MovieChat Forums > The Stand (2020) Discussion > So what was the new material? Feel free...

So what was the new material? Feel free to spoil it for me.


I don't have any plans to watch the show, but I had heard that Stephen King wrote additional material for the last episode that was not included in the book. Can someone sum it up? I'm curious, but not curious enough to waste all that time watching this.

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OK, here goes ... I'll cover it with the spoiler tag just in case anyone else looks ...

After leaving Boulder and heading east, Fran and Stu arrive at M. Abby's old place. Stu leaves Fran and the baby there to go and gather supplies. Fran notices a well in the back yard. It's covered with a wooden deck which I think is much larger than one would realistically be, maybe fifteen feet in diameter. Some of the boards are missing, and it obviously hasn't been maintained in months, maybe over a year. Fran stupidly decides to treat herself to a drink. When I say stupidly, I don't mean that she's unaware of the danger. Even worse, she does it anyway even though she obviously *is* aware of the danger -- the way she crawls tentatively leaves no doubt of that. And it's not as though she's dying of thirst or anything, just that the cool water is oh, so inviting.

Fran isn't the only person operating in stupid mode. Stu has blown a tire and is installing the spare. He's pulled off to the side of the road to do this, onto an unstable surface, and so the jacked up vehicle is precariously shifting around while he's crouched beside it changing the tire. C'mon, Stu, do it out in the middle of the hard, paved road where it's safe instead of on the soft, squishy dirt; everyone's dead, it's not like you'd be blocking traffic.

The well's boards break and Fran falls in. Long way down, enough that she's probably fatally injured. Flagg appears to her in a vision and (probably truthfully) tells her she's got numerous fractures including a broken pelvis, a head injury, and multiple broken ribs including one which has punctured her lung. He also shows her Stu working on the tire while the vehicle is obviously about to fall on him. But, Flagg says, he can save them both if she'll just give him a kiss. She does so but bites him, leaving a bloody wound, then tells him to go to hell.

M. Abby then appears to Fran and tells her she did good; we're all exposed to temptation sometimes, but she resisted and passed her test. M. Abby then spoils any possible suspense by telling Fran she will survive the well and will go on to live to old age.

Stu successfully changes the tire, arrives back at the house, and finds what has happened to Fran. A young black girl, maybe age twelve, has appeared -- implied to be the reincarnation of M. Abby. They manage to get Fran out of the well. The black girl magically heals Fran of her injuries then disappears.

Then, Stu and Fran are in Maine. "Yes, the Atlantic is beautiful, I'm glad we came, Fran," et cetera. Boring. Stu asks her what happened to her in the well, and she says something to the effect that she saw that there's always good and evil and they never go away. I guess it's supposed to be deep and meaningful, but it comes across as trite and obvious.

Last scene. Flagg walks up to a tribe of primitives wearing war paint, brandishing spears, et cetera. Except for his boots he's completely naked. No frontal nudity is shown but we get a view of Flagg's ass along the way. He tries to befriend them but one native flings a spear at him. He catches it with superhuman speed and is uninjured. He then points his finger at the native, as if it were a gun, and says "bang." The native's head explodes. The other primitives see this and are afraid. They fall to their knees. Flagg levitates and shouts that they must worship him.


The end. You didn't miss much.

Oh, one other thing. Kidding around with Fran, James Marsden does a Jimmy Stewart impersonation -- terribly.

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That sounds fucking horrible.

Glad I decided to stick with the 94 series

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> That sounds fucking horrible.

There were a few bits here and there in the miniseries I liked. Violent injuries and/or deaths (e.g., Harold, Nadine) were better depicted. I think Mick Garris is a weak director and the 1994 miniseries suffered from that, and this miniseries had better direction. There were a few imaginative new twists, for example, Nadine goes from being freshly inseminated to fully swollen and in labor very quickly, perhaps overnight. When in labor the baby moves about furiously inside her, causing her belly to contort. It appears the thing is going to rip its way out of her, like the baby creature did to John Hurt's character in Alien. She realizes she wouldn't survive the childbirth, never had a chance, and that Flagg had always known that. Then she commits suicide.

Not enough of those moments to overcome the flaws, though; and none of those moments in this finale. On the whole, I'd say the entire miniseries was a fucking disappointment.

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Thanks for going to all the trouble of typing that out! I must say the extra material sounds totally worthless. I appreciate your sacrifice in subjecting yourself to it so I didn't have to.

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You're welcome. I rolled my eyes when watching this because it was so obvious and badly contrived what was going to happen to Fran. After all, why make a well 15 feet in diameter? So it's wide enough for a grown adult to fall into, of course. And why put the pump in the center of this 15 foot wide pit, instead of at the edge where it could be used more safely? So that Fran will have to crawl out to the center of the wooden deck where she can fall in.

I like a lot of King's earlier work, but I also think he's been on a downhill slope since the early 1980s.

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