King Me!: Castle Rock- 'Henry Deaver'

As the finale approaches, can they turn this Show around?  How about another option- turning the Show on its head...

We open with narration from the long-dead Mr. Deaver and a flashback to how his Mom tried to kill him as a baby.  Fun stuff!

He survives and, I guess, that's enough to stop her from ever trying again.  What a weird opening.

We then meet the title Character.  Are you confused by why it is clearly Pennywise...I mean...The Prisoner.

Weirdly, the Episode instead focuses on making his name being spoken as a big moment- complete with score rising-, which is silly when this is called 'Henry Deaver.'

He goes home after his Dad killed himself and finds a young, black boy locked up in the basement.

The kid is confused and calls himself 'Henry Deaver.'  What in the what now?!?

When Molly gets involved, things become both more and less clear.  I really can't explain much without confusing SPOILERS.

If you want to know, read the Wiki.  Oh and watch the Show or whatever.

At least this complete aside has a point!  Let's be clear- the last Episode ended with the Prisoner and Molly together.  This Episode is all him showing stuff to her by way of her empathic/psychic abilities.  In other words, nothing actually happens in the present narrative of this Show.  Granted- alot of stuff we didn't know about happens, but the point remains the same.  The big problem with this Episode for me is the placement.  It's thrown in right before the finale with the idea of explaining away the mystery running through the Show.  To that end, it feels like a very late case of telling us what we needed to know earlier.  Quick pitch- open the Series with a version of this Episode.  Next Episode, use the Pilot you actually did.  Now we've met two different Leads and know that something is up.  If you can work around explaining what their connection is properly, you could have something good.  To be fair, that would be another one of the cases of 'Make the first 2 Episodes be the same events from 2 different Characters' perspectives' Trope, but I'd take it in this case.  It makes sense.  To me, this feels more like the end of a bad Mystery Film where they just straight up explain the Plot to you than a neat 'gotcha' turn.  I also don't really care for what the explanation is.  It's too silly to be serious and doesn't feel right with this Show's Tone and Style.  On the plus side, they snuck in a more subtle King reference this time...

Next time, we finally reach the end of the Story.  Will it go out big or, yeah, let's not pretend that it's going to happen at this point, right?  See you then...