Oh my god HELLO you dirty birds, and welcome to Screen Time with Sarah Ruthless!

This is
the first season of my cock-a-doodie podcast, and it’s all about my #1 favorite activity ever:
screen time, with a special in-depth take on a genre I have avoided all my life… horror.

After the gnarly, aggressively aesthetic mind-fuck that was last week’s It Follows, I decided to
shift into a very different gear with something a little slower, a little simpler, and a little more
classic… I am speaking, of course, about the extraordinary 1991 film Misery based on the book
by Stephen King.

So this is actually one of the few films on my list that I had seen before, but it was a good 10+
years ago. The decision for Misery this week all started because I like to watch an episode of
Seinfeld every night before I go to bed, it just helps me relax and unwind and it always makes
laugh, plus there’s like 5000 episodes of it so by the time I finish, I can go all the way back to the
beginning and it feels like a brand new show again. But since it’s on Hulu it doesn’t
automatically skip the end credits for me, and I’m usually too lazy to grab the clicker and fast
forward through them, so I sit through the all the production company titles and shit. Which is
when I realized - somehow for the first time? - that Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock
Entertainment, and I was like, “Huh, that’s weird, there’s a show called Castle Rock, I wonder if
they’re related?” Which led me down that good ol’ internet rabbit hole wherein I was informed
thusly: Castle Rock Entertainment was founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, Rob Reiner, Andrew
Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn, and it was named by Reiner because he was such a
big fan of Stephen King.

To be honest, I’ve never been exposed to much of Stephen King’s work - as I have mentioned
before, I grew up in a horror genre free home, but my mother is a writer, so the only Stephen
King book we ever had in our house was his one autobiographical work, “On Writing,” which is
hilariously the only Stephen King I have ever read.

All this to say, up until last week I was probably the only person in America who didn’t know that
Castle Rock is the location of a whole bunch of Stephen King’s stories - one of the many cool
things that this enormously prolific writer has done is manage to create an entire multiverse, and
there are actually tons of little easter eggs and crossovers in his works, which is easier to do
when you have a reoccurring fictional location like Castle Rock.

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So then I was like “You know what? I haven’t seen the first season of Castle Rock in 2 years,
since it came out, I wouldn’t hate revisiting that.” I remembered actually really liking it -
specifically episode 7; IFKYK - but being super disappointed by the ending, and was curious
how it would hold up to my tastes and perspective now that I’ve been a bit more seasoned by
the genre. It was actually more cohesive (and less scary) the second time around; episode 7 still
hit me like a misunderstood gun shot; and I was about 25% less annoyed with the lack-of-
closure ending.

But all of this is neither here nor there, because it wasn’t until I revisited season 1 that I even
found out there is a season 2, which is when I realized what the fuck season 2 is even about:
ANNIE WILKES! And when I screamed that aloud to my partner, he was like “who the hell is
Annie Wilkes?” And I was like “Oh my fucking god drop everything you’re doing right now, we
are watching Misery immediately,” and then we did, and I was like “Holy shit I have to do my
podcast this week on it” and here we are. As you can tell, my vetting process is super academic
and thorough. …Not to detract too much from the subject at hand - because this episode will be
about the 1991 film, not the second season of Castle Rock - but I have to say that now that I
have finished the show… SO MUCH DISAPPOINTMENT! But more on that later.

First things first, some *trigger warnings* for this episode include… Substance abuse, addiction,
Muchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Hollywood’s treatment of plus size women, Rob Reiner’s
career choices, and more infanticide! I wasn’t expecting that to be a reoccurring theme, but here
we are!

Now, ICYMI, here’s that quick plot review:

It is a snowy, blizzardy day in Silver Creek, Colorado, where famed bodice-ripper novelist Paul
Sheldon is finishing up his manuscript on a brand new book that has nothing to do with the long-
suffering, pioneer-romance heroine Misery Chastain that he’s made his entire career off of. No,
this is a whole new direction for the author, one he hopes will mark the beginning of him actually
getting taken seriously by his fans. As is his tradition, after he finishes the book he has a single
glass of champagne, one cigarette, then he hops in his car to drive back to NYC to his eagerly
waiting publisher.

