The inaugural season of Castle Rock on Hulu stirred up quite a storm among viewers, with its glacial pace and unresolved cliffhangers. However, the horror series appears poised to rectify those missteps and quell the skeptics with its second season. Boasting a more cohesive narrative and sprinkled with Easter Eggs, Castle Rock's second season commences with a tantalizing first episode that leaves audiences eagerly anticipating what's to come.
The story commences with a bloodied Annie, the titular protagonist from Stephen King's Misery, running through the woods with a box in her arms. As she pauses at the lake, the box suddenly jolts, transporting us to a later time as she prepares for her job. This is Annie Wilkes, now a Pharma storage worker, collecting several bags of medicine and heading out with her daughter Joy.
As we jump through states and seasons, we witness their relationship strain through a montage segment. When a man snaps a photo of their plates at a gas station, she asks him to delete it before shuffling through the different registrations and changing them over when he's not looking. As Joy and Annie continue their journey, they stumble upon a sign for Shawshank and then Castle Rock. Out of lithium, Annie's car crashes on the edge of Castle Rock's borders.
One week later, we cut to Castle Rock itself, where John "Ace" is collecting money from local businesses before threatening the workers at a construction site. It turns out he was the one who helped Annie back to town, but she is wary of him, shutting the blinds in a state of paranoia. Joy tells her she can always talk if she needs to, but downhearted, Joy reluctantly agrees to go along with Annie's plan while she struggles at her new job at the hospital. It's not going to be easy getting the drugs, and with a password-protected door and strict surveillance, Annie grits her teeth and starts working, waiting for an opportune time. After her first shift, Annie's condition starts to deteriorate as she hallucinates, seeing a man in the road.
Meanwhile, Joy heads outside against her mother's advice and strikes up a conversation with a teen musician on the porch named Chance. She invites Joy up to hang with her friends, Vera and Timothy, where she reveals she doesn't have a phone. While her new friends look at Joy like she's crazy, Ace figures out that Annie is indeed unstable, especially given the mismatch between her license plate and the VIN number of her car. This is mirrored by Annie's own paranoia as she heads home and berates her daughter after she asks whether Castle Rock is the "laughing place" they've been searching for.
As she disappears into the distance, we learn that Annie is the prime suspect in a murder case, with Jerusalem's Lot stirring and flocks of flies gathering as the ground trembles beneath her feet. Haunted by relentless typewriter noises, Annie's mind flashes between the darkened hospital and the bizarre, bleeding figure of a man, as she begins to lose her grip on reality. While she delves into the background of the other hospital workers, Joy leaves a drawing for Chance before spying Ace making Molotov cocktails in his kitchen—a moment that will later see him launch an attack on Abdi's home.
Meanwhile, Annie is caught stealing drugs and here, she reveals the truth about her true intentions. She's stealing anti-psychotics, and it turns out that the box from the start of the episode contained baby Joy inside. The doctor prescribes her the drugs and tells her that while she's working in the hospital, he'll keep providing them for her. Annie brightens up almost immediately and tells Joy that they're going to stay in Castle Rock after all.
Our Doctor heads home where she speaks to Abdi about Ace's attack on the house, telling him it needs to stop. We then see Joy receiving a phone call from Chance, while Ace arrives and enters Annie's house, antagonizing her. He confronts her about the truth and offers her a deal—to silence her daughter or there will be trouble. She offers him an alternative and jams an ice-cream scoop down his throat, killing him. Losing control, Annie breathes heavily before shutting the blinds and covering up the murder. When Joy returns home, her mother is nowhere to be found as she's out, intending to hide Ace's body. With the foundation about to be laid for the new Somali mall, Annie heads to the site with the intention of burying Ace. Only, she falls down and lands in a hidden chamber below as millions of insects fly away into the air.
Given what we know about Salem's Lot and the mystery surrounding this area, it'll be fascinating to see how this ties in with the rest of the season. For those unaware, Salem's Lot is one of King's early adaptations featuring vampires. Could we see these creatures make an appearance here? Lizzy Caplan deserves praise for her performance as Misery's Annie Wilkes, with her maniacal portrayal of this iconic character perfectly poised on a knife-edge for large stretches of this hour-long opening episode. Unlike the first season, there's more of a cohesion to Castle Rock and an energy that was slightly lacking with Henry's storyline. Of course, the pacing is still slow and methodical, just like before, but so far there's enough intrigue to keep things moving without noticing the time too much. It's good stuff so far but quite what Castle Rock has lurking in the shadows in its upcoming episodes remains to be seen.
