TV
Drag Them to Hell: The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans Ep 1 “Halloween House Party” Recap
There’s something different in the air this Halloween season. Take a deep breath. Elevate your olfactory palate beyond the musty odor of your local haunt. A whiff of perfume? Excellent. And now…poppers? Yes, you’re getting closer! The stench of rotten corpses and toilet bowl cleaner? You’ve got it! The world’s lost all color, and this putrid mixture of scents intrigues us as we spot a grim manor in the distance. We’ve now borne witness to four seasons of murder and mayhem, and it’s about that time of year for another gauntlet of chaos. So, we venture inside in anticipation, our curiosity getting the better of us.
A familiar cackle guides the way, and before long, we’re face to face with our favorite undead goddesses: The Boulet Brothers. The filthy and fabulous duo informs us that we purchased a one-way ticket to the Underworld upon crossing the threshold. Fortunately, not all is lost because we’re just in time for a new game that’ll rattle heaven and hell. Ten of the most devilish Titans to ever disgrace their stage are about to be unearthed, dragged out of oblivion to compete for the ultimate title of the first-ever Dragula Titan and earn a spot once more among the living. Have these ten ghouls evolved enough during their time in infinite darkness to slit the throats of their competitors once more? Let’s strap in for what is sure to be the most epic season of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and find out.
Koco Caine: The shadiest titty-shaking icon is back in heart-shaped glasses. Easily the most charismatic Monster of the franchise, Koco’s time was cut short in Season 4, and now she’s ready to prove she’s both easier to work with and more sickening than ever.
Melissa BeFierce: The only OG from Season 1, Melissa is the self-proclaimed queen of the drama and is the longest missing from this earthly realm. With a lot to prove, she’s showing up to read her competition for filth and stomp on their necks. And, of course, she’ll be dripping in all this glamour, hunty.
Evah Destruction: The cuddliest werewolf you’ll ever meet, Evah was a frontrunner on Season 3 who let her inner demons get the upper hand. Done with the tears, this self-assured wolf has shed her skin and is ready to go for the jugular.
Erika Klash: Digital diva and Season 2 extermination queen, Erika is back to show us what’s between her coding. Has she digivolved into the fully formed Titan she claims to be?
Yovska: The shadiest costumed sniper from the side, Yovska has returned with more shade, more creep factor, and more rhinestones. Perhaps we’ll discover what happens when you leave a cursed teddy bear in the Underworld for too long.
Astrud Aurelia: Gone too soon after an infamous Season 4 meltdown, Astrud has matured into a reptilian creature from the gayer side of the black lagoon. One look at their Instagram, and it’s clear we missed out on some exquisite looks last season, so here’s hoping they can bite their forked tongue this go around.
HoSo Terra Toma: A top-four Titan from Season 4 and fresh off the world tour, some question whether HoSo has had enough time for shut-eye between seasons. Drawing from a seemingly endless well of creativity, HoSo insists they now have the necessary experience to match what their horrific mind brings to life on stage.
Abhora: Like a polarizing requel to a beloved franchise, the rewritten Abhora is here, and they’re still a creep! As the only competitor to have ever been simultaneously at the top and bottom of a challenge, Abhora is undoubtedly here to shake up the competition while they claw their way to the crown.
Kendra Onixxx: Having felt like an outsider during her time on Season 2, Kendra has mined her soul and cracked open what is at the heart of her being. She’s back from oblivion and will not take anyone’s BS.
Victoria Black: The formidable queen of prosthetics has returned to annihilate her competition. Having fallen just short of winning Season 2 and Resurrection, Victoria is more willing to express who she is under all that ooze. Could that be all she needs to complete her journey to the throne?
