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EPISODE 7
The Stand continues its strong storytelling with a crucial episode that starts to bring the battle between good and evil to an end. Up until Episode 6, the series has been a bit rocky with plenty of characters introduced, wonky storylines, and not offering a clear sight of where the story was headed.
This episode opens up with the only scene of Ezra Miller’s Trashcan Man, a character I am dying to know more about, but the series is teasing us with this pyromaniac character. He gathers the ‘fire’ that the Dark Man requested. With Miller’s performance and his connection with the Dark Man, it is clear that something bigger is in play and I can’t wait for it.
After the tragedy that struck the Boulder Free Zone, Mother Abagail tasks the members of her committee with traveling west to confront the Dark Man but warns that one will fall along the way. This sets up the episode perfectly because we know that darker moments for one of the characters lay ahead which could provide for some intense moments as they travel west on foot. Also traveling outside of the Boulder Free Zone is Nadine and Harold, who set off the bomb in the previous episode killing Nick. Harold tells Nadine that the Dark Man got what he wanted and insults her claiming that ‘he’s gonna give me a woman that makes you look like a potato sack’. Another reason why I don’t care about Harold.
One of the biggest moments of the episode comes when Nadine and Harold are riding away from the Boulder Free Zone and they are approaching a bend in the road and Nadine speeds past Harold and he tries to catch up. She suddenly breaks and Harold isn’t able to break in time and crashes over the edge of the road and breaks his leg and Nadine leaves him there. As Mother Abagail’s committee is traveling west, they come across Harold, who wrote down his last thoughts in a journal and shot himself in his end. Honestly, I was expecting a different ending for Harold. It seems a bit anti-climactic to have him go out the way he did. Since I haven’t read the novel, I am unaware of everyone’s fate.
There are a few things within this episode that don’t make much sense. For one, Nadine gets to the Dark Man via a red carpet in the dessert. They kiss and Flagg tells Nadine that she gets to be his wife (lucky her) and then they have passionate sex, but it isn’t anything like she imagined. She starts to sense that something isn’t right and she realizes she is back in the desert with a demon form of Flagg on top of her. Then it cuts to commercial, which kind of ruins this dark moment.
Mother Abagail warned that one of her members would fall and not be able to make it to Vegas with the others. The quartet comes to a destroyed part of the road. They climb down into a valley and attempt to climb back up but it is Stu who falls and breaks his leg. They put a splint on him, but the group isn’t able to carry him to Vegas and they leave him in the valley. I hope everything will be okay with him. Stu is a very likable character that I would love to see be part of the finale.
Nadine, who now has white hair, is by Flagg’s side. She still has the feeling that something is off with Flagg but puts her hands on her stomach and it is revealed she is carrying a demon baby! Shocking moment! This could be a huge moment leading into the last few episodes, especially with Nadine, who I think still has some good in her. We will see!
As the group gets ready to leave Stu and travel to Vegas, a limo pulls up with Lloyd in it, ready to escort them to Vegas. The Vegas Strip is completely empty, probably how it looks now, with Julius Caesar replaced by a statue of Randall Flagg outside his Palace. Flagg is looking out his penthouse window and tells Nadine to greet their new guests. She reaches Glen, Larry, and Ray and it shows that she is even more pregnant than before! Woah! Just like in WandaVision!
This episode offered plenty of surprises and with only a few episodes left, it seems to be moving forward to an end battle between good and evil. The series has been teasing some side characters that I hope will play a large role in episodes moving forward. This is exactly how I wanted the series to end, with plenty of surprises, thrilling moments, and the conflict between good and evil at the forefront.
EPISODE 8
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It’s starting to come to an end! The heroes of the Boulder Free Zone have made it to Vegas and were greeted by a pale and sickly-looking Nadine who seems to be several months into her pregnancy when it has only been a few days since she got pregnant. Vegas looks grim, and what lays ahead for the group could affect the battle between good and evil, which has been brewing throughout the series.
