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Hulu’s Castle Rock has been an absolutely phenomenal series that really took fans by surprise. In fact, the penultimate episode (Episode 9) threw in some twists that fans weren’t expecting, but they’ll be talking about for a long time. Now the finale has aired and fans are going to have a year or so to discuss all their theories and reactions. This is a recap and review of the finale, updated live while watching the episode, so you can get genuine reactions and thoughts about how Season 1 is ending.
The finale episode is called “Romans.” It begins with a look back at previous episodes, including Henry Deaver (played by Andre Holland) ending one of his murder trials. I’m going to refer to him as Henry in this recap, and the other Henry as The Kid, just for simplicity’s sake.
We’ve got a lot of questions as the finale begins, and I’m wondering just how much is going to be answered.
It begins with The Kid in the jail cell under Shawshank, thanks to Lacy believing he had a directive from God. (Is this the same “God” that Henry’s father kept thinking he heard in the woods, and that Henry and his son also hear?) Lacy prays over the meal he gave The Kid and sits for a chat while smoking a cigarette. I honestly don’t know how The Kid (aka Henry) stayed sane all those years. (Except the way he appeared when he got out as compared to how he used to be in the alternate reality tells us that he didn’t make it out unscathed — if you believe his story.)
Lacy is telling The Kid that he never had kids because of him, and he was always waiting on instructions from “him.” (My theory is maybe Randall Flagg is the “god” he’s hearing from? That would be twisted wouldn’t it?) Lacy holds a gun on The Kid, considering shooting him. But he doesn’t. The Kid is pretty much just not reacting to any of this. Life has beaten him down. :( (Let’s not forget that he was delivered to Lacy by the man who is his adopted dad in his own reality.)
Now back at Shawshank, we see prisoners being loaded on a bus.
Then we’re at that creepy B&B with all the paintings of the kid that Lacy drew.
And we see the blonde (Jackie) outside the creepy B&B, looking at the dead man during a song montage. And we see Henry’s son Wendell returning to Castle Rock (I forgot about that part.)
Henry’s mom Ruth is standing on a pillar overlooking the bridge again, considering jumping back in. (My theory on Ruth is that she really is a time traveler and can somehow travel between realities. She doesn’t have dementia, she really is confused and losing her “grip” on her own timeline.)
Now we’re back at Molly’s home, after The Kid told her the whole story. His story was so tragic. “To you were strangers, but I’ve known you all my life. I need your help to convince Henry to go out there with me… Because he hears it, the sound. I think it’s some kind of door from one world to the other. When I went out there, nothing happened. I didn’t even know what to look for.”
(By the way, I’m pretty sure this door is a “thinny,” which we’ve heard about in King’s books.)
The Kid asks Molly to bring Henry to him so he can remind Henry of something. Molly wants to know what she was like in the other reality. “Happier,” The Kid says. (And that’s true. She was at peace with herself and she had a great career.)
Molly is trying to call Henry but can’t reach him. We see a huge flock of birds menacingly flying, and they divebomb Henry’s car. Ouch!
The intro plays, and now here we go…
Molly is driving, looking for Henry, and finds Ruth standing on a pillar, overlooking that bridge again, thinking about jumping in. Of course, she’s not going to be able to handle what she did to Alan. :(
Molly tries to get Ruth to come with her, but she wants to go to the hospital so Alan won’t leave her side. She knows Alan’s dead and she knows she shot him, but she says he’s also alive other times. He “zigs and zags,” “folks in the river always changing… Alan’s dead, Alan’s alive. Been here before, be here again, you and me on the bridge.”
Molly is beginning to realize Ruth’s not crazy. She tells Ruth that one of those other times Ruth saw, she left Matthew and went with Alan. She’s beginning to see the truth. Ruth doesn’t have dementia — Ruth is leaving in all those realities and seeing them at once.
Back at Shawshank, a guard talks to Warden Porter about how they have 152 less mouths to feed. They’ve got to clear the prison out, but it’s not easy. “Shawshank’s been open 100 years. One head case goes postal, nine of my men are dead, and institution dies with them,” the guard is saying.
Porter arrives home, troubled by everything that’s happening. She’s smoking, just like Warden Lacy before her. She finds a carved soap figure on her table that doesn’t belong to her. (This was what Henry Deaver had with him while he was being held captive by Matthew Deaver in the other reality, and also what was with The Kid while he was held captive by Lacy under Shawshank.)
Now we’re back in time, with Matthew Deaver taking his son Henry into the woods, trying to see if he hears the same thing. (In the other reality, he did the same thing with The Kid, but The Kid never could hear it.) Matthew says that Henry’s not hearing it because “she’s forced you to deceive me.” He knows that Ruth is with Alan, and he believes Ruth will be gone soon, so Henry and Matthew can live “pure.”
“The wages of sin is death,” Matthew quotes to Henry from Romans. “She’s left me no choice.”
Henry takes off running. Now he knows that his dad is going to kill his mom.