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But the blizzard gets the best of him, and Paul ends up swerving off the road and into a snowy
ditch! Miraculously, a hearty broad named Annie Wilkes was out walking around her property,
finds Paul, and carries him back to her farm house; and as luck would have it, Annie just so
happens to be a retired nurse! The phone lines are down and the roads are all closed due to the
storm, so a hospital can’t be reached, but Annie patches Paul’s severely broken legs the best
she can, and pumps him full of narcotics. The next few days are a blur, but eventually he wakes
up to find that Annie Wilkes knows exactly who he is - in fact, she’s his #1 fan - and has even
named her beloved pig Misery after his trademark character.

As a thank you to her, Paul lets Annie read the rough draft of his new manuscript… But Annie’s
not a fan of it at all. She wants Misery back, and she’s not a fan of all the cockadoodie swearing
either, even if it is autobiographical. And since Annie is a God-fearing Christian woman, she
knows that the only way to purify the world of this kind of filth - and more importantly, Paul’s soul
- is to burn it clean. So she does the only logical thing and pulls out a BBQ, puts Paul’s
manuscript on it, and after threateningly splashing lighter fluid all over his bed, kindly convinces
him to light it on fire.

Things get even more tense when Annie reads the brand new Misery book that’s just hit the
shelves, and learns the tragic fate of her favorite character - Paul’s killed her off, as he was
determined to leave her and the genre behind for good. But Annie refuses to accept that for an
answer, and after some light physical abuse, she goes into town and purchases him a typewriter
and paper, sets him up an office, and tells him to start writing: he’s going to bring Misery back to
life whether he likes it or not. Oh yeah, and the phone lines and roads are totally up and running
again, but Annie’s made it clear he’s a prisoner and he’s not going anywhere til she gets what
she wants.

Meanwhile, Paul’s publisher is actually starting to wonder where the hell he is, and we have a
cute little subplot between the world’s most adorable small town sheriff and his horny wife as
they go trucking around Silver Creek looking for clues about Paul Sheldon’s disappearance.
Paul is still desperately trying to escape the truly psychotic Annie Wilkes - he even stockpiles
the drugs she’s giving him, convinces her to have a fancy dinner with him, and tries to drug her -
but in the world’s most tense dinner party ever, she knocks over the wine glass and his attempt
is all for naught.

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One day while Annie’s out buying more paper, Paul even manages to escape the room he’s
locked in, only to discover that Annie has a literal shrine to him and his Misery books; but more
curiously, she has a little scrapbook, filled with newspaper clippings about all the hospitals she
used to work in as a nurse… until she was FIRED for MURDERING BABIES AND OLD
PEOPLE!!! She was called “The Dragon Lady” and even brought into court, but was somehow
acquitted? Anyway she’s here now and Paul realizes he’s truly fucked.

But he’s actually way more fucked than he thinks, because Annie figures out he’s been
escaping his room and snooping around her house, and decides to teach him another lesson:
and in one of the most iconic horror movie scenes of all time, Annie Wilkes performs a good ol’
fashioned hobbling. She secures a 4x4 between Paul’s ankles for support, and gives each foot
a good solid thwack with a sledgehammer, rendering his already fucked up legs completely and
utterly fucked. When the deed is done, Annie looks at him dead in the eyes and whispers, “God,
I love you so much.”

Luckily the adorable sheriff connects the dots and finally makes his way to Annie’s farm, and
figures out she’s keeping him hostage - only to have that crazy bitch shoot him in the heart with
a shotgun. RIP Sheriff Buster. Annie realizes that their time has come for her and her star-
crossed lover, and the only way to escape this terrible mortal coil is to commit suicide together.
Paul convinces her to put it off until that evening, when everything can be perfect, when his new
Misery book is finally done, the one that brings her back to life. Annie agrees, but falls straight
into Paul’s trap. He’s managed to swipe the lighter fluid and a match, and is holding the Misery
manuscript hostage - Annie lunges but it’s too late, he lights it on fire. As she’s trying to salvage
it, he hits her on the head with the typewriter and shoves the burning pages down her throat.
Not one to be outdone, Annie puts up a hell of a fight - but even with his almost useless lower
half, Paul manages to get the upper hand, and Annie falls face first into the typewriter, and our
villain is finally dead.

Fast forward 18 months and Paul is back in NYC, somehow managing to hobble around with
the help of a cane, and he’s celebrating the release of that new Misery novel with his publisher.
She asks him if he’s really sure that’s what he wants - he tried so hard to leave the genre, after
all - and wouldn’t he rather re-write that autobiography Annie made him burn, or better yet, write

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about his whole harrowing experience with her? But Paul shakes his head sadly and says no,
this is what he is destined to write, for better or for worse.

