The series premiere of Hulu’s horror anthology Castle Rock opened with a bombshell for ranking officials at Shawshank State Prison in the wake of its warden’s suicide. Deep within the bowels of a long-abandoned cell block, a corrections officer discovered a tank containing a caged and seemingly mute young man they’d later dub “The Kid” (Bill Skarsgård). With no prison record and no indication of why or how he was able to be concealed within Shawshank’s prison walls — much less how long he’d been there — the discovery surfaced some wild theories about The Kid’s origins. Nearly halfway through the series, there are few clues as to who (or perhaps what) the man is. While Castle Rock’s first four episodes point to a supernatural origin, it’s difficult to say with certainty whether The Kid is legitimately responsible for all of the sinister phenomena afoot at Shawshank (though the sudden death of The Kid’s neo-Nazi cellmate and an inexplicable mass shooting would certainly make it seem that way). Reddit, however, offers a few pretty good ideas about what the heck up with Shawshank’s nameless prisoner. Hulu The Kid Is Randall Flagg’s Son Castle Rock may be a wholly new story, but it’s littered with King Easter eggs. Redditor ikiris11 suggested that The Kid could be the son of Randall Flagg, a demonic antagonist at the center of King’s novel The Stand and a recurring villain by various other names throughout King’s body of work. I think the kid is Randal flags son. In The Stand Flag was trying to have a son with Nadine. In the The Stand, a superflu that wipes out the majority of the human population creates a rift between good and evil, with Flagg positioned as a nefarious being intent on sowing unbridled destruction. Nadine Cross is a woman who becomes overpowered by Flagg’s evil and is later assaulted by him. Given the fact that The Kid has been described as evil incarnate, this would at least offer some context as to why and how that came to be. Hulu The Kid Is Ruth Deaver’s Child This theory is among the more outrageous but somehow defendable theories for The Kid’s connection to Henry and the Deaver family at large. We know that The Kid was instructed by Warden Dale Lacy prior to his suicide to ask for Henry Deaver when he was eventually discovered, but it is not yet clear why. (Flashbacks appear to indicate Lacy may have somehow been involved with Henry’s 1991 disappearance, though that has yet to be confirmed.) Reddit user skeetulrichhoe suggested that Matthew Deaver and Lacy may have been in cahoots: I have this idea that maybe The Kid is somehow Ruth’s child? Matthew Deaver was religious. Could if be possible that he was the one who gave the message to Lacy about Kid being the “sole reason for the evil in Castle Rock”? Even before Kid was born? Or, maybe he wasn’t involved. Maybe he didn’t even know about Kid. Maybe Ruth doesn’t remember him because he gave her the dementia (it’s implied he gave someone cancer so it can’t be that far off). There’s also this picture.. In the very far right, there’s a hand. It doesn’t look like Lacy’s to me. Ruth knows / knew of Kid being in the cage. She just doesn’t remember it now. Anyone who’s watched interviews with Sissy and Bill knows they have scenes together, but I think the characters are related in some way. The photo mentioned above is one of The Kid in the cage constructed by Lacy in the tank at Shawshank: This theory would at least seem to resolve the connection between Henry and The Kid. The Kid Is Connected to Pennywise the Dancing Clown The idea that there may be a connection between The Kid and It is not particularly fringe. After all, Pennywise’s cycle of appearing every 27 would seem to have some significance to the number of years The Kid spent stuck in a hole in Shawshank. Redditor InsideJobDuh noted: Going on the idea that Stephen Kings body of work is heavily referenced in the show… Could The Kid be the It Clown. The movie based It went back into hibernation in 1988. In Castle Rock I think Henry went into the woods in 1991 so this could work. It also takes place in Maine. Not to mention Sarsgaard plays It in the latest movie. Just a thought… Redditor rebdomine99 brought the Pennywise theory together with the idea that Randall Flagg may be connected as well: The Kid so, Bill Skarsgard, he’s a wonderful actor, and has hit another home run with a King character, can’t wait to see what he does with it. ANYWAYS, The Kid reminds me of Randall Flagg with how Lacy talks about him, and I assume he intentionally gave his cellmate cancer when he talked to him, cause others have touched him, and he’s not given them cancer. I have to wonder if they’re related at all, or maybe The Kid is like It, and is more just the embodiment of all the evil that’s in Castle Rock, I’m not sure. I’m excited to see what his motives are. Whether or not The Kid is directly connected to Pennywise remains to be seen, though there do appear to be some shared threads between their characters. Hulu The Kid Is a Totally New Character Because Castle Rock is a new series that draws from King works but is not directly based on any of them, this theory seems at present the most sound. As redditor inezzyinlove wrote: I’ve seen plenty of post trying to link him to one Stephen King villian (monster) or another. I’ve also seen the show runners and even the actor describe him as something new, so instead of one of the master of horror’s characters, I think he is actually a combination of a few of them. This was also floated by redditor Pirouette1209, who noted: I’m starting to think he may be an original character loosely derived from one or a combination of his previous characters.