YMMV / The Stand (2020)

• Awesome Music:
  • Marilyn Manson's cover of "The End" by The Doors is Darker and Edgier than the original, and was written for this series.
  • Also Flagg's unofficial theme, "The Stranger" by Billy Joel.
• Broken Base: With critical consensus being far lower than expected (with a 56% consensus on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic), this reaction has appeared within the fanbase.
• Complete Monster: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man, is a demonic being who unleashes the Captain Trips virus, killing off 99% of the world's population. Building his own society from the remains of Las Vegas, Flagg allows his citizens to engage in all sorts of hedonistic debauchery, from rampant orgies to sexual slavery, even forcing innocents to engage in bloody gladiator matches for his people's viewing pleasure, while crucifying those who go against him. Doing what he can to kill Mother Abigail and her Free Zone residents, Flagg plants Nadine and Harold as spies tasked to destroy them, while also planning to acquire a nuke to drop on the Zone. Brutally murdering his underlings for any mistakes made, Flagg later impregnates Nadine to birth his spawn, knowing she'll die from childbirth. With Abigail's spies in his grasp, Flagg attempts to drown them in front of his people, while murdering those who try to speak out against him. Killed by the hand of God, Flagg attempts to return to the mortal world by possessing a near-dead Frannie in return for her family's protection, only to arrive in an alternative world to restart his entire plan again.
• Moment of Awesome: In the final episode, Flagg causes Fran to fall into a well. As she's unconscious, he brings her into a dream where he shows her visions that she's dying, Stu will also die in an accident and baby Abigail will starve to death without them. He offers her a deal; her family's safety, for a kiss and to see through her eyes from time to time. Tormented by her baby's cries, she seems about to give Flagg his kiss... but then bites him instead, drawing blood, and throws a Shut Up, Hannibal! over her shoulder as she runs away. That's right, she bit the Antichrist.
  Fran: Not for my husband, not for my baby, not for anything! Get thee behind me, you fucking bastard!
• Nightmare Fuel: Larry's hallucination while trying to escape Manhattan through the sewers in the second episode. He comes across his dead mother's body, which begins admonishing him for leaving her, before rats burst out of her mouth.
• Special Effect Failure: There's a scene where a wolf - being the avatar of Flagg - appears in front of Mother Abigail. Unfortunately it's very obvious it's a camera trick whereby the wolf is standing on a table in the extreme foreground and therefore some distance from Abigail. The wolf is even distractingly large, being noticeably nearer the camera.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • One major complaint about the series' structure is beginning post-plague and then flashing back to how various characters handled it. This not only complicates the story, but some reviewers felt robbed it of the power of the plague's fast spread and collapse of society.
  • It becomes worse in later episodes bouncing around the timeline and events majorly out of order (i.e. characters told of "spies being sent to Vegas" without any explanation of why or who the Vegas characters are) which once more overcomplicates the tale.
  • Purists of the book complained about the series adding how Flagg was actually responsible for Campion fleeing the base to spread the virus. The book, at least the original edition, is fairly vague about Flagg's origins, and implies, perhaps even states, that he simply saw the plague as an opportunity. The revised version is more clear, though still not explicit, about Flagg not really being human, having been around for centuries, and adopting new identities and powers depending on the world and situation he's in. This is backed up by King's later reveal that he and the Man in Black from The Dark Tower are the same being. Despite that, the idea of him being the author of the Apocalypse rather than just an opportunist is an unforgivable change for some.
  • New Vegas is changed from an order-obsessed, dictatorial regime with zero tolerance for drugs into a chaotic hippie free-for-all, save for the public slaughter every so often, which defeats the point of Flagg's brand of evil.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Averting Show, Don't Tell, most of the character beats associated with General Starkey in the book (including his command during the initial onset of the outbreak and his desperation as the world succumbs to the virus) are instead related by a doctor to Stu in the control center in Vermont, while Starkey himself (played by J. K. Simmons) is limited to be a One-Scene Wonder who explains a handful of plot points to Stu before shooting himself, as in the original work.
  • Nick Andros ends up getting a lot less screentime after arriving to Boulder due to a lot of moments with him and Tom Cullen being cut or altered significantly.
  • Unlike the novel and the 1994 miniseries (where the character was played by Ossie Davis), the Race Lift version of Judge Farris, who has a fairly substantial role in the narrative, is heavily scaled down, with the actress who played the character not even properly introduced until her second-to-last scene, while the major incident Farris is involved in (encountering Bobby Teddy on the road to Vegas) is omitted completely, instead to after her corpse is brought to Flagg.
  • Bobby Terry, somehow, has even less to do than the version of the character (played by Sam Raimi) in the 1994 miniseries. While the latter set up Terry and his partner's pursuit of Judge Farris, failure to complete their mission and eventual treatment by Flagg, the 2020 version of the character is introduced after the mission in question, is played by a name actor (Clifton Collins Jr.) and has even less screentime, being killed off after he arrives in Vegas and has a single scene criticizing Flagg before the latter messily beats him to death in a hotel elevator.

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