OH BOY I CAN’T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT THIS COCKADOODIE MOVIE! *It’s time for some
info dumping, yeah*

So there’s a few things I want to dive into here:

Alright, you know I love a good fun fact! So obviously we are all familiar with the inimitable
portrayals of Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes by none other than James Caan and Kathy Bates,
but do you know the exclusive laundry list of considered Hollywood celebs who almost got the
part?

The role of Paul Sheldon was offered to: Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas,
Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Gene Hackman, Dustin
Hoffman, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, Denzel Washington, and Bruce
Willis, ALL OF WHOM DECLINED. Although in 2016, Bruce Willis would end up accepting the
role for the Broadway production of Misery, which he starred in with Laurie Metcalf. (It is one of
my greatest regrets in life that I will never get to see it because of Covid and because it’s not
running anymore, because I BET THE PRODUCTION WAS INCREDIBLE.) Allegedly, there
were three other actors who also expressed interest in the role, although it’s unclear if they
were ever actually auditioned… Are you ready for this? Tim Allen, Robin Williams, and BILL
MURRAY. My brain can’t handle it. Like what the actual fuck.

But even more mind-blowing, let’s address the list of starlets who were interested and/or tried
out for Annie Wilkes: Angelica Huston, Jessica Lange, Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler,
Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnel (!!!) and MARY TYLER MOORE?!?!?!? Like NO ONE could

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replace Kathy Bates, but I would low key give my right titty to see the screen test for Mary Tyler
Moore playing Annie Wilkes.

It was actually William Goldman - the screenwriter who adapted the book for film - who insisted
on casting Kathy Bates, whom he had seen onstage in New York for years. Reiner agreed that it
was a smart choice to cast a relative unknown, so the audience had no presuppositions about
her character. It was so clearly the right choice for numerous reasons; and although I know the
Oscars don’t really mean shit and it’s all political I can’t help it, I went to theatre school and I’ve
dreamed about getting one since I was five years old, so even though I hate myself for it I am a
WEALTH of Academy Awards trivia and I cry every year when I watch them - and in ’91 (a great
year, because it was the year I was born) Kathy Bates became the FIRST WOMAN to win an
Oscar for Best Actress in a horror movie. The first actor to win an Oscar for a horror film was
Frederic March for his performance as the title characters in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in 1931; and
as of now, the only other winners for acting in a horror film are Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s
Baby, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, and Natalie Portman in Black
Swan. And as if Kathy Bates’ presence on that very short list wasn’t cool enough, the year she
won her Oscar she beat out none other than Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and Dame Meryl
Streep (EVER HEARD OF HER) in Postcards From The Edge. But I’m gonna gush more about
Kathy Bates later.

Now for the ways in which Misery is actually meta AF. In case you’re just pretending to know
what “meta” means - no shame, learning is cool, okay? - meta is an adjective used to describe a
creative work that refers to itself or the conventions of it’s genre. Traditionally, it’s when
something breaks the 4th wall - like when the narrator or actor talks to the audience or
acknowledges their awareness of being in a movie - but it can also just be when “life imitates of
art.” In this case, I’m referring to the not-so-secret metaphor behind the story of Misery, and how
the making of it affected the cast and crew in equally thematic ways.

Let’s start with what King always said Misery was about: his fans. One of King’s primary
inspirations for the story was the reaction of his 1984 fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon.
Many fans rejected it entirely because they had come to know, love, and demand only the best
of horror from King, and felt jilted the one time he tried to expand his oeuvre. So the character

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Paul Sheldon feeling chained to the Misery books by his fans was a not so subtle reference to
how King felt chained to horror.

In that sense, director Rob Reiner actually had a lot to relate to. Millennials might only know him
as Zooey Deschanel’s dad in New Girl, but he actually started his career on All in The Family,
where he played the liberal son-in-law foil to the famously cantankerous Archie Bunker. In the
early 70s, it was the most-watched television program in the United States for five seasons, and
earned Reiner two Emmys and five Golden Globe nominations. He was so famous for the role
that his character’s nickname, “Meathead” (given to him by Archie Bunker) followed him
throughout his career; to this day Reiner laments that he could win the Nobel Prize and they’d
still write “Meathead” on it.

