Up until this point, Randall Flagg has mostly lurked on the periphery of The Stand’s story. We see his bootheel hold open the door that ushers in the apocalypse in the pilot. We see him tease Lloyd like a cat with a mouse in the second episode, promising to make him his right hand man. We know that nightmares of this dark man plague some of the residents of Boulder, mixed in with their dreams of Mother Abagail. And in “Fear and Loathing in New Vegas,” we visit the kingdom he has been building, a markedly different society than that of Boulder where Captain Tripps survivors attempt to scrap together some semblance of their former lives. Here in Flagg’s kingdom, chaos rules. It’s an endless bacchanal.
“Welcome to heaveeeeeeeeen,” Lloyd flamboyantly falsettos as he shows Dayna, one of Boulder’s spies, what most certainly looks like the opposite. This is Flagg’s great creation. A lawless place driven by fantasies and violence. Here, The Stand flattens its story of good versus evil into something so unimaginative, struggling to derive any kind of meaning or emotional depth from an episode whose tonal dissonance only highlights the show’s strange identity crisis. The world of Flagg is one where nuance and depth go to die.
The scenes set in Vegas feel wildly out of place on a show that has thus far not really leaned into camp territory. Now, all of a sudden, it has decided to go as over-the-top as possible. Lloyd dresses in gaudy costumes and is more like a king’s jester. Julie flitters around on his arm, toying with him and doing whatever the hell she wants, because that’s pretty much the name of the game in Vegas. People do what they want. As Dayna, Lloyd, and Julie descend a glass elevator after their failed threesome (Julie purposefully brings up Flagg to kill Lloyd’s mood), another elevator rises holding a naked couple having sex. To say it’s heavy-handed is a supreme understatement. The Stand bashes you over the head with the message that here in Vegas, it’s one neverending fuck and kill fest.
Because where are Dayna, Lloyd, and Julie heading? Well to the death matches of course. The residents of Vegas bid on and cheer for caged matches of slaves chopping each other up, presumably a nightly activity here. Flagg delivers his philosophy to the masses on a screen looming over the death match: “The world that was, they told you it was wrong to love violence; they told you it was wrong to love sex; they told you it was wrong to want more. Well I say, their time is at an end. Our time has begun.”
Dayna looks on with horror, and no doubt her new surroundings are very fucked-up. There’s only so long she can blend in, especially since Flagg turns to her during his speech like he already knows who she is. But there’s nothing truly frightening about Vegas. It’s too over-the-top, too silly, too simple an interpretation of evil that it doesn’t sink into your skin so much as just use cheap shock value for a quick hit of discomfort. The underdevelopment of Dayna as a character that I remarked on last week persists as a problem in this episode. Dayna serves mostly as a vessel for us to see Vegas. When she kills herself at the end of the episode in order to avoid telling Flagg who the other spy is, it should feel like a much bigger moment. But Dayna was just a plot device. Now over halfway done, The Stand still fails over and over again to establish emotional stakes, to let us really know the people who occupy its increasingly cartoonish world.
I want to return to the misfires—plural!—of these Vegas scenes, but first, let’s check on Boulder, where Harold and Nadine work quickly to cover up the murder of Teddy, and Frannie enlists the help of Larry to break into Harold’s house because she has a fishy feeling about him. The Harold we meet in the pilot returns in this episode, a sniveling and manipulative rat who thinks so highly of himself and holds a violent grudge against Stu and Frannie simply because Frannie did not want to be with him. Owen Teague gives another great and unnerving performance, pitching his voice higher and plastering a fake wide smile on his face when Harold’s in his Nice Guy mode.
Frannie has Harold over for dinner as a distraction, and there’s genuine suspense to the simple subplot of Frannie and Larry trying to get something on Harold without getting caught. But the far more disturbing element of this dinner party is the way Harold sows unease. It all seems like a somewhat normal dinner party, a slice of life before the superflu. Harold brings a bottle of wine; we see Stu laughing at Harold’s stories; a fire crackles; the house looks quaint and cozy…until you remember the morbid fact that all these things don’t actually belong to Frannie and Stu but rather the dead people who used to live here. Harold tells a nostalgic story about going out for ice cream with Frannie and his dead sister Amy. Frannie recalls it fondly. Only, it’s a trick. Harold reveals that it never happened, that Amy and Frannie never included him, that his family never cared about him. It’s frightening to watch how masterfully Harold manipulates the mood. He’s dangerous in a way not even Frannie, who’s already suspicious, can really see. He feels entitled to her.
It’s not entirely unlike the way Flagg feels ownership over Nadine, although that has an even more disturbing edge to it. Nadine’s storyline continues to be a psychosexual horror story, and while her scenes in this episode are crowded out by the dinner party and the gratingly indulgent Vegas scenes, here’s where some of the most effective horror lives in the episode. Flagg visits Nadine in the dreamscape he sometimes occupies, and he reminds her of the hold he has on her. He talks of marking her as a child, small and alone, no family, no friends. It’s clear he targeted her specifically for these reasons, grooming her into believing he is the only one who has been there for her. “You belong to me. Only me,” Flagg says. Here, Flagg terrifies in a way that he simply does not in the Vegas scenes, where he seems more like Jeff Goldblum’s hedonistic Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnorak, which I don’t think is due to inconsistent acting on Alexander Skarsgård’s part so much as it is muddled writing.
When it comes to Nadine, Flagg’s intent is very clear. He wishes to own her, to have a queen by his side, an extreme but realistic rendering of patriarchal violence. Harold harnesses the same kind of evil. He saved Frannie’s life, so he feels he is owed her. He feels Stu has stolen her. And it’s all enough to make him go along with Nadine’s plan to kill them all. Nadine even attempts to break free of Flagg’s grasp on her by going to Larry and begging him to fuck her, but Larry’s understandably shaken by her sudden forwardness. Nadine finds herself alone again, something Flagg has ensured by isolating her from others. Her only choice would be to come clean to Larry, but again, Flagg has made it so that she can’t really do that without significant risk. Would anyone really believe her if she said she was promised as a child to who is, essentially, the devil? And even if they did, could anyone really do anything about it? Harold and Flagg’s belief that these women are theirs is the real violence beneath the embellished surface of this episode. And it unnerves much more than the death matches do.
When it comes to Flagg’s society in Vegas, it’s way less clear what he wants. His evil masterplan is…a bunch of people who fuck and party every day. It’s more cornball than it is compelling. It makes Flagg way less scary. The close association of sexual liberation and extreme violence in Flagg’s world also frustrates. The crowds of people in Vegas wear leather and harnesses and little clothing, and it makes the scenes look like a sex party or leather bar. We get the only real taste of queerness on the show here. Sure, Julie’s only making out with Dayna to turn on Lloyd, and Dayna’s only kissing back to keep up her ruse (more on this in the Strays, below), but in the background of these scenes, people of all genders are making out with each other. It looks like a queer sex party. Then we cut to the nice, tame, straight, normative dinner at Stu and Frannie’s home. It’s reductive at best. Perhaps inadvertently, The Stand moralizes in a way that feels dated and lazy. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll are quite literally the backbone of Flagg’s Vegas. It’s silly, but it’s also worse than that. The close proximity of violence/oppression and pleasure/fantasy feels practically Puritanical.
What story is The Stand even really telling here? It seems to believe there are two kinds of people: those who are good, who follow the rules even after the rules collapse in the wake of an apocalypse, and those who like to watch people fight to the death in the middle of a sex party. The characters—and performances for that matter—in Vegas seem like they belong to a different show entirely. But that all circles back to the central issue of The Stand as a miniseries: Themes, characters, and motives must be distilled and simplified for the sake of time. In the case of “Fear And Loathing In New Vegas,” that means caricaturizing the narrative.
Stray observations
- Reminder: Here’s where I talk about the book stuff, so there are spoilers for the book. Read at your own risk and please give spoiler warnings in the comments as well for the non-book-readers.
- It was extremely hard for me to not be constantly thinking about the book while watching this episode, because this rendering of Vegas is especially infuriating in the ways it departs from the book’s Vegas. In the book, Vegas is orderly. Flagg and his people are scary because they are working so diligently to offensively arm themselves, starting up a pilot training program while the good people of Boulder still struggle to get the lights back on. The Vegas of the book is a well oiled fascist machine, not some hedonistic playland. This Hollywood-ified interpretation is laughably ineffective?
- DAYNA JURGENS IS BISEXUAL IN THE BOOK!!!!! This is not the place, but I could absolutely write 1000+ more words on how specifically frustrating it is that the miniseries decided to just throw that detail out. The only kiss between two women who are named characters that has happened on this show so far is for the pleasure of a man when one of those characters is literally canonically queer. Dayna’s arc is too swift and her backstory too underbaked on the show for us to even know if she’s queer or not, regardless of that kiss with Julie, which really does seem like her just trying to blend in.
- I’m not an adaptation purist; I believe adaptations can and should make changes. But I’m continually perplexed at the things the miniseries has changed and the things it has kept. I try each week to write these recaps as if the miniseries is its own entity, reserving my book comparisons for the Strays, but I still think, as I wrote in my review of the pilot, that The Stand is failing on both fronts. It doesn’t stand well on its own, and it butchers so much of the book to the point where it’s more frustrating than fun for a longtime fan. That’s especially true of this episode.
263 Comments
The title of this episode makes me think of a different story set in a post apocalypse that I could be investing time into…
Ring-a-ding-ding, baby!
The fact that Microsoft now owns both Bethesda and Obsidian now means there’s a chance we’ll get a proper successor to New Vegas.
God I wish. J.E. Sawyer browbeating the Fallout 4 mechanics into submission and the rest writing some proper goddamn story is about the only thing that could salvage that shitshow. Shame Avellone turned out to be a creep because his work on NV was outstanding.
You mental children don’t even remember New Vegas, which was as buggy and imperfect as the Bethesda games
I wasn’t aware of Avellone’s creep factor. Eesh, that is a shame. Avellone and Sawyer did a great job writing for FNV. New Vegas also had some stellar voice acting, something seriously lacking in F4.
