TV Recap & Review: ‘The Stand’ Finale – “The Circle Closes”

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Even though The Stand miniseries has been a disappointment overall, the last couple of episodes were a small improvement, and with Stephen King himself writing the finale, I had hopes of it ending on a high note. Sadly, “The Circle Closes” was average at best. It featured a small twist, characters doing silly things, and left me ambivalent about not only the finale but the series as a whole.

After the explosion in New Vegas last week, seemingly killing everyone good and bad, life begins to become routine in the community in Boulder…or does it? Frannie (Odessa Young) gives birth to a baby girl and begins to notice people falling into the same old patterns, things that brought out the worst in humans. It’s around this time that Stu (James Marsden) and Tom (Brad William Henke) show up, and before you can say cheesy, they decide to pack up and leave before things turn ugly. Things could go that way but now with a baby girl, they decide it’s better to go start their own life than lead in Boulder. Interesting choice in a series where characters make many strange, questionable, and outright bad choices.

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On their way to Maine, they stop for the night to rest and resupply, and that’s when things go wrong. We all knew Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård) wasn’t dead and sure enough, he comes to see Frannie after she falls down a well and is injured. With Stu off getting supplies and the baby alone on the porch, Flagg comes to Frannie and makes her an offer that will save herself, Stu, and the baby. She resists, and in this dream/reality, she then meets Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg), who tells her by taking a stand she has set herself on a new path.

As finales go, “The Circle Closes” was okay. I am glad Frannie got her one-on-one with Flagg, something King always regretted not happening in the book. However, the end of the series was the same as the book, as we see Flagg appear to a group of indigenous people in the jungle, untouched by Captain Trips and civilization, and scares them all into worshiping him. The circle may close, but some things never change. As Frannie said, she realized there were only two things in this world, the side of good and the side where a pit of despair, darkness, and death is all there is.

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The finale, like the series, was full of cliche moments and decisions. Did we really need to have Frannie crawl onto an obviously weak well cover to get water? The writing in this series was disappointing and they made many off choices like this. Granted, nine episodes was never going to be enough to cover this massive amount of material, but there was little attempt to make up for the characters lack of development, which hurt the series even more.

At this point, I think it is time to leave King’s novel The Stand alone until someone is ready to give it at least a couple of seasons to try and flesh out the characters and story. In the end, I had little interest in the people in this series and no emotional attachment whatsoever. The actors did the best they could with what they had, but it wasn’t nearly enough to save this series, regardless of the last few episodes being a slight improvement. I’m glad King got some closure in writing the finale, now it’s time we close the book on this series and simply hope for better things from this material in the future.

Check out all of our coverage for ‘The Stand’ here!