But by the early 80s, Reiner was ready to step behind the camera and try his hand at directing.
His first film - and I had NO IDEA about this - was the Christopher Guest mockumentary This is
Spinal Tap! After that he went on to direct The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, and When Harry
Met Sally. Although Stand By Me was technically a Stephen King adaptation, Rob Reiner had
pretty much locked himself into a comfortable pigeon-hole as a Hollywood funny-man and rom-
com guy. And despite - or rather, because of - his impressive resume, the public was very
ambivalent about the choice for him to direct one of Stephen King’s iconic horror novels - but he
was actually King’s only choice to do it. King had been openly displeased with Stanley Kubrick’s
handling of The Shining, but because of his personal friendship with Reiner, he trusted him for
the job.

When Reiner was questioned if Misery was really the right project for him, he said: "It's
important for me to find my way into the film... and as you will see, the movie's really about a
man who is trapped by his own success and is desperately trying to break out and establish
himself in a different way. I felt very much those feelings when I finished All in the Family.”

To prepare for the admittedly intimidating project, Reiner said that he meticulously studied Alfred
Hitchcock’s take on the horror/thriller genre, and watched every single Hitchcock film to prepare.
According to James Caan, he had Hitchcock on his mind so much that one day he came to set
and overheard Reiner yelling at himself, “Who do you think you are, Alfred Hitchcock?!”

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If you haven’t already or if it’s just been a while, I genuinely urge you to watch Misery and pay
attention to the camera work, because Rob Reiner fucking pulled it off. Like full round of
applause and standing ovation. I never in a million years would’ve guessed this was done by the
same guy who gave us “it goes all the way to eleven” or “Humperdink, Humperdink,
Humperdink!” And honestly, if it was the late 80s and I was friends with Stephen King and had
his personal blessing to direct the film adaptation to any one of his books, I would NEVER have
picked Misery. In a lot of ways, it actually makes more sense to me as a stage play: it takes
place almost entirely in one location, and not only that, it’s basically just one ROOM. The plot
revolves around one man and one woman, and one of them is limited to a BED for 90% of the
story. And yet Reiner manages to make it so dynamic and create SO MUCH TENSION. It’s
definitely a slower pace than a lot of the horror we’re used to now, but it is by no means “slow.”
The methodical reveal of Annie Wilkes as a villain is powerfully effective, and Reiner manages
to make the audience feel as paralyzed, helpless, and determined to escape as Paul Sheldon.

It’s actually a curious revelation for me, because when I really think about it, the movies that I
consider my all-time favorites, not just my sentimental favorites but the ones that in my book are
fundamentally perfect, tend to fit this kind of structure: small cast, a few locations, and not
necessarily dialogue-heavy. (Like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Parasite, The Cook The Thief His
Wife & Her Lover, just to name a few.) Obviously not all my favorites fall into this mold, but a
surprising amount do. It’s probably related to my fervent love of bottle episodes, but there’s
something just really fucking spectacular about when you put a few interesting characters into a
fishbowl, step back, and watch them successfully percolate into something fascinating.

So now for the “real” meaning behind the story: In the early 70s, King developed a drinking
problem. Soon after the 1974 release of Carrie, his mother died of cancer; King said that his
alcoholism was so severe that he was drunk while delivering her eulogy, and that he barely
remembers writing Cujo shortly after. His family staged an intervention in the early 80s, and he’s
been sober ever since.

After refusing to speak about his motivations for writing Misery for two decades, Stephen
King finally acknowledged it in the early 2000s in his autobiographical book On Writing. He
stated that Misery was indeed about his battle with substance abuse, and that Annie Wilkes was
a representation of his dependency on drugs and what it did to his body: made him feel alone

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and separated from everything, while hobbling any attempts he made at escape. He didn’t want
to announce it at the time because he wasn’t ready, and he was afraid it would detract from the
story. In a 2006 interview King said:

“Take the psychotic nurse in Misery, which I wrote when I was having such a tough time with
dope. I knew what I was writing about. There was never any question. Annie was my drug
problem, and she was my #1 fan. God, she never wanted to leave.”

