TUESDAY
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Honestly, fatigue and disappointment are starting to settle in for me and I don’t know if there is much at this point that can put things back on course.
As the book has an ending that dips toward the tragic, I wonder if the show will have the guts to do so as well or if the urge was too strong to tinker and change. Somehow, Trash is going to need a narrative booster shot and become more of a presence and a quartet of heroes will need to rise from the west and make their way to New Vegas. Is that going to happen? Your guess is as good as mine.
This could have been so much better. It should have been so much better. They clearly have the budget. They managed to tap an ensemble cast that for the most part has the goods. They were given a great deal of space in order to craft the story as digital streaming offers a lot of opportunity where this production might have been impossible in the era of sitcoms and terrestrial cable.
They should have stuck closer to the blueprints. But instead, they went off book and went their own way, denying what ultimately Stephen King excels at - crafting characters that are flowing over with heart and humanity.
THURSDAY
Here’s the thing. If I put myself into a vacuum and take the show on its own merits and only using the pieces they have given, I don’t know if I would be able to say what it’s even about. I don’t think I could answer that question without bringing to bear what I already know from reading the book. And that is not a good sign for a show that’s six episodes into a nine episode narrative arc.
The book is split into two basic acts. The first takes place as the disease is released and the world quickly crumbles. It’s my favorite part of the book by far but sadly it’s largely absent from the series. We get some flashback scenes in establishing some backstories but for the most part we are grounded in the second act of the book.
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For me, part of what makes the second act so powerful is the notion of how religious faith is tested in the course of a massive, apocalyptic event. It reminds me a lot of how King deals with the question of God in Desperation. Mother Abigail has faith in God but it isn’t necessarily always love. She makes note a number of times about how God isn’t necessarily good or bad, he just is. God is just as inherently linked to his own nature as the rest of us and debating about our role in this new existence is pointless. You either answer the call or you don’t. God is going to do what he does. He just is.
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The people of Las Vegas have also answered a call and a big question of the book deals with what direction people can be led in, based on what call they hear.
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But the show?
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I don’t know. Save for a few snatches of dialogue, the whole concept of God seems to have been scrubbed out of this. There’s one side and the other but I don’t really get what either side is trying to accomplish. Flagg sure hates Mother Abigail and he’s trying to make weapons. That’s pretty much the most I can say. There’s no frame to the story that I can see and we seem to just be led along by the nose and a promise that at some point this will all be made into a portrait of some kind.
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We are on the eve of my watching episode seven and all I can say about any of the characters is that they all really want to win. Not super compelling but like I’ve been saying, I’m this far in......
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FRIDAY
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It occurs to me that this is the best way I can explain my reactions to this show.
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It would be like watching someone take the time to gather the flour, yeast and water. To cook the sausage, slice the pepperoni and shred the cheese, all just so they can make a frozen pizza.
The flavors are all there, where they’re supposed to be. It isn’t ... wrong, necessarily. It just also isn’t necessarily right, either. It’s flat. It’s generic and plain. It tastes like you took a bunch of things that were good and assembled them to make something that tastes like it was forced out of a factory production line.
Maybe I’m being less than fair. I’ll acknowledge that. Because clearly people are responding to this show better than I. And many others hate it more than me. Who’s to say that any point along that spectrum is automatically wrong? After all, I would be the first to say that a series inspired by a book that’s over a thousand pages is bound to leave much behind.
But I feel like my criticisms have been grounded in something more than just bickering over the details not matching the book. I feel like they have taken the basic narrative, stretched it out as thinly as possible and draped it out over everything. It’s like watching a screen adaptation of a book that’s been condensed for readers digest. And I feel like I’m grounding my concerns in how this show is functioning on its own, not in its ability to make me like it as much as I liked the book.
Here are some examples from this week.
In the novel, there are two scenes that I would identify off the top of my head that are big moments for Fran Goldsmith. The first is when she rails against the committee for their decision to send Tom Cullen as one of the spies into the west to peek in on Flagg’s people. In the show, this great moment for her is reduced to basically a shrug and a vote. A great opportunity for characterization tossed out the window and left behind.