<doc-sep>Of all the horror icons in film history, none have more thoroughly embraced or had more fun with their sinister persona than Vincent Price. From his days playing the villain in the American stage version of Gaslight (then titled Angel Street) to baring his fangs with Kermit the frog on The Muppet Show, Price knew the power and fun inherent in playing “the bad guy.” But before his macabre reputation was fully formed, he was a versatile actor who was known for all kinds of roles in a wide variety of films. He slowly rose to stardom working with legendary Hollywood filmmakers like Michael Curtiz, Otto Preminger, Samuel Fuller, and Joseph Mankiewicz, alongside some of the screen’s greatest stars like Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, and Jane Russell. His roles in horror are also extremely varied. Though known for the Vincent Price “persona,” one would be hard-pressed to nail down the particulars of it. This was true for his life offscreen as well. He was a man of many interests and talents, a Renaissance man in the very best sense. As his daughter Victoria wrote in the preface to her book Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography, “every day, he filled his mind, his spirit, and his life with everything that interested him—acting, art, cooking, gardening, history, poetry, opera, people, places, things. He was a collector of experience, and found ways to make a living doing most of the things he loved.” By all accounts, he was also a man of tremendous warmth, humor, and generosity. Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was the youngest of four children born into a family of some repute on May 27, 1911 in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a successful confectioner and highly respected in the candy-making industry. His grandfather had invented baking powder and amassed a fortune in creating, sustaining, and then selling the Price Baking Powder Company, but most of that wealth was lost in the devastating depression of 1893. Because of the crash (or at least suspected by his family), Vincent’s father returned from school early to pursue a career in business in hopes of saving his family from financial ruin rather than pursue his creative interests. Raised on these stories, the young Vincent was determined to live the life he really wanted to live, and that life involved the arts and acting. His love of visual art began at an early age. When he was twelve, he did a number of odd jobs to scrape together $35 to purchase an original etching by Rembrandt on an installment plan. The piece remained in his vast art collection until his death. He caught the acting bug while studying art history at Yale. He saw every play and movie he could in New Haven between 1930-1933 as he completed his degree, which he switched to English when he became interested in acting. After graduating, he moved to New York to take on Broadway, but was unable to land any acting jobs. So, he ventured across the pond and eventually lied his way into a walk-on role in a small professional theater in London. Soon after, he had his first taste of success playing Prince Albert, a leading role in a series of short plays about the life of Queen Victoria titled Victoria Regina. The play was a huge success and caught the eye of an American producer who brought it, and Price along with it, to Broadway in 1935. It wasn’t long before Hollywood beckoned. He signed his first contract with Universal Pictures in 1937, but it took some time before the studio was able to find a suitable project for him. In the meantime, he continued to act on Broadway in various productions. He even worked with the renowned Mercury Theater Company under the direction of Orson Welles during this period. In his time with that company, he made several lifelong friendships and married his first wife, Edith Barrett, on April 22, 1938. Finally in June of that year, Price made his film debut in a screwball comedy titled Service de Luxe. Price later described the film as a “wonderful experience for me but it was a dreadful picture.” Despite Universal’s reputation for horror movies, he appeared in very few during his time with the studio. One of his earliest film roles of note was as the Duke of Clarence in Tower of London (1939), a pseudo-horror film about the life of Richard III. It was billed as horror because it starred two of Universal’s greatest genre stars, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, who both became great friends of Vincent’s. His other notable horror role of his early career was as the titular character in The Invisible Man Returns in 1940. Following a few more films including the disastrous Green Hell directed by James Whale, the gothic romance The House of Seven Gables, and a small role as the founder of the Mormon church Joseph Smith in Brigham Young, Frontiersman (all three from 1940), Price returned to New York to play the role that would redefine his acting path going forward. The play Gaslight has been a major success in its native England. It was transplanted to the United States with some revisions and a new title, Angel Street, and Price was given the lead role of the villainous Mr. Manningham. It was a role that greatly intrigued Price. He found it fun to play a man who “believed in himself, in his own charm, in the fact that he could get away with anything.” It would become something of a template for the kinds of sophisticated villains of nobility he would become known for. The play opened on December 5, 1941, two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and became one of the only plays to remain successful during the war, perhaps in part because of a villain the audience loved to hate. When he returned to films, he went with the idea “if I go to Hollywood and can find a good villain maybe that will put me across as an actor, and give me the identity that I want.”