The Challenge: Our ten tremendous Titans have enough time to light the dramatic fuse by questioning whether specific competitors even deserve to be there before being called to the main stage. It’s here that the Titans finally meet their maker – and murderer – and the competition truly begins. The Boulets appear on screen and spill the tea: As ten of the strongest Monsters to ever be featured on The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, they will compete for a $100,000 grand prize and a headlining spot on the next world tour. The catch – and you knew there’d be one – is that there will be none of the usual Exterminations each week; what this means is TBD, but we love a good surprise. Adding to the agony, the Titans must all participate in each week’s Fright Feat before attempting to defend their spot in the competition. They’ll be immediately cast back into oblivion should they fail or refuse the Feat entirely, and the last soul eliminated will return to the competition. The Boulets didn’t refer to this season as “Gagula” on social media for nothin’.
With formalities out of the way, the season’s first challenge is announced. Our ultimate Uglies must create a terrifying, reinvented drag lewk based on a classic American Halloween costume. They must then execute a choreographed lip sync performance on location at a Spooktacular Halloween House Party. The poor soul who serves more Disney than disaster will find out how exactly a Titan dies. Now, let’s see what these new and improved Fright Feats are.
Per the episode’s Halloween theme, the Titans must bob for apples for their first Fright Feat. And if you think forcing ten queens in big hair and full beat is tragic enough, it gets worse. These apples are submerged in buckets of blood and various animal parts. After watching a grotesque display of gagging ghouls with slicked and bloodied hair, it seems Astrud has won and must assign her fellow Titans their roles for the House Party. The drama doesn’t stop, however, as a crew member enters to inform the cast that a footage recap has revealed Melissa BeFierce as the true winner of the Feat. So, in fierce Melissa style, she immediately undoes all of Astrud’s decisions and casts the roles her way.
The Drama: Baby Gorgeous, this is TITANS, and everyone in the Underworld is seated for the drama. First impressions are over, and these Uglies know each other inside and out – some even know each other’s insides a little too well, it seems. As mentioned earlier, the drama kicks off almost immediately. Evah questions if HoSo has had any time to recoup since the world tour; Yovska wonders if Kendra has what it takes; Abhora reveals they’ve been holding on to years of contempt toward Erika; pretty much everyone agrees that Erika should be sent packing first. The shade and one-liners keep coming, none more so than Kendra’s read of Yovska’s entrance lewk. In a sure-to-be viral moment of absolute ferocity, Kendra compares Yovska to a “Teletubby toilet bowl” and drops the mic. The children are shooketh, and screams have been scrumpt!
Abhora – chaos incarnate – is at the center of much of the episode’s drama. In an interesting choice, they have fully committed to their character and, throughout the entirety of the episode, prove to be an absolute menace. They’re also beak-over-claws in love with HoSo – who may or may not reciprocate the feeling despite idolizing Abhora’s drag – and are at odds with Astrud, who is similarly infatuated with HoSo. Love triangles on day one – isn’t Titans great? Evah also has an issue with her friend Abhora because mere months before starting the show, Abhora intimated that they were quite possibly done with the world of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula altogether. Yet, here they are, unfazed and very crazed. None of this may bode well for Abhora’s time on the show, but as a viewer, it is pure TV gold.
Competition-wise, the drama is immediately ignited as well. Melissa instantly begins a quest to create an alliance between herself, Kendra, and Koco, which they name the Nightmare Girls (I also personally like Komeldra). Their power quickly materializes when Melissa, the true winner of the Fright Feat, sabotages Astrud’s challenge picks to spite Erika. Koco, realizing the potential of having the legendary Victoria on their side, pushes Melissa to make amends with her (yeah, they’re fighting, too). Abhora and Erika :ahem: clash when they’re chosen to work together as a pair, but the other groups seem to be having a good time creating their floor show performances.
Floor Show & Judgment: The Boulets, sporting chic antennae, enter the stage in person for the first time this season. They introduce guest judges Justin Simien, director of the upcoming Haunted Mansion movie, and Elvira herself, Cassandra Peterson. The floor show begins, and we’re regaled with a campy good time as the cast wiggles and waves to the music in a classic American house party setting. It’s essentially the Spooky Season version of the Nosferatu Beach Party from Season 4, which the Boulets say is one of their favorite challenges from the series.
