The further we get into Castle Rock, the less we understand. Confusion and mystery can be expected from anything based on Stephen King's work and Castle Rock's story is vast and boundless, with many questions still unanswered even with two episodes left.
"Filter," the sixth episode, does not offer any clarity but continues to advance the story forward in a terrifying manner. Henry (Holland) stands alone at his father's reburial. "Filter" reveals much about Henry's father and the motives behind his bizarre behavior. Henry continues to hear the ringing in his ears. Throughout the episode, he sees two men staring at him from a distance. These men offer a major turning point in the season, though their roles do not last very long.
Meanwhile, the Kid continues to behave strangely. He wears Reverend Deaver's clothes, listens to his music, and sleeps in his bed when no one is in the house. He also watches the Reverend's old home videos of a young Henry exploring the woods. We hear the Reverend's voice, "The Lord blesses those who listen more than they talk. Ignore the wind. Ignore the sound of your own footsteps." Following these strange behaviors, Henry drops the Kid off at a psychiatric institution, which he later escapes.
Notions of fatherhood permeate the episode. "Filter" is also the first time we see Henry behave as a father when his teenage son, Wendell, comes to visit. Wendell is an outsider—he has never been to Castle Rock and is able to see the strangeness of the town through fresh eyes. He asks Henry about his birth parents. This is the first time someone acknowledges Henry's past prior to Castle Rock, a past he cannot remember.
"What were they like?" Wendell asks. "Your real parents?"
Henry replies without a second thought: "Grandma and Grandpa are my real parents."
The following day, Henry has a series of flashbacks of he and his father walking through the woods, likely triggered by the Kid unearthing the old videotapes. When he goes to confide in Molly about these visions, she makes a startling confession.
"You hated him, Henry. I was there, in the woods the night you disappeared," she says. "You wanted him dead. He was lying there. I pulled out the tube. He was looking right at me when he died. He died because of me. Because it was what you wanted. When I looked down at my hand, it was like it was your hand. You did it through me."
Henry, viscerally upset by this confession, refuses to believe that Molly murdered his father. He flees and abandons her.
As the series progresses, we learn more about Ruth's dementia and her methods for staying grounded in reality. Wendell is the first person she reveals this secret to. Ruth leaves chess pieces around the house as "breadcrumbs" to act as triggers to her memory whenever she is "lost in the past."
In many ways, the way the narrative of Castle Rock is structured in the same way as Ruth's "breadcrumbs." Often, the audience feels lost in the story, unsure of where it's headed. When a new detail is introduced it throws us off a predetermined path, but a detail from past episodes will remind us of where we are in the plotline, even if we don't yet understand the big picture.
At the end of the episode, we finally learn who the two strange men Henry has seen all over town are: Odin Branch and his interpreter, Willie. They give the ringing in Henry's ears a name.
"Your father called it The Voice of God," Odin says. "Or schisma, the preferred nomenclature now. Schisma is the sound of the universe. For some listeners, the schisma sounds like a ringing in the ears."
We learn the Reverend had been spending an inordinate amount of time in the woods creating a device called The Filter in order to hear the schisma. Before his death, Reverend Deaver never got the chance to build this device, but Odin did.
The Filter, an anechoic chamber, creates total silence. "All noise cleansed. What's left is the schisma," Odin tells Henry. "What you hear now is just a rumor. What you'll hear in the filter is the truth. The truth is louder. Believe me."
Odin reveals that he has made himself deaf on purpose using The Filter. The episode ends with Henry forcefully shoved and locked inside the chamber. He convulses in agony, frantically covering his ears. He is deafened by the "truth" and his own father's voice asking him, "Do you hear it now?"
Uncommon Knowledge
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