The second season of Hulu’s Castle Rock concluded with an ending that prioritized psychological horror over clear-cut answers. The finale, titled “Clean,” which aired on December 11, 2019, wrapped up the immediate threat in the town but left deeper mysteries untouched while delivering a tragic conclusion for Annie Wilkes and Joy. Rather than featuring a villain who conquers through sheer force, the season revealed that the true evil in Castle Rock operates through subtle manipulation, preying on doubt and vulnerability.
The story confirms that the enigmatic Angel, played by Bill Skarsgård, is the same entity as the Kid from Season 1. However, his plan is not one of direct domination. Instead, he acts as a corrupting force, inserting himself into the lives of isolated people and offering them purpose or belonging in exchange for carrying out violence. This method explains his actions across both seasons, from influencing Warden Lacy’s crisis of faith to exploiting the doubts of a prison guard.
The Angel’s True Nature: A Corrupting Influence
The being known as the Angel, or the Kid, is not a traditional villain with a straightforward goal. His power lies in persuasion and temptation, not physical dominance. He rarely acts directly but instead finds individuals who are vulnerable, isolated, or experiencing a crisis, and offers them something they desperately lack.
A key example is the story of Amity Lambert, a settler exiled by her people centuries ago. The Angel offered her the unconditional love and purpose she craved. In return, she carried out his bidding, convincing her community that ritual suicide was part of a grand plan to rise again and conquer the world 400 years later. This pattern repeats throughout the show’s history. The Angel influenced Warden Lacy when he was struggling with his faith and pushed a conflicted prison guard toward violence. His imprisonment in Season 1, therefore, was not a sign of weakness but potentially another calculated act of manipulation.
The finale shows that the source of this entity’s power is Castle Lake, which is revealed to be a portal or “thinny” connecting to other dimensions. When the plot by Ace Merrill and the resurrected cultists is foiled, the Angel simply watches from the cliffs overlooking the lake before vanishing. His retreat underscores that he is a patient, persistent force tied to the location itself, not a monster that can be permanently destroyed.
Annie and Joy’s Tragic Conclusion
While the supernatural plot was resolved, the emotional core of the finale was the devastating end to the relationship between Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) and her daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher). After escaping Castle Rock, Annie becomes convinced that Joy is still possessed by the spirit of Amity Lambert. This suspicion is fueled by Joy’s distant behavior, secret phone calls, and drawings.
“Annie had to kill Joy,” actress Lizzy Caplan explained in an interview. “It wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact if she had killed somebody else… We wanted this specter that’s hanging over Annie for the whole season: Will she kill Joy?”
In a harrowing sequence, Annie drugs Joy’s ice cream and, during a confrontation, drowns her in a lake, believing she is saving her daughter from evil. The tragedy is compounded when Annie immediately finds a letter from Joy explaining that her strange behavior was due to her plan to seek emancipation and live independently. The phone calls were with a lawyer. Joy’s letter expressed love for her mother but also a need for space to heal from their traumatic life.
Annie manages to revive Joy, who has no memory of the attack. They seemingly reconcile and later attend a book signing for author Paul Sheldon. It is here that the final, heartbreaking twist is revealed: Joy is not really there. The empty seat beside Annie confirms that Joy died in the lake, and Annie has been hallucinating her presence as a coping mechanism. The season ends with Annie, now completely untethered from reality, telling a vision of Joy that Paul Sheldon will dedicate a book to her because “I’m his number one fan”.
Connecting Annie Wilkes to Misery
The finale deliberately bridges the gap between this origin story and the Annie Wilkes known from Stephen King’s Misery. The connection is made when Annie, trying to cheer up Joy, picks up a novel titled Misery’s Quest by Paul Sheldon. She reads it aloud and is instantly captivated, marking the beginning of her fatal obsession.
The show provides context for her future actions. Her hallucinations of her abusive mother, who confirms Annie’s paranoid delusions, show how her mental illness goes untreated. Her violent tendencies, glimpsed when she kills a man with a sledgehammer earlier in the season, are now fully unleashed after the loss of Joy. With Joy gone, Annie transfers all her obsessive love and need for control onto Paul Sheldon and his fictional character, Misery Chastain. The books become a way to keep the memory of her daughter alive.
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Unresolved Mysteries and Lingering Questions
The finale left several major questions unanswered, tying back to the first season. The whereabouts of Henry Deaver, who was last seen guarding the Kid, remain unknown. A subtle clue appears as a missing person poster for Henry at a gas station, confirming he has disappeared. The fate of other characters like Nadia, Abdi, and Chance is also left open, with their futures in the traumatized town uncertain.
Most significantly, the true nature and endgame of the Angel/Kid entity is not clarified. The showrunners have indicated that the being is a constant, manipulative presence in the town across time, whose motives are intentionally ambiguous. The destruction of the Marsten House and the statue only temporarily halted one of his schemes.
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