'Castle Rock' Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Annie Wilkes suffers heartbreaking shock in the apocalyptic town

Sometimes silence is uneasy. It's uncomfortable. It's disconcerting. And, when it comes to the eerie town of 'Castle Rock' it's downright terrifying.

The latest episode of 'Castle Rock' titled 'Dirt' was a rather hushed episode for the most part, except for a few bloodied scuffles here and there. But the dreariness and looming sense of horror continued to be as pervasive as ever, till it reached a feverish pitch in the last few seconds. In the previous episode, we were taken through the morbid history of Castle Rock and why the town is so doomed. The Kid (Bill Skaarsgard) had a lot to do with it, of course. But his work isn't done yet.

Ace Merrill (Paul Sparks), who is possessed by the spirit of Augustine, tells Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) and her daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher) to stay in the Marsten House, as a supposed refuge. Of course, there's everything wrong with that offer. He wants Annie as the new vessel, as she 'had brought them back', a callback to how she murdered Ace with an ice-cream scooper.

Annie is haunted by the ghost of her mother, who keeps inciting her to kill Joy and 'clean' her, just the way she had tried to do for both of them. Annie is in a flux, but holds her own, albeit shakily. Joy is just recovering from accidentally shooting her birth mother Rita (Sarah Gadon) and the gloom of the house is not helping.

The satanic spirits have taken over the town, parading around with Angel. Meanwhile, Nadia is almost killed by Chris, who in some moments of sanity tries to warn her about the evil befalling the town. There is a sense of ghostliness in the air, and the apocalypse is nearing. Not much can be done. Or can it?

The episode flits between these two story arcs, as both Nadia and Annie struggle to understand what on earth is happening around them. The episode ends with an unforeseeable twist, keeping in tradition with the previous ones. The path is being laid for the final showdown, and it now seems that only Annie and Nadia can do something about it, if at all. Will these converging grim storylines have a happy ending? Well, considering it's a Stephen King-inspired universe, it's hardly likely. There are scant Easter eggs but strain your eyes. If you look carefully, you might spot a murderous clown in the flashbacks by the name of Pennywise too. 

The episode has a strained silence in it, and every sudden movement can give you gooseflesh. Lizzy Caplan continues to knock it out of the park as disturbed Annie Wilkes, who is desperately fighting all demons, which includes her mother as well.

The rest of the cast, playing the deadpan body-snatchers are terribly eerie as well, and hype up the suspense factor in the episode. With only two episodes left to go, 'Castle Rock' is clearly done with explanations and backstories, and it's now time to do or die clearly. The burning question of how 'Castle Rock's' Annie Wilkes becomes the Annie Wilkes of 'Misery' is yet to be resolved.

The mastery of the show is that it has carefully weaved together different plot elements and characters from various Stephen King novels into a seamless storyline, and is now slowly connecting it to the first episode.

What's going to happen next? 

'Castle Rock' drops on Hulu Wednesdays, 12 am.