Since its publication in 1978, author Stephen King has come up with three different endings for
The Stand. Somewhat fittingly, the Bible-sized tome with over a dozen central characters, each one detailed enough to be the main character in their own story about the near destruction and possible salvation of the entire human race, has drawn back King’s itchy writing finger to rethink what happens when it’s all over.
King first revised the ending of
The Stand in 1990 with an expanded edition that added a few hundred more pages. Now he’s done one more pass, writing the final episode of the CBS All Access miniseries, which just wrapped up. The differences reflect a writer who’s in an evolving relationship with the world around him.
The Stand s coda injects some suspense before falling flat
After dropping a literal atomic bomb last episode,
The Stand closes off its woefully uneven run with a quiet and very Biblical coda, written by Stephen King himself and carrying on past the point where the book ends. For that reason, there’s considerable tension and suspense even for readers of the original work. But the last-minute pontificating on the nature of humanity and good vs. evil that occurs in the spanse of this strange episode never achieves depth or sharpness. Instead, it merely flops around in its overly simplified moralizing.
With only a few more episodes until the finale, there’s only so much that
The Stand can really do to fix some of its fundamental narrative problems. “The Vigil” is technically a strong episode of the wildly inconsistent series, but the bar’s also pretty low after last week’s mess of an episode. And the problems, frankly, persist. A very major character death happens in the episode, and yet it feels almost like nothing. When not enough character work is done to flesh out these people and their motivations, the big dramatic moments just simply aren’t going to land.
“Fear And Loathing In New Vegas" highlights one of the The Stand's greatest problems as a miniseries: Themes, characters, and motives must be distilled and simplified for the sake of time.
Bright Eyes members scored new ‘The Stand’ adaptation
Stephen King epic post-apocalyptic novel
The Stand begins airing today (12/17) on streaming service CBS All Access. The nine-episode limited series stars
James Marsden (Stu Redman),
Whoopi Goldberg (Mother Abagail), and the score was composed by two members of
Bright Eyes:
Mike Mogis and
Nate Walcott. Both have extensive discographies beyond their work with Bright Eyes, and they ve composed a score together before, too, for the 2014 film adaptation of
The Fault in Our Stars.
With a very contagious and deadly pandemic, known as Captain Tripps, as one of its main focuses,
The Stand feels more relevant than ever in 2020, although how this adaptation will rank against the 1994 ABC adaptation starring Gary Sinise, Adam Storke, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Miguel Ferrer, Laura San Giacomo, Jamey Sheridan, and others remains to be seen. You can watch the trailer below.