Astrud (the Creature) hosts the party and bounces from scene to scene with her fellow Titans. Her look is polished, and she does a great job becoming part of each group without feeling forced. Melissa (the Vampire), Koco (the Mummy), and Kendra (Frankenstein) are hit-and-miss while they dance in the living room as the Nightmare Girls. Melissa proves to be the best of the group, while Koco flounders with a messy and basic costume despite making us crack the hell up with her titty-shaking performance, and Kendra has a few cute moments without doing enough to stand out. The trio escapes performing the worst of the evening, though, because Abhora (as ???) and Erika (the Bat) have arrived. Erika does an okay job of camping it up and dancing in her fur lewk but doesn’t necessarily wow. Unfortunately, she bares the weight of their group performance because Abhora is absolutely atrocious. Her costume, which she later explains is meant to be an alien, is entirely indiscernible, and she doesn’t remember the lip sync words half the time. Eek, indeed.
Evah (the Devil) looks stunning in her scenes with HoSo (the Pirate). The duo owns their power over a Ouija board in the bedroom, and Evah especially lets her inner sexpot shine. Yovska (Pumpkinhead) and Victoria (Pumpkinhead II) kill it in the kitchen as two freakish pumpkin queens. Each of their looks is unique and true to themselves. Yovska does excellent work showing off her cartoonish pumpkin breasts and highlighting her facial features despite being in full costume, and Victoria, quite simply, slays the competition. From head to toe, she is high pumpkin couture and her mouth, which genuinely looks like that of a sinister old witch, is nightmare fuel. To top it off, she literally removes the upper crust of her head and displays the icky, gooey guts of a pumpkin. Iconic!
Astrud and Victoria are neck and neck to be the week’s winner, but as Pumpkinhead II, Victoria receives the win. Astrud clearly has a lot to show us, and if she had won this challenge, her Season 4 curse might have reared its ugly head, so perhaps it’s for the best. Unsurprisingly, Abhora and Erika receive the worst critiques, and Koco is not far behind due to her bare-bones toilet paper mummy.
Deliberation: They called it “Gagula” and, ghoulie, they weren’t kidding. Remember when they said there wouldn’t be any typical Exterminations this season? Well, that’s because the Titans must vote on who the bottom two of the week are. Anyone is up for grabs, not simply those with the worst critiques. Alliances, alliances…clearly Melissa was on to something. Abhora is visibly distraught about her placement and pulls an Astrud, self-destructing and making enemies with almost everyone in the room. The voting begins, and the Titans decide their fate. A special shout-out goes to Koco for leaving us in stitches once again as she attempts to write Abhora’s name down with her comically large nails.
The votes are finalized, and Abhora and Erika are the unlucky chosen two. Some would argue that Koco deserved to take Erika’s spot, but it would be blasphemy to send such an entertaining powerhouse home so soon. The duo is made to ascent the Staircase of Souls to the Ghostly Gallery, where they await their fate. With one word, “ABHORA,” Swanthula banishes them back to whence they came, and Abhora falls through a trap door. The ghouls are gagged at the surprising form of elimination, and the camera pans as we see Abhora’s portrait apparate on the wall beside them.
Quote of the Episode: “What do you look like, girl? A moon. A moon with a toilet. Toilet bowl. Toilet bowl. It’s giving me Teletubbies on a toilet bowl. Flush the toilet. Bloopbloopbloopbloop. Done.” – Kendra Onixxx destroying Yovska’s soul.
Honorable Mention: Yovska showed up this week with her tri-pumpkinhead lewk. One critique they’ve had in the past is our inability to see beyond the costume, but her facial work really shone through this week. Overall, a win for the shady Titan.
Rating: The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Titans is back with a vengeance. Now with an innate appreciation for all the contestants, it’s a joy to watch them return for our viewing pleasure. The heightened drama is there from the jump, fun new segues are peppered throughout the episode, twists and turns await around every corner, and the show introduces even more proper nouns to add to the series’ wiki page. (10/10 Teletubby toilet bowl meme retweets)
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.
