Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 8 of Hulu's Castle Rock, called "Past Perfect."
Castle Rock has lived up to its legacy as a project based on the works of Stephen King by embracing the bizarre and creepy, and a lot of that bizarre creepiness comes from the performance of Bill Skarsgard as The Kid. As it turns out, Skarsgard doesn't need clownface or his unsettling eye trick to send chills down the spine, and The Kid upped the eerie ante in "Past Perfect" thanks to an encounter with Molly at the end of the episode. As is his wont, The Kid surprised Molly in her home, and he led her through the house, describing exactly how her home was set up back when she was a girl. When Molly asked how he knew all this, he simply responded that he was there, then pointedly gazed out into the woods and told Molly that's where she died.
Poor Molly. Can't a girl just self-medicate, sell a house or two, and go a couple hours without something freaky happening to her and turning her world upside down? Honestly, kudos to her for not screaming and fleeing her house as soon as she saw The Kid sitting on her stairs. The Kid's habit of lurking and turning up unexpectedly was creepy enough even before the fire at Juniper Hill and his escape. And now she's going to die!
Well, maybe. Here are The Kid's exact words when he dropped his bombshell on Molly: "Out there, in the woods. That's where you died." The Kid didn't say that's where she dies or where she will die. He doesn't seem to be predicting her future. Instead, he's sharing something that he at least believes happened already. That raises a whole bunch of new questions, and not just the question of why Molly can't just catch a break for once.
If we take The Kid's words as 100% true, does it mean that our Molly died years ago and was resurrected somehow, a la some kind of Pet Sematary twist? Or has the real Molly been dead all along, and the Molly that has been walking around has been a ghost or a mystical guide wearing Molly's body or even a construction created by an entirely different creature, like the forms Pennywise would take to scare the pants off the Losers in IT? Is she something hidden in plain sight that simply hasn't been activated yet as a sort of supernatural sleeper agent?
Well, we can probably rule out Molly as a ghost. She has interacted with too many people, places, and things for Castle Rock to go for a Sixth Sense type of twist. There's also the point that only two episodes remain in the first season, and Castle Rock may not want to spend too much time explaining new supernatural elements. Besides, Castle Rock has avoided pulling arcs from Stephen King's books and stuck with including nods and references. A Pet Sematary-esque resurrection might veer too closely to King canon for Castle Rock.
My money is on The Kid's statement of Molly's death in the past tense having something to do with the mysterious schisma. Henry's father believed that it was the voice of God speaking to him, but the deaf scientist/madman Henry encountered in the forest believed that the schisma is actually the result of the universe trying to reconcile multiple timelines, with the effects being felt in places where the membrane between various realities and timelines is thin. If the schisma is connected to Molly's "death," then it stands to reason that The Kid is referring to the death of a different Molly, either because he has the ability to see into various other realities (and thus convinced Dale Lacy that he was the devil) or because he visited/comes from a different reality.
If The Kid is indeed referring to a different Molly, it would at least mean that we wouldn't have to watch another major character die shortly after Alan Pangborn tragically bit the dust due to a mistake shot from his confused lady love. We'll have to wait and see. The good news is that even if our Molly does bite the dust in the next two episodes, it's possible that another version of Molly could turn up in Season 2. Castle Rock will be produced as an anthology. Couldn't a Molly 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0 appear? Only time will tell.
New episodes of Castle Rock premiere Wednesdays on Hulu. If you're in the market for some new shows to watch after the Castle Rock finale airs in a couple of weeks, swing by our fall TV premiere schedule.
