The Stand – E9 The Circle Closes

Jason and Cristina break down the series finale of The Stand. The circle closes.

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CBS The Stand, The Stand, Stephen King, The Stand 2020

Podcast Notes –

“Today, we take our Stand and review Episode 9, the Finale”

CRITICS

“After four decades, Frannie Goldsmith finally gets her showdown. She went to Maine to rebuild with Stu, but she never really got a definitive climax or conclusion. Consequently, even King himself said he felt a need all these years later to give her the bigger moment that her character deserved. Her stand is one that proves the value of faith.

The Stand is taking a pretty explicit stance on society, suggesting that it will always inevitably become violent. But as with the Frannie voiceover, we sort of just scoot along. We’re never shown anything interesting about Boulder as a fledgling society attempting to rebuild things. There’s no nuance to anything Stu and Frannie are saying about where they think things are headed. Instead, it’s just wobbly justification for this rash decision.

Firstly, none of these are ‘brand new ideas’.  They take the same material from the books that they didn’t show here and expand it – Mother Abagail giving Frannie a sign of faith by healing her injuries after the Boulder explosion (when she’s railing against the idea of The Walk).  Only it’s a young girl (who first seems like Children of the Corn) – turns out to be the spirit of Mother?? You can’t just throw in a horror episode that gives Frannie a climactic moment and think this makes her an important character when she hasn’t been all season (especially when she makes dumb horror victim move).  Cut the amazing Stu/Tom journey for an extended version of their trip (no return to see Mother’s home in Nebraska for spiritual/emotional meaning), and silly scenes of Flagg’s return. 

• After shying away all season, it gets very biblical
• Returns right back to Magical Negro trope, despite excising so much Mother
• Most suspenseful points ruined by title – and doesn’t keep in line with feel of rest of season
• Offensive and unexplored – characters with disability, Native American heritage of Ray, tribe at end

MUSIC:

• Green River – Creedence (4^th July BBQ)
• I Fall to Pieces – Hank Cochran & Harlan Howard
• San Luis – Gregory Alan Isakov (driving to Nebraska)
• Needed Time – Eric Bibb (girl in cornfield)
• It’s the End of the World – REM (end credits)

CROW’S EYE VIEW

BABY ABBY

Frannie – “I wish I could tell you every story has a happy ending, the truth is most stories don’t end at all, not really.  Where are we headed and how much farther do we have to go until we get there? How long until we can go from rebuilding to just living again?  And then, it goes back to being just like before.  Sometimes this feels like a chance to do it all different, but I wonder, will we? Can we?”

Talking to her baby, we see that Abby was born and the whole of Boulder celebrated – for her and the future she promised. But then, she got sick. They wanted to think it was something other than the Superflu until her neck started to swell and it was clear. 7.3 billion had died of Captain Trips; no one recovered.  Yet, even though there was no hope, Frannie couldn’t do anything to end her suffering.  And it turns out, she beat it. The next baby, born to 2 immune parents, never even got sick.  The Zone urged her to send scouts to Vegas to find out what happened to their people and to Flagg.  But Frannie denied the requests, perhaps because she didn’t want to accept that Stu was dead.

Trying to get on with life, Frannie encounters Norris who urges her to attend the Remembrance Ceremony that evening at the Main Hall – she is the Zoners only connection to Mother. At the “Vigil”, Frannie puts up the picture of the 4 before the Walk when she hears Kojak bark and turns to find Stu and Tom returned (Tom saved his life).  And Stu greets his new baby.

RUINS OF VEGAS

Meanwhile, we see a panning shot through the ruins of Vegas, where Flagg’s pin turns from two x’s for eyes, back to a smiley face.

BOULDER BBQ

Some time later, the Zone is holding a 4^th of July BBQ by the lake, a mural of Mother Abagail painted on a nearby wall.  People dance and return to normalcy but Frannie walks off upset.

She tells Stu she wants to return to Maine and see the ocean – Boulder is ‘so in the middle of things’.  Stu reflects that when he returned in February, he knew everyone by name, but now there are at least 500 more citizens.  And the crimes will get worse – “The Old Adam, it always comes out.” 

Later that night, they agree to make the journey and “Close the circle”.  Packing up to leave, the others are sad to see them go.  Tom makes Frannie promise they’ll come back.   (and Joe to care for “Lucy mom”??)

NEBRASKA

After driving across the country, they stop at a farm house for the night in Nebraska.  As Stu checks the property, Kojak wanders over and stares into the corn, retrieving a doll from inside, the wind picking up.  Stu and Frannie head in, and a shot pans back to the field where a hand reaches out and grabs the doll.  That night, we see a girl with a tent in the middle of the cornfield, singing.