The remaining members of Mother Abagail’s committee are held in one of the most bizarre court cases I have seen in a series. Nat Wolff eats up this moment of trying to persuade the trio to join what he considers to be the good side. Glen Bateman (Greg Kinnear) challenges Lloyd who tries to convince him that there is good in him but really, there isn’t since he ends up shooting Glen multiple times and killing him. What is interesting about this scene is the fact that everyone is a bit shocked over what happened, even Randall himself. I wonder if the amount of people in Vegas will start to dwindle because they realize that what is going on is wrong. Just a thought.
The remaining two travelers are held captive and are confronted by Nadine. Larry shows Nadine her own reflection and she says the Dark Man made her complete, but looks at herself and realizes something may be wrong, but starts to go into labor. Instead of helping and comforting Nadine, the Dark Man smokes a cigar and waits for his prince to come. It really shows how despicable he is. She knows that the baby kicking within her isn’t right and Randall doesn’t care to listen and she throws herself out his penthouse window, killing herself. This is the only time that I have seen Flagg look upset, which may add to him becoming weaker during the series finale.
The last 20 minutes of this episode are the best of the entire series! Lloyd is shaken up over Nadine’s death and sees how Flagg is reacting to it. Ray and Larry are shackled to the floor of the pool at the casino as Flagg’s followers chant, ‘Make them pay’. Lloyd as always played the over the top goofy character, but he is able to show his true side in these scenes. As the pool fills up with water, Larry yells ‘I will fear no evil’ as he is smacked with Lloyd’s rod, who is clearly showing that he is trying to not hit him. As Larry continues to shout, someone else shouts ‘I will fear no evil’, which sets in motion more people chanting along. Lloyd doesn’t want to listen to the Dark Man anymore and wants to release Ray and Larry from the pool before they drown.
The biggest moments come when the Trashcan Man (Ezra Miller) brings the fire the Dark Man demanded but his face shows that it is melting away from nuclear radiation. He says, ‘My life for you’, and at this moment shows that many people are turning on the Dark Man. The Trashcan Man intends on blowing up the casino with everyone, including him, in it. Before the Trashcan Man can follow through with his plan, a storm brews over the Inferno, which sends bolts of lightning throughout the crowd, killing Flagg’s followers. During all the chaos, Lloyd’s head get knocked off by a swinging part in the casino, and Flagg is hit multiple times by bolts of lightning. After he disappears, the electricity hits the warhead, which explodes and destroys everything nearby and sending a mushroom cloud over Vegas.
WOW! What an ending to the episode! This honestly felt like the end of the series so I have no clue what could happen in the last episode! I loved the approach for Lloyd as he was hyping up the Dark Man, but was dealing with his own personal values and if he wants to continue supporting the Dark Man. Episode 8 tore down everything Flagg built and challenged him as a character. I am really looking forward to the series finale and see what happens with Stu, who notices the mushroom cloud, and Joe, who tells Frannie that the Dark Man is gone, but wasn’t in Vegas. There were plenty of mysterious moments at the end as Frannie asks Joe is Stu survived, but he can’t answer it. The series started off rough but is ending strong, which is something I hoped for after the middle mark in the series!
EPISODE 9
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After an ELECTRIFYING ending to the last episode, I was curious how the ending to The Stand would be presented. With Nadine, Lloyd, the Trashcan Man, Glen, Larry, and Ray all being killed off (and possibly the Dark Man), where would the story go? Will Randall Flagg come back? There were so many questions I had after I watched the end of Episode 8.
The ending to Episode 8 felt like the end of the series. It ended with evil forces being destroyed. Many characters were written off as well. I would have been satisfied if the series ended there, but I know there was more of a story to tell. I still haven’t watched the original series from the 90s, but I would be curious to watch it to compare both endings to the show.
