'Castle Rock' Recap: 'Harvest'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

As I settled in to watch this week’s episode of Castle Rock on Hulu, I found myself quite curious as to which character would become the focus of this particular tale. Because this series has done a phenomenal job of becoming a grand character study over the past few weeks and while this week’s story lived up to that particular expectation with no problem at all, what I was ill prepared for was who exactly the story decided to focus upon and the fact that ‘Harvest’, more or less unleashed complete and utter hell upon this tiny, out of the way berg, a stroke of storytelling that flat out made this episode chilling in ways I never thought possible.
 
Because from the get go, this episode was uncomfortable and unsettling to watch, with a grand fire burning in the distance, one that claimed lives left and right as people tried to battle this blaze and while a fire doesn’t quite seem like a terrifying element to find in a horror tale, the coincidence that comes with this fire simply cannot be ignored. For everything strange in this particular tale, everything that gave me pause related to one specific element in this story that will likely have grave consequences for the plot for the rest of season one; the fact that Shawshank Prison, still reeling from the wholesale slaughter that Dennis Zalewski unleashed within its walls, decided it was time to release The Kid and move on from that mess.
 
Which means that this mystery man was in the fact the character that this episode focused heavily upon and well, his release led to some incredibly creepy moments in this tale. Because once again, it would seem that everywhere The Kid goes, dark trouble follows and the scene where he simply decides to waltz into a family’s house to observe a birthday party, only to have violence break out while he watches from the shadows, continues to lend credence to the fact that he’s somehow aligned with evil as a whole and can influence bad things to happen, and that was only compounded further when Ruth attempted to take her own life at a ceremony honoring Alan and the bridge named after him.

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Yet despite all the chaos that came with his release, what is truly more frightening when it comes to having this man out on the streets, is that it would seem he finally remembers who and what he is exactly, and none of that bodes well for the future of this town. Because in the closing moments of this tale, while he denied being the Devil, it’s obvious he knows a few things, the kind of things that entice others to elicit his help since Alan is now considering his offer to heal Ruth and I’m fairly certain that kind of help comes with a price and when all is said and done, I have to admit that I absolutely and utterly loved this episode for so many reasons, the first one being how this story more or less felt like a waking nightmare since it was filled to the brim with surreal chaos and danger seemingly lurked behind every single scene.
 
If anything, it’s clear that the plot is ramping up from here on out, and The Kid’s release truly is the catalyst for that, but what’s more impressive is that the character study in this tale, was vague in its own right, and really all we learned about the man is that he’s trouble wherever he goes and this episode also reinforced the fact that touching the Kid leads to nothing but trouble since we saw in a flashback that Warden Lacy touched The Kid’s hand and his face when saying goodbye and well…look at how that ended for the Warden. But truly, what I loved most about this tale, is that it only gave us just enough, and that it was disjointed and unsettling, because that’s what great horror does, it shakes things up and leaves the worst to our imaginations…
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However, while it was wonderful to see this particular tale inject chaos into the overall story, we do need to take a minute to talk about the awesome King-verse Easter Eggs dropped in this one. Because it was quite surreal to see that a relative of the infamous Captain Hadley works with Shawshank prison and that…Jackie Torrance is indeed related to Jack Torrance from The Shining, and since that’s one of my all-time favorite King stories, I ate up every single second of Jackie’s (whose real name is Diane) excited re-telling of her uncle’s troubles at the Overlook Hotel. But, all Easter Eggs aside, this really was quite the cool episode and I am excited but nervous to see what happens next because I think we all know, things are only going to get darker from here on out. Until next time.

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