Castle Rock recap: Bloodbath at the new bed & breakfast

Castle Rock

type

TV Show

run date

07/25/18

performer

Andre Holland, Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgard, Sissy Spacek

broadcaster

Hulu

seasons

1

Genre

Drama, Thriller

The TripAdvisor rating for Castle Rock Historic Bed & Breakfast is not going to be reassuring.

Episode 8 of the Stephen King-inspired series begins with a focus on Gordon and Lilith, last seen at Molly Strand’s open house for Warden Lacy’s home. She seemed charmed by the home, while he was transfixed by the warden’s painting of the lake.

Basically, they were sold. And in the opening we see Gordon in his former job as an academic, debating whether the human mind is designed to forget past horrors. (This may be relevant when it comes to Henry Deaver and his lack of memories about his bizarre childhood.)

Then, Professor Gordon violently attacks his colleague, who had been having an affair with his wife. As they arrive in Castle Rock to start over, it’s clear that Gordon has still not forgiven her.

They’re moving a lot of strange mannequins into the house, which they intend to use to recreate some of the notorious murders that happened there. This will be a “theme” bed and breakfast for true crime enthusiasts. Gordon is busy arranging one of these scenes in the upstairs bathtub when Lilith announces that she has discovered the key to the basement.

Down there, they find dozens of Warden Lacy’s other paintings — most of them of the mystery man he kept imprisoned in the Shawshank dungeon.

Found the key to the basement!

Gordon seems to be mesmerized by the paintings of this man. It’s all getting inside his head in a strange way.

When Lilith appears in the hallway in a negligee, only to be spurned by him, she asks: “Can’t we just say it never happened?”

Then the phone rings. Their first customer!

The couple doesn’t know that the quaint B&B they’ve book has a macabre theme. Lilith gleefully informs them that Castle Rock was “the murder capital of 1991,” which is surely a reference to King’s Needful Things.

“We believe this to be the first fully immersive lodging experience for the true crime aficionado,” Gordon says. “A chance to stay in a house where actual murders have been recreated in exquisite detail.”

The couple, however, is just there for … an affair. Gordon sits awake at night, listening to the sound of their lovemaking. But the cries of ecstasy become shrieks of agony. Lilith awakens to find her husband clutching a knife over their guests’ butchered bodies.

Here’s a new tableau to recreate with some dummies.

We last saw Henry Deaver being locked in a soundproof room by the bizarre duo of Odin and Willie, who claim that the ringing in his ears was the sound of multiple universes trying to reconcile with each other — what Henry’s father called “the voice of God.”

Odin even deafened himself to better “hear” this audio phenomenon, which he called “The Schisma.” And when Molly Strand, using her psychic ability to detect Henry’s anguish, arrives to free him from this chamber, he asks “Where are those men?”

She says, “I don’t know,” and as they escape we see that Odin has been murdered by way of a screwdriver to the eye. Who did it? Molly? His companion and translator Willie? We don’t find out in this episode.

Next page: The Black Death …