Larry, Rae, Stu, and Glen preparing to follow the instructions of Mother Abigail and walk to Las Vegas to meet Randall Flagg.
SPOILER ALERT: this part 2 of The Stand review contains spoilers. Don't read this if you'd rather be surprised.
OK so in my last review, I had watched the first 4 episodes of the unfortunately rebooted miniseries, The Stand. I've watched 3 more episodes (with the final 2 left to go) and I think I'm glad I'm sticking with it but it's hard to tell.
Starting in episode 5 they seemed to realize HEY this is cable, we can do whatever we want, and so this reboot began to get a little freaky, but not necessarily in a good way. They also decided to start presenting the scenes in a regular, linear way, so they made better sense.
We are introduced to the new Las Vegas, now referred to as New Vegas. Or I should say, one hotel where for some reason the same action plays out continuously, night after night.
Here's the freaky part
For some reason, all the Vegas action takes place in one very large room which reminded me of a mall food court. There is this main floor and then a sunken area, visible to all, where multiple people are battling each other with chainsaws. No explanation is given about who these people are or if this is some kind of punishment or what. We just see fighting and lots of severed limbs and headless torsos and every so often a truck comes out and a worker wearing a blood spattered butcher's apron loads up the bodies and arms and legs and carts them off to make room for new chainsaw fighters. PS. One of these cleanup workers is none other than our pal (and undercover spy) Tom Cullen, who doesn't seem to mind.
On the main floor there's a sort of orgy going on although my response was "seems like there'd be more nudity at an orgy," which is a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say. Mixed in among the orgy folk are many other fully clothed people just hanging out which made me question whether this still counted as an orgy or if it would be called something else and if so, what. There's a big screen where Randall Flagg occasionally appears and speaks to the crowd, mainly in vague pronouncements which make the people cheer. He reminds them that they were taught sex and drugs and violence were bad but now they're good so enjoy, and they cheer. This scene kind of repeats itself several times with slight variation so we can't tell if everyone stays on this floor day and night 24/7 or if this was just cheapo filming choice.
If you recall, the Las Vegas from the book and from the 94 miniseries was a frightening, hardworking place where the goal was to ready fighter planes, helicopters, and pilots at Indian Springs in preparation for a springtime attack on the Free Zone, to bomb them out of existence. None of this is included in this 2020 version. And where the other Las Vegas punished drug use with crucifixion, this New Vegas has drugs aplenty, with even Flagg's minions openly snorting up cocaine.
Dayna, the Free Zone spy, doesn't spend time dating Flagg's minion and gathering info about Indian Springs because there's no info to get so instead she just keeps asking nosy questions about Flagg. He of course, already knows she's a spy, and when the minions comes to take Dayna to him, she knows her time is almost up.
Then apparently all the writers working on this series started smoking cuckoo plant because Dayna spots Tom and risks totally blowing his cover. She says she lost her bracelet over by the chainsaw pit and wants to ask the cleanup guy to look for it. Once alone with Tom, and with no one within earshot, Dayna does not verbally give Tom any warning. Instead she goes on and on about this fictitious bracelet and then sneaks Tom a note with one handwritten word: RUN.
Dayna knows Tom. She knows he can't read. We wonder for a minute how a developmentally disabled man can listen to someone talking about a lost bracelet for two straight minutes without taking her at her word, that she's lost a bracelet, and is supposed to know this is a ruse. Instead of handing him a note he can't read, she could have just verbally told him to RUN.
Tom hides the note, looks confused, and Dayna goes up to Flagg's room where, as in the book, he reveals he knows she is a spy and that Judge Farris is a spy, but when he tries to figure out who the third one is, he can only see the image of the moon. Dayna refuses to tell him who the third spy is and suddenly kills herself so he won't get it out of her.
Judge Farris, in this version, is an older white woman and she is really ripped off, screentime-wise. We don't meet her until the committee is asking her if she'll be a spy and there's a very nice moment when we think she's going to be an interesting character. Then she has exactly two scenes: in one she crosses days off a calendar and grab some bags and in the other we see her getting zipped up in a body bag.
Meanwhile, in Boulder:
Mother Abigail leaves abruptly because she believes she has committed the sin of Pride. In the book this is quite different: upon meeting Nadine, Mother Abigail almost recognizes who this woman is and there's a tense moment when Nadine waits to see what will happen. Mother misses this and then God stops talking to her altogether. This makes her realize she's spent too much time being loved by her people and losing focus on her real job which is hearing what God has to say and passing his message along.
In this miniseries Nadine meets Mother Abigail and has a quick chat which starts off tense and almost becomes warm. Mother Abigail tells Nadine it's never too late. It doesn't seem like Mother Abigail has picked up on anything about Nadine, not even the idea that she's missed something of importance (namely that she has been promised to Flagg as the bride who will bear his child).
Two other unfortunate changes in this version are that 1) Nick Andros is treated as a disabled person in this version (whereas in the book and in the 94 miniseries he's simply a character who happens to be mute and deaf) and this change is offensive. 2) In this version none of the characters have to push through their fears and become different people as a result of the Superflu. We do not see shy, closed mouth Stu become a public speaker and leader of a community. We do not see selfish asshole rocker druggie Larry become so selfless he is willing to give up his life. We don't see a trembling, frightened Tom forcing himself to go to Las Vegas. In this version all of those characters are already outgoing, selfless, and brave. No one grows or changes.
