I feel like we were denied key moments in this series by having things that were only talked about. The final episode of the series is excellent – the best in the show, if anything because King wrote it and gives a shit about his characters and who they are. But I think showing so little of the nightmares in the beginning (I still maintain two episodes at least were edited into one, because the original slate was for 10 episodes and we got 9 – something tells me the studio said to blow past the plague stuff quickly, because 2020) did a major disservice to this scene in particular. An issue that is not this episode’s fault, I’ll add. But it robs us of context and a lot of what makes Flagg menacing – his magic is very downplayed in general in this series, save in very small bursts.
But after the series is pretty much over you might forget that Fran knows who this man is – she told us this after Stu and Glen joined up. She has spoken to him before. Because the last time she saw this asshole’s face, she was pregnant, and he was menacing her with a rusty coathanger. He seems to have forgotten this, too, because the fact that she bit part of his face off, knowing that, should not have come as a surprise. Fran was ready to throw hands with this fucker the second he appeared. And I think we should have been shown that earlier on to build this up more.