TV
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch: Smoking Guns (S7E4)
Welcome back, fellow ranchers! I genuinely hope you’ve been enjoying our journey through Season 7 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Since we’re basically caught up, and I have some interesting news, we can finally take a step into Brendan’s Ufology Corner (name is still being workshopped). Please bare with me while I work through all of this, or you can skip to the first subheader if you want to get right into The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch coverage.
David Grusch and Australia’s 1971 UFO Intelligence Report
On June 9th, 2026, David Grusch and a coterie of politicians, notably Representative Jared Moskowitz, Representative Tim Burchett, and Representative Anna Paulina Looney, ran a press event at the Capitol. They stood in front of a microphoned podium with a “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets” board on the front. Much was said in that amount of time, but it’s a few specific points and the event’s timing that are of particular note.
David Grusch, whose bombshell 2023 testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability brought Ufology back into the zeitgeist (along with Ryan Graves and Commander David Fravor), mentioned one thing that struck a specific chord for many people. Grusch’s specific mention of Australia’s 1971 Intelligence UFO Assessment raised a few eyebrows. But why?
The Government’s History of Covering Its Own Ignorance
That assessment is important for many reasons, though proof of aliens doesn’t necessarily rank high at the top of that list. This previously classified document shed light on how intelligence agencies were studying the topic. It basically said that governments were shifting public focus on, then, UFOs to hide the fact that they really didn’t know what this phenomenon really was. So, did the government want to get to the bottom of this? Or was their only goal to save face when they came up short on answers?
Could this be an analog to what David Grusch feels currently? He wasn’t necessarily taken seriously in his 2023 testimony. In fact, claims of alcoholism and pointed character assassinations of Grusch grew as the seconds passed. It feels like a plea from Grusch that the government needs to help protect him from, well, the government.
Grusch’s 60 Day Disclosure Warning
But it goes deeper than that. Ignoring the fact that Tim Burchett said the Chinese spy balloon was used to cover up the fact that Grusch was openly talking about biological entities. And ignore the fact that Leslie Kean said that these biologics happened to be the pilots of recovered UAPs. Grusch claims there are several dozen retrievals that have taken place where non-human biologics were discovered.
Think that’s all? Think again! A little over a month ago, David Grusch made a statement that we should be seeing an escalation regarding ‘D’isclosure in the next 60 to 90 days. But why does that matter?
The Greada Treaty, D-365, and the July 2026 Disclosure Timeline
Roughly 35,000 BC saw the waning civilization that inhabited the Orion constellation, and slowly expanded outwards in search of overcoming potential generational losses. Now, this next part was succinctly put together by a Twitter page Oyagaa-Oomo Network, but it’s the best way to fully understand the importance of the press conference. Basically, visitors from Oomo have confirmed a disclosure strategy and are reducing their stealthiness to validate goodwill, which was agreed upon in the Greada Treaty in 1954 (which was signed between President Eisenhower and The Greys, which was supposedly facilitated by Valiant Thor). An account known as NOAY, which I’m still struggling to understand how it applies, released a clue that states “D-365”. That clue was released by NOAY on July 24, 2025.
All this leads many to believe that D-365 implies July 24, 2026, which would fall directly in line with David Grush’s comment about 60 to 90 days, could be D-Day Two. Could this all be bunk? Sure. Could this be all too real? Definitely. Will July 24, 2026, be the day 500,000 Greys begin their colonization of Earth?
If you’re still reading, thank you! It’s now time for us to head to our second favorite ranch in Utah to see if we get any closer to uncovering The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.
LIDAR Scans, Underground Arcs, and Dr. Francke’s Return to the Mesa
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 9:10 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, Technologist Pete Kelsey, Kaleb Bench, and Sam Deriso sit around the Command Center table. Pete Kelsey shows the team an image from his terrestrial LIDAR scans, which he took when the drilling started at the top of the Mesa. The image Pete has is taken from the top of the Mesa, looking southwest. What we see is something that isn’t unusual for the team, but is for Pete’s LIDAR scans: displaced data.
Pete reveals an image that shows data that is not just displaced, but underground. Moreover, the data is in an arc pattern. Does this mean signify more proof of The Bubble’s barrier?
