Castle Rock – Haebeas Corpus

By: Kelly Kearney

Narrated by the now dead and decapitated Dale Lacy, episode Haebeas Corpus manages to weave a Stephen King heavy tale about god’s plan and why our mystery man wound up in that cage. Castle Rock has more problems than its dwindling prosperity, every inch of that little burgh has seen death and sin. What do you do when your town is under attack by evil forces that are beyond your control? Sometimes, the only answer is to wait for God to send you a sign.

Evil Lurks

At the end of episode one, Zalewski (Noel Fisher) witnessed what he thought was the mystery prisoner (Bill Skarsgard) escape his cell and murder two guards. Fearing he might be next, the frightened guard sounds the alarm, draws his gun and searches for the no name culprit. Only when Zalewski reaches the cell block, everything seems to be in order and the bloody scene from the security footage doesn’t appear to be real. On edge, Zalewski gets spooked when he hears approaching footsteps and opens fire on his fellow guard, missing him by an inch.

We soon learn that things in Castle Rock are not what they seem. With Warden Lacy (Terry O’Quinn) telling the story about how this menacing town became the swamp of sin it is today. Lacy, who according to the town’s people was a good man, explains what drove him to build that hidden cage and force the mystery mute inside. According to Lacy, “people think we’re just one of those dead towns they’ve heard about. A run of bad luck, worse judgment, broken promises. We know different, don’t we? It’s not luck, it’s a plan and not God’s either.” Every citizen of this town has been personally touched by the evil that resides there. Dale’s bother paid the price and it was the first time he realized Castle Rock wasn’t like other small towns. In a flashback to when Dale was the local high school’s football star, the running back took a major hit in the big game and almost didn’t walk away from it. At the same time Dale’s brother, dressed as the team mascot, jumped off the roof of the school while his brother lies on the field recovering from the overzealous tackle. It might’ve been the first time Dale noticed the power this town can unleash but it wouldn’t be his last. Every home and every resident has come face to face with loss and pain. Castle Rock is “stained with someone’s sin” and murder seems to be the town’s number one pastime. After years of witnessing the carnage first hand, Dale became consumed by this malevolent curse. With years of watching his Castle Rock be eaten alive by this, Dale assumes that God must have a purpose for him, so he waits for a sign and when it happens, he builds a hidden cage inside the water tank of Shawshank’s abandoned cell block.

Henry Looks for Clues

With having no idea who called him from Shawshank, Henry (Andre Holland) goes to the widow Lacy (Frances Conroy) to ask if her husband ever took an interest in a particular inmate. The blind woman leads the lawyer to her husband’s office, giving him free reign to go through Dale’s work files. What Henry finds just adds to the mystery of his suicide and his mute prisoner. Littered amongst his files are dozens of old calendar pages inscribed with a quote about locking evil in a cage. Henry’s slowly putting the pieces together before Martha comes back and asks if her guest is black. Martha is blind and the neighbors gave her the heads up that this man is Henry Deaver, suspected father killer and boy responsible for the town’s curse. Like most of the townsfolk, Martha doesn’t trust Henry and demands he leave her home but not before Deaver spots a padlock on the basement door, questioning what the woman is hiding down below. Martha dodges the question and tosses Henry out before he can find anymore information on his possible client.

MAN, in the box

After getting nowhere with the warden’s widow, Henry heads to his father’s church where the new pastor (Aaron Staton) is holding a meeting for local ex-cons. The group called “The Incarnation” could use a man like Henry, a fighter for lost and hopeless souls, but really all Henry wants is more information about Dale Lacy. According to the pastor and most of the townspeople, Dale was a good man and loved by all. Definitely not the description of a man who would lock someone in an underground cage.

Meanwhile, Zalewski questions Shawshank’s mysterious prisoner about escaping his cell the night before. The perceived mute stays tight lipped and just dead stares the guard until it becomes too uncomfortable for Zalewski to continue.

As the issue at Shawshank becomes even more of a headache for Warden Porter (Ann Cusack), she heads to the Hilton bar for a drink where she runs into a very chatty Sheriff Pangborn (Scott Glenn). At first Pangborn appears to be an annoying bar fly that rambles on about his past as a police officer, but Porter quickly realizes he’s giving her hints about her predicament at the jail. Pangborn tells her that her predecessor thought the town was cursed by the devil, a boy, that God ordered him to lock up to protect them all from his wrath. Porter listens intently as Pangborn downs the last sip of his drink and warns her to never let that kid out of his cage.

At Shawshank, Porter’s assistant Mr. Reeves (Josh Cooke) offers to “take care” of their mystery man for her by locking him in a cell with multiple murderers and letting nature take its course. Porter agrees and Reeves walks the mute man down to a shared cell with a neo-Nazi who should probably be more afraid of his new roommate after the kid mutters, “You don’t want to touch me.” Later, the kid’s cellmate dies of a sudden onset of rapid spreading cancer that seems almost impossible for the prison doctor to have missed. Wherever this mystery man goes, death seems to follow.

Town History

After celebrating his birthday with his mother, Henry heads to a local bar where he runs into Jackie Torrance (Jane Levy, whose character’s name is another homage to the great works of Stephen King). Jackie fills Henry in on the town and how he became Castle Rock’s local legend and boogie man. As the story goes, the Deaver family took in a troubled Henry, who wound up killing his father by throwing him off a cliff and disappearing into the woods. After eleven days, he returned claiming to not remember what happened. It wasn’t long before he became Castle Rock’s favorite urban legend. Like a font of local information, Jackie tells Henry that the town became unincorporated and removed itself from the map after Nan’s Luncheonette was closed down for running sex parties out of the back room to blackmail the governor.

After getting an earful of town history from Jackie, Henry heads home to find Sheriff Pangborn digging up a dead dog in the backyard. In a Pet Semetary Easter Egg, Pangborn tells Henry his mother has him do this often, just to make sure the dog is still dead. At the same time, a stray dog digs up the missing skull of Dale Lacy at the lake making you wonder if anything in this town stays hidden for long. Evil has a way of escaping which leads us to the mystery man who gets his first taste of the outdoors when Reeves throws him in the prison yard. Henry manages to catch a glimpse of the man while entering the prison with the church’s Incarnation outreach program. According to Zalewski, there wasn’t any way Henry was getting into Shawshank through the normal circumstances and luckily the local pastor offered him a spot in his group. When Henry spots the man out in the yard, something tells him that’s his mystery client. He takes his photo as proof to Warden Porter that his client isn’t a hoax or a ghost.

Molly Strand

Throughout the episode we get glimpses of Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey) and her connections to Henry. As a child, Molly was touched by a power that her family and the town didn’t understand. She was friendly with Henry who lived across the street and that friendship for Molly turned into an obsession. As an adult, Molly still suffers from some kind of anxiety and an overwhelming feeling of empathy thanks to her ability to read people’s minds. As the episode closes, Molly meets with her sister for lunch to inform her that she’s set to appear on a local TV show called “Local Color.”  Her sister doesn’t think she’s mentally stable enough to go through with the interview and it’s pretty clear that her psychic abilities are messing with her better judgement, especially because she mortgaged the family home to pay for her new job as the town psychic.

What will happen when Molly goes on live TV? Does she know more about Henry’s father’s death and even the secrets dale Lacy kept caged in Shawshank? What’s the connection between Henry Deaver and the evil that hangs over this town? Find out the answers to these questions and more on the next “Castle Rock.”