If there’s one thing this week’s episode of Castle Rock wanted to hammer home it’s this: Shawshank is a rotten place to work.
In Episode 4, titled “The Box,” Dennis (Noel Fisher) runs to Henry with a sketch of the hidden cage Bill Skarsgard’s Stranger is locked in, hoping it will help convince a jury. Henry says there won’t be a jury and that Dennis needs to calm down or he’ll just come off as a disgruntled employee.
“I am a f–king disgruntled employee,” Dennis yells in The Mellow Tiger. He leaves and the next day has a conversation with the Stranger, and makes the mistake of touching him. Whatever the Stranger did to him probably explains why the only decent person working at the prison ends up dead by episode’s end after killing many of the less savory guards.
Other happenings around town included Henry tracking down a man part of a family with a long past in Castle Rock that had some answers about what happened to him in 1991, and Molly nearly — but not quite — revealing she’s responsible for Matthew Deaver’s death.
The show has hit its stride in the last couple episodes as the mysteries mount. And despite Stephen King himself recently tweeting everyone should enjoy the story for itself and stop looking for Easter Eggs, here’s what we spotted in “The Box.”
Frank Dodd
While Molly was trying to sell the late Dale Lacy’s home to an unassuming couple from Des Moines, the subject of the previous owners come up after Lacy’s ashes are found in the freezer. Molly frantically explains that he didn’t kill himself in the house — in fact, she lives in the home of a serial strangler.
The Dead Zone antagonist Frank Dodd — the Castle Rock Strangler — has been mentioned in previous episodes, but apparently Molly and him hats their coats in the same place.
The Desjardins
As Henry tries to unravel what happened to him while he was missing in 1991 he finds an article about a home in the woods. He heads to the place and eventually finds the owner — Joe Desjardins.
Joe happens to be the brother to the late Vince Desjardins. Constant Readers and movie fans will recognize the name as a part of Ace’s game in The Body and Stand By Me.
Maple Street
This is a quick one, but when Alan and Henry are headed to Matthew Weaver’s current final resting place they’re actually turning onto Maple Street. Although it’s a common name for a street, in a show like this it’s likely a nod to one of King’s short stories called The House on Maple Street.