Mesa Drill Site – Later That Day – 10:35 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Technologist Pete Kelsey, Sam Deriso, Thomas Winterton, Kaleb Bench, Archaeologist Chris Roberts, and Triple A Drilling (Jed Murray and Bo Camp) stand atop the Mesa. They are joined by special guest and GPR expert Dr. Jan Francke, who we last saw on Season 6 Episode 12 of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Dr. Francke was the man who found the 400-foot-long object inside the Mesa, which sparked the drilling initiatives.
GPR Inside Borehole One Triggers Mysterious Signals at 33 MHz and Beyond
Dr. Francke is back on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch to run new GPR scans. But this time, he’ll be inside the Mesa. Using his cutting-edge tools, Dr. Francke will run his GPR through Borehole One. And his new equipment will allow the team to see the depth and distance of the anomalies. He will also be running this scan while Triple A gets back to drilling.
The drilling begins with Dr. Francke, Erik Bard, Sam Deriso, and Thomas Winterton at the top of the Mesa, while Dr. Travis Taylor and Kaleb Bench will run the computers and analyzers at the bottom of the Mesa.
As the experiment kicks off, Sam Deriso notices a 33 MHz signal. Once alerted, Travis notices that he is also seeing that signal on his spectrum analyzer. What’s weird is that 33 MHz is the same signal given off by the drill bit beacon used by Mark Construction in Season 6 Episode 11 “Hard to Handle”. The beacon that was on the tungsten drill bit that was destroyed by the Mesa’s Type A ceramic material. If that wasn’t enough, Travis starts to see both a 1.2 and a 1.6 GHz signal.
This leads Thomas Winterton to question whether or not the drill is stimulating the object(s) within the Mesa.
Gamma Readings Spike as Artemis Testing Lab Weighs In on the Ceramics
Dr. Jan Francke starts to run his GPR device down Borehole One. While that is going on, Chris Roberts begins to inspect the drill core samples with a gamma ray detector. That’s when Chris notices 108 CPM. Then 110 CPM. And then 115 CPM. While that’s not an unsafe count for CPM, it’s highly irregular for a sand mesa. In fact, Travis says that it is about 10 times higher than it should be. It’s also the same count they had from the Type A ceramics when they initially found them.
With the drill one third of the way to its goal, and Dr. Jan’s scanning complete, the team calls it a day.
What Is That? Literally.
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 11:16 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, Chris Roberts, and Thomas Winterton sit around the Skinwalker Ranch Command Center table. On a video call, they have the team from Artemis Testing Lab. The team consists of Bob Dodge, John Sherman, and Serge Fayeulle PH.D. These are the people Chris Roberts sent the Type A ceramics sample to.
Testing Finds the Type A Material Undatable and Unlike Any Known Ceramic
But, before we learn what they found out, what exactly is thermoluminescence testing? The tl;dr is this: they take a sample from ceramics or pottery and cut through that sample. The dust from that cut is used and put in a special contraption that measures the amount of stored light energy in the object. The sample is then heated up to 500 degrees Celcius. Once heated up, some light will be emitted. That light is then measured, where its intensity and value determine an object’s age.
Rigorous testing of the Type A ceramic material reveals that it is undatable. Bob is also completely sure that the object wasn’t fired (created with heat, as ceramics or pottery usually are). But, to cross their I’s and dot their T’s, Artemis also ran an XRF analysis on the material.
Artemis reveals the object isn’t ceramic, but contains similar properties to plaster. But how could a piece of plaster do that to a tungsten drill bit? This information seems helpful for the Skinwalker Ranch team, and Travis says he wants to take the materials back to the lab at UVU with this new information.
Smoke Machine and High-Speed Cameras Target the Bubble’s Western Boundary
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – 2:37 PM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Thomas Winterton, Erik Bard, Jim Royston, and Sam Deriso stand outside the Command Center during a wild windstorm. This presents the perfect opportunity for a test they’ve been wanting to run surrounding The Bubble boundary. Erik reveals that they want to see how smoke interacts with The Bubble’s boundary, and this west-to-east wind creates the best conditions. The plan will be to blow smoke from the west side of The Bubble while driving in and out of the boundary.
West Side of The Bubble – 3:32 PM
Thomas Winterton picks up a giant, industrial-grade smoke machine while Travis sets up high-speed cameras.