Fortunately it’s not a Louis CK situation so the work he’s done isn’t tainted, but still a shame.
Honestly, we didn’t need a single voiced protagonist for FO4, let alone two. Such a WOMBAT putting that in their, and the game suffered. That and the fact that it’s no longer an RPG, too, was a major suck.
Unfortunately, The Stand doesn’t give you the option of shooting Matthew Perry in the face and stealing his clothes.
I was gonna ask if Flagg had spurs that jingle jangle jingle
Because you’re an idiot who thinks on a purely surface level
Ain’t that a kick in the head.
Why the heck is that pending approval? I’ve been on this daft site since before most of the current writers were born.
Leave it to CBS to somehow make a worse adaptation than the 90s TV version (which I will say, has its strong points, and isn’t that bad so much as pretty cheesy).
This disaster is actually making the 1990’s version look like the definitive adaption by comparison. It had a big named cast for the time, but its real limitation was network restrictions, as it just could not show many of the really scary and disturbing parts of the book because everything had to be “PG”. And of course TV special effects were pretty terrible compared to today. But take away those two things? The 1990’s series looks to be now just is far superior. In less time, they managed to get to the heart of every character and develop them..in less time.
Not just a big name cast – a MOVIE cast. That was back in a time when you went from TV to movies and then, when your star faded, back from movies to TV. Before HBO and “prestige” tv, there really wasn’t much crossover.Rob Lowe and Molly Ringwald were kind of has beens at that point; Miguel Ferrer was recognizable, but not a name; Gary Sinise was the biggest name because of Forrest Gump; unless you count Corin Nemec, which I totally do.
Corin Nemec,? I have no idea who that is.
Parker Lewis! Was a time, he couldn’t lose.
That was his attempt to get away from being typecast as the supercool highschool kid and brokedick Ferris beuller?
Actually, that show was the kind of weird case of the rip-off version of Ferris Beuller turning out to be a better adaptation of the original than the “official” TV show version that debuted the same year, which was itself pretty weak.
The Ferris show had Jennifer Aniston. I remeber watching both and Parker Lewis was all right. That was earl Fox when they were not afraid to be goofy.
I remember watching the premier of Ferris Bueller because it was a rare time where my parents had a dinner party and we were allowed to stay up later and watch tv with some of their friends’ kids–and I had already seen the movie (at 7 years old–I felt so grown up). And I remember being shocked by the nerve of the opening where nuFerris came out at the start with a life size cardboard Matthew Broderick and chainsawed it saying he was the real Ferris or something. I haven’t thought about this in decades and am scared to look for it on YouTube in case I completely made that up, but… 😛
Get out of this chat.
You got me looking up the histopries of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and the Ferris Beuller tv show last night. I spent about 20 minutes on that. Look what you’ve done.
PARKER LEWIS CAN’T LOSE
MOON that spells Coach!
I think it was before Forest Gump. I could be wrong.
You are correct. Same year, but the Stand came out 2 months earlier.
It was before. But Sinise was a well known stage actor (one of the founders of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater) and had made some critically acclaimed movies like 1992’s version of Of Mice and Men (with John Malkovitch as Lennie).
Forrest Gump was a few months away; Sinise was still known primarily for theater and his Of Mice and Men adaptation.
Parker Lewis lost
Sinese was known as a stage actor who came up against Malkovich in Chicago, if i remember, and i also remember all these awesome 2 man plays on PBS in the early 90s with Malkovich and the same little ratty guy who was just an amazing actor, and that little ratty dude… was Gary Sinese, now you know the rest of the story <3
Maybe it’s because I was the right age (i.e. a kid) but the TV version really stuck with me. Yeah the hand of god at the end was cheeseball as were some of the other effects, but that was more of the reach exceeding its grasp. It had creepy moments. The opening with Campion fleeing with his family is great, and they wring a lot of suspense out of a simple cough. And Jamey Sheridan was great as Flagg, having the right mix of charm and menace, so you were always on edge, not sure what he would do.
For me the big missed opportunity is to ponder if Flagg is really so bad, or if Mother Abigail is really so good. Is it so evil if Flagg’s aim were to create a new hedonist society liberated from social mores? Are the aims of the Boulder people all that great, who just seem to be about carrying on as before, except with this weird theocractic thought leader thrown in. Honestly, I don’t know who I would throw down with. Flagg’s motives seem more apparent and upfront, and I’d sure as hell take an anarchist state over a theocratic one.But yeah, CBS has fucking botched this one, and I didn’t think that was possible. But CBS.
Is it so evil if Flagg’s aim were to create a new hedonist society liberated from social mores? No, but it looked pretty silly on TV.I’m imagining the sexual health clinics keep busy.
Second on the missed opportunity.I actually don’t have the visceral hatred that Upadhyaya has shown for this adaptation since her first review, largely because I thought the producers were actually pretty clever in their stated aim: the postapocalyptic world would be the focus, not Captain Tripps.That made sense on a couple levels. First, there was the fact that virus movies have been done to death, let alone living in a pandemic. But another was that it would have been the opposite of the 1994 adaptation, which started off very strong and faded once the two camps were set up.If they’d done it right, there were incredibly interesting stories to be told that could have made this adaptation’s second half fascinating. How about an explanation as to why reasonable people besides Trash Can Man would flock to Flagg’s alternative? Or portraying the downside of Colorado in a way consistent with why book Stu ends up happily departing it after their victory as King hints at all the old problems returning?There were so many potential great arcs if you went down both roads, among which could have been turning the envoys sent to Vegas into a group that did so because nobody else volunteered, or the underlying tension in that God decided to wipe out a whole bunch of largely innocent people because they were following the wrong guy in the wrong place (or for that matter, weren’t Tripps immune.)My opinion still seems to be higher than many watching the show, but I’m now in the camp that they’re probably going to keep botching the potential.
My biggest struggle with this series has been the timing. I watched a couple of episodes, and it sank me into a depression, because all I could think about were all the people dying, and seeing society collapse and it’s all too damn close to reality right now. Honestly, I think CBS should’ve shelved this one for slightly less darker times? Releasing it now just feels crass, like coming home from a funeral and suggesting, hey, let’s watch ‘Six Feet Under.” Like, read the room, CBS. .
Like, read the room, CBS. .I’d settle for them having even read the book.
Wow an actual interesting take instead of SJW crap of rape is a fate worst than death and all white men are bad. I guarantee you Nadine was raped by all her white foster daddies and Flagg protected her, so that is why she went along with being his Queen while young. Honestly, so far Flagg’s Vegas does not seem that bad. I would take it over the manipulative cunt Frannie in Boulder.
The “hand of god” ending was taken directly from King’s book so one really can’t criticize Mick Garris for that one.
Oh yes, you’re absolutely right. Which is why the 1994 miniseries is really more of a reach exceeding grasp thing. They tried really hard and it’s actually a very ambitious undertaking, they just didn’t have the resources to pull off the hand of god. But honestly, it’s better than its reputation, and if there is an upside to this dreadful, awful, unconscionable CBS version, its that I think it will boost some regard for the first miniseries.
it’s also not the only giant hand that appears out of nowhere in King’s body of work, I think there are like three
Jamey Sheridan was definitely the better Flagg.
This is exactly how I feel. 5 hours in and the characters feel very shallow and under developed – the 90s series managed to develop them so much more in only 6 hours?Really disappointed with Stu, Frannie, R.F and Mother A. The only characters who come out with any kind of development are Harold and Larry.The 90s mini series is starting to look like a masterpiece at this point!
Yep, writing is sooo important. That is why the original Star Wars films just seem so superior even today with what 8 other movies released? In barely 6 hours (three movies) they told a complete story with well developed characters where you got exactly what each character was about, gave them things to do and an arc. (and a story that made complete sense). When the writing is bad like here, things can meander around for hours and there is just nothing there. The 1990’s miniseries had two hours a night with commercials and managed to develop every single character they showed, and here five episodes in about 70% of the characters are just completely half baked.
I think CBS will redeem themselves with the upcoming 10-part Langoliers mini series.
Just go ahead and gouge my eyes out for me now, please.
The Langoliers TV series is at least faithful to the source material, in fact for better or worse it may well be the least changed of all his works from page to screen.
Like a lot of King’s stuff, what works on the page doesn’t translate well to the screen.
Har dee fucking harr.
This show bores me, but I’ll watch it ‘til the end.
This version is so terrible. I love that nobody in the entire company caught the “Old Black Magic” mistake. The song is sung by Louis Prima & Keely Smith and the captions are credited as Bellefonte and Peggy Lee just because some tard posted the song on Youtube and credited them. Don’t the have to get music clearances?
Hot take, I think the tv version of IT was superior to the movie version (especially on the adult side).
I totally agree. Tim Curry’s Pennywise was far more unnerving; I thought the new Pennywise was just silly and over the top in the wrong ways.Honestly, the only revelation about the new It movie was Sophia Lillis, who will be a big star with more time.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Tobey Maguire’s impression of Screech any time (the other) Skarsgård’s Pennywise voice came out.https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/inside-the-actors-studio-with-dustin-diamond/2861364
A lot of people tend to feel that way. I think the new version had a better cast but didn’t do them justice, especially in showing, you know, actual friendships between the adult characters. Neither version really managed to get the main heart of the book.
I think the consensus on the movies seem to be the first movie was great, then it fell apart.
I could not agree more. They fucked this up so badly that there are nearly no character motivations, let alone a comprehensive plot. The only saving grace of this episode is that Fiona Dourif carries on her father’s job of picking only batshit roles.
I knew they’d fuck it up. The ‘90s series is probably about the best you can do with the material.
The Stand 2020 feels like the writers decided to toss King’s book into a blender, cut it up into pieces and then turned it into a Williams S Burroughs version of the book. We’re already headed into the final episodes and they haven’t even introduced the novel’s creepiest human character.
I signed up to CBS All Access to watch this series and cancelled before the free trial was up. Maybe I’ll watch this series someday in the future when CBS+ (they’re all just + now) has content worth the price of admission.At least Lower Decks was fun.