What’s curious is that King wasn’t the only one involved in Misery battling substance abuse
issues. The only person Hollywood was more concerned about on the film than Rob Reiner was
the choice to cast notorious bad-boy James Caan. He was at the bottom of the casting list for a
number of (sadly legitimate) reasons, the biggest of which was his reputation for partying. But
ironically, his personal history actually kind of made him the perfect choice for the role of a
sellout artist trying to turn his career around. It wasn’t a perfect underdog triumph story,
however: one day during shooting, he came to set so hungover that the entire day's worth of
filming was unusable and needed to be reshot. According to Caan, Reiner covered for the actor,
saying there had been issues with the film lab. But when Caan found out the real reason for
reshoots, he was so mortified that he actually paid for all the time wasted, and never showed up
on set like that again.

And to go even deeper - I haven’t read the book (yet), but I know from my research that one of
the key themes is actually pretty downplayed in the film: Paul’s drug addiction. In the book, Paul
Sheldon has just gotten over a substance abuse problem and is getting his life back on track
right when the accident (and ensuing hostage situation) occurs. He busts both his legs up and
Annie has to start drugging him for the pain. We do see this a little in the movie - Paul eventually
stops taking the pills and starts hiding them; but there’s nothing that references how this was a
problem Paul had already tried so hard to kick.

I can only speculate, but I think Reiner and Goldman chose not to make Paul’s history with drug
addiction a bigger part of the story for two reasons: one, the book is written in a first-person
narrative, and translating his foggy-headed memories to screen would’ve been kind of
impossible without flashbacks. That would’ve really detracted from the tension of watching him
be stuck in one physical place the whole time - if the audience could “leave” the room through

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his memories, that ultimately would’ve sucked all the pressure out of feeling trapped, which I
think we can all agree is one of the primary successes of the film.

I’m taking a few imaginative liberties with the second reason here, but I don’t feel like I’m that far
off base: I think Reiner and Goldman didn’t want to abuse the personal histories of James Caan
and Stephen King. Since the character of Paul Sheldon hit so close to home for both of them, it
would’ve almost felt too intimate if we’d really excavated and exploited the addiction sub-plot.
Not dissimilar to the way Babadook successfully managed to turn trauma into a metaphorical
boogeyman, I think the subtle villain serves far more powerfully in the allegory of Annie Wilkes
than it would’ve if we watched a 90 minutes of a man struggling with a literal drug addiction.

One more fun fact: in the book, Paul Sheldon doesn’t actually burn the new Misery manuscript,
he burns a decoy - but in the film, James Caan burns the real thing. Again, this is just
speculation, but it’s been rumored that Reiner made the change for the screen because he
knew that deep down, King was afraid of “burning the real thing;” meaning he wasn’t quite brave
enough to totally let go of his ball and chain to his fans - and, probably, to his other addictions. I
think it’s reasonable - and kind of lovely - to imagine that Reiner wanted Paul Sheldon to really
burn the book in the movie so that Stephen King could see it and maybe be comforted by hope
that he could write outside the horror genre - sober - and that people would ultimately be
supportive.

So how about that Annie Wilkes, huh?! I am ENDLESSLY fascinated by the fact that King
admits she was his favorite character to write - and the man has written a LOT of characters. He
just felt she was the most sincere, the most genuine. In an original draft of the book, Annie
Wilkes was actually going to murder Paul Sheldon, cut him up, and feed him to her pig, Misery,
then use his skin as a cover for the book he wrote for her, and call it “The Annie Wilkes First
Edition.” While that’s an absolutely delightful fun fact, I am admittedly very glad that got edited
out. But King isn’t wrong about her - there’s something so fucking creepy about a villain who
really, genuinely believes they are doing the right thing, without a doubt in their mind. And I don’t
think it would’ve been as successful if Annie was a more mentally stable character.

Like, for example, one of the all time scariest movie villains is the legendary Nurse Ratched
from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Part of what makes her so terrifying is that you can tell,

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deep down, she’s crippled by the fear that her actions are impure - namely, handing out
lobotomies to people just because they piss her off. She’s trying to convince herself that she’s
doing it “for the good of the patient,” but you KNOW that some part of her knows she’s really just
doing it for her crazed need for power. But despite how awful what she does is, it’s so torturous
to watch because you know that she isn’t chemically imbalanced or suffering from a mental
illness, she’s just a regular person pushed to the absolute edge by her own hubris.

