Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 4, 2020

If you were a fan of the series in general, how did you feel about Lost: The Complete Sixth Season, the last year of the now iconic show from Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof and J.J. Abrams? I ask that question because Abrams is also associated with Castle Rock, as outlined below, and there may be some admittedly tenuous connections that might be drawn between the two properties. Now it should be stated up front that J.J. Abrams neither wrote nor directed any of the episodes in Lost’s final season, and he is “only” the executive producer of Castle Rock, and so this overriding thesis has some built in limitations, but I would argue that your reaction to that pretty controversial last year of Lost may well augur (for better or worse, as the case may be) how you’ll respond to this show. Castle Rock struck me in a way as Lost, a series some would probably argue became almost nonsensically hyperbolic in its final year, on overdrive, and it may be understandable that the very “stuffed full to overflowing” aspect that Castle Rock offers may therefore not be everyone’s cup of tea. Castle Rock is just the latest show to exploit the “mythology” of Stephen King, something that a whole glut of series from the at least somewhat similar Haven to the more recent Creepshow: Season 1 have done with varying degrees of success. I’d argue that Castle Rock is an even more dense homage to King than either of those above linked shows, and as such it should certainly appeal, whatever its perceived shortcomings, to the droves of King fans who have made his books epic bestsellers for decades, and who tend to flock to many of the film and television adaptations of them in pretty significant numbers a lot of the time.

One of the things that may either hurt or help Castle Rock, however, again depending upon personal reactions, is that this show might be thought of as more of a quasi-anthology outing, a la Fargo , with a location being the only linking and/or unifying feature between seasons. That means that those who devoted hours to Castle Rock: The Complete First Season will be "starting over" in a very real way, again for better or worse. The first season of the series focused on a Shawshank Prison seriously in need of some redemption, but this season brings a different kind of "Misery" into the story by focusing on a nurse named Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan), who, along with her daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher), "arrives" in Castle Rock courtesy of a car crash that leaves them stranded there.

Now rather interestingly, one of the other main plot components in this season is not culled from Stephen King's oeuvre (at least that I could divine), but rather from some real life history involving immigrants to Maine (where of course Castle Rock is supposedly located). It took a bit of internet sleuthing, but I actually found some articles, including some from Maine newspapers (who would presumably be up to speed on the facts), detailing the influx of Somali refugees into various hamlets in Maine, including a rather group that settled in a town called Lewiston. Somalis are in fact part of the wending story this second season of Castle Rock tells, with two related characters, a doctor named Nadia Howlwadaag (Yusra Warsama) and her brother Abdi (Barkhad Abdi), playing significant parts in the tale.

But the main focus is arguably on Annie and her deteriorating mental state, which includes a possible murder (there's actually not much "possible" about it, but due to Annie's erratic behavior and emotional problems, Joy isn't initially prone to believe anything Annie says). Also front and center is another character who is culled from the King canon, "Pops" Merrill (Tim Robbins), a crime boss with a health problem among other issues, including a nephew named Ace (Paul Sparks), who has a few "issues" of his own, including whether or not he's dead. A rather significant denouement concerning Joy is detailed as the season goes on, and that leads to even more mayhem. In what is one of Castle Rock's most Lost like elements, the timeframe repeatedly shifts in order to slowly dole out tidbits about various characters and in some cases ultimately reveal how relationships are interlinked.

That said, as Michael Reuben pointed out in his Castle Rock: The Complete First Season Blu-ray review, this is a show that probably asks questions more felicitously than it ever answers them. And my personal reaction to some of the revelations as alluded to above was rather similar to my reaction to that final season of Lost, namely that when answers were provided, they seemed willfully designed to provoke even more questions.

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. While the IMDb has no real technical data on the shoot, Michael mentions the Alexa in particular in his review, and there are some YouTube videos with one of the series' cinematographers, Richard Rutkowski, where he mentions that camera, so I'm assuming this was captured with that technology and then presumably finished at 2K (as always with my reviews, if anyone has authoritative information or can point me toward some, just private message me, and I'll happily update the review). This continues the first season's kind of drab, desaturated look a lot of the time, with grays and pale greens predominating in some of the scenes involving Annie. Other material, especially some flashback material to Somalia, is decidedly warmer and better saturated, and in fact I'd argue it's among the more vividly colored material in the entire series thus far. Detail levels tend to be surprisingly good even in some very dark circumstances, as in a pit of sorts that Annie falls into. There are some intermittently rough moments, as exemplified by screenshot 19 accompanying this review, that don't seem to be entirely the result of any stylistic gambits.

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 that exploits some great surround activity in both more boisterous ways, as in the calamitous car crash that brings Annie and Joy to Castle Rock, or later when Annie tumbles into an abyss of sorts, but which also regularly populates the side and rear channels with ambient environmental sounds in both indoor and outdoor material. The series has a glut of well rendered sound effects, including some kind of "squishy" ones when Annie gets a little angry and decides to kill a few people. There are some slightly hackneyed startle effects utilized, but on the whole the sound design here is spooky and moody with well prioritized dialogue throughout.

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Annie Wilkes - Mother of Sorrow (1080p; 16:53) is an above average featurette which focuses on the character of Annie and how she was interpolated into Castle Rock, but which also gets into more general content like female serial killers.

Note: This sole supplement can be found on Disc Two of this two disc set. A download code is also included.

Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lost was frankly "appointment television" for me virtually its entire run up to and through that much debated final episode, but even I was kind of rolling my eyes at some of the late developments in that show. Castle Rock has some of that same overstuffed quality, and I'm wondering how long an anthology outing like this can continue to whip up excitement, though that said, there are certainly a ton of venerable Stephen King characters that could become focal points (how about a season dealing with the cutest little puppy ever, Cujo?). It may be worth noting that this second season has fewer audio options and fewer supplements than the first season, and is evidently not being released in 4K UHD, as the first season was, which may indicate others are "counting beans" with regard to this series, which in turn may not augur well for it surviving. Technical merits continue to be strong, and the sole supplement about Annie and other of her general "ilk" is above average. With caveats noted, Castle Rock: The Complete Second Season comes Recommended.