<doc-sep>It’s unclear whether or not Castle Rock wants its audience to have sympathy for the devil. Rather, sympathy for emphatically Not The Devil, as its resident harbinger of doom clarified in its latest episode “Harvest” in a showdown at gunpoint with ex-sheriff Alan Pangborn. Though Bill Skarsgård’s still-nameless character claims to not be Satan himself, the question of what exactly he is remains one of the central questions of Castle Rock. “Harvest” does a good job in causing whiplash around The Kid and his actions, involuntarily or otherwise. One moment he was out of prison, blinking in the sunlight like a mole person emerging from the tunnels of Shawshank, the next he was...maybe psychically predisposing a happy family to murder each other on their child’s birthday. Then he got his whole butt out in a warehouse, hotboxed a car with Jackie Levy, and almost threw himself off a building. Oh, and he hand carved a statue that predicted (and caused?) Ruth Deaver’s dementia-assisted suicide attempt and plays piano now. All of The Kid’s erratic actions build up to the reveal at the end of “Harvest,” which is that Alan Pangborn knows and recognizes The Kid from that night 27 years ago when Warden Dale Lacy first kidnapped him. He recognizes The Kid because in the 27 years since finding him in the trunk of Lacy’s car (and letting Lacy drive away with him), The Kid hasn’t aged. So on top of everything else he’s immortal or something. Sure. To be fair, adding this element of the supernatural to The Kid’s character does clear up a few things about him. It explains how he was able to survive in a cage too small for his body for nearly three decades and not completely lose all of his muscle tone (for evidence, look no further than The Kid’s aforementioned butt, which is most definitely not the butt of someone who has been inactive for 27 years). Also he apparently ate nothing but Wonder Bread all that time and never got scurvy. However for everything The Kid’s immortality explains, it does little to clear up literally everything else about him. There are arguments to be made that he is a malicious presence, if not the devil then another force of evil perhaps purposefully shaped like a pretty white dude with cake for days. The other option is that he is a natural and reluctant evil, whose presence and touch is enough to unintentionally induce cancers, fires, and homicidal rage in humans and canines alike. The other option is that he is a natural and reluctant evil, whose presence and touch is enough to unintentionally induce cancers, fires, and homicidal rage in humans and canines alike. “Harvest” gives the audience evidence for both interpretations. When Jackie Torrance (whose connection to The Shining is finally explained — she is Jack Torrance’s niece and she took his name because she’s a little weird and wanted to piss off her parents) whisks The Kid away to smoke weed in her car, her longing for the bad old days when Castle Rock was violently interesting make him realize that his imprisonment coincided with the town’s years of peace. Team “he’s not intentionally evil” scores a point when that realization disturbs The Kid. He immediately climbs to the top of a building and looks like he’s considering putting an end to Castle Rock’s history of horror by ending himself. “I shouldn’t be here,” he says, “I should still be in the hole.” Guilt is often a sign of conscience, but not even Molly’s mind-reading powers can tell if The Kid felt anything besides Castle Rock’s pain in this low moment. There’s also the issue that the Kid is clearly aware of the effect he has on the world. When his unseen presence morphs a birthday party into a killing spree, he listens to the family’s screams while sitting on their roof, seemingly contemplating what he knows he’s done. If he were simply an unfortunate vessel for evil, he wouldn’t have walked in on them in the first place? Point awarded to "he's doing it on purpose and he likes it." Castle Rock still has five more episodes to unravel the mystery of The Kid and whether or not it's OK to feel sorry for him. In light of recent revelations, his 27 years in a cage might not be that long of a time for someone who is ageless, but until someone on the show figures out what his intentions are, the audience is stuck wondering who on this show is worth rooting for. The score so far is even.<doc-sep>Just five episodes into its debut season, Hulu’s new series, Castle Rock already has the internet buzzing with fan theories. The show’s plot and characters are still super mysterious, but there is one character that appears to be at the center of all things evil. He seems to create chaos wherever he goes, so this Castle Rock theory about “The Kid” has been gaining steam. Warning: Spoilers for Episode 5 of Castle Rock ahead! In the fifth episode, Shawshank Prison warden Dale Lacey (Terry O'Quinn) is seen in a flashback talking to The Kid (Bill Skarsgård), explaining that he kept him locked away because he was instructed to do so by God himself — and that it was the righteous thing to do. In an earlier episode, Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn) tells the current Shawshank warden, who took the job after Lacey committed suicide, about a letter Lacey sent him. Pangborn tells her, “He said he had always thought the devil was just a metaphor, but now he knew the Devil was a boy, and old Dale said he’d caught ‘em, had locked the Devil in a box.” Pangborn said that from the moment the boy was locked up, it had been, “blue skies and butterflies” in the town, and warned the warden not to ever let "that f*cking kid" out. Patrick Harbron/Hulu So is Pangborn right? Is The Kid the literal devil? Well Reddit users have a different theory. They think he could be another incarnation of Randall Flagg, an