As I mentioned in the previous post, two core considerations in Castle Rock are those of intent and perception. While the Kid (Bill Skarsgård) clearly has some inexplicable and spooky powers, the intent of others is—I would argue—even more disturbing in the second and third episodes of the series, “Habeas Corpus” (Episode 2) and “Local Color” (Episode 3).  

First, there’s the former Warden Lacy (Terry O’Quinn). There is no debate about whether or not Lacy imprisoned the Kid in a cage deep in the unused section of Shawshank. The only real question is why he would do such a thing. Though Lacy himself is dead, viewers get insight into his perspective and motivations through a great voiceover in the opening minutes of “Habeas Corpus,” where we find out that he asked God to test him and that Lacy built the cage before he ever even knew about the Kid’s existence, apparently fine with getting everything set and then just waiting for the right evil to come along. There are a range of dark speculations about why Lacy would keep a boy in a cage in Shawshank, but in the end, Lacy’s successor Warden Porter (Ann Cusack) argues that Lacy was “A decent man … Everyone says it. Good man … So he must have had a good reason.” 

With this willingness to excuse what Lacy has done, the weight of intent shifts to Porter and her assistant Reeves (Josh Cooke), who decide the best way to deal with this problem is to make the Kid “disappear.” Reeves puts the Kid in a solitary confinement cell with a violent inmate and they just wait for the Kid to turn up dead. Problem solved. While there may have been some moral ambiguity in the choices Lacy made, the same cannot be said here for Porter and Reeves: they know exactly what they’re doing, that’s the decision they actively make, and after Reeves locks the cell and leaves the Kid to his presumed fate, he doesn’t look back. Of course, things don’t turn out quite the way they intended: it’s the Kid’s cellmate who ends up dead, while the Kid remains mysteriously silent. 

This dark intent isn’t limited to Shawshank either and some of the first insights we get into Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn) pose a stark contrast to his pretty reliably heroic moral compass throughout King’s fiction. Pangborn has known about the Kid the whole time, telling Porter that years ago, Lacy “figured out what was wrong with Castle Rock … He said he had always thought the devil was just a metaphor, but now he knew the devil was a boy. And old Dale said he caught him, had locked the devil in a box,” before advising Porter “don’t let that fucking kid out.” Pangborn is one of just a handful of established King characters to appear in Castle Rock, tapping into all of the associated narratives and character traits of those fictions, like The Dark Half (1989) and Needful Things (1991), which presents an interesting opportunity for considering how Castle Rock takes these familiar stories in a different direction and unsettles viewer expectations. 

The question of perception is also deeply rooted in Lacy in “Habeas Corpus” as well, in his opening reflection on Castle Rock’s fatal history, concluding that “People say, ‘It wasn’t me. It was this place.’ And the thing is they’re right.” Castle Rock definitely has a reputation as a bad place, where terrible things happen more often than in other places, but this still feels like at least a bit of a cop-out. Sure, Castle Rock is a bad place, but Lacy’s the one who chose to build the cage before he even knew who he’d be “called” to put in it and if catching “the devil” was going to solve all of Castle Rock’s problems, why haven’t things gotten better with the Kid locked up? Lacy’s perception is informed by a combination of fatalism regarding the town and his religious faith in what he’s doing, all of which make it difficult (if not impossible) for him to view his choices from a different angle. As a result, it’s the Kid—and maybe Castle Rock itself—that pays the price. 

While Lacy’s perceptions lay the foundation for decades’ worth of secrets, it is Molly Strand’s (Melanie Lynskey) that breaks this silence, as she announces the Kid’s existence on the local news show where she has gone to discuss her plan for revitalizing Castle Rock’s downtown. There’s a lot to unpack with Molly’s perceptions and intentions as well as we move forward, but it’s notable that in this moment, she uses her unique perceptions to stand up for the powerless rather than for abuse or silencing, in contrast to Lacy, Porter, Reeves, and Pangborn before her. Molly may be seen as one of the least reliable characters within the series—particularly by skeptical Henry (Andre Holland) and her own sister (Allison Tolman)—but in a story that asks viewers to pick sides in order to decide where the truth lies, her emotional and perceptual truth offer a refreshingly human perspective.