This is so bizarre. I haven’t been watching but I read the interviews with the creators and I could’ve sworn they specifically mentioned that they tried to make Vegas someplace that wasn’t so overtly “bad” that everyday people would be willing to live there. I love the book, but I sort of checked out on wanting to watch this when I heard they weren’t adapting the book linearly- just showed to me they didn’t understand/appreciate the slow burn of societal collapse that was so integral in the source material. Hearing about their treatment of Vegas reinforces my opinion to skip this.
What they meant is that New Vegas in the book seems like the sort of community that might really attract people in a lawless world—orderly with contemporary comforts, maintained by harsh punishment if you step out of line—while their series’ version is a nonstop chaotic sex party, which would attract more people if you’re thinking in terms of how a lot of people in the current world see the “post-apocalypse” as Exciting Fun Times Party. Which the people behind this series were, per Hollywood standards. Because they’re idiots.
This might be my faulty recollection, but I thought the puritanian binary was already there in the original books to a large degree. Yes, Vegas was orderly, but still the nice Boulder with old-fashioned values versus decadent big city was something that deeply bothered me.However, having written that, if in 2021 they made a big production show where only queer behaviour was in the city of lost souls, my mind would be so blown. And I don’t mean that they will certainly address this in the future, but rather what the actual hell was happening in that writing room. And how come there weren’t multiple parties throwing up major red flags on this.
its probably like any other writing room, bunch of straight white guys, doubt they give a fuck.
I think you can give a fuck and still be a straight white guy. I work in the town where this was shot. I’m working with some of The Stand’s crew. It is de rigeur for tech crew NOT to watch things they work on. I’ve been describing the show to them . They keep asking where this scene or that scene was. My colleagues have a crew shirt with the PayDay candy logo on it. It was a big plot point. The show we’re seeing is not the show they shot. Not the show they wrote, therefore.
Speaking of that Payday, I was sincerely disappointed we only had a small glimpse of the Payday bars Larry gave Harold when arriving in Boulder. At the same time, why bother showing it at all when they cut Larry’s journey following Harold’s signs and his Payday wrappers across the country? “Ask the question, Larry. What would Harold do?” Briefly summarizing it in a passing comment removed any meaning of that little backstory. The lack of Nick in the rendition is bad enough, but I really enjoyed that part of Larry’s character growth as he learned to lead his ever growing group west and wish they hadn’t cut it.
Did we even SEE what was inside the bag he gives Harold? I don’t think so. I know there were Paydays in there, but the significance of the gesture is lost to anybody who is watching this without knowledge of the source material. Still, some have come here to say that they are enjoying it. I wish them well. Yeah, Larry shows up with a convoy. It’s important to know how that happened. But it seems clear we won’t see that. There are so many things here that allude to the story, but mean nothing without context. The show is not good.
you can, but it’s not necessarily an issue of caring, as much as it’s ignorance or inability to notice one’s own biases.
Respectfully: bullshit. Apply that same thinking in any other direction and it’s torches and pitchforks. Everybody is biased to their own perspective.
Or a diverse room of non-deviant adults?
Harold being made into a sympathetic character at the expense of any sympathy for Nadine should have been a big enough flag to fire the writing team.
Yeah. part of it was the vibe of the time as crime was rampant in large cities, the original version of the stand came out a few years before “Escape from New York” for example. of course, that vibe also represents another symptom of white flight.
in the book it was more reversed. vegas was about hard work, chastity, ethics and carnal forbearance, whereas boulder was about trying to find a balance between order and personal freedom. there was a struggle on what to do about the local drunk for example, whether to use guns, policing, etc, etc, etc. Whereas in Vegas, the drunk would have just been crucified.Both sides did have a conservative tilt though, it was arguably a metaphor for the ongoing political battle at the time between the old fashioned moderate new england republicans and the ascendant religious conservatives.This of course leaves a pretty large gap for anyone not in either very white, very heteronormative camp.
Vegas in the book was pretty straight-laced. No drugs were allowed, no drinking other than beer, only straight sex. The actual opposite of what is shown here.Dayna in the book was gay (possibly bi, King didn’t do a great job of writing that) and the people who knew didn’t have bad feelings toward her because of it and she was held in high enough esteem that she was chosen to be one of the spies. I’m pretty sure she outwardly lived with a girlfriend in Boulder.
I still say the best way to adapt that novel is as a trilogy of movies. Movie 1 is the breakdown of society and the survivors making their journeys to Boulder/Vegas.
Movie 2 is life in the Boulder Free Zone and New Vegas as the survivors rebuild, gradually building to the final confrontation.Movie 3 is where all hell breaks loose. The last stand.After the massive success of “IT”, I was really hoping a studio would see the potential and greenlight at least a two-movie adaptation of the book, ideally three but I guess they could maybe squeeze it into 2 3+ hour movies. Oh well.
I remember talk a few years ago of doing a mix of cinema movies and limited TV series but from what I remember, they included doing the collapse of civilisation as a TV series when really that’s the part best served by big budget cinematic treatment (I think it was the Boulder stuff and the actual confrontation in Las Vegas at the end for the movies in that plan which didn’t really appeal).I did find this: https://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/1145928-exclusive-josh-boone-talks-his-the-stand-series-previous-attemptsI was thinking two movies could have been good. The collapse of civilisation and all the rioting and everything else (that’s easily the best part by far and all but missing from this – also show some of the global impact and collapse) – also make it in such a way that people didn’t have to see the second one if they didn’t want to, make it like a disaster film.Then skip all the Boulder stuff to do with setting up the community and start with the second movie having the explosion in Boulder – fill in very quickly about what led up to that with some flashbacks or whatever and get the whole going to Las Vegas and challenging Flagg done as quickly as possible after a lead in with what happened to the attempts to spy among other things.
I’m pretty sure the book is broken up into exactly those three parts, as acts.
I think it’s generally hard to adapt but you’re probably right.And yet The Dark Tower, which is perfect for a 4 or 5 season series, got a movie that was almost nothing like the source material.
the vegas thing seems the same as the miniseries, maybe just more exxagerated. Sure Flagg’s guys that he picked (and various grunts) were doing all the facist busy work, but everybody else probably was just partying it up.
It’s so weird. I’ve always thought of The Stand as a road story. The world falls apart and everyone starts travelling. Some to Nebraska, then Boulder. Some to Vegas. A lot of the character development happened on the road, but they’ve cut almost all of it. It’s very strange. They’re hyper-focused on very particular elements of the story and have bent the entire frame of the thing to accommodate this. I mean, what is happening? We still haven’t even seen Trashcan Man. Why is Harold Lauder the main character? Why is Nick barely a character? How can Lloyd function as Flagg’s right hand man when he’s a coked up superfreak? Why is there so little Mother Abigail? She just went on her walk into the wilderness and we’ve only seen her like four times. It’s all very discombobulating and I keep wondering if maybe I’m just being too precious with the source material, but I don’t think so. It’s weird. They made weird adaptation choices.
yeah, interesting choice on their part to de-emphasize the most compelling parts of the book (the road story) in favor of the least compelling part (boulder)
i only got as far as the second episode, and the writing was on the wall then and i chucked it. but as you have described it, it’s the same as ‘the watch’, the series “based” on terry pratchett’s books. the choices are baffling – things left in that make no sense to people who aren’t familiar with the work, and things cut that anyone with half an eye for the original material realise are essential for the characters/plot that made it so popular in the first place.as someone pointed out in the comments of the first episode, why would they cut out stu having the presence of mind to turn the pumps off at the gas station? it’s such a great little gauge of the character, and so easy to include, that it makes you realise the people in charge have no idea what they are doing!
The line is forever in my head. Stu tells them to turn the pumps off MILDLY.
“why would they cut out stu having the presence of mind to turn the pumps off at the gas station?”They didn’t. Stu tells Hap to turn of his pumps as he sees Campion’s car approaching. I don’t recall if we had a shot of Hap actually flipping a switch, but Stu does say this line.
I think the greatest sin of this adaptation is the time line shenanigans.
I don’t think you’re being too precious at all. I was up for a adaptation and even 2 episodes in, saw some upsides with the changes they made. However now it just lacks any kind of substance or emotional impact. Just realised how good Miguel Ferrers performance as Llyod Henreid was in the 90s series especially some of his bigger parts and scenes with R.F
You’re not. I think they barely know the book at all. Like, someone read the book years ago and they only really remember certain parts and so they’re just writing and filming that. So, it’s not really a story, it’s just a bunch of scenes strung together. It’s bizarre.
I’ve read the book and seen the 90’s version so many times. It’s normal in my house to quote Trashcan man’s “My Life For You!”. I wanted this to be good because Alexander S is really good at that lurking personality you want a part of that Randall Flagg needed.They ruined it. I’m gonna hate watch the last few episodes and then I can be done with it.
It’s still confounding to me how little-used the source material is for this adaptation, and the moments at which they veer off do nothing to advance the plot in new ways.
I realize that portraying Vegas in the way it’s depicted in the book could very well draw a lot of parallels to The Saviors from The Walking Dead, because in both instances, it’s an orderly community that has been organized for a grim purpose that’s too big a picture for any one individual — except for the man at the top — to accurately see.
Still, there has to be a way to illustrate the allure of big-E “Evil” without descending into cartoonish, citywide debauchery. By the time the scouts get to Vegas, we as viewers need to have been slowly introduced to Evil along the way, and in far subtler ways. An animal caught in a trap that they are forced not to free because they’re “behind schedule” and don’t want to tip their hand. Crucified bodies that the citizens of Vegas say nothing about because “it sends a message and maintains order.” It can literally be anything that suggests that Evil, for all its trappings, doesn’t ever just suddenly appear — it festers. What you can’t do is walk the viewer directly into Gomorrah without having steps along the way to illustrate how easy it is for regular people to descend, especially when finding oneself in a state of necessity. Good and evil may not be predetermined settings when the circumstances are favorable for one over the other, and it’s maddening to see how that lesson isn’t anywhere on the showrunner’s radar.
It’s difficult not to give up on this show, but I still feel a sense of Sunk Cost. I need to see how they end this thing.
