The Walk
Episode 7 of The Stand begins with the ominous threat of a nuclear strike. Trashcan Man rappels into the military base and takes a missile for himself; a grim foreshadowed glimpse at the destruction Flagg wants to inflict on Boulder. The final fight looms on the horizon. Back in Boulder, Harold and Nadine believe they’ve wiped everyone out but the truth is, the community is very much alive, albeit wounded by what’s happened. Most of our main characters are still alive but of course Nick lost his life in the blast. Larry figures out that Nadine and Harold were responsible, while Mother A awakens and asks for the main characters to be gathered around her. She whispers and tells them all she has ascended. She reveals that Stu Redman is the one to lead them and tasks the group with traveling west to Vegas. She tasks them with taking no food or water and grimly mentions how someone within this group will fall at the end. Frannie is to stay behind though while the others make their stand. They’re not the only ones traveling west though. Harold falls off his motorbike en-route and winds up impaled on branches below. Nadine leaves Harold behind as he maniacally screams to the heavens and curses her. A few solitary shots from his gun aren’t enough to stop Nadine though, as she gets back on her bike and rides off. Back in Boulder, Stu deliberates over the best way to travel to Vegas. After they all say their goodbyes to the loved ones they’re leaving behind, the four characters set off. On the way though, they find Harold’s crashed bike and vultures pecking at the boy’s face. Larry decides to head down and give him a proper burial, despite what he’s done to Nick. There, he finds the boy’s journal which includes an apology for what happened and how the Dark Man is real. He acknowledges that it’s his fault this has happened and signs off with the name ‘Hawk’. Larry covers his body with a coat; a final merciful act for a misled boy. The group then head back on the road again. Nadine meanwhile, drives up the road but finds an apparition of Flagg in the desert. She stops the bike and follows a trail of petals which pave way for Flagg’s penthouse apartment. He calls her pure and proceeds to have sex with the girl out in the wilderness. Nadine snaps out of this vision momentarily to see a monstrous, mud-covered demon before her. Our four heroes from Boulder run into trouble when Stu falls and breaks his leg. Realizing this is going to slow the group down, he tells them all to leave him behind while they press on. Well, they eventually come across a limousine with Lloyd inside. They hop in and make it to Vegas where they find Nadine pregnant with Flagg’s baby.
The Episode Review
The “I cast a spell on you” montage just typifies this series perfectly. This one song downplays what happened to Nadine and almost turns what’s otherwise a shocking act into a lighthearted, cheesy affair. This is testament really to how far removed this is from the source material. Meanwhile, the dual focus of our characters traveling west allows the show to bring back that sense of journeying but does so on the back of a flip-flopped story that’s brushed over the most interesting part of this tale – acts 1 and 2. Potentially these segments may have been glossed over due to the situation outside, but at the same time loses its effectiveness in showing a world ravaged and destroyed. Unfortunately The Stand is not one to remember and sadly pales by comparison to the original mini-series and the book itself.
