousands of passionate fans decked out in gothic chic and champing at the bit like feral creatures. They’re screaming for Lestat, a legendary vampire-turned-rock star, as if the entire crowd has been glamored into submission.
The entire experience is magic, but not because some supernatural thrall has been activated. What’s going on is even more special. It’s the power of the effusive fandom that’s been authentically assembled by AMC’s sublime Immortal Universe, namely Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, now, The Vampire Lestat.
The Vampire Lestat is far from the first Anne Rice adaptation, and it’s not as if there’s been a lack of erotic vampire material for audiences to sink their teeth into. On June 2nd, during a one-night-only spectacle, New York City’s prestigious Beacon Theatre shook from Sam Reid’s bravado performance and an audience full of adoring fans who had already memorized Lestat’s songs.
It’s clear that The Vampire Lestat just hits differently than its predecessors. It’s become more than just a TV series at this point, and this opulent display of ego, swagger, and pure sex is the perfect way to premiere the new season and give back to the fans who helped make Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat such a breakout success. It’s exactly the sort of hyperbolized hedonism that would make Lestat cackle.
For all intents and purposes, AMC has successfully created the illusion that this concert/premiere is just one of the many destinations on Lestat and his band’s 54-stop tour that is simultaneously playing out on this season of television. It’s such a sophisticated and thorough level of interactive fan engagement that the audience doesn’t just understand, but also manages to accentuate through its involvement.
It’s a level of seamless synergy that’s not unlike the give-and-take relationship of vampire and victim.
Before the concert started, “LeStans” were sitting in the Beacon and flipping through a fake Rolling Stone issue with Lestat emblazoned on the cover, complete with interviews with the undead frontman inside. Other fans were admiring the vinyl pressing of Lestat’s EP as they walked past a section of undead band merch. Fandom and fantasy blur together, and it all becomes this elaborate, immersive experience. Fan celebration, erotic gothic fantasy, and a lavish rock concert transform into one beautiful thing.
To this point, AMC Global Media’s Chief Content Officer and President of AMC Studios, Dan McDermott, introduced the event by reiterating to fans, “You are the heartbeat of the series.” That’s abundantly clear on nights like this as that heartbeat collectively pulses to this performance. In terms of how AMC engages with The Vampire Lestat’s fans, it’s as bold a reinvention as the season itself.
This intuitive gamble speaks to AMC’s creativity in this department and a fandom that is eager to seize such opportunities. It’s the same innovation that led to zombie walks for The Walking Dead and real-life Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant pop-ups from Breaking Bad. It’s a great way to pump up the audience for The Vampire Lestat and then maintain that enthusiasm for the whole season.
For most series, a rock ‘n’ roll concert just doesn’t make any sense as a promotional tool. The Vampire Lestat finds itself in a very unique position where it can deliver an excellent concert at an iconic theater, but also use it to showcase The Vampire Lestat’s music by Daniel Hart (who was shredding on stage alongside Reid and the rest of their band) and, more than anything, Sam Reid’s endless charisma.
The way in which Reid feeds off of the crowd’s energy, modulating his performance and giving different sections of the Beacon life, is a perfect distillation of the series’ thoughtful relationship with its audience and how it’s become such a breakout success for AMC. AMC Studios President Dan McDermott emphasized that the fans are the reason that the show is still here and why an event like this is even possible. It’s rare to see a series in which every single cog in the machine is so perfectly attuned to its fans. Reid’s fans already cheer whenever they see him, so why not translate that to a concert setting?
It’s clear in this season of television that Reid was born to be a rock star, but it’s surreal to see him effortlessly command the stage — and the audience — at every step of the concert. He recites Shakespeare monologues and bitches out Armand between songs, all while the audience screams in support. For the duration of this concert, Reid is Lestat, and he’s given thousands of fans a memory that’s as immortal as any vampire.
Now bring on the encore and get this show on the road!
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