“I believe adaptations can and should make changes.”Absolutely. But the key thing about changing something is that you need to change it for the better, not simply change for the sake of change. I bailed after the first episode that I saw for free on the CBS All Access youtube channel. Appreciate your reviews for saving me the $4.99 I considered spending to subscribe…
Changes are not inherently bad, but something like the change to Vegas is such a deep change it misses the point of the material.
“Harold and Nadine work quickly to cover up the murder of Teddy”Another silly and pointless change for the sake of change that again completely compromises the impact of the story. In the novel Nadine is deeply conflicted and a reluctant accomplice to Harold’s schemings, and realizes too late that she’s in over her head and doesn’t have the stomach (literally) for what they’ve done. This ends up playing a small but important part in Flagg’s deterioration and downfall. Way to completely not understand the source material, CBS.
Messing up Vegas is a particularly big failure given the moment we’re in right now. What between the coup attempt and lack of real work to address covid, submitting to fascism in order to get back to a status quo is crazy relevant.
I haven’t watched this miniseries, but in the book, I remember Nadine being a pretty tragic character. If Harold is the banal evil of entitlement and resentment, Nadine is poised to be evil of giving up free will/putting too much stock in fate.Book spoilers follow:It’s an interesting contrast that while Harold only realizes his mistakes at the end, Nadine does eventually manage to finally assert her free will. I don’t know if her final actions redeem her exactly because she did some bad, bad things, but at least she tries.
Nadine is a direct accomplice to Harold’s act. She spent her life knowing that she had a dark purpose and gave up both her womb and sanity to Flagg. I agree she’s a tragic figure… But she wasn’t innocent.
If I were Larry I would have helped her out. She seemed a little off her rocker but she’s kind of atraactive. If whe just told him that their nookie might save the world he probably would have done it. He seems like a real righteous dude. She straight up said she needed help. Ity didn’t seem like that much of an inconvenience.She could have told Larry if they didn’t do it she would have to keep giving awkward handjobs to Harold at awkward times in awkward places.. Ewwwwww……
I might have been tempted. But Larry had Lucy Swann waiting inside the house. That moment where Lucy thinks Larry came back in the house just to get his stuff was pretty heartbreaking….but I’d have been tempted.
Lucy Swann? I kind of remember that name from the book but nothing on this show. Am I missing something? There are an awful lot of characters to keep track of.
She is not in the show. Larry’s girlfriend in the book.
They didn’t put her in this series. Another weird choice.
From CinemablendLarry Isn’t In Another Relationship When Nadine Begs Him To Take Her VirginityI’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to address the change in the relationship between Larry Underwood and Nadine Cross from Stephen King’s The Stand, and this seems as good a time as any. There is a point in the book as the two characters cross America together that it seems they may end up as a couple, but not only does Randall Flagg run interference on that idea, but there is also another woman that Larry meets as their group of survivors grows. That character, Lucy Swan, has been cut out of the CBS All Access miniseries, and it’s interesting to note that it makes Larry’s rejection of Nadine’s advances all about personal growth instead of both that and a committed relationship.
The Larry from the book beginning would have slept with Nadine anyway. His refusal to do so was a huge pivot on which his character arc turned and of course the plot turned.
I do have a thing for Heard. I can’t keep stright whether she’s the psycho, Johnny Depp or both. I refuse to follow the gossip so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.
I think that’s a huge moment for Larry’s character arc, too. When he finally loses the “you ain’t no nice guy, Larry” in his head.
Yes. A big character moment for Larry too. Well noted
But does show Larry have Lucy Swann? His reason in the book for rejecting Nadine makes absolute sense – he’s living with Lucy and was rejected by Nadine long before. But on the show it seems like he’s single and turning her down for sort of odd reasons given that they’re still living together.
I mean, the show suffers for not having Lucy Swann. But it’s like having the sniffles while also having Anthrax and Ebola. It’s not the worst thing. In this case, in my head canon, Larry doesn’t sleep with her because his—(I edit the name of this radar in deference to the sensibilites of the site) –Undue Drama Radar goes off. He realizes he is the very least important factor in whatever deal is going down there.
You would think when Nadine referred to a man making her do something, Larry would recall his own vegas nightmares and put 2 and 2 together
I thought Larry didn’t go to vegas until towards the end of the show?
He hasn’t gone to Vegas yet but in ep 2 (in which he first appears) he has a nightmare about Flagg (along with dream about mother abigail iirc)
He has to be shown as doing the right thing but he also can’t actually sleep with Nadine. Since they took his love interest away, the only way to do the right thing is to be ignorant of what she is talking about (or too stupid to figure it out) and turn her down.
In the book Larry had a new girlfriend, Lucy, who he was living with and had impregnated. His refusal to sleep with Nadine was a big part of his character growth.
Heh, righteous indeed. He literally sings a song (in the book anyways) about how he’s a righteous man.
But she is the reluctant one while Harold is all in on the plot. His sudden remorse and reluctance here was out of character.
It’s an interesting contrast that while Harold only realizes his mistakes at the end, Nadine does eventually manage to finally assert her free will. I don’t know if her final actions redeem her exactly because she did some bad, bad things, but at least she tries. I really liked how in the book, everyone had a choice (and especially liked how Stephen King didn’t beat us over the head by pointing right at the moment and said ‘here’s the choice the character has to make and here’s them making it).Not all of them had great choices (Lloyd’s was to remain in that prison cell and starve to death) but Harold, Nadine and the Trashcan Man all had a time when they could have chosen to not follow Flagg. It probably would have cost them their lives soon after but I still got the impression that even though Flagg could tilt the conditions in his favour with the decision, he ultimately couldn’t force them.
“submitting to fascism in order to get back to a status quo is crazy relevant”Yet here we are… We’re seeing fascist-like calls government control in all aspects of our lives – right down to control of social media, fascist-like obsession with race, media companies acting fascist, groups of brown shirts in Portland, Seattle and other areas trying to call frigging libertarians”fascist.”The left LOVES fascism. Why try to hide it any more? (As the intolerant fash here scuttle to downvote my views)
I found it interesting that a main reason why Larry turned Nadine down in the book was because he was in love with someone else (I suck at remembering names of real people, much less fictional characters.) It was kind of a big deal, because his girlfriend (who, with Larry, was taking care of Joe by this time and Nadine was living with or about to live with Harold) was pretty jealous of Nadine and knew what Nadine was doing. And Larry had had the hots for Nadine for a long time and she was turning him down. To the point that even his girlfriend assumed that he was going to go with Nadine. He didn’t and it was a big deal for his character. He had already been on his way to change that he “ain’t no nice guy” and this was the final turn that got him there.It seems like a better thing that he does it without any external influences, but it really isn’t. Because he didn’t do it just because he wasn’t supposed to. He did it because he really loved the other woman and he didn’t want to mess that up. But, doing that in this series would require them to actually give Larry some character. Or, really, just about any of them. The only one with any real character is Harold and I think that’s mainly on the actor. He is really good. Too good for this series.
The Harold/Nadine relationship in this is really really concerning since Harold was the prototypical Nice Guy/incel before we knew what those were….and in this they’ve tried to make him sympathetic by letting audiences agree that it’s mostly the woman’s fault.
So, we’re halfway through and it’s starting to really suck? I guess they are being faithful to the novel.
Very dumb
LOL. As if you have the patience to make it through the first ten pages…
The depiction of Dayna’s bisexuality in the book is almost quaint. She’s alternately referred to as both bisexual and lesbian, and Stu is shook when he finds out, at first automatically assuming she must be some kind of man-hater.
She’s alternately referred to as both bisexual and lesbian, and Stu is shook when he finds out, at first automatically assuming she must be some kind of man-hater.King is always so great at handling issues related to sex, not. I keep saying it here but King is just the worst with anything coming close to sex.
The book was written in 1977. Give him a slight break.
Oh. My. God.A Texan character in a book from the 80’s had misconceptions about a bisexual character?! You mean every character in the book isn’t a Woke Fascist?Burn the book!
The book was written in 1978
Thank you, extraneous fact!
Since you used the word quaint it really isn’t
What?
You make it sound like the friggin Dark Ages. People forget the Jimmy Carter was elected president two years earlier despite a controversial Playboy interview where he graphically described performing fellatio on a stranger at a key party he attended in Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead Park neighborhood.
LOL. You don’t even know what you’re upset about…
This New York Times story is pretty fun:
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/23/archives/carters-comments-on-sex-cause-concern.htmlIf you could go back in time and show them half of the things Trump has said about sex and women most of these people’s heads would explode.
You must have read a different interview than I did
I was a child at the time–a pretty young child–so I didn’t know it then and it apparently never came up again, because this is the first I’ve heard of it. I already liked him, but I like him better now.
Stu is portrayed in the book as a bit of a redneck with a heart of gold and innate leadership skills. That is absent entirely here.
in fairness, a townie from a small east texas town in the 90’s (or 80’s depending on which version of the book) would likely be a bit ignorant of nonheteronormatic sexuality, plus the idea of lesbians or bi women being manhaters is a common belief even now and especially then.tl;dr it almost certainly represents some of king’s own ignorance, but is also very in character for stu.
The change to Vegas is particularly galling. The whole point of the book is that the law-and-order-kick-ass-and-take-names types follow Flagg. They deride Boulder as a bunch of hippy peace-nicks who can’t get their shit together and turn on the lights. And Lloyd! Ugh. Lloyd is also a tragic character, a dumbass loser all his life until Flagg came along. Flagg gave him something much more important than power or access to women, Flagg gave him competence. That is why he stays loyal to Flagg.
I’ve never read the book, but the 90s miniseries made it clear that Flagg’s Vegas was dull. There’s a scene where some of his people bitch about it. I thought that was fitting; the devil gets you sell your soul and everything still sucks.
I remember somewhere in the book King writing that scientists, engineers, etc., would gravitate towards Flagg because they crave order. That never made much sense to me as a description of how math/science people view the world, but more importantly for the story it doesn’t seem consistent with Flagg attracting people like Lloyd or Trashcan Man as his top lieutenants. Maybe there was something they could’ve done on the show to address that a little bit—the top people and their chosen companions get to watch chainsaw fights and have sex in glass elevators, while the average Vegas residents grimly go about the business of making the city run and playing their part in a plan they don’t really understand.
