Each week Joe and Terry discuss the most recent episode of CBS All Access’s The Stand, alternating between our respective sites.

Spoilers follow for Episode 3 “Blank Page”...

Episode 1.03 “Blank Page”: The Boulder Free Zone Committee looks to solidify their leadership and bolster the community with a town hall meeting, but Flagg continues to make inroads as he plots to destroy the newly-forming society from within.

TERRY

To quote a newly introduced character, “My laws, Joe.”

I’ve been pretty negative with the back-and-forth time period structure but I’ll say that the opening of “Black Page” is actually how to do it correctly...mostly because it divulges information about character and not plot. We’re thrown into a youthful game of planchette with a quartet of adolescent girls. It’s mysterious and spooky even before the device spells out Nadine’s name.

This opening works on a few levels. Partly it explores the more supernatural elements of the story that have been danced around but not fully explained. It explains that Nadine has been of interest to Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård) for a very long time (also...the grooming aspect of it, that Flagg has been preparing Nadine to be his “queen” since she was a child is gross). It suggests why she has the Flagg stone already. It also helps explore her character in ways the other flashbacks have failed to do.

It’s efficient storytelling that worked.

After Nadine (Amber Heard) wakes up with a gasp, the narrative shifts to Larry and Stu, coming back from a hunting trip when a yellow sports car slowly glides by and the driver falls out. The driver is never named, though the credits indicate he is Heck (TJ Kayama), a minor character from the novel who is crucified for drug use. Here, he’s been crucified as well but writers Jill Killington and Owen King have a different use for the character. As Stu and Larry examine him, he briefly jolts awake and says, “He’s coming!”

Before we can really understand this development, we’re back with Nadine. The story juxtaposes her attempt to coax a frightened Joe (Gordon Cormier) out from under his bed with a flashback to her trying to convince him not to stab Larry with a knife, five months prior. Joe’s had a traumatic childhood and even though we don’t see much in the way of his trauma, we know that Nadine found him outside of Scranton and that he’s mute and kind of feral. Also, in typical Stephen King fashion, he seems to be able to see the evilness in characters, as he keeps giving Harold (Owen Teague) the stink eye.

Meanwhile, Frannie (Odessa Young) is given an ultrasound by Dr Wen (Olivia Cheng) and while she holds up a photo of her and the baby’s unknown daddy, we get a flashback to four months previous with a scene that finally brings Frannie, Harold and Stu (James Marsden) together.

This, unfortunately, doesn’t do too much to develop the characters but it does give us a funny line from Harold who gives Frannie an ultimatum: she can go with the guy who has saved her life, or ”...or you can throw in with this happy asshole and his fucking dimples with no way to know for sure he’s not Jeffrey Dahmer.” Unfortunately, her happy ultrasound gets interrupted with the arrival of the crucified man which triggers another flashback after Stu asks Nick if he knows who could have accurately crucified someone.

Basically, there’s a lot of flashbacks in the first half of the episode. Some, like the opening sequence involving Nadine, work really well to inform characters and reinforce the supernatural element to the story. Others, like the Frannie/Stu/Harold introduction, feel unnecessary. Considering the way Boone’s The Stand is being told I’m not sure that we need to know how they met; that sequence feels a bit ancillary aside from the fact that it provides context to Stu’s introduction to Glen Bateman (Greg Kinnear).

Yes, “Blank Page” introduces more new characters while giving us more flashbacks to characters introduced in the previous episode. But I’ll leave that with you, Joe. What are your thoughts on the newly introduced Glen, his yellow jacket and his idea of progress versus “standing still”? What do we make of Nick (Henry Zaga)’s backstory and pseudo Jesus allegory? What about the decision to his ability to hear, talk and see from both eyes in his dreams? How do we even dig into the character of Tom Cullen (Brad William Henke) and his fabulous Dolly Parton shirt?

JOE

I definitely laughed at the opening scene, Terry, if only because it’s such a horror trope for little girls to play with something demonic and get more than they bargained for. It’s like catnip for horror audiences, so it’s no surprise that we both liked it.

Like you, the Nadine stuff worked really well for me. I really appreciated how her “canyon dream” meeting with Flagg felt distinct from the others, which makes sense considering that he’s not trying to tempt her. He won her over long ago when he professed his interest to her as a child (and yes, definite ick on that detail). Nadine hasn’t been given a ton to do on the series thus far, but I have to commend Heard for playing her as remote and slightly distant, as though she’s weighed down (In my notes, I refer to her as “troubled”).

Her scene with Flagg completely recontextualizes that reading, though. The framing of them - she with her back to him and him slowly embracing her - is tantamount to a romance novel cover. Hell, even her hair is picture perfect! These revelations about Nadine cast doubt on all of her previous actions, which is exciting even when we already knew where this was going courtesy of King’s source material.

This may also be why the Franny, Harold and Stu stuff doesn’t land quite as strongly. Not only is their future already confirmed (unlike someone like Tom Cullen), but they’re so clearly cemented into their cipher roles. Yes, Harold’s line about Marsden’s dimples is funny (we were all thinking it), but Harold is so firmly slotted into the “future villain” role - and has been since his introduction in episode one - that there’s very little that’s interesting or new here. Dedicating time to this trio seems like a waste of time, especially as the other storylines pick up or the series introduces new characters that we could be getting to know.

Folks like Glen, for instance. While I can’t say that he’s the most memorable character, the moment that Kinnear arrived on screen, it felt like seeing an old friend. He’s such a likeable, “aw shucks” actor that you can’t help but immediately root for him and Stu to become fast friends over a decent meal and a few joints.

