Henry Deaver, a death-row attorney, confronts his dark past when an anonymous call lures him back to his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine.
Tropes
- Death in the Limelight: Warden Lacy gets the most focus in this episode, despite dying in the beginning.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title of the first episode, "Severance" alludes to Warden Lacy's retirement and the fact his method of suicide was severing his own head.
- Retirony: The episode begins on the last day of Dale Lacy's career as warden for Shawshank Prison. Its also the day he drove his car off a cliff into Castle Lake, a noose around his neck, severing his head.
- Private Profit Prison: Shawshank gets bought out from the state by a private corporation.
- Shout-Out: Several, to The Shawshank Redemption obviously.
- The music Dale Lacy plays before his suicide is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, the same record Andy Dufresne played over the prison sound system.
- A prison official informs incoming Warden Theresa Porter that Lacy wasn't the first Shawshank warden to off himself, and points out the bullet hole from Norton's suicide.
- Wham Shot: Zalewski is watching the surveillance feeds for the prison at the end of the episode when he notices that The Kid is missing and the screens flicker showing more and more of the guards dead. The final screen changes to show The Kid standing in the hallway staring back at Zalewski.
