The Stand 2020 Is Ruining Mother Abigail

The Stand‘s 2020 CBS All Access adaptation has done some things right, but it’s portrayal of Mother Abigail is a betrayal of the character’s core. Stephen King’s literary library contains quite a few memorable Black characters, with some of the most famous including The Shining‘s psychic chef Dick Hallorann, IT‘s Losers’ Club lighthouse keeper Mike Hanlon, and of course, The Stand‘s Abigail Freemantle, better known as Mother Abigail. While not perfect, Abigail is a kind soul, and a firm believer in God, leading the almighty to choose her as his representative in an apocalyptic war.

While definitely one of fiction’s most harrowing depictions of a virulent pandemic – an aspect that’s sadly been kind of glossed over in the 2020 miniseries – The Stand is at its heart a battle of good vs. evil, and the terms are pretty straightforward. People who are good at their core, even if deeply flawed, are called to join Mother Abigail and form a new community of survivors in Boulder, Colorado. Meanwhile, those with an inclination toward evil, or sometimes just a damaged outlook, are drawn to the demonic Randall Flagg and his base in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As realized in The Stand book, Mother Abigail is an at times underwritten, but still compelling character, and that mostly translated to the 1994 miniseries, also written by King. Unfortunately, The Stand 2020’s fourth episode made some major changes to Abigail, and they run counter to her previous depiction.

The Stand 2020 Is Ruining Mother Abigail

As originally depicted by Stephen King, Mother Abigail Freemantle is the daughter of freed slaves, and as The Stand starts is an amazing 108-years-old. Despite her advanced age, she’s still ruggedly independent, living by herself, tending to her home, baking her own bread, and facing down Flagg and his attempts to scare her away from the coming battle. While she occasionally resents her role as a prophet, and the fact she outlived her massive extended family, it’s usually her who gets everyone back on track to do God’s will. When she knows the first plague survivors are soon to reach her house in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, she even travels two days on foot to the nearest farm to capture chickens to slaughter and cook for the weary travelers, being menaced by Flagg during the journey.

Episode four of The Stand‘s 2020 miniseries completely flips the Mother Abigail character on her head. Hemingford Home is changed into an actual nursing home where Abigail is a resident. Instead of tending her home, she spends her days chatting with the corpses of her fellow residents. Instead of the initial survivors arriving at her house, recuperating, and then traveling with her to Boulder, it’s depicted as if Abigail was twisting in the wind until Nick Andros and Tom Cullen arrived to rescue her and take her to Boulder. And this is all after drastically de-aging Abigail into a normal senior citizen. At this point, Mother Abigail is starting to bear little resemblance to King’s creation, and that’s even aside from Whoopi Goldberg’s performance in the role, which has garnered a decidedly mixed reaction. Hopefully the writers have some plot twist designed to save the iconic character.

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