Harold still makes a bomb but in a roundabout way that gives him a moment to reconsider. Instead of finding boxes of explosives in his basement (left there spookily by Flagg) he and his pal Teddy from the burial committee are now on the safety watch committee and are issued ski jackets. In Harold's pocket he finds a pamphlet describing how the rangers use TNT to prevent avalanches and then he and Nadine break into the ranger offices. As she is leaving with boxes of explosives, Teddy discovers her and she shoots him. Seeing his friend Harold (and not realizing Harold's in on it) Teddy uses his final breath to warn Harold "Run!" Harold is upset Nadine has killed his friend, seems unsure for a minute, and then keeps on with their plan.
This 2020 version seems to remove the vibe of spooky telepathic weirdness which is in the book and in the 94 miniseries. In those versions the characters are living through weird times and weird things are happening and they roll with it. In this modern version, they seem to replace those moments with ordinary ones. We don't get to see Frannie sitting at a meeting becoming increasingly uncomfortable and then yelling a warning that everyone needs to get out of the house right now. We don't get to see the deaf character Nick being the one who seems to feel exactly where the bomb is hidden, and rummaging through a coat closet, trying to find it in time. We are robbed of both those moments. They are replaced with ordinary, lesser ones: Frannie breaks into Harold's house and sees the bomb making equipment (and his security camera footage which includes a nanny cam he hid in Fran and Stu's bedroom). Nick is mildly curious to see the back of Mother Abigail's piano closed and he reaches to open it, revealing the bomb hidden inside.
We get a scene with Mother Abigail speaking with Flagg in the woods but she seems unafraid of him, which goes against her character and also her job. He blows an icy wind her direction and when she returns to the Free Zone to deliver the You Need To Go Walk message, she now looks 108 instead of 68. Unclear if the wind did this or if God just kept her youthful until she could do her job and now that her gig is almost over the years have caught up to her. In any case, Whoopi Goldberg's suddenly altered appearance is quite distracting and for the viewer upstages any directions she gives to the group.
Trashcan Man: a wonderful character in the book, Trashcan Man, as a result of significant childhood trauma, grows up to suffer mental illness and set fires. Flagg will take advantage of him by sending him out into the desert to find powerful weapons. Ezra Miller (who, FYI, is a hell of an actor) was cast in this role and given much leeway in his choice of how to portray him, right down to designing his outfits. This was a very bad mistake. For some reason, Trashcan Man emits almost constant seagull type shrieks and wears a strange almost nudie outfit with strategically placed pouches. Unlike the Trashcan Man of the 94 version, who would jump up and down with happiness when he saw his fires, THIS Trashcan Man does something else, too icky to include on this blog.
Told you, freaky stuff.
So, boom the explosion, zoom Nadine and Harold take off, and Mother Abigail sends Stu, Rae, Glen, and Larry off to travel by foot to Las Vegas.
Then we actually have a scene they KEPT TRUE TO THE BOOK! Thank God. The scene they told as is is where Harold crashes and Nadine leaves him to die. This scene has added a gory touches which were unnecessary and could be triggering for some viewers. Harold still has a horribly broken leg but also has a thick branch impaling his chest and after Nadine leaves him there to die, we see Harold shove his gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Later, when Stu and Co. find his body, we see (three separate times) the grotesquely vulture-picked face of Harold.
Nadine, meanwhile, is off to meet her husband to be and in the desert we see a weirdly prolonged sex scene between Nadine and Flagg. Not so much as a big toe is seen of Nadine but Flagg gets so much screen time you would think he was auditioning for an adult film. At the last moment his true demon form is revealed and then we see regular looking Flagg and Nadine (whose hair is now in platinum waves, a la old Hollywood) with a bulging tummy.
Stu and Co. encounter the washout, Stu falls, breaks his leg, and at his insistence, the other three leave him behind. They continue toward Las Vegas and on the outskirts are met by Flagg's minions, who direct them into a limo and take them to Flagg's hotel.
Tom meanwhile has found a piece of equipment with switches that have words beneath them. He holds the RUN note next to a word that looks just like it. Then he stashes the note and points to the word beneath the switch and asks someone what that word says. She tells him it says Run. Tom says Thanks all casual like but when he turns his face away from her we see him thinking AHA. Later, Tom goes to the truck filled with corpses and body parts and hides underneath them. Zoom, off goes the truck with Tom as a secret stowaway.
In Flagg's suite he tells Nadine to go downstairs to meet their guests and we only see her from behind. She exits and walks down the hallway into the elevator and the minions seem shocked by her appearance. Inside the elevator Nadine sees her reflection in the switch plate and she seems to be gorgeous. When she walks out of the elevator we see her straight on and she has the hollowed out face of a corpse. She caresses her suddenly huge pregnant stomach and we see weird movement in this bulge.
Wait, does this mean the baby (or demonbaby) will be strong enough to survive when Nadine dies later in the story?
Stay tuned. Two more episodes to go.
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