With Thomas on the back of the pickup truck, the team gets the experiment going. Thomas turns the smoke machine on while Jim starts driving the truck backwards through 33 miles per hour winds.
Smoke Tests Confirm Physical Barriers at The Bubble and Hint at The Blob’s Presence
The smoke acts as you would think, shooting out of the long barrel as smoke does. But as the team approaches The Bubble boundary, the smoke acts as if it’s hitting a wall and dispersing in all directions. Once through the boundary, the smoke goes back to shooting normally. To see if this was a fluke, Jim drives back through The Bubble. And, as expected, the smoke acts as if it’s hitting a wall at the exact spot of The Bubble boundary.
Erik instructs the team to head to the eastern side of The Bubble, and they head over there.
Experiment number two starts with Jim driving out of The Bubble’s eastside boundary. Once the smoke hits the boundary, it acts as if it’s hitting a wall. Every sign points to The Bubble’s boundary being a physical anomaly. It seems to be proven time and time again. And since that’s been all but confirmed, Erik tells the team to head over to The Triangle to test out The Blob.
Once at The Triangle, Travis and Thomas get in a cherry picker and go about 30 feet in the air. Travis sets off the smoke machine and expects the smoke to blow in a straight line. At the 30-foot mark, the smoke seems to maneuver itself around an invisible object. Does this also prove The Blob is a physical anomaly, too?
High-Speed Footage Reveals Smoke Anomalies on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch
Skinwalker Ranch Command Center – The Next Day – 10:41 AM
Dr. Travis Taylor, Erik Bard, Thomas Winterton, Sam Deriso, and Jim Royston sit around the Command Center table. Erik has some fun data to share with the team that only furthers the probability of The Bubble and The Blob being physical anomalies.
The first video comes from one of the high-speed cameras, with a final processing through Erik’s Meta-Frame. Erik overlaid a motion change-detecting filter over the video. The video of the smoke hitting The Bubble boundary shows the smoke fanning out in multiple directions, rather than going straight through.
A second video is from a camera that was shooting at 120 FPS. It’s another filtered video. But this one doesn’t involve smoke. As the team fires off the smoke machine, a UAP appears hundreds of feet in the air. Almost as if it’s monitoring them. The last video we see is from The Triangle test, where the smoke moves around The Blob.
Final Thoughts
As interesting as the smoke experiment was to watch, it was an incredibly weak way to end the episode. This should have been the start of the episode, but the Artemis stuff didn’t have enough of a punch for a stinger. But what really pisses me off is how the smoke experiment didn’t need a data review. We saw all we needed to see during the tests! Sans the singular UAP, of course.
Why does The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch feel the need to CONSTANTLY repeat things over and over again? Do they think we’re stupid? Well, actually, yes, they do. Season 7 Episode 4 “Smoking Guns” is another in a long line of plain, boring episodes. Minus the part where we learned the ceramic is actually plaster-like, we are left with a seemingly nothing episode.
Anyways! Something, something, something, fun little setup, The Secret…of Skinwalker Ranch. (Hey showrunners! See what happens when I phone in my outro? It has little effect on the entire article. I’m underwhelmed by my outro as much as I’m underwhelmed by this episode! Pick it up, do better, and let’s have some fun!)
The works of Stephen King are back in the spotlight once again, if they ever really left. Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series is set to release on Amazon Prime this October 7th, and the heat is on. This would be the fourth run at the tale of a tortured psychic girl suffering through serious religious trauma and bullying; it’s also the first successful television series adaptation. Famously, the 2002 TV film was supposed to serve as the pilot for an extended Carrie series, but that never got off the ground.
There’s a variety of reactions to the show already; from complaints about getting another Carrie White that doesn’t look like Carrie White, to thoughts about introducing other psychic students into the story. It’s fair to say there’s, at the very least, renewed interest in re-evaluating the many adaptations of Stephen King’s works. Old habits die hard.
There’s a ridiculously large swath to choose from, ranging from the obvious classics like The Shining and Pet Sematary, to irregulars like The Langoliers and The Night Flyer. If you’re feeling especially bold, you might try a King original like Storm of the Century or Rose Red (I’m overdue for a watch of Storm anyways). But among all these lies one of the strangest and most forgotten King adaptations. One that was sold as an adaptation of a single novel, but is really a spiritual sibling to the entirety of Stephen King’s canon. That adaptation is the SyFy original series, Haven.
