Things are getting weirder.
But theres no massacre.
The kid is in his cell.
Credit: Hulu
No one is dead.
People think were just one of those dead towns people hear about.
A run of bad luck.
Castle RockEpisode: SeverancePictured: Bill Skarsgard.Patrick Harbron/Hulu
Its not luck, its a plan.
And not Gods either, he says.
Sure you do, Lacy goes on.
CASTLE ROCK — “Habeas Corpus” – Episode 102 – Henry gets a new client at Shawshank Prison. Henry Deaver (Andre Holland) shown. (Photo by: Seacia Pavao/Hulu).Seacia Pavao/Hulu
How about all the others that didnt make headlines?
We get a flashback to 1961.
We see Lacy at a football game.
A figure in a mascot costume waves at her, then plunges to his death.
Turned out I wasnt the one people needed to worry about, Lacy says.
My younger brother was.
That was my first taste of what this town could do to someone.
From there, we see assorted acts of murder and mayhem.
Take any house in this town.
Every inch is stained with someones sin.
Water cascades down stairs, and we get an apparent flash-forward.
A man lies dead in an armchair while a Smiles cereal commercial plays on TV.
A woman in her Sunday best is revving the motor.
They say, It wasnt me, it was this place.
And the thing is, theyre right, Lacy says.
We see the warden as a younger man, putting a lantern from some camping gear into his car.
He yells to his wife that hell be late with a parole board meeting.
Let me stand athwart the doorway, I told him.
But God doesnt take requests, he continues.
And then, one day.
One beautiful day… God answered.
We see the warden building a cage in the cistern below the prison.
Who was the body in the 1938 bathtub?
Why did the woman kill the man in the armchair?
By what means did this message from God arrive?
First stop: the Lacy house, with its bloody history.
Far as Im concerned, private prisons should be outlawed, she says, welcoming him inside.
I hope youll take this all the way to the Supreme Court.
Dale believed in rehabilitation.
Off the clock, he called it grace, she says.
She allows him to rummage through her late husbands office, and goes to answer the phone.
Henry finds a drawer full of prayer calendars, which all ceased being ripped off midway through the year.
The dates are all different, but the same Biblical passage is on each one:Acts: 16-33.
Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds.
Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized.
He pieces through a folder of news clippings.
Shopkeeper missing after oddity store fire, is a clear reference toNeedful Things.
Anonymous tip led to boys body, is another shoutout to The Body.
AndCujois referenced again in Rabid dog tears through town.
The blind woman returns from her phone conversation.
Last I checked, Henry answered, somewhat bemused.
Yourre Henry Deaver, arent you?
His answer this time is more of a sigh.
Last I checked…
We knew your father.
We were members of his congregation.
After what you did… and now you take advantage of a blind woman.
Theres a special place in hell for you.
Henry notices a padlock on a cellar door.
Whats in the basement?
he asks, but agrees to leave when she threatens to call the state police.
At his fathers old church, the pastor (Mad MensAaron Staton) is soliciting prayer partners for prisoners.
One is a drug dealer; one is guilty of desecration of a grave, and worse.
Warden Lacy wouldnt have confided in me.
It was his church before my time.
He dropped Martha off on Sundays and drove off to the woods.
He considered nature his chapel.
We work with some colorful characters in our prayer partner program here, the reverend says.
Its nice to see redemption in the flesh.
Back at the prison, Zalewski picks up food from The Kids cell.
You didnt leave here last night, did you?
Its almost sweet how naive he is.
Of course you didnt.
Im screwed up then.
I got… You know fathers get this thing called sympathetic pregnancy.
She doesnt appear to know him, but he knows her.
Rough month, he says, eying her security tag.
Not everyone is cut out for corrections work.
I was a lawman myself.
Theyre naming a bridge after me 150 tons of steel and concrete.
He tells her the story of pulling over her predecessor, Warden Lacy, speeding through town long ago.
That night he told me he had finally figured out what was wrong with Castle Rock.
So our Mystery Man was just a child when he was captured.
Old Dale said he caught him, and had locked the devil in a box.
And from here on out it was blue skies and butterflies.
How long ago was this?
