Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Castle Rock
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Though Bill Skarsgård plays a vital role in the Hulu Original Castle Rock, his character is a mystery. Having spent thirty years locked away in a cage beneath the infamous Shawshank State Prison, the gaunt and mostly-mute prisoner isn’t just a potential legal and media nightmare, but an omen for wicked things to come in Stephen King’s fictional doomed hamlet (whether inadvertently or not).
Set within Stephen King’s interconnected universe, Castle Rock (a town featured in several King novels and short stories, including The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Needful Things) is a new Hulu Original series that borrows popular landmarks and characters from King’s stories and weaves them into a mysteriously layered narrative revolving around murder, misery, and the supernatural. When death row attorney Henry Deaver (played by Andre Holland) is summoned back to his hometown, his past comes back to haunt him as he crosses paths with his adoptive mother Ruth (played by Sissy Spacek, a King veteran who starred in the author’s first adaptation of his first novel Carrie in 1976), Castle’s Rock’s former sheriff Alan Pangborn (played by Scott Glenn), and a mysterious inmate of Shawshank State Prison (played by Skarsgård) who personally requests Deaver to represent him. Given that the latter character won’t reveal his name - let alone the fact that he hardly even speaks - his identity is one giant guessing game.
When character details were revealed for Castle Rock, Skarsgård’s was the only character whose name was withheld. In fact, he’s only credited as “The Kid,” as the show’s creators explained that revealing his name would spoil the fun. So, with little more to go on than the character’s apparent ability to kill people with cancer and transmit false realities into people’s heads, as well as a handful of easter eggs scattered throughout the episodes, figuring out his identity is just one of many mysteries threaded throughout this show. And whether he turns out to be a classic Stephen King villain, someone new entirely, or the Devil himself, playing detective and piecing together the puzzle is part of the fun.
And with that said, let the King-sized speculation begin.
- This Page: He Who Walks Behind the Rows and The Crimson King Page 2: Randall Flagg and Leland Gaunt
Last Updated: August 6
He Who Walks Behind the Rows
Stephen King is no stranger to creating larger-than-life villains. Between shape-shifting creatures like Pennywise the Dancing Clown from It and the Leatherheads in Under the Dome, some of King’s villains are literal monsters packed with supernatural abilities that aid in their pursuit of death and destruction. And though Bill Skarsgård’s character doesn’t appear to be physically threatening, he could be directly affiliated with one of these creatures, if not one of them himself.
One character that Skarsgård may be playing is from King’s short story Children of the Corn - a demonic force known only as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. And though Children of the Corn is set halfway across the country in the fictional town of Gatlin, Nebraska, that’s not to say that the demon can’t hold some weight in Maine as well.
Firstly, while its identity is never completely explained, He Who Walks Behind the Rows corrupts and controls all the children in Gatlin, convincing them to murder/sacrifice every adult in their small, remote town. This concept can easily tie into Castle Rock, where Henry Deaver has been accused by the town for trying to kill his father when he was a boy. In fact, some of the kids in Castle Rock are depicted in a similar light to the cult of children from Children of the Corn (with their own ragtag hierarchy). And this then ties into yet another connection: religion.
He Who Walks Behind the Rows is worshipped like a god, with the children even appointing a high priest among them. In Castle Rock, religion is heavily saturated throughout. From Henry Deaver’s late father being a priest to several characters being affiliated with a prayer partnership program to the physical church itself looming menacingly over the town, religion is already a major influencer in Castle Rock, making it that much easier to blur the lines between blind worship of good and blind worship of evil. And with plenty of mention of Skarsgård representing an evil force that holds some kind of wicked influence over the town, the parallels between his characteristics and that of He Who Walks Behind the Rows grow more and more evident (with the biggest physical difference being the exchange of cornfields for forests.
As for the easter eggs that tie to Children of the Corn, He Who Walks Behind the Rows gets a possible shout-out in Skarsgård’s prison cell, with text on the wall that reads: “Reaper Rows” (which could either refer to reaping corn or the more thematically apt Grim Reaper).
The Crimson King
One of the ultimate behind-the-scenes baddies in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (and, by extension, most of King’s entire literary universe) is the Crimson King. He’s an immortal being who pulls the strings behind characters like Randall Flagg and Dandelo (who some readers believe is related to It’s Pennywise), and he essentially functions as King’s take on Satan, on account of his godlike abilities and red (or crimson) ensemble.
Now, considering that Skarsgård was presumedly placed into the cage in Shawshank when he was just a boy, and that his “powers” aren’t exactly on the same plateau as someone like the Crimson King, it’s still entirely possible that Castle Rock may be using the character as a source of inspiration (assuming he’s using him at all). After all, even though the show is staying true to King’s source material, it’s not shying away from taking some subtle creative liberties to better suit the story. In fact, assuming Skarsgård isn’t supposed to be portraying some reincarnated, Antichrist-esque version of the Crimson King (though the Crimson King does have shapeshifting abilities and has taken the form of a young man with blond hair, not unlike Skarsgård), he could be one of his direct pawns. The Crimson King is no stranger to manipulating other characters to carry out his evil deeds, and that may well be the case in Castle Rock.