The Silver Age of Supernatural Television Drama
The development of Haven sits smack dab in the middle of what I would call the Silver Age of Supernatural Television Drama. The hypothetical Golden Age that precedes it isn’t pinned to exact years but rather defined by a few masterpieces of evergreen television. These are the shows throughout the ‘90s that really impacted cable TV at large. The obvious cultural touchstones of the genre: The X-Files, Twin Peaks, and most importantly Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which would see monumental success. They were rapidly followed by the likes of shows like American Gothic and Roswell. I would count Smallville too, but again, blurry edges.
The Silver Age then is marked by an explosion of shows, not necessarily being created as knee jerk reactions to that success, but certainly heavily inspired by these network defining hits. Shows that enjoyed the episodic “monster of the week” format while retaining a focus on the interpersonal drama between its characters. They debuted as their progenitors ended or went late in their run, effectively meant to “replace” them.
This time saw the rise of J.J. Abrams renown with the shows Alias, Fringe, and most importantly, the mega-hit Lost. The most successful of all of them, Eric Kripke’s Supernatural, is still reverberating through pop culture today after its 15 year long run. And for my fellow Warehouse 13 enthusiasts, you know that this is the era that the highly underrated show thrived in.
Also, MTV’s Teen Wolf was there too, I guess.
From The Dead Zone to Haven Island
Among these much more successful shows was an odd little Stephen King adaptation: USA Network’s The Dead Zone. It was a very fast and loose interpretation of King’s novel of the same name. You know the one: go into a six-year coma, come back with psychic powers, meet an evil politician, race to stop him from causing the end of the world. Also, Anthony Michael Hall is here too, I guess.
As one might expect, the premise was rife with procedural potential. Despite a solid initial viewer base, The Dead Zone ran for 6 seasons before being cancelled due to waning ratings. But two of its writers, Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, ended up as showrunners for a similar but even stranger translation of King’s work: a television adaptation of the book The Colorado Kid called Haven.
When The Adaptation Is Unrecognizable
Haven premiered in July of 2010 on SyFy, joining during a great (if not the best) era for the network. There were phenomenal runs going on with Merlin, Warehouse 13, and later the American remake of Being Human. And, unsurprising to anyone who got 20 minutes into the show’s first episode, “Welcome to Haven”, it fit in much more with those shows than it did with its source material. In fact, the premise betrayed all expectations for fans of the novel.
What The Colorado Kid Is About…
For context: the book is about an intern at a newspaper, Stephanie, trying to solve the bizarre death of a nameless drifter with her new bosses, Dave Bowie and Vince Teague. Details are sparse, and what few the trio have just don’t line up. What results is a hard-fought battle to finally crack the case of who, or what, killed the Colorado Kid. More importantly, The Colorado Kid is pretty explicitly a mystery novel about mystery novels; it has a victim, but there’s little information about the killer, and that’s intentional.
The blank space in this case is the focus. King is really more interested in observing how an audience interfaces with a mystery and what makes them so compelling. He spells all this out as much in an afterword, down to explaining why he wanted to write the story and his perspective on “wanting” an answer being better than “knowing” the answer.
…Is Far and Away from Haven’s Premise
The TV show Haven, however, is very, very different. The show follows FBI agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose), who is drawn to the town to investigate the inexplicable murder of a criminal who escaped federal prison. When it’s revealed he was killed by impossible means, she soon discovers a phenomenon known as “The Troubles”: the sudden and often subconscious manifestation of dangerous supernatural abilities in the townspeople of Haven. As Audrey realizes her past is intertwined with The Troubles, she attempts to solve the mystery of what’s causing them and who she really is as she becomes entrenched in the lives of Haven’s locals.
Different versions of newspaper owners Dave and Vince, as well as The Colorado Kid himself in season 2, do show up in Haven. But fundamentally, the show is an entirely different beast tonally. It is far and away from the novel, and strangely enough, that was at Stephen King’s request. He initially told Ernst and Dunn when the show was being pitched to ABC to spice it up with more supernatural elements.