That was Glenn Bateman’s assumption not necessarily King’s.
But it wasn’t wrong. A lot of “talent” was attracted to Vegas.
also I think it does make sense, you see it in big tech, like where Elon musk is close to creating an indentured servitude system on mars, google’s abandonment of their “don’t be evil” ethos or facebook’s disregard to any ethical concerns. Flagg’s kingdom was basically an empire of logicbros.
But there were a lot of eager techs putting missiles on jets out at Indian Springs in the book.
Lloyd and Trash are special cases. In a sense, Lloyd does crave order. He wants to be a more capable, competent person than he is. He wants to stop being a fuck up, and Flagg gives him that opportunity. Flagg also comes to him when he is at an EXTREMELY vulnerable moment. Following Flagg is not exactly a decision freely made. Trash has a special talent, a talent for fire and destruction. He is also severely mentally ill. Flagg seeks to exploit his talent, and Trash loves him because of the opportunities this provides. As a scientist myself, I would like to think that King gets it wrong regarding most scientists. That said, there are certainly many scientists who have worked for evil regimes and/or created destructive tools.
That never made much sense to me as a description of how math/science people view the world, but more importantly for the story it doesn’t seem consistent with Flagg attracting people like Lloyd or Trashcan Man as his top lieutenants.
I hate to be political, but have you followed US politics? The people who raided the capitol were CEOs, Olympic athletes, people able to afford private planes and expensive hotel stays.Some of his most loyal followers are doctors, lawyers, “scientists” etc. But the closer you get to his circle the more you see guys like Steve Bannon and Steven Miller.The Stand’s depiction of how Flagg rose to power and what Vegas turned in to was shockingly predictive of the last four years in the US.
Trump has given many speeches that remind me terrifyingly of Flagg. The promises of executions, the encouragement of police brutality, the excoriation of journalists, and his followers eating it up and chanting his name. And then there are people who have supported Trump for their own reasons and just look the other way regarding things they know are wrong. They think “How bad can it be if (for example) we get the right SCOTUS judges or I get a tax cut?” Those people are represented in The Stand as well. The Stand was very prescient of today’s political climate.
I remember somewhere in the book King writing that scientists, engineers, etc., would gravitate towards Flagg because they crave order. That never made much sense to me as a description of how math/science people view the world, but more importantly for the story it doesn’t seem consistent with Flagg attracting people like Lloyd or Trashcan Man as his top lieutenants.The majority of working scientists didn’t flee Nazi Germany, they went about their jobs, indirectly or directly to the benefit of the Nazi regime. Hitler’s top lieutenants consisted of men like Himmler, Goebbels, and Reinhard Heydrich, sadists, rapists and butchers.
For example, Ludwig Prandtl, basically the father of modern aerodynamics, was pretty happy to work for the Nazi regime. Same with Wilhelm Nusselt, a guy whose contribution to heat transfer field is immeasurable. Any undergraduate mechanical engineering student will be familiar with these two names.
If the current decade has demonstrated anything, it has demonstrated that tech people love fascism. King was right, all the way back in 77
Hell, it was a detail in the book that they were at least outwardly good people in Las Vegas. They took in Tom after he got ‘chased out of Boulder for being with a woman’. They thought Boulder was going to attack them as well (although obviously a lie).
That’s the thing about Flagg, at the end of the day he is ultimately a charlatan, an egotistical, wizard of oz wannabe. I’m a big Stephen King fan and I actually felt like Flagg’s over the top Vegas really fit with how the character is presented in the Dark Tower novels.
And given how all of these reboots tend to try and be “timely” you’d think that the fascist law-and-order devil guy setting up what looks like an otherwise orderly world where scratching the service reveals some REALLY scary stuff happening would be about as timely as you could get.Especially looking at what’s happened to the US over the past few years that culminated in last week.
They also specifically point out that being around Flagg has made Henreid smarter, that he can think more logically than he has before. Threw that right out the window in this series.
Exactly. Wow, it really bugged me to see the way they changed things to make it edgier – especially when they’re doing drugs! Uh, that… that was the opposite of how Vegas worked in the book, and it’s so odd.
That and the only obviously queer characters are there (after ripping it out of Dayna’s character, because they never bothered with her character at all)?
It’s just spectacularly awful. I think another commenter mentioned it before, but this only barely works if you’re already familiar with the book, I think. This episode especially; there are just so many gaps here and the prior back-and-forth bits with time made it absolutely impossible to form the slightest connection with any of these characters. Mother Abigail is the worst offender of all, and completely gutting Nick as a character is befuddling.
Yes yes YES. I specifically remember Glen saying “the techies” will drift to Flagg. And yes, Lloyd is tragic—he too kind of drifted into crime and he recognizes how scary Flagg is but feels he has no other true option than to stay with him. Flagg even sees that in him. Miguel Ferrer was effing fantastic in the ‘90s miniseries. This guy–his introduction was great but this campy clown? What? That doesn’t feel like Lloyd.
possible spoiler coming:Anyone else noticing the absence of “Trashcan Man”?
He’s played by Ezra Miller and is coming soon.
Sneak preview at the 2 minute mark as to how it all goes down.
XD
Oh, sorry. I got my train wrecks mixed up.(Though I do love how his Flash goes from grim determination to sheer terror the moment Superman’s eyes flick in his direction at the same speed he’s going – audience reaction videos showed it got a notable reaction from the audience).From people who’ve seen it via previews, apparently Ezra Miller’s Trashcan Man is … really something else.
I tapped out last episode halfway through, but this this development is just the cherry on top. The whole point of why people picked flagg (except for a few evil ones) is they liked order. That is what he offered after an apocalypse. This makes me glad I stopped watching. Man, they made a mistake doling these out on a weekly basis. They would have been better dropping all of them so at least you get some people who will binge the whole thing. Waiting a week after a week after a week for a show that is not good is just a poor decision.CBS all access has pretty much been a huge disappointment and I see this failing. The Twilight Zone is by its nature a mixed bag, but “Picard” was just awful (the ending is just so insultingly terrible it made me mad I watched the rest of the episodes), same for Star Trek Discovery. Their other shows are pretty much blah and really should just be on the regular network. (a psychic show is one..really) Their strategy seemed sound, get big named properties to get people invested, but they have so botched them I think they ruined word of mouth forever. (compare with Netflix who pretty much came out of the gate strong with House of Cards, Stranger Things and the fantastic Daredevil adaption..that is how yo build a streaming service). I got a 30 day thing for the stand..and this a big non renew
i tapped out half way through this episode. Flagg wanted an army to destroy man, starting with Mother A and her people in Boulder, thereby destroying hope for a normal world. You look at this POS’s version of ‘New Vegas’ and see no reason for Flagg even needing anyone if they’re going to run around like it’s 1999. Made you wonder why he even had people come to him let alone turn on the power for them in this version.
Yeah, it’s pretty bad … Sometimes I wonder if the screenwriters actually read the book or just went to Wikipedia to get the synopsis.This is another proof that the longer King’s books are pretty much unfilmable. Even It got only the kids part right and fucked up the adults part, IMO.
I think somebody just handed them some notes scrawled on a piece of paper in Crayon and they took it from there.
I heard they just listened to the Anthrax song a couple of times.
the weird thing is how they focus on some of the lesser known elements of the book, again, like the yankee stadium masturbation guy. it’s like they understand some of the obscure details, but not the actual point of the story.
I think I read that some person in the higher ups (I can’t remember if it’s a producer or director or what) read the book as a teen and it’s pretty much the only Stephen King book he’s ever read. I think what we’re getting is what that guy can remember about the book he read 20+ years ago.
Y’know, I got to thinking about why this series exists this morning. The show, when fairly big name stars show up, has reminded me of Uwe Boll movies. The way they got big actors in those films is that they’d sell it as a paid vacay. The actor would show up to Vancouver, get put up in a nice place and get to do Vancouver things for a week or two, suck up some per diem, and have to be on set for a couple of days. Then get a little Payday(Ha! getit!?). Those Boll movies were revealed as German tax write offs and not meant to make any money. If I could figure out how that translates to TV, I’d be sure that’s what’s going on. That’s why JK Simmons, Heather Graham, Greg Kinnear, Whoopi Goldberg(famously all about The Cheque), Alexander Skarsgard & James Marsden. That’s why we never focus on anybody long enough to be the focus of the story. The deal is anti labour intensive. So the low rent actors shoulder the longest amount of days. It’s a theory in-progress, really.
There’s two quotes from the book from adjacent pages which shows how spectacularly they missed the point here. Dayna sees the average citizens of Las Vegas are just like those from Boulder (and not visibly monsters) more than not but:“They were also people who worked much harder than she [Dayna] remembered the people in the Zone working. In the Zone. In the [Boulder] Free Zone you saw people idling in the parks at all hours of the day and there were people who decided to break fot lunch from noon to two. That sort of thing didn’t happen here. From 8am to 5pm, *everybody* was working, either at Indian Springs or on the maintenance crews here in town. And school had started again.”and“Lloyd, who quit school after repeating his junior year for the third time, was very proud of the educational opportunities that were being provided. The pharmacies were open and unguarded. People came and went all the time … but they took nothing heavier than a bottle of Gelusil. There was no drug problem in the West. Anyone who had seen what happened to Hector Drogan knew what the penalty for a habit was. There were no Rich Moffats either. Everyone was friendly and straight. And it was wise to drink nothing but bottled beer.*Germany in 1938*, she thought. *The Nazis? Oh, they’re charming people. Very athletic. They don’t go to the nightclubs, nightclubs are for tourists. What do they do? They make clocks.*Was it a fair comparison? Dayna wondered uneasily, thinking of Jenny Engstrom, who she liked so much. She didn’t know … but she thought maybe it was.”Normal people terrified into compliance by Flagg to the point where they will march against Boulder in a war but not something they’re sadistically inclined to do without prompting and fear for their own demise if they don’t go along with it.This on the other hand just sounds terrible. Either they spectacularly missed the point which was very clear in the book from the quotes above or even worse, they decided to deliberately ignore it.
