'Castle Rock' Season 2: What Happened In Episode 5, 'The Laughing Place'?

We finally got a good look into Annie Wilkes past on the most recent episode of “Castle Rock,” Season 2, episode 5, an episode dedicated entirely to her. All season, Wilkes has been telling her daughter Joy about “the laughing place,” a place she describes as their ultimate destination. A place where they can finally be happy and settled.

In an earlier episode, she described her parents as complete opposites. Her mother was the kind of person to settle wherever she was, and her father was the kind of man who wanted to go wherever he wasn’t. “Searchers and settlers,” her father called them. Wilkes described herself and her daughter as a “funny old oogy mess of both.”

We got a lot more insight into her parents in this episode — how she bonded with her father, an aspiring author and how she ultimately distanced herself from her demanding and manipulative dentist mother. We get an idea of how Annie became who she is, being a near-perfect combination of the two.

Wilkes is shown as a little girl struggling to read. As she’s teased on a bus for this inability, called terrible names, we see her first act of violence against a fellow student. Wilkes retaliates by hitting her with her lunch box. This is where we first meet her parents, in a visit with the school principal about what to do with the little girl. Ultimately, they decide school isn’t right for her, and the father decides to home school her.

Throughout the episode, her father attempts to teach Wilkes, not with children’s books, but his one manuscript in the making. Wilkes becomes his muse, helping him develop the story. It becomes less about education and more about the father writing this masterpiece of a novel, something that takes him 11 years, according to him. Eventually, her mother intervenes and doesn’t agree with the method, an act that Annie resents.

As we cut to the present time, we find Joy still living with the Somali refugees. It turns out, she’s reading the book Wilke’s father wrote. She is continuing to distance herself from her mother, but Wilkes makes an unexpected visit. The two of them speak briefly and Joy begins asking about her father and insisting on a proper answer. After Annie refuses, she is told to leave.

We cut back to a young Annie, continuing to read her father’s book, despite her mother’s wishes against it.

This is where we’re introduced to another new character, one with more implications to the overall story, Rita Green, who is played by Sarah Gadon. Green’s goal is to teach Wilkes how to properly read. As Wilkes gets better and better at reading, the two of them bond, forming a sort of sisterhood with one another.

Annie’s black and white outlook on life becomes clear during a reading of “Pinocchio” where she proclaims the titular puppet character should have been killed, rather than have a happy ending. Green asks her, “Did your mother teach you that?” Annie’s father steps in and there’s a brief argument about what she should be reading until Rita compliments the man on his book. The tone shifts and they begin talking about it.

The next time we see Rita, some time has passed as she is very visibly pregnant. Her father reveals that his book may have found a publisher. An excited Annie proclaims he found his “laughing place.” His expression changes and he tells her that he’s moving away, being the “searcher” that he is.

Not long after, Annie gets her GED, the goal they’ve been aiming for the entire episode. She looks at a college brochure while her and her mother are out. Annie’s mother asks why she wants to attend a school so close to home. They disagree with each other, leading Annie’s mother to lock to the car door and drive them into a pond.

Annie survives, her mother does not.

The point of no return where all this is upended is when it’s revealed Green and Wilke’s father have been romantically involved and the baby that Green’s been carrying around is her father's. A hysterical Annie accidentally kills her father, which Rita witnesses. She runs to protect their newborn baby and Annie stabs Rita to death with scissors, takes the baby and puts her in a box labeled “The Ravening Angel,” a callback to the opening scene of season 2.

The infant she took from her father and Rita is revealed to be Joy, the girl she lied to about being her daughter for so long. Signal Horizon mentions an interesting detail, that the baby girl’s original name, Evangeline, means “the bearer of good news.” This name, along with her Annie-given name Joy is directly in reference to their journey of finding a happier place.

A present-day Joy questions this after reading “The Ravening Angel” and decides to contact Rita Green, the woman the book was dedicated to. We cut to a present-day Annie Wilkes drinking vodka in a bar with Ace sitting next to her. Joy finds Rita on Facebook and is able to call her. We see a present-day Rita Green, who had survived the stab wound, shocked to hear the name “The Ravening Angel” read out loud to her.

Hulu releases new "Castle Rock" Season 2 episodes on Wednesdays.