Hence, how it ended up as a monster of the week show on Syfy. Double hence, how it became an unrecognizable adaptation of a hardly supernatural book. If I had to compare it to any of the Golden Age shows, it’s most obviously inspired by The X-Files. That being said, it’s hard not to draw comparisons to Fringe. Especially given how, like Fringe, Haven becomes really, really serialized rather than episodic.
A Flat, Kind of Cheesy First Season That Grows on You
The initial monster of the week format set up in Season 1 does carry into the following four seasons, but it becomes very clear that there is a main mythology that will take precedence by early Season 2. While the supernatural mysteries that make up the bulk of the episodes are solid (see episodes 1, 4, 6, 8, and 10 through 13 for the best of the first season), they’re mostly establishing the groundwork for Audrey’s personal narrative arc.
The mysteries are also the backdrop for Audrey’s budding love triangle with local handsome cop Nathan Wournos (Lucas Bryant) and local handsome rogue Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour). The romance is kind of terrible, and unfortunately very frequent since they’re often cooperating to solve the mysteries together.
So, that’s all I’m going to say about it in an effort to be kind.
Haven Season 2 Deepens Audrey Parker’s Mystery
Haven’s first season is mostly tame, erring on slightly underwhelming, with some very cheesy dialogue and drama. The characters aren’t nailed down as anything but loose pastiches until the last several episodes. By then, they’ve built some weight and dimension to them. Where Season 1 leaves off is a pretty solid cliffhanger that will have you at least curious enough to venture into Season 2 if you’ve watched this far. It serves as the first big bite into the intrigue of the question “Who Is Audrey Parker?”, which is the central pillar of the show.
Season 2 is much more engaging, and the episodic mysteries feel much more significant and dangerous. Eventually, the mythology around Audrey and the Troubles sprawls out into a maze of even more questions involving secret societies, split personalities, time travel, and tears in the fabric of reality. That last bit might stand out to fans of The Dark Tower series, and that’s because I’m talking about exactly what you think I’m talking about (no spoilers!).
A Stephen King Adaptation About Stephen King Stories
The show is only somewhat effective at establishing its mythos around Audrey and The Troubles. But I have to appreciate it for what it manages to do in the process, especially throughout the second season as it gives us one good solid villain to follow in the malicious Reverend Driscoll. He is a classic King-style villain, and an embodiment of what Haven really excels at. The same way that The Colorado Kid is a mystery novel about mystery novels, Haven is a Stephen King adaptation about Stephen King Stories.
This goes beyond the fact that they’re effectively trying to find a new person with the shine every week and stopping them before they have their own personal “Black Prom” level meltdown. The show is chockful of references, small and large (the vast majority are sight gags referring directly to Stephen King stories) to his writing. There’s an abundance of episodes whose plots are overtly reinterpretations of King’s works, especially in season two with various homages to It, Maximum Overdrive, and The Dark Half.
And even when the show doesn’t have a one-to-one analog with a King story, it excels at stocking Haven Island with a variety of secondary characters that genuinely feel like the cast of a Stephen King book. The dialog might be corny and the residents strange, but it does feel like a lived in setting, a hallmark of the author’s many fictional small towns in Maine (which get namedropped a decent amount in the show, obviously, they’re all neighbors). Also, when we get the answer of who exactly Audrey is, it actually does end up connecting to the greater Stephen King mythos in a way that is surprising and kind of fun, even if the ending is a little underwhelming and gives Buffy finale flashbacks.
Haven Isn’t Half Bad
At the end of the day, I can’t confidently say Haven is a great show. Especially with how it drags in a lot of places (that double-wide trailer of a fifth season is particularly egregious). It can be exceptionally hit or miss. But it’s so uniquely dedicated to recapturing the vibes of a Stephen King story, that I have to admire it when it does succeed, when some might find that a futile task. Paradoxically, the further it gets away from the source material it was barely riffing off of, the more King it feels.
It is at the very least an incredibly unique show in the Silver Age of Supernatural TV, and if you can tolerate the melodrama of your Supernatural’s and Warehouse 13’s, you’re likely to find some amusement in it even if you’re tuning in and out while watching it. More than ten years out now from Haven’s 2015 finale, it’s safe to say the series won’t click with everybody, but for fans that enjoy homages to the prolific horror author’s extensive repertoire, you’ll be hard pressed to find a show that shows more love to King than this.