They literally had both Lloyd and Julie do cocaine in this episode! Book Flagg would have had them hanging from electrical poles about 5 minutes later!
The first time we meet Hector Drogan is when Trashman Can arrives in Las Vegas and the second time is when he helps crucify Hector for freebasing cocaine.There’s a really big point in the book made that drugs are verboten in Las Vegas as well as any kind of bad attitude, never mind open rebellion.Why do adaptations keeping doing the exact opposite of the source material (World War Z book – slow zombies, Palestinians and Israelis come together and save the city because of the crisis while in the movie – very fast zombies, Palestinians and Israelis showing solidarity accidentally doom it).The whole point of Lloyd as the book took great pains to establish was that he’d always been a screw-up but under Flagg, he both became competent but was also aware of his limitations (hence writing down what he had to do regularly).The implication was Flagg gave him a push but that at least some of it came from Lloyd, he became industrious and worked hard when finally given some responsibility and someone who in a way did believe in him for a while at least. He was very methodical in working out who the final spy was even with Flagg’s strangely emergent paranoia in his way. In a nutshell, he was almost always exhibiting diligence, responsibility, hard work and initiative at his job which was a very important position at that.This however, I don’t know what this is and why they’re doing it in this TV series. There’s so many times it seems like they’ve actually noted the points/examples/lessons the book was trying to show and then gone out of their way to run in the exact opposite direction from them.
This however, I don’t know what this is and why they’re doing it in this TV series.Exactly. I agree with everything you said about how Lloyd’s portrayed in the novel. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “wrong” for the miniseries to do something different, but this is another example of the show hurting itself by skipping backstory/character development. If the show had skipped straight from Lloyd’s prison cell to Lloyd competently managing Vegas as Flagg’s second-in-command, you’d easily understand what Flagg saw in him. But if they had their hearts set on portraying Lloyd-in-Vegas as a coked-up party animal then they needed to figure out, and show the audience, why Flagg would want that kind of person in his inner circle.
Lloyd felt a lot of loyalty toward Flagg, after all Flagg saved him from prison and what he did there. Flagg gave him a role and a purpose as well. Lloyd was fucking terrified of him too. He knew about the magic. He knew Flagg would not take it easy on him. Book Lloyd knew where the bodies where. So he had to do a good job.
If they were going to make this work, it would be to have new vegas be a type of bait and switch. lure people in via the hedonism and freedom, then clamp down on everything once he has enough people.
It’s like they said, “Hey, this is streaming, so we can show what we want. Let’s show lots of sex and drinking and drug use! Yeah!” And didn’t even think about what was in the book. It’s so weird.
That bugged me so much.
Normal people terrified into compliance by Flagg to the point where they
will march against Boulder in a war but not something they’re
sadistically inclined to do without prompting and fear for their own
demise if they don’t go along with it.
It’s amazing how the Stand predicted last week at the US capitol…
exactly, it was about the inefficiency and freedom of self determination vs the focused, ordered slavery of totalitarianism. There’s also something to be said about the idea of entitlement and resentment vs emotional maturity, but in the book that only came up in regards to harold. IIRC in the book few people seemed to care much about Boulder aside from them being too kumbaya for their tastes. the original series at least they hinted at his appeal to the neonazi types.
I’m not going to fault the writer’s room and showrunners for not being clairvoyant failing to know about the sacking of the capital building, but… all the signs for this have kind have been there. Which makes Flagg and Vegas a missed opportunity. In addition to the absolute violent control that Flagg’s Vegas represents, it was also a cesspool of rage and entitlement (qualities that are shared by and draw folks like Harold). That pretty much sums up a lot of the grievance identity politics of Trump’s base. That kind of vibe would have been a great way to refer to current events, and make some smart commentary without overdoing the metaphor. I’m bummed that this turned out the way it did.
Also, in the books, Flagg is compelling because he’s like a magical abusive parent. All smiles and chuckles at one moment; and tearing people apart the next. I love all the Skarsgårds, but this performance doesn’t seem well-directed or written. Flagg is all about this surface affability, with a supernatural terror underneath. There’s no real fear here, aside that he can magically seem to be wherever he wants, and pops up in people’s dreams. It’s like he’s just the gatekeeper to people’s own fears, rather than being a source of dread himself.
To be fair; before this one riot from Trump’s worst minions, we’ve seen over 100 days of rioting, anarchy, assaults, vandalism and murder by an ironically named group of leftist extremist fasciphobes. I’m surprised a lot more shows haven’t been exploring the dangers of extremism.Seems like leftist media would rather ignore people like Eric Clanton or Michael Reinoehl than warn us about them.
I suspect you and I are politically basically on the same side, but terms like “grievance identify politics” were literally created to describe the proponents of critical race theory and avant garde gender theory on the left.
Small nitpick. The town obviously isn’t Boulder. While Boulder has nature it doesn’t have that many trees and the trees are completely wrong. There are clearly Pacific Northwest trees. What’s really wierd is they keep trying to show this little scenic viewpoint over Boulder. A littlew circle with seats exists but it have long paths leading to it or carefully manicured grass. Even the city of Boulder in the view dosn’t look right. You can’t see the university which stands out from that viewpoint. I know we had a discussion about whether or not they filmed in the local hardware store there, which they did not. I guess it’s no different than all the movies about New York filmed there that were clearly not being filmed in New York, so I should quit my bitching.
Yeah, I don’t hold that sort of thing against shows/movies that are trying to tell epic stories and don’t have tons of money, but I noticed a few times that they clearly aren’t in Boulder. I noticed the trees, too—the firs in the background when Nadine goes outside to look for Joe seemed off.
It was that exact scene where I noticed them as well. I don’t hold it against the show either but it’s hard to completely ignore when you lived there for a large chunk of your life.I was there when they filmed The Shining series and filming it in Estes Park didn’t do that turd much good. Of course they were inside the hotel almost the entire time. The funny thing is the Stanley Htel is relatively small, at least compared to the place in Kubrick’s movie.
It’s a shame they couldn’t film there. I’ve had family in/around Boulder most of my life so I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the area, and have some strong images in my head of what the Boulder stuff in The Stand is “supposed to” look like.
Stephen King and I used to eat breakfast at the same restaurant in town. I never saw him though. It was his spot when he was in town visiting.
Cool–is the place still around?
The hotel it was in was torn down a few years ago nut it moved across the street into a new fancy building. The Buff Restaurant. Theu had this outrageous item called the saddlebags. It was two pankakes formed together into a pouch stuffed with bacon. Honestly, it was a bit much.
Ha. I’ll have to swing by and at least consider ordering the bacon-stuffed pancakes the next time I’m out that way.
It was fun to order but pretty salty.
I saw him more than once in the Bangor Auditorium when I voted. It was weird.
This version is so terrible. I love that nobody in the entire company caught the “Old Black Magic” mistake. The song is sung by Louis Prima & Keely Smith and the captions are credited as Bellefonte and Peggy Lee just because some tard posted the song on Youtube and credited them. Don’t they have to get music clearances?
I’m so disappointed in this version. What really bothers me the most is how they are telling the story. I miss the linear version of the original miniseries and of course the book. Jumping around in time is killing the effectiveness of the story. I like the new cast overall and I bet if this thing was just re-edited from A to Z it would be so much better. Ive read the book countless times so Im not lost in the CBS version but so not a fan of HOW they are telling it.
Jumping around certainly hurts the series but i’m not sure editing this into a linear version would salvage much… just not enough time with any of the characters to give them much development.
But the original mini series is shorter yet gives the characters plenty of development. The biggest problem here is that they’re centering Harold and Nadine, who (in the end) are merely bit players. My guess is that Harold and Nadine have more lines than all the other “main” characters put together.
Yeah as rough as this has been all along Vegas really ruined it – especially given the current climate.
Fascism is scary and fucked up and evil. Hedonistic sex parties… aren’t. The murder for sport aspect was the only actually offensive thing and that was glossed over as a background item and never given any actual weight or brutality.
I really can’t believe how badly they messed this up. I think the only part so far that’s been anywhere near what it should be was the scene with the rapist trucker, and that was mainly because of Angus Sampson’s performance. Nothing is scary, nobody seems scared, there aren’t any stakes for the characters to give a shit about. The actors but are doing their best, but the whole show is written and directed like a big shrug. Did CBS even think to ask Darabont before jumping into this?
Talk about shitting the bed and then covering it with a clean sheet and then shitting on top of that. This version is so bad and such a disappointment.
Which has worse special effects for its time, the 90s version or this one? Because i don’t think the special effects we’ve seen in this version are all that impressive.
“Dayna looks on with horror, and no doubt her new surroundings are very fucked-up. There’s only so long she can blend in, especially since Flagg turns to her during his speech like he already knows who she is.”In the book, the only reason Dayna got anywhere with her infiltration was because Flagg wasn’t in Las Vegas at the time. The moment he returned, he just knew immediately and had her seized.On the other hand in the book, he knew about the Judge before he even got to Las Vegas so what he knew and when he knew it seemed to vary a bit.“But there’s nothing truly frightening about Vegas. It’s too over-the-top, too silly, too simple an interpretation of evil that it doesn’t sink into your skin so much as just use cheap shock value for a quick hit of discomfort.”Exactly as you said in the Stray Observations, in the book Dayna found Las Vegas scary precisely because it seemed so orderly with its rebuilding and superficially normal (if not excessively so!) at the surface level – with the fear mounting when you even started to dig beneath the surface.
I found the dinner scene way off. When Marsdenis kicked back and laughing at Harold it seemed more like he was having dinner with the most charming man in town. Maybe Don Draper? but no, incel Harold.
I will say this. Stu, in every incarnation, was first seen chuckling at a bunch of rubes telling stupid stories. In every incarnation, his default setting is affability. I think he’d yuck it up at Harold’s stories. Especially THIS Stu. Who seems dim witted.
Yeah Stu is kinda like a less murderous Amos Burton with feelings.
Stu is definitely not that guy.