Upon research, I learned that Stephen King was also disappointed in himself for how he ended Frannie’s story. With her pregnancy, she wasn’t able to go to New Vegas for the final battle against Randall Flagg. She went to Maine to rebuild a new community but never got a proper ending in the story. The story has a bit of a different ending for Frannie than the series. King has always had a different idea for Frannie’s ending and with this new series, Frannie is able to have a happy ending and take a stand against evil.
The series finale opens with a voice over explaining how Frannie’s baby, named Abagail, recovered from Captain Tripps after her birth. She became the first person to overcome the virus. The series has focused so much on good vs evil that it forgot to show how Captain Tripps affected people and their daily lives. With the world going through a global pandemic and the series offering similar situations, it gave me a bit of hope knowing that even in the show, people were able to recover and return to their normal routines.
After the voice over, Stu returns to Boulder, much to Frannie’s surprise. He gets to meet his daughter for the first time, which was a sweet moment. After spending some much-needed time together, Frannie informs Stu that she wants to return to Maine to rebuild a society, similar to the one in Boulder. On their way to Maine, they make it to Lorton, Nebraska. An overhead shot from the cornfield shows that they aren’t alone in their journey. Classic King to have a cornfield in the story.
When Stu goes into the town the next morning, Frannie falls into a well after investigating it and being bitten by a rat. This is the strong moment for Frannie in the series, something that King wanted for so long. Frannie hears Flagg saying ‘Hello, bitch’, which shocks her and she falls into the well. Stu blew a tire while heading into town, so he won’t be able to help her.
Frannie suddenly has visions of herself in a forest speaking to Flagg. He shows her what has happened to her in the well and where Stu is. Since Stu isn’t able to help her, Flagg offers her safety only if she kisses him and lets him see the world through her eyes from time to time but Frannie refuses and runs and yells ‘Get thee behind me you fucking bastard!’ This is Frannie’s stand against evil and she is rewarded by it. Mother Abagail appears in her vision and assures Frannie that Flagg was tempting her and God will bless her for resisting his temptation.
When Stu returns from his journey, he meets a young girl, the person who was shown in the overhead shot earlier in the episode. She is feeding Abagail and leads Stu to Frannie in the well. He ties the cable from his truck around his waist and lowers himself in the well to save Frannie. This young girl may be a reincarnation of Mother Abagail as she tells Stu to get out of her way and moves her hands over Frannie, which shifts her broken bones back into place and instructs her to stand. A subtle, but powerful moment for Frannie!
Even though I was satisfied with the ending of Episode 8 and how it concluded the story for many characters, I thought the finale was strong in the way that people are still able to resist evil temptations. It gave a strong ending for a character that had potential from the beginning but often got lost in the journey between good and evil and the characters that were introduced. The episode doesn’t end with Frannie living out her happy life with Abagail and Stu but instead reintroduces evil in a new form. In a new version of the epilogue for The Stand, it is revealed that Flagg has returned. We see Flagg on a beach, approaching a tribe, completely naked with just his boots on. One member of the tribe tries to attack him with an arrow, but has his head blow off by Flagg’s powers. He rises above them and they kneel and he says, ‘My name is Russell Faraday! Worship me!’ Even with people confronting evil and taking a stand against it, evil in some form will return, but we can always resist it. Even if the series left me with more questions than I wanted, I thought it was a powerful way to wrap up the series and still connect to the overall theme of the story.
The Stand was a series that I found to be completely frustrating at times but often rewarding too. I grew to appreciate many characters, even if there were more than needed. The constant battle between good and evil held this series together and never forgot about it, even up to the last minute. I am curious now to read the novel and watch the original series from the 90s, but for now, I’m happy with how Paramount Plus handled the series and how they gave powerful moments to smaller characters. With everyone going through a global pandemic, it was satisfying to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel but there will always be challenges ahead. We have to be ready to take them head on, just like Frannie did.
The Stand is available for streaming on Paramount Plus.
What did you think of the series? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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