“The Stand” arrives with a pedigree that should make it untouchable: Stephen King’s 1978 novel, a nine-episode order from CBS All Access, and a cast led by James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg and Alexander Skarsgård. What it delivers is a plague epic that never quite finds its pulse. The miniseries ran from December 17, 2020 to February 11, 2021, and drew mixed reviews. That verdict holds up. This is a handsome, well-acted adaptation that mistakes length for depth.
Trailer, via Paramount Plus.
A Pandemic Out of a Military Lab
The premise is King’s, and it remains one of his best. A mishap at a military biological research facility lets a lethal strain of influenza escape. The pandemic kills almost the entire world population. The few survivors are drawn toward one of two figures: Mother Abagail, a 108-year-old woman, and Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.
CBS publicity described the show as “King’s apocalyptic vision of a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil.” That is the whole engine. Good on one side, evil on the other, and a handful of people caught between them.
Benjamin Cavell and Josh Boone created the series. Vertigo Entertainment, Mosaic Media Group and CBS Studios produced it. The ensemble is genuinely deep: Owen Teague, Jovan Adepo, Henry Zaga, Nat Wolff, Irene Bedard, Brad William Henke and Greg Kinnear round out the leads.
Marsden Anchors, Skarsgård Smiles
James Marsden plays Stu Redman, the everyman who becomes the spine of the survivors’ camp. Marsden is the right kind of steady. He does not push. He lets the collapse happen around him.
Odessa Young plays Frannie Goldsmith. Whoopi Goldberg plays Abagail “Mother Abagail” Freemantle, and she brings the weight the role needs. Amber Heard plays Nadine Cross. Alexander Skarsgård plays Randall Flagg, and he is the best thing here — a lethal smile with unspeakable powers behind it.
The adaptation changes details of some main characters: gender, ethnicity, age. It moves the setting to the modern-day 21st century. Those choices are fine on their own. They are not what holds the show back.
Nine Episodes, Too Much Air
The series comprises nine episodes. That is the problem in one number. King’s novel is enormous, and nine hours should be enough. Instead the middle stretches, and the pacing sags.
Critics praised the dark tone, the performances and the production values. They criticised the lengthy runtime, the slow pacing and the writing. Both halves of that are visible on screen at once. A scene will look terrific and go nowhere.
Here is the running order as it aired:
| Episode | Air date |
|---|---|
| 1 | December 17, 2020 |
| 2–9 | through February 11, 2021 |
The first episode was released on Paramount+ on December 17, 2020, and on Prime Video on January 3, 2021. The finale aired February 11, 2021.
A New Ending, Written by Two Kings
The final episode carries a new ending co-written by Stephen King with his son, Owen King. Reports said King wrote an entirely different ending to the final chapter, distinct from both the book and its coda. The finale adds the expanded ending of the 1990 version of the book. That makes it the third variation of the story’s conclusion.
That is the most interesting thing about this production. A novelist returning to his own ending, decades later, with his son, is a real event. It is also where the show’s ambition and its execution split apart. The ending is a genuine swing. It does not land with the force the buildup needs.
Manson, Miller and the Casting That Didn’t Happen
The casting history is its own story. In June 2019, Marsden, Heard, Goldberg, Greg Kinnear, Odessa Young and Henry Zaga were in consideration for Stu Redman, Nadine Cross, Mother Abagail, Glen Bateman, Frannie Goldsmith and Nick Andros.
On July 8, Marilyn Manson confirmed to Revolver that he had been cast in an undisclosed role. He also recorded a cover of The Doors’ “The End” with Shooter Jennings for the miniseries. It could not be used, because of the series’ tight budget. That is a loss. A budget too tight for a needle drop is a budget too tight for the show King wrote.
By August 1, Marsden, Heard, Young and Zaga were cast. On September 11, 2019, Skarsgård was cast as Randall Flagg. Production had begun by September 13, 2019. In October, Nat Wolff, Eion Bailey, Katherine McNamara, Hamish Linklater and Heather Graham joined. Natalie Martinez confirmed in December 2019 that she was playing Dayna Jurgens. In January 2020, Clifton Collins Jr. said on Instagram he would play Bobby Terry.
Ezra Miller confirmed a role to GQ in March 2020. It was undisclosed at the time and later revealed to be Trashcan Man. With that news came word that Manson was in talks to play The Kid.
The deep bench is real. It is also the tell. When a show has this many names and this little momentum, the casting is doing work the scripts should be doing.
What Actually Decides This Show
Strip away the noise and three things decide “The Stand,” in order of how much they matter:
- The new ending, co-written by Stephen King and Owen King — the reason to watch this version over the 1990 one.
- Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg — the role with the most room, and the performance that fills it.
- The nine-episode runtime — not texture but the wound, the thing that lets the middle sag.
Everything else is texture. The character changes are cosmetic. The modern-day setting is cosmetic. A tighter six would have forced the writers to choose what the story is about. Nine let them avoid the choice.
So what is “The Stand” about? The show never settles it. It wants to be about faith, about the frail shoulders of a 108-year-old woman carrying the fate of mankind. It wants to be about the seduction of evil. It wants to be a plague story, a road story, a western, a morality play. It is all of those at half strength.
The performances keep it watchable. Goldberg gives Abagail a plain dignity. Marsden holds the center. Skarsgård is genuinely unsettling. That is a cast doing more than the material asks.
But a miniseries is not a cast. It is a shape. And this one has no shape — it has a length. The dark tone critics praised is real, and so is the drag they named. Both are true. The tone is the surface. The drag is the structure.
Where does that leave it against what came before? The 1990 version had its own problems, and this one fixes some of them. It looks better. It acts better. It has a braver ending. It also has more room to wander, and it wanders. A remake that improves the parts and loses the whole is not an improvement.
The thing worth watching is the finale, and the thing worth studying is why the eight hours before it do not earn it. King writing a third ending to his own book, with his son, is the most alive idea in the production. That it arrives at the end of a slow march is the whole story of this “The Stand.”
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