evil, supernatural character that shows up in several King novels. The town of Castle Rock has lived in relative peace for several years. But now that The Kid has emerged, coincidentally, the evil is back too. He could be the reason behind prison guard Dennis Zalewski’s (Noel Fisher) killing spree inside Shawshank Prison, and it looked like he turned a family birthday party into a massacre after being released from prison. In the King universe, Randall Flagg is a powerful dark sorcerer, who's powers include necromancy, prophecy, and an unnatural influence over predatory behavior in humans and animals. If The Kid really has been the reason for all the violence in Castle Rock — well you can see the resemblance. Randall Flagg gets reincarnated several times, appearing in King's book The Eyes of the Dragon, set in a fictional medieval city, as well as in the post-apocalyptic universe of The Stand. Reddit user EthosPathosLegos to theorized that The Kid is a version of King's character Randall Flagg, a supernatural being who has been featured in a number of his novels. "All of this, the lack of memory, the reincarnation, and the general malevolence The Kid is said to have brought leads me to strongly suspect the character is Kings age old nemesis: Randall Flagg." User Jamesvader96 also thinks that The Kid is Flagg, pointing out that the two characters have similar powers. Although the series wasn’t written by Stephen King, it was inspired by his fictional world. It's harder to keep track of all the King Easter eggs than it is to find all the the 80s movie references in Stranger Things. So it makes perfect sense that a classic King villain would be the major antagonist on the show. Maybe this theory is spot on or maybe it's not. In either case, I can't wait to see what happens next. New episodes of Castle Rock air every Wednesday on Hulu.<doc-sep>
The mystery is ramping up on Castle Rock, especially now that a certain someone is out and about, potentially wreaking havoc on the Maine hamlet. Spoilers through Episode 5 ahead. Who is the Kid on Castle Rock? His as-yet unrevealed name could very well be significant in the Stephen King universe, so let's get to theorizing. What do fans know about the Kid, Bill Skarsgård's character? He may have lost his memories, but there are a few clues here and there. It's known that 30 or so years ago, Warden Dale Lacy kidnapped him, believing him to be the Devil and the source of the town's problems. He was kept in a cage in a hole under Shawshank Prison for decades. It's known that Sheriff Alan Pangborn witnessed this happening, and let it slide because he trusted Lacy. Fans also know that the Kid has not aged, and holds some sort of power over anyone he touches that he may or may not be able to control. Oh, and he plays piano. So maybe he's secretly the Phantom of the Opera. Now, Castle Rock was not written by Stephen King (though he does serve as an executive producer) and it is not 100 percent based on any one of the best-selling writer's novels or short stories in particular. So Skarsgård's character may be wholly original. Castle Rock should stand on its own — and King himself tweeted that he would prefer fans focus on the story and the writers over Easter Egg hunting — but this is a multiverse, and if we're looking for clues to try and get ahead of this story, the source material is the best place to start. Plus, the actor himself teased a "mythological connection" to someone or something in the King canon at San Diego Comic-Con, according to ComicBook.com. Here are some early possibilities on that front: Leland Gaunt That's the most obvious possibility — if anyone is "the Devil of Castle Rock," it's the shopkeeper from Needful Things. He's referred to as such in the 1991 novel, and on Castle Rock there is mention of a shopkeeper that went missing. Gaunt, a literal demon, used the objects in his shop to manipulate the town's people into doing dirty deeds and ultimately turning on one another. That's not too far off from what the Kid's touch seems to do. Randall Flagg Another popular theory, found on reddit, is that the Kid is the demonic villain from The Dark Tower series, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Stand, and other works. Could such an epic King multiverse character have made its way to the Hulu series? A Member Of The Torrance Family Then again, the Kid's supernatural abilities do also call to mind the "shining" that many King characters have. Could he be related to Danny Torrance, or maybe even Danny himself? Wednesday's episode revealed that Jackie Torrance's name is actually Diane, and she named herself after her uncle — the infamous Jack Torrance and protagonist of The Shining. The two characters have an instant connection. They could be cousins. Gordon LaChance This would be heartbreaking, but there's a scene in Wednesday's episode where the Kid witnesses a birthday party for a bespectacled child named Gordie. Was that happening in real time, or was it a memory? What if he was that child? Fans of "The Body" and/or Stand By Me will recognize the name — could Bill Skarsgård be playing a grown-up or possessed version of Wil Wheaton's sweet character, or one of his friends? This isn't the strongest theory. For one thing, the "Gordie" on Castle Rock has a younger brother, and LaChance in the story had an older brother. However, references to "The Body" have popped up as well, and it would be unexpected if the Kid happened to be connected to one of the more innocent King/Castle Rock stories. The fact that, midway through the first season of Castle Rock, this character's name is still unknown definitely points to it being recognizable or significant in some way. While waiting for the big reveal, keep watching for clues just in case something slips.