I think when we have a character who’s quote-on-quote “mentally stable,” that kind of doubt and
questioning is critical. It would feel very one note and really not believable if she genuinely never
agonized over what she was doing. But the loophole there - and what makes Annie such a
troubling, mesmerizing villain - is that she’s excused from the necessity for self-reflection
because she’s been established as a deeply mentally unhealthy person: she has erratic mood
swings, a violent temper, a deep obsession with a fictional character and a person she’s never
met until now, and as we learn halfway through the film: she also has an extremely troubled
history and has spent the last several decades in almost complete isolation. The woman is not
well, and therefore her fundamentalist behavior makes a lot of sense. The logic renders it
believable, and the fact that it’s believable makes it terrifying.

Of course all of this was brought exquisitely to life by the incredible performance of Kathy Bates.
In an interview that came out shortly after the film, she said:

“I have always had a problem with my weight. I'm not a stunning woman. I never was an
ingenue; I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger it was a real problem,
because I was never pretty enough for the roles that other young women were being cast in.
The roles I was lucky enough to get were real stretches for me: usually a character who was
older, or a little weird, or whatever. And it was hard, not just for the lack of work but because you
have to face up to how people are looking at you. …All of us would just like to be real people.
But for women especially, somehow movies have gotten to be about glamour: either you're
gorgeous or you're a dog.”

But what I think is perhaps the most interesting thing about Annie Wilkes is that she’s not a
“dog.” She’s not a hag, she’s not some hideous witch in the woods. She’s just kind of a normal,
average, boring person. The kind of woman you’d see at a church bake sale, or holding up the

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line at the grocery store with a manilla envelope full of coupons. She’s a nobody. And it’s her
invisibility that makes her the perfect candidate to go unnoticed for a long time as a literal
psychopath. And it’s that tension of how close to normal she seems that makes her role as the
captor really chilling - like Stephen King definitely could’ve gone in a different direction with this
story; if some modern horror filmmaker tried to make this story today, I feel like the sexual
tension would’ve been a lot more exaggerated, that Annie would’ve been played by some hot
young thing trying to possess and control Paul by using sex as a weapon. But it’s actually so
much more effective to essentially see Paul Sheldon be “neutered” by this really Plain Jane
woman who sort of crosses back and forth between starstruck stalker and perverted Mother
Figure. In that sense she’s sexless, but in a really eerie way - it all serves into how she’s
emotionally and mentally stunted, which is why she’s capable of doing the things she does.

So there actually is some information out there on the work Kathy Bates and Rob Reiner did to
develop the Annie Wilkes character, because in the book we only see her from Paul’s
perspective. Kathy, being a well-trained theatre actor, so clearly did her homework. Her and
Reiner agreed that Annie had been sexually abused by her father as a child, which led to her
obsession with playing the role of a caretaker later in life. In the movie we see the clips from that
newspaper informing us that she had a super dark history as a nurse, and was haunted by a
trail of infants and elderly people who “mysteriously” died under her care. According to Reiner,
this was loosely based on the real life serial killer and “Angel of Mercy,” Genene Jones.

Who is Genene Jones, you may ask? She’s an American serial killer, responsible for the deaths
of up to 60 infants and children in her care as a licensed vocational nurse during the 1970s and
80s. She was adopted by a nightclub owner and his wife, and worked as a beautician before
attending nursing school in her late 20s. She married her high school sweetheart at 18 and they
divorced 6 years later; she had two children with him. While working as an LVN at the Bexar
County Hospital, a “statistically improbable number of children” died under her care. Because
the hospital feared being sued, it simply asked all of its LVNs, including Jones, to resign, and
staffed the pediatric ICU exclusively with registered nurses. No further investigation was
pursued by the hospital.

Jones left and took a position at a pediatrician's clinic in Kerrville, Texas, where she was
charged with poisoning 6 children. A doctor finally noticed puncture marks in a bottle of

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anesthesia that would cause cardiac arrest in small children, that only he and Jones had access
to. At her 1984 trial, prosecutors said Jones had injected children with drugs to demonstrate the
need for a pediatric intensive care unit at their hospital. Other prosecutors theorized that she
was trying to appear as a sort of "miracle worker" by saving some of her victims. She is still alive
today and in prison at the age of 70; she won’t be eligible for parole for another 17 years.

Since Misery the film came out about 7 years after all this went down, I totally get why Genene
Jones was fresh on Reiner’s mind as an inspiration for Annie Wilkes… But I actually think there
was an even better figure in history that captures her essence, and you better believe I’m gonna
tell you about her, because I don’t think female serial killers get enough attention.

