(Spoiler alertfor the finale, which streamed Feb. 11).
Below, showrunner Benjamin Cavell takes our burning post-Standquestions.
BENJAMIN CAVELL:The scene in the book is very memorable, but we had some questions about it.
Robert Falconer/CBS
One is just about Lloyd Henreid’s (Nat Wolff) arc.
So I always questioned why he hesitated in the book when he was ordered to kill Glen.
You see him levitating and he unexpectedly sinks to the floor.
Amber and I talked a lot about that.
I was most curious how you were going to handle the Hand of God.
For me, I always kind of wince a bit while reading it in the book.
As you pointed out before, it’s a literal deus ex machina ghost in the machine solution.
I’m glad you mentioned the Hand of God.
It was quite possibly the thing that we discussed most.
Jake Braver, our VFX supervisor, I talked endlessly about it.
But it doesn’t have to.
That’s a section I really love in the book and the time that King takes with it.
It really makes you emotionally earn the payoff of Stu and Frannie’s reunion.
But I can also see how it would be considered unnecessary, story-wise.
It’s quite beautiful the way he did it.
But as you say, it’s unnecessary and seems a little beside the point.
And then indeed they do.
Also, we were very aware of wanting to keep Frannie in the story.
Especially headed King’s coda.
These guys are going to confront Flagg, but there is still a society in Boulder that is ongoing.
And she’s the person Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg) chose to be in charge.
King had told us early on that he had this coda that he had been planning for 30 years.
The question was what comes between the Hand of God and that moment.
And King said, “Okay I’m going to write this.”
And you think of how he groomed Nadine since she was 12 when he first started contacting her.
With Flagg, he takes you a little at a time and now he’s in your head.
In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
It’s this insidious recruitment.
Then if he’s ever defeated, you’re defeated right along with him.
Was there any discussion surrounding that move?
Well, he was completely fine with it, and how dare he not be?
That’s what we came for!
But look, I hope it didn’t feel gratuitous, it felt like it was being completely honest.
I wanted to have him completely naked except for his boots.
I love that King sort of implies that his boots are somehow part of his supernatural power.
That’s a fun piece of King mythology.
Then the Hand of God nuke blows them all to hell.
This gives humanity its best possible chance at moving forward in peace for a protracted period of time.
And yes, I don’t know that there is a right.
But your take is very much in line with mine.
The wheel keeps turning and keeps coming around and the command is always the same.
You always have to constantly have to stand up to this because, because evil doesn’t go away.
There’s is no such thing as the end of it.
It’s always a struggle.