I feel like this episode did the exact opposite of what it was trying to accomplish. New Vegas is the first time anyplace in this version of The Stand has looked the least bit fun. I have no idea why it would be good or fulfilling to live in some dysfunctional suburbs run by Whoopi Goldberg and her student council, that all looks terrible and boring. Five minutes after Harold said “in toto” at that meeting, I would have been packing my car to head west. At least Flagg’s post-apocalypse Mardi Gras has sex, drugs, and (presumably) someplace to plug in your Nintendo. And if you show up in Flagg’s kingdom voluntarily, someone asks you what you want to do, instead of everything being decided by some chick from The View and the human playlist chosen by her Magic 8-ball.In the book, there is no question, Mother Abagail’s village of the squirrels is obviously the superior choice to living in Flagg’s machine culture, but this show has completely failed to recreate any of those dynamics. This version is like choosing between spending the weekend at a Holiday Inn with your stepmom, or going to Rio with all your best friends from high school.I’m rooting for Flagg now. And where the hell is the Trashcan Man? He was one of the best parts of the book. We’re more than halfway through the show now, and he’s nowhere to be seen. I was really trying to play along and give this iteration of the story a fair shake, but damn these CBS people just make one terrible choice after another.
I have no idea why it would be good or fulfilling to live in some dysfunctional suburbsAs I’ve said elsewhere, this is my major qualm with this adaptation. I can live with their stated goal of focusing on the world post-Tripps, the flashbacks, and the character changes. I don’t seem to mind them as much as most people watching this, and definitely not nearly as much as Upadhyaya, who at times has seemed intent on picking fights over fairly minor issues.But (as you point out) for their goal to work, the worldbuilding of Boulder and New Vegas should have been the meat of the series. We should have seen far more depth and contrast to two very different styles of living, and the benefits and flaws inherent in each.If someone watching can’t immediately come up with why it’s good to live in Boulder besides that Mother A has called her followers, the producers and writers didn’t do their job.
I feel like this episode did the exact opposite of what it was trying to accomplish. New Vegas is the first time anyplace in this version of The Stand has looked the least bit fun.I felt the same way about It’s a Wonderful Life. Pottersville looks like so much damn fun. GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!!!
This version is so terrible. I love that nobody in the entire company caught the “Old Black Magic” mistake. The song is sung by Louis Prima & Keely Smith and the captions are credited as Bellefonte and Peggy Lee just because some tard posted the song on Youtube and credited them. Don’t the have to get music clearances?
So this show is basically “good Christian folks” vs “hedonistic satanists”. Gotcha. I’m much closer to the latter, so, I guess, count me out. The show started out fun, but this is just meh.
I thought it was pretty clear in the book and miniseries that Vegas’ greatest sin was they were just going back to the bad old ways. Nukes, electricity, running water and all that. Hell, in the book Boulder soured and was hinted at falling apart as well (albeit after Vegas was long gone).
The naked elevator couple cracked me up. The guy looked like he was 2 feet away from her and aiming at her right thigh.I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if it was on purpose, but is it weird that Vegas looked a lot more fun and well maintained and essentially making look Boulder look extremely boring and disorganized?
RE: LarryI like the actor they got for him in this, he’s doing really good. OTOH, Fran asking him to break into Harold’s house does take on a new fucked up dimension.
I’ve not watched an ep of this yet.In the books, Flagg is an agent of a darker entity. A Darth Vader stooge of sorts. Does this series hint that?
I would say no. Flagg seems to be in charge, rather than answering to a ‘higher power’ so to speak. Mother Abigail otoh definitely views herself as a servant of God.
Is that really clear in The Stand, though? It’s made clear in other material but I don’t remember it being talked about until after The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon.Haven’t read The Stand in ages so I’m genuinely curious.
In the books Flagg really doesn’t know what he’s actually doing there. They note that he sort of just appears during the civil unrest of the 60s, and has spend the decades fomenting any sort of unrest that he can – anarchist, right wing, drug running, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t report to anyone, he just knows his power is growing and “now it is his time.” By the end of the book, he doesn’t remember anything about where he came from, and can only remember the year since the superflu hit. And in the post-script, he reappears elsewhere, having no memory of the events of the book, but knowing that he is meant to take power wherever he is.
That’s kinda what I thought.
After reading the comments to the AV Club reviews of all the episodes to date, the consensus seems to be that this series is poor and probably will deserve a D rating overall. Do you all think that the show would be better if it had a traditional 22-26 episode format? That’s unheard of for a 1 hour show on a streaming service, but back in the old days, hour long action/dramas would regularly have seasons with 26 episodes (e.g. Star Trek: TNG). The book seems to be so epic in scope that 26 episodes would probably suffice to include all the elements and character development that most commenters see as lacking.
If there were a 22 episode season with this level of execution, it would just be a 22 episode D. The creators seem to have only a passing interest in telling a legitimate story…even if King’s The Stand was only a ‘partially based on’ credit.
Excellent review. I especially liked this:“It seems to believe there are two kinds of people: those who are good, who follow the rules even after the rules collapse in the wake of an apocalypse, and those who like to watch people fight to the death in the middle of a sex party”I feel like the writers had some real hits and a lot of misses.HIT = I was pleasantly surprised to see Playboy New Vegas. It’s visually interesting TV. I also don’t mind seeing crowds of people having fun, mask-free :)MISS = Apparently, teenage girls are supposed to feel guilty about not taking along annoying little brothers to go get ice cream (with chocolate on top!), especially when they’re flirting with the guy who works at the ice cream shop.HIT = Gladiators in a pit! Yes! With numbers on their chest so you can bet on them!MISS = 50 total people half-heartedly cheering on those gladiators? Fighting to the DEATH after a pandemic that killed everyone you used to know? srsly?HIT = Harold at the dinner party and later enjoying the fruits of his laborMISS = wtf their only bathroom is upstairs at the END OF THE HALL and there’s a pregnant woman in the house??HIT = Stu being woke + sexy time with FranMISS = Larry’s explanation for rejecting Nadine felt bogusHIT = Whoopi schooling Nadine by the pianoMISS = Nadine having the sad feels right after gunning down a man on the orders of a ghost prince so that she can become the queen of Party New VegasHIT = Dayna stabbing Flagg scene – awesome!!MISS = After Dayne’s suicide, Flagg should’ve gotten triple angry and destroyed stuff, not shrug his shoulders and GO FLOP DOWN ON THE COUCH to watch some Netflix y’all
Laid-back demon
Wow. The book couldn’t have made it more clear that Flagg was in a terrible rage for a very long time because Dayna escaped him by taking her own life before he could find out who the remaining spy was and how terrified everyone was in the next room was as they heard him rage for a very long time.Lloyd, as terrified as he was still ultimately went into the room because it was expected of him where Flagg asks him to take Dayna’s body to the outskirts of Las Vegas and burn it. It’s also all but said that Flagg ripped her head off her body after she killed herself when Lloyd asks “even the head?” and Flagg says “All of it.”Why, why why do adaptations keep not only changing things (not all change is necessarily bad if done well!) but doing the exact opposite? (seems like time and time again, this adaptation is not done well!).
At the end of the day, something like this is a merely a corporate entertainment product that needs to maximize its ROI and nothing more. Not serve the fans, deliver a coherent story, be intelligent, be insightful, etc. So I’d imagine the CBS business plan was “Churn out a vaguely The Stand-flavored pile of crap as quickly and cheaply as possible, slap Stephen King’s name on it and send it out. Those dummies out there in middle America will watch anything.”
Well. I think this show is stupid, and I have watched five out of five. Their biznez model is working. Dammit.
He was in a rage not just because he couldn’t find out the other spy, but that he had already lost 2 of the spies in ways he couldn’t foresee or prevent, and it’s about that time that he notices that things are starting to go “flaky around the edges.” He’s aware, and trying to ignore, that he’s losing.
hahah I love his shrug in the background. “Ah well, that’s the end of that then.”
We see his bootheel hold open the door that ushers in the apocalypse in the pilot.
Was that in the book? I thought the virus just got out due to human error and Flagg seized on the opportunity.
no, this was a change from the book and one that weakens the overall narrative. like you said, in the original flagg was a schemer who took advantage of mankind’s monumental fuckup, here he contributes to their destruction himself.
What a pointless change.
More than pointless, it’s an utterly inept change that shows a complete lack of understanding of who Flagg is and what he’s supposed to represent, and negates King’s deliberately dark and cynical portrayal of the US military and government. I’d guess CBS is run by a bunch of terrified Trump ass-kissers and they didn’t want to be seen as portraying the military in a bad light.
or more likely they got some grants from the DoD to show the army in a good light.
I second what max powers said. It was actually an important thing in the book that Flagg saw an opportunity and took it. Since he’s a character that exists in many of King’s books, to include The Dark Tower series, and he is a high up minion to the big bad in King’s universe (the Crimson King) it’s important to the character that he sees opportunities and takes them. He rarely, if ever, creates his own opportunities. It’s a key part of his character and I hate they changed that.
You know, I just had another thought.In the book, Flagg is a teetotaling fascist and Mother A is a religious libertarian.In this series, Flagg is a hedonist and Mother A is a religious conservative.Interesting twist!
I mean….c’mon….So our first glimpse of how things operate in Vegas was promising. Folks diligently working on a Dam? That’s King’s Vegas. Then it degenerates into a stupid mess. Pit fights and debauchery? How is that a threat to the Free Zone? They are actively reducing their fighting force day after day. In the book, by this time, they had figured out tanks, and were working on jets.Lloyd was supposed to go from an idiot petty criminal to a very focused Lieutenant. Formidable and driven. This guy is an easily manipulated, limp dick buffoon. How is that a threat? Julie Lawry wants to go shopping? SHOPPING? The shit is just lying around.Mother Abigail’s walkabout, in the book, was because she was starting to become prideful at the veritable worship people were showing her in Boulder. God had been speaking in her ear, but stopped. I think this episode might have been the first time we see her speak to God, and it was after she lost his confidence. And all of that wasn’t because of something she did, but something the lump of damp clay that was supposed to be Nick Andros did.Harold is a weiner, and about as tough as a dried twig. If Larry had been caught, what was the threat? Harold would have curled up into a ball. Who is the hero, or heroes, of this story? Stu has been about as heroic as a local plumber. Larry? Frannie? Nick?Dayna Jurgens was supposed to go and report back. In the book, she decides to make an effort to kill Flagg on her own. She has a spring loaded knife (or is it a banana? I forget). She works her way quickly up the chain. Here, she’s so overt with questions that she draws the attention of the 2nd in Command? How long does this take? When is Flagg on to her? From Boulder, he says. Flagg DIDN’T send Julie. What is happening? Her last act before going to see Flagg was to find a random clean up guy in the Death Pits? Not suspicious at all! No way Flagg can figure THAT mystery out! What Is Happening?Still, the scene where Dayna does the unthinkable was pretty good. The acting was nice. The execution of this show is not.