To be perfectly clear, I’m actually NOT one of those people who obsesses over serial killers.
Like I do not enjoy watching documentaries about them, or listening to the ten thousand very
credible podcasts about them… But at the same time, I really enjoyed Netflix’s Mindhunter? At
first glance it might seem like it’s just another show about serial killers, but it’s really not - it’s a
show about the people trying to figure them out, which is what I’m actually fascinated by. I don’t
really want to know what the serial killers did - at least not in any gruesome detail - but I am
really curious about how they got there, and how they justified what they did. That is a lot more
interesting to me, the humanity of it; and, of course, you know I love dissecting childhood
trauma. And it’s not because I think trauma is an excuse for anything. Quite the opposite: I think
trauma is like a thousand jumbled puzzle pieces… and I really like solving puzzles.

But I digress: Let’s talk for a moment about Honora “Jolly Jane” Toppan!
- Honora Kelley was born in 1854, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Her mother died from
tuberculosis when she was very young, and her father, Peter, was the town drunk; nicknamed
“Kelley the Crack,” known for being eccentric and abusive.
- In later years, Kelley became the source of many local rumors concerning his supposed
insanity, the most popular one being that his madness finally drove him to sew his own
eyelids.
- When she was 6 years old, her father relinquished Honora and her 8 year old sister Delia to
the Boston Female Asylum, a girls orphanage. He never saw them again. Documents from
the asylum note that they were "rescued from a very miserable home”.

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- No records exist of Delia and Honora's experiences during their time in the asylum, but
reportedly, Delia became a prostitute while their older sister Nellie (who was too old to live in
the orphanage) was committed to an insane asylum. 
- When Honora was 8 years old, she was placed as an indentured servant in the Toppan home.
She was never formally adopted, but they accepted her as one of their own, and she took
their last name.
- In her early 30s, she began training to be a nurse at Cambridge Hospital. Unlike her early
years, where she was described as brilliant and terrible, at the hospital she was well-liked,
bright and friendly, evoking the nickname "Jolly Jane”.
- Once Toppan became close with the patients, she picked her favorite ones. The patients were
normally elderly and very sick. During her residency, Toppan used her patients as guinea pigs
in experiments with morphine and atropine; she altered their prescribed dosages to see what
it did to their nervous systems. She spent considerable time alone with patients, making up
fake charts and medicating them to drift in and out of consciousness and even getting into
bed with them.
- Toppan was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889;
there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year. She briefly
returned to Cambridge but was soon dismissed for administering opiates recklessly. Toppan
then began a career as a private nurse.
- She began her poisoning spree in earnest in her early 40s: first she killed her landlord and his
wife, then poisoned her foster sister Elizabeth. A few years later she moved in with the widow
of one of her former patients (whom she had murdered), and within a few weeks, she
murdered the widow, his sister, and two of his daughters.
- The surviving members of the widow’s family ordered a toxicology exam on one of the
murdered daughters, and when it was discovered that she’d been poisoned, Jolly Jane was
arrested. By 1902, she confessed to 31 murders.
- She insisted upon her own sanity in court, claiming that she could not be insane if she knew
what she was doing and knew that it was wrong, but nonetheless she was declared insane
and committed. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed to life in the
State Lunatic Hospital of Massachusetts.

I definitely see a lot of Annie Wilkes in “Jolly Jane,” don’t you? Especially with that aggressive
insistence that she wasn’t crazy. Kathy Bates said that was the best part of playing Annie: there

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was zero doubt in her mind that she was the hero of her own story. I know every actor who
plays a villain kind of says the same thing - the villain doesn’t think of themselves as the villain,
they think of themselves as the good guy - but there’s something about the way Bates pulled it
off that you genuinely can’t see a single flicker of doubt in her cold, blank eyes. There is
absolutely zero actor/character judgment, and it’s instead replaced with a fully embodied
conviction. And Annie Wilkes and Jolly Jane have those puzzle pieces in common, and it’s a
puzzle that’s not too hard to solve: childhood trauma, abuse, and a lifetime of feeling powerless
+ medical knowledge, classism, and a perverted savior complex = an Angel of Mercy.

In case you were wondering, “Angel of Mercy” is an actual criminology term for a type of
offender (usually a serial killer) who is employed as a caregiver and intentionally harms or kills
people under their care. The motivation for this type of criminal is variable, but generally falls
into one or more types or patterns:
- Mercy killer: Believe the victims are suffering or beyond help, whether or not that’s true.
- Sadistic: Using their position as a way of exerting power and control over helpless victims.
- Malignant hero: A pattern wherein the subject endangers the victim's life in some way and
then proceeds to "save" them. Not at all shocking, but a 2011 study of characterizing 70
female serial killers found that 30% of the offenders were nurses.

