I Bingewatched the First Three Episodes of Castle Rock. This is What Happened

I have made peace with the fact that The Kid was not going to be in this season. But I did have a little tiny bit of hope that Henry Deaver (Part two, extended remix) would make some kind of return. I know they never exactly said what was up with The Kid, but I was under the impression he was Henry from an alternate universe. I also DO think he will be getting out of Shawshank in exactly 27 years. I love a good easter egg. What did you guys think about The Kid?
But so far, we got no Bill. Which, I'm not exactly mad at, but kind of bummer because I did like his character. During the first season of Castle Rock, I made a Bill Skarsgard alignment chart. You might not have seen it. Apparently, it's against Tumblr's community guidelines. And I mean I get it, Bill IS sexy.
Which Bill are you? I'm dumb ass bastard.

Anyway, our second favorite depressed thot is nowhere to be seen or even mentioned. This season is a Annie Wilkes origin story. And, can I just say I don't really like super fleshed out horror origin stories? Once you find out evil people's motivations for their evil, it's not as scary. It's usually just sad. You end up empathizing with the character for the most part.So Annie is fleeing from state to state after doing a whole bunch of murder. She's also running from this tall man that I suspect does not actually exist. Annie herself said that she has two sides to her, so who knows if what she's seeing is actually real. We know she will straight up chop off a dude's foot (in the novel) so I don't expect her to be the most reliable of narrators.  
We start with Annie and a box that says "The Ravening Angel". What's that? I don't know yet, sorry.  Annie passes out and the box moves! Bill, are you in there? It's actually a baby, boring. like I said, I don't think Annie is a reliable narrator. So that baby might not be real either.
Then we have a montage that takes place sometime later to a song from Working Girl. The song's called Let The River Run which is also the title of the episode. She's getting ready for work (she's a nurse). She steals a bunch of anti-psychotics and lithium. Annie tells her daughter Joy that they're going to The Laughing Place. That's confused the heck out of me because I'm big Disney fan and I assumed she was gonna drive her daughter off of Splash Mountain. After watching the first three episodes of Castle Rock, I re watched Misery and Annie's "laughing place" is where she keeps her bodies.
Annie and Joy travel across the country, as told by license plates. (x)
Eight years later, a stranger takes a picture of their license plate and explains his actions by saying that he is just trying to get a license plate for every state. Annie asks him to delete it, but it turns out they have multiple license plates. What's the big deal then, I don't know. I guess I have to keep watching. I am not really into this season ngl. In a very hilarious shout of to Misery, Annie gets into a car accident. She can't leave town until a new windshield (or something) is delivered. 
Annie stays at the Star-Gazer Lodge. John Ace Merill from Stand By Me/The Body is in charge of the Lodge. So we know he is up to no good. But, uh....y'all Keifer Sutherland was high key fine in the movie....sorry. I will never change. I will never improve.

John has a dad that's played by Tim Robbins, who played Andy in The Shawshank Redemption. The dad is called Pop and kind of runs the town and the cops listen to him. He also has cancer. Pop has Jon collect money from these Somalian people who are using one of his properties to do their business. Pop also is a foster dad to Abdi and Nadia, who are Somalian. Pop tells Abdi is told he will take over the warehouse when Pop dies. Like I said before, Pop has cancer. John is, as the kids say...Big Mad. Pop is probably pretty evil, but I think it's cool that he is at least kind of decent to the Somalians because most people in Castle Rock don't like them as dey took der jawbs . I think that Abdi and maybe Nadia are like, his actual kids or grandkids. But nothing is really confirmed in the first episode. However later, it's supposedly just business but I don't know, y'all!

