'Castle Rock' Season Finale Explained

The first season of Castle Rock has concluded on Hulu, finally delivering some answers to audiences while also leaving open a variety of mysteries that could still be explored in future seasons. Check out some of the answers presented by the finale, as well as what has kept us guessing.

WARNING: Spoilers below for Season One of Castle Rock

Arguably the biggest mystery of the entire season was the true identity of "The Kid," played by Bill Skarsgard. He was found in the basement of Shawshank prison and, when he came face to face with Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn), audiences learned that the two had crossed paths 27 years earlier, with Pangborn claiming The Kid looked exactly the same.

The penultimate episode of the season featured The Kid explaining to Molly (Melanie Lynskey) that he came from an alternate dimension in which he was named Henry Deaver and, while traveling through the Castle Rockwoods, awoke in the dimension featured throughout the season. In this dimension, Andre Holland existed as Henry Deaver, with The Kid's arrival in Castle Rock ultimately causing a number of bizarre occurrences to take place while kept as a prisoner in the basement of Shawshank.

In The Kid's dimension, where he was Henry, it was a younger version of Holland's character that mysteriously arrived in the woods and didn't age, which also coincided with strange events in the dimension.

One explanation for most of the events in Season One and a number of other bizarre events that took place in the vicinity of Castle Rock in other Stephen King novels is that the portal in Castle Rock's woods can transport an individual to an alternate dimension and effectively disrupt reality.

Another explanation, however, is that this was all made up by The Kid and he is actually a supernatural being.

The final episode depicted Holland and Skarsgard's characters going into the Castle Rock woods, seemingly so The Kid could go back to his own dimension. In these moments, Holland's Deaver sees a flash of The Kid appearing as a monstrous creature, though it is unclear if this was merely his character's delusion or if The Kid really did briefly reveal his true self.

In the final scenes of the finale, we learn that Holland's Deaver has put The Kid back in the catacombs of a now-shuttered Shawshank. With this dimension's Deaver serving as an attorney, it's likely that he had heard a number of different stories in the courtroom and call into question his ability to sift through people lying to him, seemingly confirming that he didn't believe what The Kid had to say and chose to lock up a threat to his town in which he had since moved to.

From an audience standpoint, there was no definitive answer as to The Kid's true origins, possibly leaving open the possibility that he could continue to have an impact on future seasons of Castle Rock, despite the show's creators having previously confirmed the series would take an anthological format from one season to the next.

What did you think of the Season One finale? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!