The Stand – E2 Pocket Savior

Jason and Cristina break down episode 2 of The Stand. They discuss the new characters we have been introduced to and some differences from this adaptation and the books. If you’re real you must be the devil.

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CBS The Stand, The Stand, Stephen King

Podcast Notes –

EPISODE 2:  “POCKET SAVIOR”

WRITTEN BY:	Josh Boone & Ben Cavell
DIRECTED BY:	Tucker Gates
RECEPTION:	Imdb – 5.4 / RT – 54% (A – 36%)

“Today, we take our Stand and review Episode 2”

 

CRITICS

“As a whole, this episode is much stronger than the pilot even as some of the overarching problems – like the hastiness with which the show has to develop these characters operating under the confines of a limited series – persists.  A lot of the scenes happen faster and with more heavy-handedness and there’s still a lot left to be desired in terms of character development for the women of the ensemble.  But the pieces are starting to click into place: This is a story about the choices different people make at the end of the world, ones which have immediate consequences.”

TITLE:        “Pocket Savior”

The name of Larry’s album (they wanted to name it Baby Can You Dig Your Man? But settled for this with a ‘includes the best selling’ sticker. 

DIRECTOR: Tucker Gates – X-Files, Lost, Bates Motel, Homeland

MUSIC:

• Demon Host – by Timber Timbre (early in episode)
• Space Song – by Beach House (wide shot at the end of NYC)
• Islands in the Sun – Weezer (Lloyd’s flashback, shootout at store)
• Brand New Key – by Melanie (end)

FUN FACTS:

• Whoopi Goldberg was supposed to play Mother Abigail in the 94 version but had to pass in order to film Sister Act 2.
• *Hemingford Home was also the setting for Children of the Corn book (thus the callout last episode)
• From last episode, when Harold listened to Fran’s stomach, he aid, “is he kicking in there? No…it’s just breakfast.”

NEW FACES & PLACES 

• Larry Underwood          94: Adam Storke / 20: Jovan Adepo   

Underwood is a young, narcissistic singer-songwriter who, at the beginning of the novel, is starting to achieve significant success with his debut single, “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?” In the books, his mother points out his greatest character flaw to him directly, “You’re a taker…you came home to me because you knew that I have to give.”  In this series, Larry is boiled down to his true essence – he comes off as an even worse guy than in the books due to some of the character development shortcuts, but it’s ultimately effective.  Larry exists somewhere between good and evil…he’s talented and charming but undeniably selfish and reckless.  He wrestles between self-preservation and caretaking.” 

• Rita Blakemoor          94: N/A / 20: Heather Graham  

A wealthy, middle-aged Manhattanite who had lived a pampered life and quickly showed she was not ready for the post-apocalyptic world, resulting in tension between her and Larry. (another female, attempts suicide by pills)

• Nadine Cross                   94: Laura San Giacomo / 20: Amber Heard  

A teacher at a private school in New Hampshire, Cross. After the outbreak of the superflu, Cross finds an emotionally damaged young boy whom she calls “Joe”.

• “Joe” (Leo Rockway) 94: Billy Sullivan / 20: Gordon Cormier  

Very little is known of his pre-plague life. 11 years old and living in New Hampshire, where Nadine found him. He had reverted to a feral state (violent, refusing to wear clothes, unable to speak), but he trusts Nadine.

• Ray Brentner          94: Peter van Norden / 20: Irene Bedard  

Ralph in the books, an amiable Midwest farmer and Army veteran, he meets up with several others and they form the first group to travel to Nebraska to meet Mother Abigail. Despite a lack of formal education, Brentner possesses a great deal of common sense and is very skilled with tools and machines. 

• Lloyd Henreid 94: Miguel Ferrer / 20: Nat Wolff

Starts as a petty criminal who, along with Andrew “Poke” Freeman, engages in a killing spree resulting in six murders, Freeman’s death, and Henreid’s detention in a Phoenix jail (while awaiting trial on death row).

• Randall Flagg 94: Jamie Sheridan / 20: Alexander Skarsgard  

Also known as the Dark Man, the Tall Man, or the Walkin’ Dude, is the main antagonist, the embodiment of evil. Like Mother Abagail, he appears to various survivors in their dreams, whereby he provides the dreamers with a choice; Flagg attracts those who are drawn to structure, destruction, and power.

DEATHS:

• Alice Underwood (Larry’s mother)
• Rita Blakemoor?