“Blank Page” unfortunately does lay the whole “unwritten future” angle on a bit thick, though. From Nadine’s scripted future, literally carved into the floor, in that opening scene to Glen’s vision of progress and who gets to rule, to the metaphor that Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) uses to outline to Nick how humanity needs to come together, it’s all very...prescriptive. Add Nick’s physical trials with his hearing and losing his eye en route to becoming the literal voice of the new world, plus a crucifixion storyline, and The Stand went to a very Biblical place this week.

Ordinarily this is where I would accuse the series of being heavy handed, but after two lacklustre episodes, I’m willing to suppress my discomfort with the religious elements because I’m just so thankful for some legitimate conflict. At least now we have confirmation that we’re dealing with two camps of survivors, both of them charting their own vision of the future, both of them doomed to inevitably battle each other for the new world.

Hell, we even get a bit of gnarly body horror as Flagg possesses Heck remotely, reopening his crucifixion wounds to deliver his message before disposing of the body like a husk of discarded meat. It really hammers home the kind of “devotion” that Flagg is looking for from his disciples - an ominous scene that harkens back to what Flagg said during his attempt to tempt Nick earlier in the episode.

But I’ll turn it back to you, Terry. You seem to have opinions about Tom and Greg, so what were your first impressions? Did you, like me, appreciate that Glen refutes the “chosen five”s divine right to rule Boulder? And we didn’t mention Harold’s buddy Teddy (Eion Bailey) when he was introduced in the first episode, but between him and the Heather Graham stuff last week, there’s an uncomfortable undercurrent of predatory rapey men, no?

TERRY

I've always found the Tom Cullen charterer a problematic piece of the adaptations and source material. As a kid, not knowing what was really happening, I found it amusing that he thought everything was spelled M-O-O-N. As a teen and into my adulthood I realized that his character operated almost as comedic relief, particularly in the original adaptation and its deliberate casting of Bill Fagerbakke, who played the funny, kind and dim-witted Dauber on the TV show Coach.

Unfortunately, what reads on paper doesn’t always translate well to screen and having an able-bodied actor play a character who is mentally handicapped doesn’t sit well with me. And, at least here in the introduction, Henke’s performance as Cullen comes across, again, as comic relief. M-O-O-N, that spells awkward. Henke is a good performer and after seeing him as the sociopathic cop on Orange is the New Black, it’s nice seeing him as a kind person...but this character is always going to set me on edge because of the line it walks. And much like the casting of Zaga as a deaf person...it just sits with me wrong.

As for Glen Bateman, I did appreciate the way Glen refutes what’s going on in the Boulder Free Zone. I mentioned this in last week’s recap briefly but I find Mother Abagail’s style of leadership to be rather circumspect. Here’s a woman who has one-on-one meetings with new members of the colony and then tells them they can’t talk to anyone about what was discussed. She uses Nick as “her voice,” which is, in turn, supposed to be the voice of a god. And instead of being involved in any discussions, she tells The Five (Stu, Glen, Frannie, Nick and Larry) that they’re to assume that whatever Nick says comes from her: “Because the magic lady says so.”

...this leadership style seems doomed to fail.

And you’re right, we haven’t really talked about Teddy who Harold saved in episode one from falling into a dump of dead bodies and became insta-friends. I’ll be honest...until this episode I didn’t even know Teddy had a name. He certainly doesn’t have much in the way of a personality other than a desire to collect Blu Rays and be pervy around women. I agree there is an uncomfortable air of sexual assault wafting through some of the male characters, but what’s worse is that I don’t think Boone intends Teddy to be that way. It feels like Teddy is being set up as a good guy who will have a traumatic moment of betrayal with Harold. And that’s icky, in and of itself.

But we’re cresting to the end of “Blank Page,” Joe. We’re officially one-third of the way through the series and conflict is finally being introduced...albeit very slowly. Do you, like me, worry about Abagail’s leadership? Are you itching for the present day action to start picking up and what do you hope happens in the next episode?

JOE

You raise an interesting point about Tom. In some ways, like the flashback-reliant narrative, The Stand appears intent on capitalizing on more modern storytelling devices. But in other ways the show’s reverence for keeping King’s outdated, mildly problematic characters and storylines feels weirdly out of touch. Let’s be honest: neither of the “idiot savant” or “magical handicapped” characters were going to play well in 2020.

As for the unusual way the Boulder Free Zone is being governed, it definitely smacks of favoritism. I’m trying to imagine being a random citizen who is told that these five randomly selected individuals get to make all of the decisions because of <gestures at the sky>. Perhaps it’s just that we’ve been living under the rule of unqualified narcissistic despots and their nepotistic friends for the last four years, but oof. Alas, I don’t anticipate that The Stand is particularly interested in exploring this; judging from how closely Boone and his creative team appear to be sticking to the source material, we’re honing in on Flagg & lackeys vs Abagail and her five disciples.

Perhaps that’s for the best considering the show hasn’t proven yet whether it can balance a multitude of storylines. While you and I have resigned ourselves to the flashback structure, Terry, after a certain point it won’t be sustainable and the show will have to remain fixed in the present.

I’m imagining - and hoping - that next week’s episode will catch us up so that we can start building up the conflict between Boulder and Las Vegas. I’m also hopeful that The Stand will begin to balance out its depiction of these survivors to include those who sided with Flagg. I want to know what their day to day life looks like, not just our “heroes”...though even as I write that, I’m realizing we don’t exactly know what that life in Boulder looks like either. This is a problem with the show!.

Basically I’m ready to move forward, Terry, not back! Grant me this New Year’s wish, The Stand. Let’s get on with it already!

Find out next week as we return to Queer.Horror.Movies to talk about Episode 4, “The House of the Dead.”