When will 'The Stand' Finale air? Episode 9 will see Fran get a new ending, courtesy of Stephen King
Spoilers for ‘The Stand’ Episode 8 ‘The Stand’
In the penultimate episode of CBS All Access' adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’, Larry (Jovan Adepo), Ray (Irene Bedard), and Glen (Greg Kinnear), who were headed to Vegas only to be apprehended by Lloyd Henreid (Nat Wolff), are subjected to an unruly kangaroo court.
The trial, as sham as it is, is broadcast all over Vegas, as Glen attempts to make an appeal to Lloyd, and largely to all those watching, that they may still have a chance to redeem themselves from their evil ways. In the book, Lloyd shoots him at Randall Flagg’s (Alexander Skarsgård) orders after he refuses to bend to the evil leader’s will. Here, Lloyd kills him when he fears Glen’s words may have been turning the audience.
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Following the trial, Nadine Cross (Amber Heard) meets with a captive Larry alone. Last we saw her, Nadine was very pregnant, and reduced to a frail pale demeanor because of Flagg’s seed. When Larry forces Nadine to see her reflection the shock induces labor. But as Nadine realizes what she has become and how unholy their child would be, she flings herself from the penthouse, killing both her and the child. This again is slightly different from what happens in the book where, in her final moments, Nadine prophetically tells Flagg that four men from Boulder would come and destroy him. Flagg subsequently loses his temper and hurls her from the penthouse balcony, killing her.
In the trial that continues, Flagg presents Nadine's severed and smashed head to Larry as a mock last supper. After this, Larry and Ray are chained in the gladiatorial pit, and Flagg decides to preside over the trial personally. There Flagg reveals his big plan to level the Boulder Free Zone -- the nuclear warhead brought by the Trashcan Man (Ezra Miller).
Here again, the show differs from the book. In the book, the Trashcan Man returns with a nuclear warhead and subsequently detonates the bomb, destroying Flagg's followers and the two remaining prisoners. In the show, a divine storm appears over Flagg's headquarters, and bolts of lightning strike many of Flagg's followers. And finally, this lightning causes the nuclear bomb to explode, completely leveling Vegas.
What will happen in the finale?
The finale of the limited series is titled ‘Coda: Frannie in the Well’. In the book, Stu (James Marsden) survives injury and arrives back in Boulder after the birth of Fran’s (Odessa Young) baby. In the end, Stu and Fran decide to return to Maine, questioning whether the human race can learn from its mistakes. It also sees Flagg, using the alias "Russell Faraday", arriving on a beach and beginning recruiting new followers.
But King has reportedly written a new ending for the show. CBS All Access EVP Julie McNamara said earlier, “For fans of the book who have wondered what became of the survivors of The Stand, this episode will contain a story that takes us beyond the book to answer those questions.”
According to the series co-creator Benjamin Cavell, King has always hated the fact that Fran is reduced to a passive role in the third act of the story, and one of the goals of this “coda” is to remedy that. “She’s just a number of months pregnant. I mean, she’s sort of seven, eight months pregnant by that point. She can’t walk across the mountains to confront The Dark Man. But it always ate at [King] that she wasn’t there as one of the heroes of the book; she was never given her stand. So what I will say about the coda is that it is his planned attempt of the last 30 years to give her her Stand,” he said.
When will the finale air?
‘The Stand’ premiered on December 17, 2020, with the first episode ‘The End’. Subsequent episodes in the nine-episode limited-event series will follow every Thursday on CBS All Access. The episodes drop on the streaming site on the day of their scheduled release. The drop time is at midnight PT / 1 am MT / 2 am CT / 3 am ET. However, there's no set time to tune in. You can watch it whenever you want after its premiere on the streaming service. ‘The Stand’ Episode 9 ‘Coda: Frannie in the Well’, will release on February 11, 2021, only on CBS All Access.