GOOD VS. EVIL:

GOOD	EVIL	UNDECIDED
Mother Abagail	Randall Flagg	Nadine
Stu	Harold	Larry
Frannie	Lloyd

 

Stones – Nadine has (also, doesn’t seem she dreamed of Mother Abagail) – is she evil? Lloyd given one by Flagg. Harold dreams being offered one. Larry dreams mostly of Flagg (brief shot of Mother at end), is offered spot on Committee chosen by Mother but doesn’t feel worthy 

Animal Theme – Wolf:  appears with dreams of Flagg.  Crow: many times; here, pecking out horse eye, then attacking Larry in sewers.  Rats: in sewers with Larry and in jail with Lloyd

CROW’S (WOLF’S) EYE VIEW

PAST (LARRY & RITA)

NEW YORK CITY – 5 MONTHS EARLIER

In New York City, we meet Larry Underwood, backstage before a performance, drinking/doing drugs.  He yells to Stacy outside the door that he’s not playing the gig because his band is all home sick. Outside, he finds his mother, Alice, waiting (coughing).  On stage, he is about to start playing solo until a man arrives in the crowd and starts harassing him – Wayne Stuckey (also sick).  He accuses Larry of stealing from him when they lives together and then attacks him, leading to a fight.

Later, Larry dreams he’s in the desert, Vegas signs with his name lit up.  He hears the sound of creatures in the dark (weasels, snakes?) and Flagg appears, flashing in and out (green light).  Then, he sees Mother. Larry wakes with a line of coke; next to a woman he realizes is very sick. He runs out at the sight of her as she throws things after him and yells, “You’re not a nice guy”.  Receiving a call from Bellevue Hospital about his mother, he heads there to find the entire place, including the hallways a wreck with stretchers of people sick and dying from the Superflu, body bags piled up in the back hall. 

Finding Alice, sick and delirious, he manages to get her out in a wheelchair and back to his apartment.  Struggling to get inside, a sick Wayne shows up yelling, “It was my fucking song”.  Larry manages to get his mother upstairs and into bed, before she dies – “I’m sorry I’m such a fuckup mom”.

(these are the dark, disturbing scenes of the plague from the book)

After, he returns outside to find Wayne dying and steals his stash of drugs from the trunk of the car.  He makes his way to Central Park and passes out on a bench.

The next morning, after taking some pills from the stolen duffel stash, he hears gunshots in the distance and the Monster Shouter – “Monsters are coming, Monsters on the way”. He encounters a man in a hospital gown whose lifelong ambition is to run around Yankee Stadium stark naked and jerk off on home plate.  Larry leaves him and continues searching the park until he encounters a well-dressed woman on a bench who offers him a seat.  Introducing herself as Rita Blakemoor, she tells him, “You’re very pleasant to be around – It’s wonderful that you’re not crazy”.

(taking the gun out and shooting randomly)

Agreeing to stick together, Larry takes Rita back into the city to show her what he did before the Superflu – he thinks that he wanted to take his mother to see his billboard because perhaps she might be proud of him (she wasn’t impressed by his fame).  As he kisses Rita, he is disturbed to see a dead horse in the street, a crow feeding on its eyeball.  She takes him back to her apartment to make dinner and they have sex.  Looking out the window at the city and reflecting on the growing smell of 8 million corpses, they agree they need to get out. 

(Rita’s character – *Closer Look)

The next day, while starting out of the city, they encounter a man who offers Larry $1 million dollars for 15 minutes with Rita (*John Beresford Tipton). Then, two other men show up with guns and chase them through the streets.  Seemingly cornered, Larry and Rita slip into the sewers beneath the streets and use his cell phone GPS to try to navigate north to the GW Bridge.  Rita does not like this plan but goes along until surrounded and attacked by rats.  Larry pleads with her to stay because above ground, the men could find and kill them, but she heads up, leaving Larry alone.  He continues to navigate deeper until the water is chest high.  A swooping crow causes him to lose the phone, but holding the duffel above his head, he wades further until a dead body floats by that seems to become his mother pleading with him, rats crawling out of her mouth.  Larry freaks out, the crow attacking, and scrambles up the ladder, banging on the sewer grate, until Rita opens it and helps him up.  She explains she walked north and shows him the Bridge in the distance, crammed with stalled cars.  Larry is thankful as he ‘almost lost his mind’. 

That night, they camp under an overpass with a tent and Rita sadly shares that she thinks being alive when everyone else is dead is like being the last people to leave a party, stupid and worthless.  Larry heads to sleep but begging off a while, Rita stays up drinking.  She swallows a bottle full of pills and cries, looking out at the rain.

PAST (LLOYD & FLAGG)

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

In Maximum Security Prison, the guards bring in Lloyd Henreid, who’s ‘welcomed like a rock and roll star).  He’s put into a cell with a roommate, Trask, who informs him that his antics put the Superflu Outbreak on Page 2. 

