The CBS All Access adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand ended this week with a new coda written by King himself that seems to conclude the story in a new way, answering some questions and opening the door to others. In a way, the true end of the adaptation is told not only in this week’s Closing Circle, but also in last week’s penultimate episode, The Stand, both of which show significant deviations from the source material. So the executive producer of the series, Benjamin Cavell, has made some of these changes.
Most of the major changes took place in the penultimate episode of The Stand, with the death of Glen Bateman (Greg Kinnear) being particularly significant. In the novel, he is killed in his prison cell after being hostile to Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard), but the episode changes things up when he is killed in the courtroom during the farce trial. Cavell told Entertainment Weekly that this change made more sense and allowed them to tone down Flagg as the antagonist.
The scene in the book is very memorable, but we had some questions about it. One of them is Lloyd Henreid’s (Nat Wolff) bow. In the book, when we meet him, he kills people and has nothing to do with it, Cavell said. That’s why I always wondered why he hesitated in the book when he was ordered to kill Glenn. Part of this film is also a testament to Nat Wolff and his commitment and willingness to work with us to create an arc for this character.
He continued: We put Lloyd in a situation where he had never killed anyone before and didn’t seem to want to, and we wanted to make it a bigger problem for him. It always bothered me that Glen died in the book in that personal moment between Lloyd and Flagg. I thought it was much more important that he challenged Flagg in front of his people, who are obsessed with this strong, charismatic and authoritarian man – a rising figure in our recent history, and how afraid they are of appearing weak in front of their audience. This is the beginning of the end of Flagg for our heroes through their challenge. If you kill this man in front of everyone, he will begin to weaken. You see him floating and suddenly he falls to the ground. They created the conditions for Flagg to eventually – I hesitate to use the word defeat – win anyway.
It’s an interesting twist on the story that perhaps adds more layers to things, while the decision to remove another aspect – Stu’s (James Marsden) and Tom’s (Brad William Henke) trip to Boulder isn’t shown in the series – rationalizes another aspect. However, one of the elements that has kept the series alive, but also made it fresh, is the hand of God, literally the deus ex machina who dropped the bomb in Vegas. Cavell says they decided to nuance the mechanism a bit – and were inspired by the play.
This is perhaps the thing we’ve discussed the most. Jake Braver, our VFX supervisor, and I talked about it endlessly. Our goal was to get to a point where if you know the book and you want it to look like a hand, it is a hand, but if it drives you crazy and takes you out of the book, don’t look at it that way, Cavell said. What we absolutely did not want was something like a cartoon of the Monty Pythons taking over the skies. Our big prototype was this picture from the Hubble telescope called Pillars of Creation, which looks like a very distant nebula, but exists in its natural state. If you look at it closely and you’re ready to take the plunge, it really does look like your fingers are tense. But that’s not necessarily the case.
All episodes of The Stand are now airing on CBS All Access.
frequently asked questions
What happens at the end of the stand?
For the warriors of Mother Abigail make her rise up and defeat the evil that haunts the world and manipulates the minds of men – or so they believe. The climax is reached in the penultimate episode of the miniseries, and the finale serves as a coda to the plot.
What happened in Preparation for Stephen King?
The Stand is a post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy novel by American author Stephen King, first published by Doubleday in 1978. The plot revolves around a pandemic flu virus that kills almost the entire world population. … The Stand was reissued in 1990 as a complete and integral edition.
What happened to Kojak in the stands?
Kojak, formerly known as Big Steve, is a rare flu that has affected not only humans, but also dogs and horses. When Glen leaves with Redman, Kojak stays behind first. However, he follows them and is then attacked by wolves after arriving at his mother Abagail’s empty house.
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