Meanwhile in present day, adult Henry is passed out in his car after being attacked by a flock of birds. It looks like it’s the next day, so he’s been passed out with his window partially open for a while. Apparently birds are killing themselves all over town. (Remember, Lacy thought The Kid was the devil and causing these things to happen, but after Episode 9, I’m not so sure about that anymore.)
Now we’re back in the present day, and Wendell is walking through the woods, trying to get back home. He runs into some cop cars surrounding a camper. This is the same camper that his dad found, and he’s stumbling onto the murder scene. The guy who locked Henry up in a soundless room is dead, and the young man who was by his side is there, very much alive and well. (These characters’ names are escaping me.)
I love the speed that this show moves at. Nothing goes to slow, and they keep me interested through every scene.
In the next scene, Henry goes back to his mom’s house and finds Ruth there (in the background, you can hear a news report about Shawshank closing.) Molly is there waiting for him.
“I found her out on the bridge,” she says. “She was going to jump again… Jesus, Henry, you got stabbed.”
She tells him that The Kid came to him. And now we’re at Harmony Hill Cemetery, where The Kid is walking up the steps. “Terrible things just follow him wherever he goes, like he’s a mad man or something,” Molly says. “And he’s saying it was the same for you over there. He knew everything, Henry, about me, about you, your family.”
Henry’s skeptical.
“All he wants is for you to help him get home,” Molly says. “He thinks that the door… or whatever it is… he thinks it’s open right now and he doesn’t know how long it will stay open…”
Henry wants to turn him in. (Not a good idea, Henry!) But I like that they aren’t making him immediately believe The Kid, especially considering that his dad died out there in the woods (and so did Molly in the other reality.) He thinks even if it is true, he shouldn’t go because someone always dies out there.
I’m feeling bad for TK (the Kid) right now. He just wants to go home. :(
Henry gets a call and goes to the police station, where his son is. Wendell tells him that he heard a sound in the woods and couldn’t leave. He had to get closer to that sound.
Annnnd, the police aren’t going to let Henry leave the station. What the heck? This is ominous.
The police chief shows him a picture of the man who was killed in the woods. “Eye witness says that you and Mr. Branch had an argument a few nights ago,” the cop tells him. Oh great.
In the next scene, Warden Porter shows up at Molly’s door, looking for TK. She shows Molly the carved soap figure. “Warden Lacy was right,” Porter says. “He’s the devil.” Porter is freaking out right now over that little figure that she found. AND SHE IS KILLED BY A BUS WHAT ON EARTH JUST HAPPENED?!?!
Henry is being interrogated, and the ringing in his ears is getting louder. “Wherever you go, there’s bloodshed,” the cop is telling him. That’s what I’m thinking. He returned to the town and everything started going haywire. It might not be TK after all. (Or it’s both of them.)
Henry requests his phone call, because this interrogation is getting creepy, and I don’t blame him.
Now we’re back at the scene of Porter’s death. It seems that people who touch TK (or things he touched) die horrifically. That’s one theory people are sharing. Meanwhile, the prisoners on the bus are getting pretty restless. This is a huge mess.
Molly gets a phone call from Henry and she brings the figure to him at the police station, saying it’s the same one that TK left in her office. (And SHE’S NOT DEAD FOLKS.) Henry asks her to take Wendell to Boston and then just keep on driving. He wants her to get away from Castle Rock and away from him. Poor Henry. :( I think he and TK are both just innocent victims of something much bigger than them.
Henry is put into jail, because that’s fair. They don’t really have probable cause to jail him. He had an argument with that guy but there’s no proof… This is making me mad. Ugh.
Meanwhile at the cemetery, TK is hanging out, watching a helicopter fly overhead and police cars show up, surrounding him. The cops ask him to put his hands up and are arresting him because that makes sense too. He sees his own gravestone from when he died as a baby in this reality. Yikes.
So now both Deavers are arrested.
Molly is driving Wendell out of town, and Wendell asks her if what’s happening has to do with the sound in the woods.
TK is put in a jail cell right next to Henry. “You sent them,” TK says. “That’s what I would’ve done. She told you everything?”
Oh! Henry sent the police to TK. Interesting.
“The sound stops, I think I could be stuck here,” TK says. “As long as I’m here, things will get worse. People will die. I can’t stop it. I’m not supposed to be here.”
Personally, I believe TK.
Henry wants to know who he is. “Same as you,” TK says. ” A victim.”
But Henry doesn’t believe him. TK reminds him of the dream Henry keeps having of being locked in a cage in a basement (that’s what happened in TK’s reality — evidence that TK is telling the truth.)
I really like how they didn’t have Henry immediately believe TK. I’d expect this from a death row attorney who deals with lies a lot in his career.
TK says it makes sense that Henry blocked the memory. “When they found me, even after I got out, it didn’t all fit together,” TK says. “Then I got to your house, my house… Your memories will come back too. Maybe in pieces, one at a time. They will.”
Henry asks what would have happened if his mom had stayed in Castle Rock in TK’s world. TK says that Matthew would’ve killed her because he knew all about Ruth and Alan, and he quoted Romans 6:23. This is exactly what happened in Henry’s universe and what Matthew threatened. YES. TK IS BEING HONEST. I knew it.
