4th of July 2025 Marathoning

As the episode, Local Color, the third episode of Hulu’s Stephen King series, Castle Rock, was finishing, I couldn’t help but hearken back to a conversation I had with a friend at work who told me she didn’t want anything to do with “scary” movies. I tried to convince her to give this show a try as it was more about mystery and intrigue in a failing Maine town seemingly overwrought with financial/economic ruin. Then the end of the episode has struggling psychic (who just wants the ‘thought’ messages and voices to go away), and wannabe realtor success, Molly Strand, pulling a large butcher knife [natch] from the drawer of the kitchen in her ransacked home, gradually surveying the area, hearing a noise/sound upstairs (*gulp*), cautiously moving up towards her bedroom, reaching around carefully each corner or room until she gets to the bed, looking under it for clues, before exiting into the hall where she indeed comes in contact with a bandaged figure representing the pastor, the adoptive father of Henry Deaver, reaching towards her. Yeah, not exactly a ringing endorsement for someone who admittedly covers her eyes with her hands at such things. Disconnecting his breathing tube when she was a “pre-teen voyeur” (as described by her chatterbox sister), after arriving to his bedside, from a machine keeping him alive, Molly’s reason for doing this remains a burden she continues to carry. Wearing Deaver’s red hoodie sweatshirt, understanding his tension with the adoptive father, Molly almost seemed to carry his influence, his desires to disconnect the tube, carrying out the process because her friend was unable to. So there I was a day before trying to goad my friend—someone quite clear in her disinterest in “things that go bump in the night” due to how such content remains on her mind and creates nightmares, into watching this show—realizing my mistake. Live and learn, I guess. Some friend I am, though, right?