‘Castle Rock’ and the Case for Skipping Episode 1

It’s weird that they changed the wording on the Declaration of Independence to read “We hold these truths to be self-evident that there is way too much television these days.” It’s incredibly true, but … the Declaration of Independence? Really?

Regardless, strategization around how to best consume all the TV we want to consume has become a pastime all of its own. Just look at this very web site, created for the purpose of helping you decide what’s good on streaming these days. You gotta have a plan. And part of any good TV watching plan is to not let the series you want to watch pile up. It’s the same thing for TV as it is with magazines: the higher they stack up, the less likely you are to get to them. It’s never been more important to be able to dive into a show and know if it’s for you or if you can safely drop it. And in the interests of streamlining your TV-watching process and optimizing the time you spend with the shows you love as opposed to the stack of shows you think you might one day get around to loving, here’s my controversial piece of advice:

Consider skipping episode 1.

Which sounds insane! Isn’t episode 1 the most important episode? Where the premise is established, the characters are introduced, and all the pertinent exposition is exposited? How do you even know what show you’re getting if you don’t watch episode 1???

I hear you. I have answers to your questions. In this TED Talk, I will explain how skipping episode 1 is both easier than you think and a much quicker road to figuring out what kind of TV show you’re watching.

Take a show like Hulu’s Castle Rock. A show I very much like (so far)! If you’ve watched the first episode of that show, you know how slow it is and how long it takes to get its story set up. That is one draggy pilot. And it’s not just Castle Rock! Pilots are notorious for being slower and more awkward than the shows they turn into. It makes sense. There is a lot of heavy lifting to do with a pilot, and often that squeezes out time that could be taken to entertain the audience. So why not just start right at episode 2? Are you worried you’ll be hopelessly confused and lost?

Reasons Why Skipping Episode 1 Won’t Leave You Confused:

• Episode 1s are the easiest to get the gist of. Almost always, the business of setting up the plot that’s undertaken in the first episode gets handled far more concisely in the series trailer. Any big surprises at the end of episode 1 will either be covered in the “previously on” scenes or straight-up replayed at the beginning of episode 2.
• Many TV shows follow the old adage that the first 5 episodes of a series (comedies and procedural dramas, in particular) are just repetitions of the pilot anyway. To follow the Castle Rock example, not only are all the major character-defining beats repeated in episode 2, but they’re actually deepened and clarified. We even get a voiceover from Terry O’Quinn’s Warden Lacy, a character who appeared to exit the series in the pilot. The backstories for Henry Deaver (Andre Holland) and Molly Strand (Melanie Lynskey) are clarified and deepened. And we’re introduced to new characters like Molly’s sister (Alison Tolman) and the cheekily named (for Stephen King fans, anyway) Jackie Torrance, played by Jane Levy. Yes, the Bill Skarsgard character is still a total enigma, but you end up SO much farther down the road and so much more immediately immersed in the story by jumping in at episode 2.
• A review and/or recap — which tends to focus on the pilot primarily — will easily deliver everything you need to know from that first episode.

The Benefits of Skipping Episode 1:

• You can avoid — or at least alleviate — the dreaded “wait until episode 2/3/4, that’s when it gets good” problem that has plagued TV shows since the streaming era began. Nobody likes that. You get annoyed when people say it to you, and you feel bad when you have to say that to other people as you recommend shows to them. Increasingly, a “just wait until the second/third/fourth episode to see if you like it” recommendation gets translated as a “no.” At least this way, if you start at episode 2 and don’t like it, you’ve seen the best it has to offer.
• You get to watch the TV show actually behave like the TV show it actually is! Let the trailers and Wikipedia synopses give you the basic gist and pave over the awkwardness of exposition.
• Jumping into episode 2 can be an adventure! You’re in unfamiliar surroundings, picking up context clues, catching up on relationships, figuring out why one character is running away from another. It’s like an episode of Alias (a show with a phenomenal pilot episode that you should NOT skip), where they start out in the middle of a mission and you have to figure out how they got there. It’s a fun, sexy time for all involved.

But What About Art??

• Excellent question. I love art. I love a moody TV show. Sharp Objects is moody as hell, but I would not recommend skipping that show’s first episode — slow as molasses as it is — because a) that’s a mini-series, and those rules are different; and b) the moodiness and atmosphere IS that show.
• Castle Rock, by contrast, or HBO’s Succession, to use another slow-starting drama series as an example, aren’t taking their sweet time to set up intricate character studies (though both shows do have interesting characters). They’re taking their sweet time to set up plot. I have no problem pushing the fast-forward button on a slow-to-announce-itself plot, and neither should you. You’re not required to let TV shows play a shell game with the basic details of their story.
• More likely than not, you’re watching these shows while scrolling through your Twitter feed, so let’s not get too high and mighty about art.
• The whole point of watching TV is to enjoy it, not to skip it. This is true and important to remember. But in skipping one episode in order to more happily enjoy the subsequent nine (or twelve, or twenty-three), ultimately, this is a move to get you into a show quicker. (Or to get you out of a show that’s not your cup of tea.)

Give this skip strategy a try, see how it works out. You might just find it gets you into (or out of) new TV shows a lot quicker. And if you’re really up for something crazy, get back to me about my strategy to jump into long-running shows I’ve never watched by skipping the entire first season.

Stream Castle Rock on Hulu