Henry’s remembering what his dad said to him about Romans. (This is why the episode is called Romans.) The police the move Henry into the same cell with TK, so they can bring other prisoners into the jail. Looks like these are some prisoners from Shawshank. They’re taunting TK, but then something goes wrong and they start fighting each other while TK stares them down. That’s when Henry starts to guess that TK has some kind of power and is causing all of this to happen. The prisoners are escaping and shooting the guards. The key gets slipped into their cage and just like that, TK is going to be free. But everything is falling apart and people are shooting and fighting each other. Henry is freaked out, realizing this might be all TK’s doing.
As they walk out of the police station, everyone is dead. This reminds me a lot of what happened at Shawshank, so it’s got to be because of TK and not Henry, right? I still believe TK’s story, but he has some crazy abilities that he’s not being up front about.
TK is ready to be out of this world. He holds a gun on Henry and wants to make him go into the woods with him. I’m wondering just how much control TK has over what happens around him, and how much is just the universe freaking out because he’s in the wrong reality.
TK and Henry are walking into the woods. “I don’t want to hurt you Henry,” TK says, his words echoing what Henry’s dad said to him when he was a kid. Ohhhh, we’re going to see how his dad fell! I always suspected Henry pushed him off the cliff.
My problem here is that I really want to like TK and not believe he’s causing all the death around him, that it’s just the universe’s reaction to him and he’s desperate to get back home and stop hurting people… This is a sign of really good writing, in my opinion.
Back when Henry was a kid, his dad followed him to the cliff and saw someone standing at the bottom (maybe TK?) A huge flock of crazy birds was flying overhead, just like they are now, and young Henry pushed his dad over the edge because he wanted to save his mom’s life.
Back in today’s reality, Henry is hearing the sounds of the woods, just like his dad did. A helicopter flies overhead and Henry takes the opportunity to take the gun from TK. But then TK looks up and he’s a monster… A MONSTER? WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT? Annnd now he’s back to normal. WHAT? Maybe he just looks like a monster because he’s in the wrong reality?
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Now we cut to a new, quiet scene that paints a big contrast to where we just were. (I love this show.) It’s one year later, and Henry is back working as a lawyer again. It looks like he isn’t in death row law anymore.
He’s still living in Castle Rock, working there now, and Wendell is living there with him at Ruth’s house. They’re playing chess with Ruth’s special set and it’s Christmas time. Henry looks outside at Molly’s house. She’s not there anymore.
Molly’s a real estate agent now, and she’s not living in Castle Rock anymore. She seems happy and she’s in the Florida Keys, with her grandma.
Henry visits Ruth and Alan’s grave… Awww, she’s gone now too. :(
Here’s Henry’s voiceover at the end: “Truth doesn’t change, it’s just truth. Pure. But justice that’s different depending on what side of the invisible line you’re on. And Ron, the line is here. Runs right through Wilma’s azaleas. You dug your septic here. Maine property law is a briar patch, but I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve…
“Some folks get away. Spend the rest of their lives trying to forget this place… Maybe they do forget, for a while. Some never leave, no matter how hard they try. Most of us are trapped here for a reason. Everyone in this town has some sin or regret, some cage of his own making, and the story, a sad one, about how we got this way. It wasn’t me, it was this place. That’s what we say. But that’s a story too, it doesn’t change a thing. Maybe something turns you into a monster. Or maybe you were one all along. Doesn’t matter. You’re here now. This is who you are. This is where you live. This is where you’re from.”
Henry’s sneaking into an abandoned Shawshank. And he’s going right back to the cage that Lacy set up underground. And there’s TK. :(
Yes, it looks like Henry put TK right back in that cage where Lacy had him. And just like his own messed up father did to him in the other reality. :(
He’s bringing food for TK: hamburger and fries for Christmas, which is the next day.
“I know you still have doubts Henry,” TK tells him. But Henry’s having none of that. “How long are we gonna do this?”
“Don’t know,” Henry says.
“After a while you forget which side of the bars you’re on,” TK says. “That’s what Warden Lacy used to say… Look how things turned out for him.”
Henry just says Merry Christmas and walks out.
Sooo…. Henry has turned into his father, the man he hated. And it looks like his life likely won’t end well, just like Warden Lacy’s. I’m still thinking that TK was only a monster because he was in the wrong reality. That last shot, which shows him smiling creepily in the dark, leads us to believe otherwise, though.
What do you think? I think this is an ironic ending. We’re led to believe that TK is the monster and actually see him portrayed as one. But in reality, Henry might be turning into the monster that he believed his dad to be. He’s locking up TK, just like his dad locked him up in an alternate reality.
We can also say that although he tries to convince a jury that they need zero doubt before locking someone up (and said that he himself would need that), he still made the decision to lock TK up while still having a lot of doubt. Maybe that’s why he can’t be the same kind of attorney anymore.
By the way, don’t miss the after credits scene!
Jackie is reading a horror book that she’s writing, based on how she had to kill that B&B owner with an axe. It’s called “Overlooked” and it’s about her. “It’s ancient history. It’s family history,” she says, adding that she’s heading out west. “The best place to finish a book is where it started.”