Pangborn shakes his head.
Dont let that f kid out.
Back in the cistern, Warden Porter is examining the evidence.
If Lacy was a good man, he must have had a good reason for what he did.
She finds a box full of fingernails.
Clipping from The Kids many days in solitary confinement.
This is not to be confused with Kings haunted hotel short story 1408.
This ispure white supremacy garbage.
He puts down the book hes reading.
(William GoldingsLord of the Flies, which is where King got the name Castle Rock.)
The next day, they find the white supremacist dead in the cell.
He was riddled with cancer, penetrating every major organ.
The medical examiner thinks its a miracle he could even have walked.
In that story, Coffey could absorb the illnesses and pain of other people.
This stranger … he seems to be able to infuse people with disease.
He laments that hes older than his father ever got to be.
As he blows out the candle, we see a flashback.
Shes writing his name over and over again in a notebook, clearly nursing a schoolgirl crush.
Later, she wakes in the night and sees Henry being summoned to a car.
We have no idea who is behind the wheel.
Here we learn that Molly has some precognitive abilities.
She takes her painkillers to quiet the messages she is inundated with from others.
Right, your undiagnosed psychic affliction, her sister says.
I take a pill once a day just to muffle other peoples noise, Molly says.
Isnt it grand to have supportive family?
Asking permission was just a formality.
I signed your name and filed the papers this morning, Molly says.
Thank you for lunch.
He meets up with Jackie Torrance, who cheerfully trades in local gossip.
Blackface, she says.
Henry is losing interest, fast.
But then she starts to talk about the rumors surrounding his disappearance.
Beloved local preacher opens up his home and his heart to poor screw-up orphan.
Gets weirder, she says.
Wander out of the woods 11 days later and pretend you cant remember what happened.
That the cover story or the real story?
You tell me, she says.
Deaver manages to spot Zalewski and gets him a message.
As he leaves, he tells Jackie: He died at home, not at the lake.
We hear Warden Lacys narration again: Give a man the keys to the dungeon.
Tell him to lock up the monster.
Or pin a star on his chest and call him the sheriff.
Maybe he succeeds awhile, a decade or two if hes lucky.
But evil outlasts us all.
Back at the Deaver house, Pangborn is digging in the woods.
A stray dog theyd been feeding was hit and killed by a truck.
(Shades ofPet Cemetaryhere.)
Henry doesnt understand why this is necessary.
His mother seemed fine earlier in the day.
They call it sundowning.
Nights are hard for your mom, Pangborn says.
He tells her they found the reverend barely alive at the bottom of a cliff at Castle Lake.
Deputy Ridgewick wants to know if Henry ever talked about hurting his father.
Its not his father, Molly says.
She says she doesnt know anything about Henry, including where he may have gone.
Back in the present, Henry finds a carved figure in the refrigerator.
More evidence of his mothers sundowning?
But he doesnt know what became of the mysterious stranger.
Havent seen him since yesterday, walked him down to solitary.
This town, they should pave over the whole damn county, Henry says.
Ill file habeas in the morning.
Well verify you have whistleblower protection.
But Zalewski doesnt want to testify.
Ill lose my job, my health care.
My wife is giving birth in a month.
Do you think Id be working at a prison if there was a Walmart within sixty miles of here?
I did my part.
Henry just wants to get into the prison, but now the administration is on guard against him.
Theres no way he can get close on his own.
It would take an act of God to get you in that prison, Zalewski says.
Thats where Henrys fathers old church comes in.
We see the lawyer boarding the bus with the other prayer leaders.
Hes going to get through Shawshanks perimeter by camouflaging himself among the churchgoers.
We hear the narration of Warden Lacy again: Never again let him see the light of day.
Thats what God told me….
He told me where to find him.
How his prison should be built.
How to put an end to all the horrors weve seen in this town.
But you have to say it!
Henry Deaver, The Kid says softly.
Or about where I would be in the end.
We see the sheepdog from moments before his suicide crest a hill in the woods.
The dog digs in the dirt, uncovering the wardens severed head.
I fear whats to come Alan, but I know Castle Rock still has a defender.
Even in the dead of night.