Let’s look back at a time none of us really want to…December of 2020. Trump is in the final few months of his first term as President. The nation is still in the midst of the COVID pandemic. With dictatorship, political and social unrest, and a pandemic sweeping the nation, it felt like either the best or the worst time for something like The Stand to return to American pop culture.
The Stand’s miniseries remake came out in 2020. Generally, the consensus is pretty negative. The original Mick Garris series from the 1990s is also very flawed and received an extremely mixed reception, but it has also garnered a bit of a cult status. None of this is too surprising, seeing as the novel is a grandiose epic that is a daunting task to adapt perfectly. Regardless of iteration, though, it unfortunately seems like a fairly relevant text for troubled times, and seems to continuously return to the zeitgeist in times of recession or despair. So…why exactly does it keep coming back?
The Stand in the 1990s
The Stand was originally published in 1978, and was a smash hit. For those unfamiliar, the novel is a post-apocalyptic, fantasy-horror epic concerning the outbreak of a deadly disease called Captain Trips’. Groups of pure-of-heart Survivors are brought together by premonitions of a psychic woman named Mother Abigail. She is a symbol of everything good in the world. Meanwhile, a demonic drifter named Randall Flagg begins to collect vagrants to build a fascist regime out of a gutted Las Vegas. Commercially and critically, the novel struck a chord with audiences everywhere. King was well-known already for Salem’s Lot, Carrie, and The Shining, so a horror-adventure epic felt like the next step for him. In the 1990s, a complete and unabridged edition was published, clocking in at over 1100 pages. This edition is where the novel’s political analysis can really start.
One notable detail changed from the 1970s edition to the 1990s uncut version is the inclusion of contemporary details. The timeline was changed to cement the book with a sense of timelessness. One haunting detail in particular is the comparison of the disease to the AIDS epidemic, which was devastating the country in the 1980s and 90s.
While the comparison is not a major detail of this changed text, it feels very purposeful in its playing into the politics. With the fictional Captain Trips’ connection to the U.S government’s failure to help/control the disease, one can feel the frustration with the Reagan cabinet’s handling of the pandemic during the 1980s. The miniseries premiered in the 1990s as well, so it makes sense that some of these same frustrations might be the catalyst for the book’s first major adaptation.
The Stand in 2020 and 2026
This was touched upon in the intro, but like the 1990s, 2020’s decision to adapt might have lined up perfectly with the world’s current affairs. COVID and Trump are clear, commonly stated comparisons to Captain Trips, as well as Randall Flagg. With Trump back in power in 2026, the CDC is gutted, giving way to poop lettuce and a rise in Measles. One can begin dog-earring the old mass market paperback of The Stand and pull their collars in nervousness.
Randall Flagg’s attention to Las Vegas coincides with Trump’s love of all things gold and grand. The faux-royal look, with redecorations to the White House and a hideous ballroom, might remind constant readers of Randall Flagg’s move to Las Vegas. All of the garishness is but a fake distraction, decorations so his followers do not see that the promises are all fake. At the end of the day, it is all designed to serve Flagg and Flagg only. It might be time for another adaptation soon…
Apocalypse fiction, and Hope rooted in Horror
The Stand is a testament to the power of horror and genre fiction. The reason horror has maintained its cultural relevance more than any other genre is its relevance to cultural fears and worries. All the way back to Night of the Living Dead, the genre had recognized the world around it and found ways to tell stories to allow a sense of escapism, and an outlet for anxiety. The Stand is possibly the greatest example of this.
The Stand will always be relevant, unfortunately, because there will always be Randall Flaggs. There will always be Captain Trips’. This incarnate evil will always exist in some capacity in society, in one way or another. However, there will also be Mother Abigails. There will always be Tom Cullens. The Stand exists for catharsis, yes, escapism, yes, but also as hope.
As we see at the end of the novel’s extended edition, Randall Flagg does not die-he just is reborn in a different time period. On the other hand, after Mother Abigail’s death, she continues to speak to the survivors as well. There will always be evil, but there will also always be good. The Stand is a testament to the cultural catharsis of horror, but also the necessary hope rooted in the darkest stories we tell.