Along with all the other religious overtones spread on thick over Castle Rock, Skarsgård’s character adds his own religious fervor into the mix once he starts getting chatty. After Reeves (played by Josh Cooke) tries to intimidate him, Skarsgård’s character responds by repeating bibles verses - specifically from Revelation 19:12, which refers to “a robe dressed in blood,” as well as having a name “which no one knows except himself.” This passage refers to the son of God, which also adds to the theory that Skarsgård’s character might be some kind of direct descendant, as opposed to a God (or in this case, the Crimson King), himself.
Page 2: Randall Flagg and Leland Gaunt
Randall Flagg
While there are plenty of key Stephen King villains spread throughout the author’s massive collection, Randall Flagg is arguably his most twisted. He’s shown up in stories like the Dark Tower series, Hearts in Atlantis, Gwendy’s Button Box, and, most famously, The Stand. And as a servant of the Outer Dark, Flagg has been referred to by many names - including The Man in Black, The Covenant Man, and Ageless Stranger (which is especially fitting in this case) - and he strives to incite chaos and death wherever he travels.
In Castle Rock, Skarsgård’s character is hardly as charismatic as Flagg is traditionally portrayed, but that may well be all part of his elaborate scheme. Not unlike most of King’s villains, Flagg is a manipulator, scheming his way through decent people in order to bring out their worst. He’s meant to appear fairly average so as to worm his way into the masses before eating away at them from the inside. There used to be a dark cloud hanging over Castle Rock (fueling the fire for horrific events like Cujo’s attack on Donna Trenton and her son Tad and the Frank Dodd murders), and it supposedly cleared once Skarsgård’s character was placed into the cell. Now that he’s been let out, and that a chain of horrors appear to be unravelling yet again, it’s that much more evident that he might be Flagg, one of King’s most untraditionally wicked villains.
That said, there have been various, mostly-unidentified characters throughout King’s stories that King has neither confirmed nor denied were actually Flagg himself (He Who Walks Behind the Rows being one of them, incidentally). So, even if Skarsgård’s character isn’t ever outright confirmed as a classic King villain with whom readers are familiar, Flagg doesn’t necessarily have to be written out completely. Like other depictions of the character, Skarsgård could be playing a more indirect interpretation.
Leland Gaunt
In the town of Castle Rock alone, there have been a handful of memorable Stephen King villains. Standouts include Frank Dodd (aka the Castle Rock Strangler) from The Dead Zone, John “Ace” Merrill from The Body, and the rabid dog Cujo (who some readers believe was actually haunted by the ghost of Dodd, which would make them one and the same), but there is one Castle Rock villain whose reputation rises above the rest - a stately drifter named Leland Gaunt from the novel Needful Things. And assuming Bill Skarsgård is playing an existing King villain, as opposed to an original character, Gaunt is arguably the likeliest candidate.
Aside from the noticeable age difference, parallels between the two characters are actually more evident than they might seem. In Needful Things, Gaunt arrives in Castle Rock in a similar fashion to Skarsgård’s character: mysteriously and unannounced. They also both appear to be harmless, despite the fact that Alan Pangborn has his suspicions (in Needful Things, Pangborn sees right through Gaunt’s charming demeanor; and in Castle Rock, he believes that the best course of action would have been keeping him locked in his cage). And even though Skarsgård’s character hasn’t yet shown any signs of trying to acquire the souls of Castle Rock locals, there are other distinguishing features that just nearly confirm this theory.
At New York Comic Con 2017, Skarsgård was asked by Castle Rock’s panel moderator if he had read any Stephen King books prior to playing the role in order to prepare himself. He did, and the book was Needful Things. What’s more is that Leland Gaunt is described as having eyes that can change color; and though Skarsgård hasn’t gotten much screen time in the first few episodes, some closeups have revealed that he’s either got heterochromia iridum (different colored eyes) or does, in fact, share yet another correlation with Gaunt. Skarsgård’s character may not be quite as personable as Gaunt, nor does he seem quite as skilled at feigning empathy, but the Leland Gaunt from Needful Things wasn’t just pulled out of an underground cage which he’s been locked inside for the past three decades. With different interpretations come different iterations.
Furthermore, while several other Castle Rock-based characters and stories get blink-and-you’ll-miss-it callbacks in the show - namely when Henry Deaver is flipping through old newspaper clippings and discovers headlines that refer back to Cujo, Needful Things, and The Body - Leland Gaunt stands out most of all. In an article referring to Needful Things (it reads: “Shopkeeper Missing After Oddity Store Fire”), the words “Leland Gaunt” and “missing” are underlined in red ink. And though this can easily just be a throwaway easter egg for fans, it can also just as well suggest that this greedy demon has unfinished business in Castle Rock.
If none of these identities turn out to be true, Skarsgård’s character will still fill a familiar mold at the heart of most King stories; he’ll be playing an outsider wreaking havoc on a small town in some way or another, in the tradition of the aforementioned characters, as well as others like Kurt Barlow from ‘Salem’s Lot, André Linoge from the written-for-TV series Storm of the Century (which gets a slight nod in the show), and even the possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury from Christine. And from what little audiences see of Skarsgård in the first half of Castle Rock, it’s evident that he’s not far from standing toe-to-toe with King’s long line of illustrious evildoers - assuming he’s not one of them himself.