IN THE WELL

The next day, Stu goes into town to get supplies and Frannie stays back.  On the way home though, Stu is detained by a tire blowout and stops to fix it (unable to contact Fran on the radio).  Frannie notices a pump for a well and goes to check, leaning far out over the rotting wood.  Flagg comes up behind her and speaks in her ear, a rat emerging to bite her hand, and she falls into the well and down to the bottom. 

Parallel Stu & Fran – singing ‘Buffalo Girls’, addressing a dangerous problem

Lying gravely injured and unconscious in the well, Frannie dreams of running through a jungle and finding Flagg – he shows her something in a clearing.  One of the last tribes on Earth never polluted by contact with modern man.  Once, entire tribes like this were wiped out by missionaries that gave them blankets infected with Small Pox – btu these folks weren’t even touched by the Superflu.  Flagg tells Frannie that in real life, she isn’t dead but will be soon – she has a fractured skull, a blown out knee, shattered hip, 3 broken ribs and a punctured lung.  In the dream well water, he shows her images of how both her and Stu’s situations could turn deadly – the camper rolling onto Stu as he tries to change the tire.  And where would that leave baby Abby?  He offers to make things come out right in return for a kiss…and the ability to look out through her eyes from time to time, to see how things are going.  Frannie flatly denies him – “Get thee behind me you fucking bastard.” 

Matthew 16:23 – Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

STU’S RETURN

She runs from him and falls back into the cornfield where she now hears singing – she emerges to the house where she finds Mother Abagail on the porch, playing guitar.  Mother says that Flagg showed her what he thought would scare her into doing his will; he tempted but she resisted and God will bless her.  Fran thinks that God is cruel because the suffering continues.  “Job said the same and God spoke to him, “Where were you when I made the world? The wheel keeps turning, the struggle continues.  But the command is always the same. Be true…Stand.” She also promises, “I am in the way of knowing things” – Fran will have 5 children, who will bring forth 20, and they 70, some of whom she will live to see.  Her children will replenish the Earth.

         Job 38:4 – Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

            (in answer to Mother’s sin of pride – I brought water from the rock)

Stu runs back and finds a girl (from the corn) sitting with the baby. Discovering Frannie in the well, he thinks he can use the truck’s winch but can’t operate it alone.  The girl jumps in to help, running the winch as Stu is lowered down on the cable.  (*we see she is wearing Mother Abagail’s same cross necklace – a reincarnation of her spirit).  He pulls Fran up but she is in terrible shape, until the girl passes a hand along her body, healing all her injuries.  Then, she disappears.  

“Young Abagail Freemantle”                      Kendle Joy Hall  

OGONGUIT, MAINE – 1 WEEK LATER

1 week later, Fran and Stu sit on jetty in Ogunquit Maine, and look out at the ocean. When Stu asks what really happened back in Nebraska, Fran tells him – “I found out there are 2 sides to the world – there’s this, and then there’s a deep well of darkness.  A pit. And when I was dying, I saw both of them. And I was tempted. “The command is always the same. Be true. Stand.”

RUSSELL FARADAY

In an epilogue, Flagg walks up naked but for his boots to the tribe from his vision. One of the men tries to shoot him but he catches the arrow and kills the man.  As he levitates off the ground, the tribe falls to their knees.  “My name is Russell Faraday, worship me!”

CLOSER LOOK:

Book Epilogue:

“All any of us can buy is time. Peter’s lifetimes, his children’s lifetimes, maybe the lives of their grandchildren.  Until the year 2100 maybe, surely no longer than that. Maybe not that long. Time enough for poor old Mother Earth to recycle herself a little. A season of rest. Maybe if we tell him what happened, he’ll tell his children.  Warn them. Dear children, the toys are death – they’re flash burns and radiation sickness and black, choking plague. These toys are dangerous; the devil in men’s brains guided the hands of God when they were made. Don’t play with these toys dear children, please, not ever. Not ever again. Please learn the lesson. Let this empty world be your guide.”

“Do you think people ever learn anything.” “I don’t know.”

The Circle Closes.  We need help, the Poet reckoned. – Edward Dorn

Flagg Chapter – “Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.”   

Fun Facts:

• Mick Garris, who directed the original mini-series based on King’s novel (and the Shining series), has a brief cameo at the 4^th of July BBQ.  
• There is an extended shot of a wooden turtle, as Stu and Frannie pull up to the abandoned house. Maturin the Turtle is one of the Twelve Guardians of the Beam and plays a significant role in King’s novel ‘It’.