Abdi must be dumb because he's building a mall over SALEM'S LOT. Of all the lots in the world, right? John is still big mad, but this time I mean, it's kind of fair this time around. Anyway, he fire bombs his house. Annie is IN the house because she wants to steal Nadia's key card. Nadia catches her but doesn't call the police. I guess Nadia's a real one because Annie's goal was to get into the narcotics room at the hospital.Nadia writes Annie a prescription.
John finds out who Annie really is and she kills him with an ice cream scooper! She dumps the body at Abdi's construction site . And I'm just like ok, here we mcfreakin' go. The kill is not as iconic as the hobbling Annie will do later in life, but I still thought it was pretty neat to see. Annie and John's body fall into this underground cave/cavern thing that has bodies from 1619. Which was when Castle Rock was founded. There's a memorial sign that says Damien Aucoin, it has carvings of  beetles on it. Beetles have been seen around Castle Rock so, yikes. When I see beetles I think of the Mummy Franchise from the late 1990's. I'm not too sure what they are supposed to represent here. All I know is that Annie keeps seeing John even though she killed him. Annie travels through the sewer system. for why...For my theory to make sense, of course. Loser gang rise up  because when Pop asks John where's he's been, John says he's been in DERRY! Yes, that Derry. And when "John" looks into a mirror his eyes do the thing. Yes, the thing!

 

I was never on team "The Kid is Pennywise" but these back to back easter eggs with John really has me feeling like they are connected in some way. I originally thought he was going to be a vampire because of Salem's Lot. But, I don't think that anymore. Whatever is in charge of John's body can jump into other bodies too via slime.

Back to Annie in the Sewers. She ends up in the Marsten house, from Salem's Lot. In Salem's Lot, a vampire named Kurt Barlow lives there. In Castle Rock (the show) Marsten was a practitioner of black magic and killed his wife and probably a group of kiddos too. On the show, some satanists were burned there and Hassan comes across what appears to be those bodies.

Abdi and Pop get into an argument about John's disappearance. Pop suspects Abdi did something and was involved. We know that's not true. Abdi ends up taking Pop to the hospital while Annie instructs her child to start packing. Annie returns to the spot where she and John fell to retrieve her necklace. If someone else were to find it, that would be like super incriminating. She arrives to find that the hole is now covered up. She goes into the Marsten home to find Hassan eating an egg...Raw. He has the slime on him. She tries to open a locked door. Bill. are you in there? Who knows? Annie can't open it. But, It's obviously gonna get opened eventually. Why show it if they aren't going to open it.
Joy is playing with her friends on Castle Lake instead of minding her mother. The lake makes the same sounds it did from season one. I thought that was just a choice™, but I guess it's offically relavant to the plot.
Joy goes home to find it in shambles, because her mother has not been taking her medcation. Joy does not know this, she's been having the time of her life because she finally has friends. After Annie confesses that she killed John, Joy injects her with a sedative. Annie wakes up tied to the bed, I think we're supposed to be like "heyyy, shout out to Misery, but I think it looks more like when Jessie was tied up in Gerald's Game. Both of them have a glass element.
Joy finds out that people have seen John around town, so she knows he's not dead. Joy almost releases her mother but realizes that her mom has not been taking her medication. Annie thinks that she is being poisoned via the pills.
John buys the Marsten house. He lets the real estate agent know that he is DTF and wants to know if she can have children. It's all very creepy and not a good creepy. He is already renovating the house.
Joy asks Annie about the lockbox she has. We the audeince know it has all of her license plates. Annie says its just for silly papers. Joy opens the box and finds the already montioned things and a gun. Annie also tells joy that her father was a bad person not the good person and war hero that Joy thought he was. Oh, and he is still alive. And he is after them. So maybe, he is the Tall Man and maybe he's not even bad and wants to save Joy from her crazy ass mother. 
Nadia shows up and asks how Annie is doing. While Joy is talking to Nadia, Annie breaks on hand free, but is caught while trying to get the other hand loose. The mother and daughter fight for contril and Annie ends up cutting Joy with the glass. Joy runs off and The Tall Man apprears to Annie. Annie is so frightened that she takes the pills she's been avoiding. The Tall Man says, "You know how this story ends. You're going to kill her"
And bruh, you know what? You know how I wasnt sure Joy (the baby) was real? I think she is real but Joy isn't that baby. I think Annie killed the original baby, named Joy and has been kidnapping baby girls ever since. This Joy has just lasted significantly longer than the other ones. Which is why Movie Annie killed all those babies. But is "her" even Joy? "Her" could be Nadia or someone else.

I don't like this season as much as I liked the first one! I do like it and will continue watching. But I don't feel like Annie Wilkes is as interesting as the Henrys. However, I do feel like I know how Castle Rock the series is going to end. But, y'all are not ready for that yet!