The second, and I would argue even more important, is when Fran lashes out at Mother Abigail (who is on her deathbed) over her declaration that Stu has to lead three others into the west, a journey in which he will likely die.
It’s a huge moment in the book and it brings into light the entire issue of faith versus obligation and how much any one person can be expected to do. Again, these are themes like King would confront later in Desperation. In that book, a child is tasked by God to be a savior and to battle against evil. God doesn’t necessarily have the grand design people often think of. He just is. He uses David because he can and Desperation puts forward the suggestion that God has the capacity to be cruel. And we see that in Fran’s reaction - in her desperate attempt to cling to the one thing she has left at the end of the world that she loves - and loves her. It’s a moment of earned, righteous anger and it drives home the tragedy of the entire book.
In the show, we barely pass over this moment. Again, a shrug and some tears. No weight. No meat. No impact. Just another item on the narrative to-do list. Send Stu and company to the west. Check.
Further past this point, I thought that if anyone would be given a proper sendoff, it would be Harold. He was one of the first characters introduced in the show and he’s been the one who seems to have hefted most of the narrative weight that the character had in the book. I’ve also really enjoyed Owen Teague’s performance.
But even that happened in barely more than the blink of an eye. Harold finds out he made the wrong decision and will now pay the ultimate price for that mistake.
Check. Done. What’s next?
This isn’t about being indignant about the specifics of the novel not being present. There is no sin of departure, as far as I’m concerned. Movies are inherently different than books and stories are going to be told differently. So I try as much as possible to not fall into the logic of - they changed it and that means it’s bad.
Still, looking at this show on its own merits, the decision to craft Nadine’s narrative arc the way they have is a major blunder, in my opinion and takes the show into a further steepening spiral downward.
For Nadine, in the book, her entire story is a buildup of her making her way towards Flagg. We get to see all of her fear and doubt and hesitation that she learns was all for the right reasons as she is left impregnated and basically lobotomized. At the same time is Flagg’s beginning to realize that maybe things aren’t going to end exactly how he expects either. Maybe his power isn’t absolute, after all.
In the show, we have gotten a number of hints (mostly from Harold) suggesting this direction but when we come to the moment, I felt like it fell well short of the mark. Hints and possibilities. Seems to be the proper theme song for this show. Instead of taking a powerful turn for the character which takes place in the book, we see Nadine apparently becoming some kind of chipper corpse bride.
So while Nadine has changed by the time the curtains are drawn closed on this episode, the change seems largely superficial. And I will compliment whoever handled her makeup and prosthetics- she looks creepy as hell. There just doesn’t seem to be much point. Just more of the same. Focus on the surface but without all the content of the book. Ultimately, the producers have painted themselves into this corner of not being able to dive into the tragedy of Nadine’s story because we have barely scratched the surface up until now.
And of course, once again, Trashcan Man, the crucial catalyst at the end of the book is barely given more than a minute or two in this episode. Planning on doing anything with him, folks?
It’s not a finished product so who knows where this is leading, I just find the decision-making perplexing and I don’t know what it really does to enhance the story. And again, this isn’t an on-face statement that the movie should be the book. Change = they ruined it? No, that’s not my point. I’m fine with change. Hell, I loved the recent Dark Tower movie and in no way did that film adapt the books. But looking at this, I can’t help but see a string of examples where the producers should have paid more heed to the structure left behind by one of the most successful storytellers of the modern era. Maybe his instincts should be trusted more.
And what I find so perplexing about this show is the fact that despite the fact that it has felt so rushed and that so much has been left behind, we’re still sitting with a full feature length film left to go in this thing. There’s not that much left in the book from this point. And even accounting for the new epilogue written by King, I have to wonder at what they could possibly have in store for us.
I suppose it’s possible that they saved their most mind-blowingly spectacular episodes for these next two weeks.
Possible.
But I’m not really counting on it.
