It’s been a long, twisty road full of flashbacks, flashforwards, and location jumps, but it has all led to this. This series (and episode) is called “The Stand,” after all, so what would all of this be without a bracing confrontation between the forces of good and evil, one that makes all of the pandemic drama, new friendships, surprise betrayals, and mystical dreams worth it? Luckily for this series, its eighth episode delivers on the promise, and while a few character moments seem a bit clipped, the overall result is an exciting, tense, and fitting cap on a conflict that has defined the story’s primary narrative.
READ MORE: ‘The Stand’ Episode 7 Recap: ‘The Walk’ Finds The Heroes On The Road To Their Last Stand
The last episode concluded with Boulder’s three remaining emissaries arriving in New Vegas under guard, and this week opens up with the trio locked up in a cage, clad in orange prison jumpers. Always the thinker, the philosopher, Glen (Greg Kinnear) muses about what the three of them have seen of Flagg’s (Alexander Skarsgård) kingdom, and remarks that it isn’t anything special. Like Boulder, the people in New Vegas have rallied behind a person that makes them feel just a little safer, the only difference being that Flagg keeps up this obedience using fear instead of love.
When Glen, Larry (Jovan Adepo), and Ray (Irene Bedard) appear before a sort of People’s Court presided over by Lloyd (Nat Wolff) and Flagg’s favorite M.C., Rat Woman (Fiona Dourif), this idea of fear as the binding agent for Flagg’s power takes center stage. Glen challenges Lloyd in front of the gallery, asking why Flagg isn’t there himself if he’s so powerful. “I really need to understand this, Lloyd: what are you all so afraid of?” Lloyd seems genuinely confused about Glen’s questions and lack of fear, earnestly answering him with, “He can fly and he fucking, like, ate a dude last week. What are you talking about?”
It’s one of the funniest moments of the series, and is followed by one of the most tragic, when Lloyd succumbs to the pressure of the court and murders Glen in cold blood. It’s a tough break for Glen, but even tougher for Flagg, who seems to lose some power in the moment as members of the court’s gallery, and even Lloyd himself, appear to grasp that Glen was indeed right. Flagg in all his evil glory and power hadn’t appeared to smite Glen: it was a nervous, skeptical Lloyd that had to do it. It’s a great moment, and is something of a synthesis of the larger theme of the series (that the people in this post-apocalyptic world, not Flagg, have the power to make a future all their own, good or bad).
When Flagg makes his big speech later in the episode ahead of Ray and Larry’s execution, he does so with a lot of bravado, but it’s clear by this point that he’s already lost. Nadine (Amber Heard) has her own awakening early in the episode when she realizes she’ll never survive the birth of her demon baby, and worse, that Flagg always knew that this would be the case. Her suicide in defiance of Flagg, in conjunction with Glen’s defiant tirade in front of the court, sets the stage for the finale. When the people of New Vegas begin to rebel against their evil overlord, who succumbs to a holy and righteous lightning storm guided by a force just as mystical as the Dark Man himself, Glen is proven correct. And just like Flagg had a little magic juice backing up his “faith,” Larry and Ray receive some sweet, mystical juju to see their part through.
Like a ripping guitar solo near the end of a power ballad, the lightning storm that appears inside the casino pays off all the built-up tension between this story’s opposing poles, rewarding the faith of Larry, Ray, Glen, and even Stu (James Marsden), who spends the entirety of this episode cooped up in the washout cut. Sure, this has always been about the stand the good guys needed to make against the bad ones, but as these recaps have mentioned time and again, the real story of “The Stand” series is about the test of humanity’s capacity for kindness and fellowship.
If the citizens of Boulder had not had faith in Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg), and later, in themselves, it wouldn’t have mattered what Flagg did. Larry, Ray, Stu, et al needed to overcome the baser temptations of desperate humanity, and in their trips to Boulder and walk to New Vegas, they demonstrated that they are indeed worthy. Sure, Flagg could wield persuasion like a sword, and even sported some low-level mystical powers, but it never would have been enough all on its own. The lightning storm at the end proves that the good guys have their own magic on their side, but like Flagg, it couldn’t have won the day all on its own.
It makes for some good narrative symmetry on top of some riveting television. Lloyd, who the show has been positioning as increasingly more nervous and desperate, gets his redemption (only minutes before his hilarious death), and it’s a magnificent moment: the culmination of several episode’s worth of nuanced character work. In the show, it works because of the time the previous episodes spent focusing on his chipped-away allegiance, and because of Wolff’s fantastic performance just outside of Flagg’s suite after Glen’s murder, yet book readers will likely feel somewhat shorted on this show-only change (book-Lloyd never fully turns on Flagg).
It’s clear that Benjamin Cavell and his writers wanted to make sure they nailed the thematic elements of the larger story during this episode, and while they undoubtedly succeeded, some character work feels a bit thin. Lloyd’s turn at the end makes sense within the context of what’s come before, but Trashcan Man (Ezra Miller) comes off as little more than a foaming-at-the-mouth plot device who is crazy just for the sake of having a wild card at the end of this thing. Why Trash brought the nuke to the casino instead of the airfield as instructed is left somewhat vague, and while book readers know his story and what motivates him, this is never outlined in the show.
This is to say that all of it works, but isn’t as airtight as it might have been with just a bit more time outlining how things were falling apart in New Vegas ahead of the Boulder trio’s arrival. Flagg’s hubris in pulling all the sentries in to witness the execution, and in taking his eye off of what Trash was doing, allowed the big finale to happen in the book as part of a larger story about the deterioration of New Vegas, and while the show touches on this with Lloyd’s increasing unease, and the court gallery’s second-guessing, it feels somewhat thin.
Tom Cullen’s (Brad William Henke) reappearance at the end of the episode, and the scene between Frannie (Odessa Young) and Joe (Gordon Cormier) in Boulder, serve as an effective teaser for the final episode, however, allowing this one to end with no small amount of anticipation for how all of this will wrap up. And again, the ultimate confrontation between Flagg and the lightning bolts of Zeus or God (or whoever) lives up to the promise the previous seven episodes have made about what this ultimate stand might look like. Indeed, people getting zapped in half by the righteous fury of their creator is just as cool as one would expect/hope.
With Stu and Tom set to meet up and make their way back to Boulder, and Frannie about to have her baby, there’s plenty to look forward to in this series’ last hour. And while a few shortcuts might have been taken to get to the terminus, “The Stand” has delivered on its promise to pit good versus evil in a classic showdown (now with more lightning!). Even with the main conflict now resolved, there’s still a bit more excitement ahead if the show continues to hew closely to the book’s narrative signposts. Here’s hoping they can close this one out strong. [B]
“The Stand” airs weekly on CBS All Access.
