Castle Rock Episode 4-The Box: What “The Kid” Said Explained

Finally “The Kid” uttered more than just a few words and it was everything we had hoped it would be and a whole lot that just made my skin crawl.

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 If you weren’t scared of “The Kid” before his deliverance of a bible passage from Revelations should fix that.  There is just such an evil innocence to Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of the enigmatic “The Kid” that it’s hard not to be horrified by him one moment and deeply sympathetic to his plight the next.  It is no small testament to both Skarsgard’s dead-eyed delivery and the genius camera angles of director Michael Uppendahl.  Uppendahl’s knack for using Skarsgard’s height to the best advantage in all his prison cell shots, all while allowing his angelic, haunted face to captivate and compel us to come closer.  This is one character that is on the slowest burning train imaginable.  His story arch is on such a slow trajectory that four episodes in he hasn’t said enough words to complete a small paragraph.  There are barely enough there for a haiku.  Castle Rock has been doling out breadcrumbs like they were precious gold but this week we got a small cracker size crumb and I gobbled it down and have been obsessing about it ever sense.  Finally a little backstory or future story or side story, who knows with this guy.  I can tell you I am hooked. 
The mystery swirling around him had one tiny puzzle piece placed this week(or did it) with the declaration of Revelation 19:13.  The uber-dickish Deputy Warden Reeves decided to taunt and terrify the boy with a bizarre story of some light teeth appetizers when “The Kid” decided to drop some truth of his own on the unsuspecting DW.  For those who didn’t rewind it 16 times, this is what he said.
“He has a name written on Him that only He Himself knows.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and His name is The Word of God.”
This is not a feel-good passage.  Hell, it’s not even a fire and brimstone get your act together or else passage, but a the end is near, watch your six cause the Devil is coming kind of verse.  The verse in question describes the Rider of the White Horse one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  It is widely debated by theologians as referring to both one of the harbingers of death the Four Horseman and Jesus himself as the “Word of God”.  John of Patmos uses this unique moniker for Jesus Christ in his previous book and it has been suggested that John himself is the writer of Revelations making Jesus both a creator and destroyer of life.  The depiction of the first horseman riding a white horse is indicative of the purity of God and he is spreading instead of pestilence the Word of God.  In the traditional and more commonly known definition, the White Rider is Conquest of Pestilence.  This is also a hotly debated topic as some believe the terms refer to insects or other pests while a growing faction believes this is the spread of germs and disease.  It has been speculated that the fourth Horseman was Plague, but as far back as 1917 in Vincente Blasco Ibanez’s novel The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse that sentiment was changing and the first Horseman, “was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad.  At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases.”  Coupled with “The Kid’s words to Henry last week asking if something had started it is clear he knows a major event is coming and he is front and center.  When taken into context with the evil assistants quick onset of full body cancer and our guard’s unhinged shooting spree after fist bumping “The Kid” it is very likely that he is the First Horseman of the Apocalypse and is spreading disease.  Lest we forget poor Dennis Zalewski saw some of this very event in a vision on his monitors several episodes ago much like it is believed John of Patmos had visions of Revelations before writing it.  This guard had no chance and didn’t even know it.  His story had been foretold and he wouldn’t or couldn’t believe what his eyes were showing him.
There were very specific instructions given to the late Warden Lacy on the building of the cage to house “The Kid” and where to keep him.  Who gave those instructions and why are as much a mystery as anything else for now.  Perhaps that cage acted as a sort of Faraday Cage to control the powers of “The Kid”.  There has to be some explanation for how one of the Horseman could be caught and caged by a simple middle-aged man.  Now that he is out of his cage his powers are back to full capacity and he is in no hurry to leave as there is so much depravity all around him.  It is entirely possible his job is simply to spread disease both of the physical and mental variety to make an already evil place even more so.
4 Alternative Castle Rock Theories
That brings us to the purpose of the Four Horseman and ultimately what happens after their arrival.  King’s work is littered with the idea of the End of Days.  The Stand and The Dark Tower trilogy both show the best and worst of humanity.  Who steps up to fill the voids of power and who are the saviors in Castle Rock are for now uncertain.  If “The Kid” is indeed the first Horseman there are three more to come and then three additional seals to be opened before Judgement Day arrives.   Seven seals are opened before the final act descends on the earth and hell is unleashed in the form of either world destruction or a more fantastical view of Hades.  The first four seals are that of the four horsemen.  Each seal is one horseman.  Those horsemen are the previously mentioned White Rider of Pestilence, The Red Rider of War, The Black Rider of Famine and the Green Rider of Death.  The fifth seal releases the “cries of martyrs”, the sixth seal earthquakes and other Geostorm type events and the final seal the heralds seven angels trumpeting before judgment on Earth.
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​​This is some dark stuff to be quoting even at someone as vile as Deputy WardenReeves.  Whether “The Kid” is the Antichrist, Jesus(highly unlikely) or the First Horseman things look grim for Castle Rock.  For all “The Kid’s” creepiness and eerie bible quoting I still maintain he is a good guy, not a bad one.  As with all of King’s work, there are supernatural forces capitalizing on the evil of men.  The Crimson King and Randall Flagg have been doing it for years in countless stories.  Someone was in Desjardin’s box all those years ago and I’m putting my money on “The Kid” being held captive one place after another.  It seems there are very few good guys around to raise the sword for righteousness and even fewer things to fight for.  I’m holding out hope Henry, Molly and Alan will stay firmly in good guy territory despite Molly’s murder of Henry’s father, Alan’s infidelity and Henry’s well whatever he did.  For now, I’m left with still more questions than answers and a head full of bad dreams.  Follow our coverage each week as we explore the oddities of Castle Rock and all its ill-fated citizens.