Castle Rock: Season 2, Episode 8 Recap and Review

There is something hypnotic when is comes to watching dominoes fall down.

Someone takes the trouble to build this structure.  I am sure that some of those take a few hours to build.

And then, one domino is pushed.

One domino is all it takes.

Even though no human touched the rest of the dominoes, they follow suit.

In a manner of minutes, all of the dominoes have fallen.  All because someone barely touched that first domino.

I can watch that for hours.

This domino analogy is not a bad description on how the current season of Castle Rock has affected me.

The writers and producers spent the first few episodes building this glorious structure, aka this fictional universe that contains characters that we get to know and care about, along with a mythology that interests us.

And then, someone taps that domino.

Now, we are watching things come crashing down.

And I can’t take my eyes away.

So, without further ado, here is my recap and review of episode 8, titled Dirty.

And, as always:

 

Synopsis

Ace retrieves Annie and Joy from the police station, and brings them back to The Marsten House, telling Annie that they will be safe there.

Nadia is attacked by Chris, who is possessed.  Nadia is able to overpower Chris and take him to the hospital.

When Nadia arrives at the hospital, she realizes that the town has been cut off from the rest of the world.  She doses Chris with psychotic drugs, which brings Chris back to his right mind.  Chris then pleads with Nadia to run, telling her that there is someone after her.

At The Marsten House, Annie begins to experience terrifying hallucinations, seeing her dead mother.  Ace finds one of Joy’s drawings, and realizes that Joy is the vessel he seeks, not Annie.

Annie sneaks down to the basement of The Marsten House and finds a pile of dead bodies.  Annie is then determined to leave the house, and finds Joy so that they can make their escape.

Chris teams with Nadia and fights the spirit trying to possess his body, along with two other men who are looking for him.  However, Chris is shot in the chest in the scuffle and dies.  Nadia is unharmed.

Annie and Joy make their way out of The Marsten House and find the entire town of Caste Rock awaiting them.  Joy then happens to look at the statue and becomes possessed, along with the rest of the town.

So, this episode was a little shorter than normal this week.

Nothing wrong with that.

Still plenty of time for:

Despite this episode being nearly 20 minutes shorter than the rest of the episodes, episode 8 still managed to pack plenty of punch

There was plenty of action.

And the gore.  Almost as if it was a…

Horror story?

Castle Rock is so many things, assuming different identities in any given episode.

We have plenty of social commentary, commentary on mental illness, examination of what it means to family…

And really horrific things that happen because why not?

At it’s heart, Castle Rock is a horror story, and a story set in the King Multiverse.

I love the twists and turns and the social commentary and examination of what it means to be a family as the next Constant Viewer er fan, but I just adore it when the show reminds us its roots.

There was plenty of it in this episode.

To start, a majority of the town silently marching, with dead looks in their eyes.

Although I should say it wasn’t really silent, given the Leonard Cohen song playing in the background…

Somehow, we have found a way to make a Leonard Cohen song even darker…

Yay?

The scenes with Chris and Nadia…

Those were one of the best parts of this episode, in my humble, blogger opinion.

I could see the struggle on Chris’ face as he fought the being possessing him, teaming with Nadia so that Nadia could be alive and still in control.

(It was also nice to have Nadia accounted for.  Still waiting for that same reassurance in regards to Abdi, though.)

We also had Annie and her time in The Marsten House.

Seriously creepy.  Also made me question if the hallucinations were due to Annie’s mental illness, or something supernatural, perhaps.

Joy getting pulled in by the marching band from hell was the perfect end to this episode…

And only two more of those left…

Do I feel sad, or anxious to find how this all ends?

Or maybe a bit of both…

Well, that’s it for Dirty.

Tune in next week for the recap and review of episode 9, titled Caveat Emptor.

Tune in next week…

Same bat time, same bat channel!