“Her last act before going to see Flagg was to find a random clean up guy in the Death Pits? Not suspicious at all! No way Flagg can figure THAT mystery out! What Is Happening?”
Exactly! He’s been watching her but somehow missed this? And are we supposed to think that Tom’s mental disability hides him from Flagg? That leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
King’s story DOES have it where Tom is hidden by his disability. Though I suppose one could argue that King meant to say it was because Tom was hypnotized into his spy role and therefore Flagg can’t read his intent. The show doesn’t give you that out , though.
She has a spring loaded knife (or is it a banana? I forget).Not sure if you’re kidding but she has a knife and when she pulls it, about to use it, she sees that he’s turned it into a banana.
That was, indeed, the joke. Didn’t think anyone else would get it, to be honest.
There was ZERO Tolerance for drug use in Vegas. Crucifixion awaited those who used. That goes out the window with the scenes of coke snorting in the arena.Wrong.Wrong.Wrong.
one of the few things the series has done pretty well is make it believable that harold could actually change. the way he seemed genuinely shook by nadine killing teddy suggested that he was actually considering his choices and whether he could change. While the themes certainly came up in the book, Harold spent so much time being resentful and entitled that it was never believable that he might change his ways.
I see what you mean here… But I took it that this was the only person who actually liked Harold just for being Harold. I didn’t feel like he missed the person so much as feel the loss of an actual relationship in the Win column. Still, if they were going for some actual remorse here, it’s a welcome nuance to Ser Lauder
The Vegas of the book is a well oiled fascist machine, not some hedonistic playland. In a more effective adaptation, it could be both!! When we look at what could create nuance, the reality is that Vegas should be something in the middle. It’s filled with those arguably giving in to their worst impulses while also wanting to survive. It’s just hard to see what danger they pose to Boulder right now if they’re just partying. If they are throwing out all of the rules of society when it comes to sex and violence and building a militaristic machine that could be very effective. You’d also create some space for characters to question things more – Of course, Dayna finds this settlement unsettling. To be effective, it needs to offer her something. If she (or anyone else) was seeing a thriving society that’s ready to protect itself and that offers comforts Boulder can’t seem to achieve, the temptation makes more sense than just “hedonism bad.”
I could see the violence stuff working and even sexual stuff, but not the alcohol and drug use. no society is getting an electrical damn back up and running when the whole populace, including the number 2 in command is high 24/7.
Agreed and again, there’s an actual compelling narrative – Using sex, drugs and violence to get them all to stay in line is an actual choice. Having those in command not be a mess is a choice. Bringing up questions about free will and compliance would be a compelling narrative. What we get is drugs and sex are bad things done by bad people.
It was very, very subtly implied that the woman with Dayna being held captive by the semi guy was her girlfriend. I may have read into it because I have read the book (more than once) but I got that idea. Also, I’m pretty sure in the book that one of the guys that was crucified was crucified because he was caught doing drugs. So, yeah, none of that would have gone over with Flagg and it totally changes what Flagg is all about. I’m torn about Dayna’s suicide. On the one hand, it makes sense because, really, no way anyone is going through one of those windows (they probably could have when King wrote it, though.) But, the publicness of her jumping out the window and landing in front of everyone was really important to how it affected Flagg.
Kimothy, I have to assume you got that they were lovers mostly from the book. I don’t remember the nuance from the book, and I’ll be damned if I go back and watch it from the show….but in the show, she doesn’t even go back to look at her….friend? lover? fellow captive? after she caves in her captor’s head….fine, I looked—she didn’t. (What I DID notice, that I hadn’t before, is that we finally catch Harold with a PayDay). But it makes sense that the two were at least travelling together when they got caught by the scumbag. And Dayna is a lesbian ( I think she’s Bye Now?)
I probably just assumed because her and her girlfriend were both captives of the group (not just one guy) who did this in the book. I also think I got Dayna’s suicide and another woman’s suicide mixed up. I can’t remember now if the other woman jumped or fell, but it was from a balcony. Other comments have made me remember that Dayna cut her neck on the glass of the window after it broke. (I just listened to this just under a year ago after having read it three times in the past, you would think I would remember this stuff.)
That’s how I remember Dayna going out. She either tries to jump to her death or escape by breaking a window in Vegas( not impossible, as recent events have shown, but difficult), but she doesn’t make it. Then rakes her neck over the broken glass when she knows she can’t get away. Harsh toke. Dayna ain’t no joke.
you’re thinking of nadine’s death.
Thank you.
Nadine was in Vegas and already pregnant with Flagg’s child by this time, I think. Dayna slams her own throat on a sliver of broken window glass. Nadine went out the window.
literally canonically queerHmm. I’m not sure this claim carries water. King is good at a lot of things, but not good at avoiding the cis-male gaze in his writing – and when he tries, it sure can be ….awkward. It’s been a while, and I can’t really just pause here to re-read the book, but I don’t recall his writing feeling authentic and not performative on this topic. So that the show is performative about it doesn’t feel worse.I’m going for “equivalently bad” in a book to show comparison, not trying to say either was acceptable.
The thing I remember most about Dayna and her sexuality was Frannie telling Stu that Dayna was a lesbian….but she had altered her thinking and was Bi, now. Stu, who is a hick from small town Texas – and the cis male you mention, thinks, “ Bye, now?” Clearly not understanding what Frannie is talking about. So, it seems to me, that Dayna is officially either a lesbian or Bye Now? depending on how you define these things. She didn’t report it directly to us, the Constant Reader, but she did report it to a lead character that we trust.
I mean, isn’t Vegas already the place where nuance goes to die? So, nothing new….
boy, i’m glad i’m not watching this.
“this rendering of Vegas is especially infuriating in the ways it departs from the book’s Vegas”It sounds it holy shit.
This series has fucked up in almost every possible way, but I would say the worst is removing the motivations and personalities from Flagg and Abigail. We have no idea who they are or what they’re doing. And at the point the show is at, with Dayna’s suicide, things are starting to come apart for Flagg, and he knows it. In the show, we’ve never even really seen him come into power.
Pretty rash take on the series over all. I mean D+ for the episode? It wasn’t brilliant, but just taken as a episode in the series it wasn’t _that_ bad. Also I personally prefer the book, but I don’t think it’s necessary to make a carbon copy. The book also had it’s silly moments like the whole magic fix up skills of the Trash Can dude.
At the same time the unwatchable abomination that is Star Trek Discovery gets relatively OK reviews. I mean the series is badly acted, scripted and most of all illogical mess.
I haven’t seen the show, it’s not available in Canada yet, but I can’t understand the decision to use a flashback structure. The Stand was essentially structured as a modern day American Lord of the Rings. The journey was what was most intriguing about the story, I’m not sure about anyone else but the Boulder stuff in the book is the least interesting part. I think even King thought that way because he didn’t know what to do which is how the bomb plot occurred. The 1994 miniseries does alot right but can’t overcome the trappings of the budget and cheesiness associated with the format. I firmly believe that property should have been an HBO or Netflix series rather then CBS All access. Netflix series (maybe not their movie side) and HBO have a higher level of quality assurance it seems.
i like the people in the comments who think they’re slick ripping off THE LOSERS CLUB podcast commentary, hilarious
I LOVE The Stand and I LIVE Stephen King. He’s my second favorite author (behind Franz Kafka), but I had to stop watching this after episode 3. And I even debated watching that episode.It feels so low budget. Mist scenes are just people standing around talking. Which would be to e if this series had any kind of visual appeal, but it’s shot like a 90s miniseries, not an epic film. Yes, it’s on CBS but it should feel cinematic not like an episode of NCIS. There is no distinct visual style. The imagery is boribg which doesn’t help with the just standing around talking thing.
I’m not a fan of the Lloyd character in this series. In the book Lloyd actually matured as time went on, this seems like a regression. This series is definitely lowest common denominator fodder.
The Vegas we see makes even less sense when you consider that Flagg tells Dayna he wants to create order. Vegas is literally the opposite of that! If we saw all this crazy stuff was happening in, like, one particular area then that would tell us something, and that guard says everyone who comes to Vegas voluntarily is automatically a citizen, but otherwise there’s no suggestion there’s any kind of real order at work. What a mess.Harold got creepy again. He’s definitely one of the more interesting characters, as I honestly don’t know whether we’re going to see him stay on a villain path or if they’ll be some kind of redemption for him.
One of my biggest annoyances, among many, with the 90s miniseries was their absolute botching of the Vegas community. Vegas was meant to be an allegory for how easy it is for people to get scared and fall behind a strong man because he’ll keep you Safe, and if really bad things happen to a few community members here and there, well surely it’s because they deserved it? But the 90s version turned the Vegas crowd into either cruel assholes or rejects from the cast of the Jesus Christ Superstar reboot. Obvious Nazi allegory is obvious.So I had hope for this new series rectifying those mistakes. For all I haven’t liked about this new version, there’s been a fair amount to like as well, and I was willing to give it the time; but goddamn if they didn’t screw up Vegas as well. Somehow worse, even.Up to that point, this new series had felt like a competent if slightly off cover band hitting most of the original’s Greatest Hits, but without any of the heart. The Vegas scenes are pretty much the equivalent of discovering that said cover band has been playing to a recording of *another* cover band, and the recording just skipped.