我们仍然深陷于一个平底锅demic, and youmay not be itching to watch one unfold on television. But if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it big.
And so there’s “The Stand,” the latest iteration of Stephen King’s mammoth plague novel, which, like most plague fare these days, goes down a little differently than it would have, say, a year ago, before daily death counts became a news ritual and wearing a mask became a sign of belief in science and good citizenship.
First published in 1978, then released as a sort of author’s cut in 1990 (to the tune of 1,152 pages), “The Stand” is the closest King ever came to an epic. Appropriately, this new CBS All Access miniseries unfolds over nine episodes that started Thursday, Dec. 17, with major characters drizzling in gradually but steadily.
King has never shied from painting on a big canvas. You get the feeling he’d dig this new endeavor; indeed, he wrote the series finale, which includes still more new story material, such as a new ending. He can’t get enough of his fictional deadly flu, which carries the Grateful Dead-inflected moniker Captain Trips (a popular nickname for the late Jerry Garcia).
Plague stories come in manyshapes and sizes. Some, like Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film“Contagion”(set largely in San Francisco), focus on the bureaucratic maze of keeping people alive and hunting for a cure. Others take a more humanistic approach. Albert Camus’ novel “The Plague,” still the standard-bearerfor such stories, focuses on grace under pressure, and lack thereof, in exploring the human capacity to do one’s best under the worst of circumstances. “There’s no question of heroism in all this,” says the novel’s hero, Dr. Rieux. “It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile but the only means of fighting a plague is — common decency.”
“The Stand,” which was also adapted as a more modest six-hour miniseries in 1994, has its humanist elements. Five leaders (played by James Marsden, Jovan Adepo, Greg Kinnear, Odessa Young and Henry Zaga) guide a group of immune survivors in Colorado, making tough decisions and battling their own demons.
但这是国王,所以还有一个慷慨的联系of the mystic, and a heavy dose of battle between good vs. evil. Those leaders have been assembled by a wise elder (Whoopi Goldberg), who beckoned them in their dreams. Her opposite number is a bad, bearded dude, Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård), who holds down Las Vegas and creates his own army of darkness. There’s not much room for moral ambiguity here, but “The Stand” knows its playing field of light and darkness, and it makes its guidelines and intentions clear from the start.
It’s also an admirably grimy affair, with content that takes full advantage of the freedoms afforded by a streaming service. Once the flu victims realize their fate and wipe the green mucus covering their face, they do not go gentleinto that good night. They swear like sailors, and in some cases they pull out a gun and finish the job themselves. “The Stand” is not fun for the whole family. It is profane, and violent. It’s the end of the world, and it behaves as such.
Among the major players, Adepo is particularly strong as a deeply flawed man who seems surprised to find himself approaching redemption. Breaking the other way is Owen Teague’s Harold, a social misfit with a classic problem: The girl he likes doesn’t see him that way. Teague, who also did King duty in the two recent “It” movies, has a vulnerable creepiness; his Harold is easy pickings for the show’s forces of darkness. Such characters manage to come off as archetypal and specific at the same time.
Much has already been written about watchingmovies and TV set during plagues and pandemicsand postapocalyptic societies. “The Stand” probably won’t add a whole lot to such conversations, but it’s not really trying to. King is after more timeless themes; that’s what makes him a great storyteller. Great storytellers generally don’t rip their stories from the headlines, especially once said stories get to be 42 years old.
The novel’s most resonant element is also timeless, even as it speaks to life under COVID-19. It’s the enemy that drags us all down, no matter how sick or healthy we might be. It’s loneliness. In “The Stand,” you can feel it in a small Maine town, and in a deserted New York City, and on the road in search of fellow survivors. The Colorado community at the story’s core is a bulwark against isolation. That doesn’t mean they can keep evil at bay, but they can share in the fight.
We’ll eventually see plenty of dramas about COVID-19. “The Stand” provides something trickier: plague escapism. Pandemic fantasy. That it succeeds is a testament to its author, the durability of his vision and the adaptability of his imagination.
“The Stand”:Limited series. New episodes released Thursdays through Feb. 11. CBS All Access.www.cbs.com/shows/the-stand
Related articles
SF pandemic thriller ‘Contagion,’ ignored after 2011 release, is the film of 2020
Pandemic movies have a different weight during a pandemic
When the virus is over, will we see virus movies or escapism?