'Castle Rock' Season 2 Episode 7 reveals city's origin story when Season 1's 'The Kid' bewitched founders 400 years ago
The body-snatching Satanists who according to Pop Merrill (Tim Robbins) made "a bad deal with the wrong hombre” have been puttering around the background all this season - stealing bodies, resurrecting dead French people from the 1600s.
In episode 7 'The Word', they emerge from the shadows on to the center-stage of Castle Rock's 400th-anniversary parade and so does "The Kid" (Bill Skarsgard) from Block F of Shawshank prison from season 1.
For all the fans who were disappointed about season 1's lack of closure about whether "The Kid" was evil or just a refugee from another timeline, you have your answer. He is definitely evil and has also mastered the art of time-traveling and skipping out of locked cages. Eeeks.
Turns out The Kid is the "bad hombre" who bewitched Castle Rock's founders 400 years ago, starting with his "prophet" Amity Lambert (Mathilde Dehaye) and her lover, the pastor Augustin (David Alpay). Then he made them kill themselves after swallowing scarab beetles with a promise that they would be resurrected 400 years later.
Resurrected pastor Augustine, now in Ace Merrill's body, is fixated on Annie Wilkes as the "vessel" for Amity's resurrection since she is the one who "set them free". Pop Merrill finds out Ace has been to the infamous Block F that had The Kid in a cage. Only the cage is now empty with the discarded prison-issue clothes in them.
The little fan-boy/girl moment of seeing Tim Robbins back in Shawshank prison is upended by our realization that the moment brings together Castle Rock's "bad mojo" founding history with Annie Wilkes' origin story and the show's own past season 1 mythology. Masterful or what!?
When Pop goes to confront Ace, he sees the Marsten House has been turned into a shrine of sorts with murals of the Satanists' mythology, prominently featuring "The Angel" aka The Kid, who made Amity Lambert his prophet. When Ace tells Pop he has had a "revelation" and he was banding together with "similarly-minded" townsfolk, Pop calls his BS.
"Its a rainbow coalition!", he screams, noticing disparate characters like Abdi's friend Hasan (who had never got along with the bully Ace) and the town's councilwoman. He asks why Ace had been poking around Block F and Ace brushes him off and tells him to leave as his "followers" look at Pop menacingly.
Pop then stops by at Abdi's construction site to warn Abdi about Ace, but Abdi is in no mood to listen after their last encounter when Pop had kidnapped him thinking he had killed Ace. But he can't help but wonder what is happening up at the ol' Marsten House up on the hill, overlooking his construction site.
He goes up, through the forest, only to find upside-down crosses set alight with charred policemen's bodies hanging on them. Abdi looks gobsmacked, stepping out into the clearing and catches the attention of his former friend Hasan. Unlike Pop, Abdi is not going to find it so easy to leave.
Meanwhile, Castle Rock's parade winds its way to the church where Ace unveils the statue of "The Angel". A low growl emerges from the statue (the same one Amity had heard 400 years ago) and the townsfolk stare, transfixed, bewitched by the statue.
Pop, who had been trying to stop Ace from getting up on the podium, is facing away from the statue because the cops were trying to wrestle him to the ground. So he's saved.
When he sees the townsfolk standing like statues (ironically) around him and sees the unveiled statue in the reflection on a balloon, he knows he must run and so he does. Ace/Augustine then says he has a story to tell of "starting over" and like all good stories that cycle back to its origin point, the story "ends" in Castle Rock. It's an ominous lead-in for whatever the rest of the season has in store for us.
'Castle Rock' airs on Hulu Wednesdays at 12 a.m. ET.