And I have to just interject here, once and for all, why I was disappointed with Annie’s depiction
on Castle Rock the TV show: I’m not saying my take on it is fair, because I realize that I was
balls deep in the movie and doing all this research, but I really felt like the work that Reiner and
especially Kathy Bates did to build and develop a rich history for this character would’ve made a
way more interesting TV show. The show had a lot going for it, and a lot to be praised: incredible
cast, fantastic acting, beautiful production design, and it was nice to finally see some substantial
diversity in a Stephen King piece; and seriously, Lizzy Caplan is wildly underrated and the way
she embodied Annie Wilkes - that posture, even her walk! - was so fucking chilling and effective.
But my biggest complaint is really just the writing. I wanted to see a show about “The Dragon
Lady,” and they really only kind of hint at that in the very last episode; for me, that was a
bummer.

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And it bummed me out because I’m so obsessed with the history that Reiner and Bates were
making for her, and if there’s one thing that Misery the film lacked, it was MORE time with Annie
Wilkes! Like I still want a movie about her backstory, based on the movie version of her.

It’s never explicitly said, but I think she’s suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, which
is “a mental health problem in which a caregiver makes up or causes an illness or injury in a
person under his or her care, such as a child or an elderly adult.” It’s kind of been a trendy topic
recently: the mini-series The Act based on the real life story of Dee Dee and Gypsy Blanchard,
as well as the Gillian Flynn adapted mini-series Sharp Objects and season one of The Politician.

But what I love about the idea of Annie Wilkes having Munchausen by Proxy is how this relates
to her as a metaphor for addiction… King said that it felt like his addiction was this physical
person, this being, who claimed to be his “#1 fan” and refuse to let go of him. And much like a
mentally unstable caretaker, it promised to provide nourishment, protection, and health - but just
kept poisoning him instead. I’ve had my own journey with addiction, as I’m sure many of us
have, and I feel like that’s a really accurate depiction: When you’re stuck on something that you
know isn’t good for you, it feels like being strapped to a bed and held hostage by a psychotic
nurse. It feels like what used to be your medicine is now starting to poison you.

King was asked once in an interview, “What do you think it is that we’re [all] afraid of?” To which
he answered: “Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that
is what I’m interested in.”

The interviewer then asked, “Would you say then that this fear is the main subject of your
fiction?”

And King said: “I’d say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back over [my
contemporary books], what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life. …
In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that’s inexplicable to you,
whether it’s the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about
ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we’re still talking about the same
thing: …an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that

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shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests
me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts.”

Well Stephen King, your words are a tough act to follow. Luckily for me, I think that about wraps
it up! I am your host, Sarah Ruthless, and you are always free to follow me on social media. I’m
on Twitter @ruthlessscreen, and IG @screentimewithsarahruthless; also, transcripts of the
podcast episodes are now available on my website, www.sarahruthless.com; as always, that is
Sarah with an H, spelled correctly.

Thank you for taking this trip with me down the rabbit hole, stay safe out there and try not to get
kidnapped by any of your #1 fans. That’s all folks, and I’ll see you next time!

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 Sources & Works Cited

Potts, Michael. “Jane Toppan: A Greed, Power, and Lust Serial Killer.” Academia. Oct. 12, 2017.

Myers, Jennifer. “For 10 Years, ‘Jolly Jane’ Poured Her Poison.” LowellSun.com. Nov 2, 2011.
Link: https://www.lowellsun.com/2011/11/02/for-10-years-jolly-jane-poured-her-poison/

Maras, Rihanna L. “A Feminist Re-Reading of US Media Depictions of Women Murderers.” MA

Sacks, David. “I Was Never An Ingenue.” New York Times. Jan. 22, 1991.

Rich, Nathaniel & Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Stephen King, The Art of Fiction No. 189.” The
Paris Review. Fall, 2006. Link: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5653/the-art-of-fiction-
no-189-stephen-king

Wikipedia: Jane Toppan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Toppan)

Wikipedia: Genene Jones. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genene_Jones)

Wikipedia: Stephen King. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King)

IMDB: Misery. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100157/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0)

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