The show Castle Rock begins by pulling viewers into the long shadows of its fictional Maine town. The first episode, titled “Severance,” establishes a dark puzzle linking two timelines, two men named Henry Deaver, and a prison cell that was never supposed to be opened. The story jumps between 1991 and 2018, connecting a childhood mystery to a shocking modern-day discovery.
This first episode introduces a sprawling cast connected to Stephen King’s fictional universe, including Andrรฉ Holland, Bill Skarsgรฅrd, and Sissy Spacek. The premiere, which began streaming on Hulu, sets a deliberate, creepy pace. It focuses more on building an unsettling mood than offering immediate answers.
The Central Mystery in Two Timelines
The episode is built around two central events separated by 27 years, both centering on Castle Lake.
In 1991, Sheriff Alan Pangborn is searching the snowy woods for a missing boy. An 11-year-old named Henry Deaver has been gone for days. The official search has been called off, but Pangborn persists. He hears a strange moaning sound across the frozen lake and sees the boy standing alone on the ice. Henry is unharmed but has no memory of what happened during the eleven days he was missing. His adoptive father, Reverend Matthew Deaver, was found nearby with a broken back and later died from his injuries. The town, suspicious of the boy, blamed him for his father’s death.
In 2018, the story resumes with Warden Dale Lacy. Played by Terry O’Quinn, it is Lacy’s last day before retirement from Shawshank State Penitentiary. Instead of going to work, he drives to the bluff overlooking Castle Lake. There, he performs a gruesome suicide, using a noose tied to a tree to behead himself as he drives off the cliff. His car sinks into the same lake where Henry was found decades earlier.
The Discovery of the Kid in the Cage
Lacy’s suicide brings a new warden, Theresa Porter, to Shawshank. Eager to increase the prison’s capacity, she asks about a wing that has been closed since a fire in 1987. A corrections officer, Dennis Zalewski, is sent to investigate the abandoned Block F.
What Zalewski finds is chilling. He discovers a hidden ladder leading deep into an old water tank. At the bottom is a cage, and inside is a pale, emaciated young man. The prisoner, played by Bill Skarsgรฅrd, is filthy, malnourished, and seems unfamiliar with basic things like a shower. He does not speak until prompted, and then he says only one name: “Henry Matthew Deaver”.
Prison officials find no record of this inmate anywhere in the system. The only clue is a can of cigarette butts found in the cage. The brand matches the butts in Warden Lacy’s office ashtray, proving he was the one who kept the man imprisoned. In a flashback at the episode’s end, Lacy is shown visiting the cage. He tells the silent prisoner a direct order: “When they find you, ask for Henry Deaver. Henry Matthew Deaver”.
Henry Deaver’s Troubled Homecoming
The adult Henry Deaver is now a death row attorney living in Texas, played by Andrรฉ Holland. His work is grim, and the episode opens with him failing to stop the execution of a client. He receives an anonymous call from Shawshank, telling him a prisoner has asked for him by name. This forces Henry to return to Castle Rock, a town he left and has no desire to revisit.
His homecoming is cold and difficult. The town is more run-down than he remembers. He finds his mother, Ruth Deaver, living at home. Sissy Spacek portrays Ruth as a woman suffering from dementia. In a painful moment, she does not recognize Henry and tells him, “I adopted a black son”.
Also living in the house is an older Alan Pangborn, now played by Scott Glenn. Tension is immediate between Henry and Pangborn. Henry also learns that his father’s grave was moved, a decision Pangborn made due to Ruth’s declining health.
Henry goes to Shawshank to meet his supposed new client, but Warden Porter denies any knowledge of the prisoner. She dismisses it as a prank, but Henry remains suspicious.
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Other Key Town Residents and Unanswered Questions
The episode introduces other residents who will become important to the story. Molly Strand, played by Melanie Lynskey, is a local woman with a mysterious connection to Henry. In a strange scene, she uses a small hourglass to time herself while looking through a box containing Henry’s childhood missing poster and a red flannel shirt. This suggests she is somehow psychically linked to his past trauma.
The episode ends by raising more questions than it answers. At Shawshank, Zalewski watches the security monitors and sees a vision of the escaped prisoner walking the halls, surrounded by dead bodies. The alarm is sounded, but when guards check, the prisoner is still in his cell and no violence has occurred. It is unclear if this was a supernatural vision or a premonition.
Meanwhile, Henry visits Castle Lake at night, drawn to the site of both his childhood discovery and Lacy’s suicide. The stage is set for a deeper investigation into how these events are connected and who the mysterious prisoner really is.
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