'Castle Rock' Season 2 finale brings Annie's origin story to an end but Augustine and The Kid could be back for Season 3
Spoilers ahead for 'Castle Rock' Season 2 finale
So that happened. To be honest, Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) killing Joy (Elsie Fisher) was less of a twist than it was supposed to be because like Joy pointed out in episode 6, Annie's Plan B was always to kill her.
Annie's mental state meant she has a need to preserve an idealized, frozen version of Joy to center her life around. Castle Rock's Annie Wilkes is very similar to that other famous fictional villain, Norman Bates, who needed "Mother".
But Joy doesn't have just "hormones" running through her body as Annie's new employer suggests. She is dealing with real and multiple traumas, most of them linked to Annie directly.
Suddenly, the circle of two that Annie has reinforced since she can remember becomes claustrophobic. When she distances herself, wants to keep her hair dark (that suits her frame of mind) and watches a French film 'Blue is the Warmest Colour', Annie knows it is not "her" Joy.
In a way, she is right. Joy is no longer Annie's "little love" after what she's been through in Castle Rock and after discovering that Annie is actually her half-sister, not her mother. There is a high chance that Annie deludes herself into believing Joy is possessed by the Devil because it gives her an excuse to violently erase the distance Joy creates between them.
A dead Joy means Annie can fashion her as she likes in her escapist imagination. While Joy helped Annie keep on the "right side on the double yellow line", Joy also becomes the catalyst for Annie crossing on to the wrong side when she distances herself.
Just like how she controls Paul Sheldon's every move as his "number 1 fan", in 'Misery', Castle Rock Season 2 shows the origins of Annie's controlling behavior through her interactions with Joy. While Annie Wilkes' origin story has come to an end, 'Castle Rock' is still not done with The Kid (Bill Skarsgard). Or rather The Kid is still not done with Castle Rock.
As the dynamites, set by Abdi (Barkhad Abdi) and Nadia (Yusra Warsima) and co-ordinated by the resurrected Pop Merril (Tim Robbins), blow the Marsten House and the Angel statue to smithereens, the townfolk are released from their trance. The Kid, who had appeared on the cliff above Castle Lake, turns back and disappears.
Two significant things happen that will probably play into Castle Rock's Season 3. One, Pop Merril tells Ace/Augustine (Paul Sparks) that Castle Lake is a doorway to "other nows, other dimensions" that the Kid travels through at will. And two, even though Joy stabs him, Ace/Augustine wakes up again.
It is hard to keep a bad man down. Given that Augustine is still alive in Ace's body, he is going to try to resurrect Amity Lambert (Mathilde Dehaye) again. The Kid is also definitely not giving up on his plan of expanding his evil dominion one town at a time, starting with Castle Rock and Jerusalem’s Lot.
Season 3 can't come soon enough. We look forward to showrunners Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason adding to the menagerie of iconic Stephen King characters, served up with a twist.