Lloyd flashes back to holding up a convenience store with Polk Freeman.  Lawmen from 2 states and 2 federal agencies are onto them.  Polk shoots a hostage, ‘polkerized her old buddy’, and then insists Lloyd kill the clerk.  He refuses until Polk holds the gun on him, but before he can act, an officer hiding in the back of the store shoots Polk in the face.  A massive shootout ensues, leaving Lloyd to be arrested. 

Back in prison, the guards are wheeling out sick and dead bodies, but ignore Lloyd’s please to move him to a cell with healthy inmates, or at least bring him water.  The prison deteriorates, burning ashes fall from cells above.  Sometime later, Lloyd hears a lone crazy man down the hall calling out to “Mother?”  Starving alone in his cell, he first tries to catch a rat, then stares at dead Trask’s arm dangling from the cot. 

He hears a man’s boots coming down the hall, singing.  He stops outside Lloyd’s cell (scorpion belt, smiley face pin), and kneels by the door – Randall Flagg.  After admitting being imprisoned for a week, Flagg thinks he’s survived by eating his roommate.  Lloyd thinks if the man is real, he must be the devil.  Flagg holds the black stone in his hand and changes it to a key (RF on the front).  He offers to free and feed him, in exchange for a deal –

“I’m gonna make you my right hand man Lloyd, Saint Peter at the pearly gates.  You can get even with the people who left you in here, and anyone who would do a thing like that, who looks at a man like you as garbage.  It’s a good time for people like us; everything’s starting up.  All I need is your word – you’ll be loyal, no questioning orders, no falling asleep on guard duty.”

Lloyd promises loyalty and Flagg lets him out.  The offered key changes to a glowing stone and the two walk out of the prison arm in arm.  “I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

PRESENT (BOULDER)

LARRY ARRIVES AT BOULDER

At an abandoned hardware store, Larry starts up a grill and cooks for a group of people camping inside tents, staying the night on their journey to Boulder (guitar music plays in background, like the 94).  Inside one is Nadine and Joe.  She is wearing a black stone necklace but quickly tucks it into her shirt before Larry enters.  Joe, who isn’t speaking, has developed a relationship with Larry through music and even sleeps with the guitar.  Getting back on the road, a caravan follows Larry until they arrive at the outskirts of Boulder, at a stop where Stu waits to welcome them to “The Zone”.

As Stu and Larry ride in together, Stu admits he knows who he is from Mother Abigail.  They all dreamt of her.  When everyone started arriving, she made a list of 5 people who she “wanted running the place” – Stu, Larry and 3 others.  Larry doesn’t think she should trust him; he’s fucked it up for those he loved.  Also, in the beginning, he was mostly following Harold, who he is surprised to find out isn’t on the list.  “God shows her the who, it’s up to us to figure out the how”.

In the center of town, there are cars, tents and people everywhere in the streets.  The houses marked with X’s have been cleared of the dead.  Stu says that some of the people are waiting to see Mother Abagail, while others just want to stay close to her.  She’s out on her porch every day for 2 hours, greeting new arrivals.  But it’s “dangerous being a prophet, especially during times of upheaval.”  Stu goes off to take care of more tasks, telling Larry they all have a lot of responsibility here, and leaving him with Ray Brentner to meet Nick Andros and Mother Abagail.

FRANNIE & NADINE

In the Zone, Frannie shows Nadine around, telling her most people are staying up in the college where there are generators – some are in the houses but the power isn’t back up in town yet. She tries communicating with Joe through sign language but he doesn’t respond.  Nadine thinks trauma will do strange things to children – found him in PA sitting by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.  Sharing she used to be a teacher, Frannie thinks they will have need of that here and wonders if Nadine will take responsibility for Joe.  She agrees, they’ve been through so much and he’s come a long where from how she found him. 

After being shown her new house, Larry offers to stay on the couch for a few nights and help her get settled in, but she declines.  She wonders what the old woman said to him, but he agrees he’s not supposed to say anything.  Nadine sends Joe with Larry to look up Harold, staying back to ‘set up the house’.  When alone later, she hears banging sounds coming from a box in the living room – Planchette. 

LARRY & HAROLD

Larry finds Harold’s house (hear typewriter inside) and introduces himself, telling Harold they followed his signs across the country.  Whenever he was in a tough spot, Larry ask himself, ‘What would Harold do?’  He’s brought some presents to thank Harold, who seems genuinely touched, until Larry asks if Fran is there too (would like to meet).  Harold’s face changes (and Joe backs up a step in reaction), saying she doesn’t live there.  Larry doesn’t seem to notice, saying he understands, he was with someone on the road too and it didn’t’ work out.  They should have a drink sometime and talk about it.  He apologizes for Joe not talking, explaining he’s been through a lot.  Harold – “we all have”.