Two episodes in and I’m afraid I have some gripes. I absolutely love this book. Please go and read the unabridged version. I even liked the original miniseries. That said I have a few complaints. First is that this adaptation downplays the magnitude of the virus and the absolute chaos it creates. Of course there are scenes with lots of bodies around but they are extremely infrequent and very limited. This is due to the fact that they are already showing scenes from things that happen half way up to almost 2/3’s of the way through the novel. And that bugs me to death. I don’t mind nonlinear story telling but this just jumps right into the Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg alignments. This should have been introduced WAY later than the first two episodes. The whole mystery of the dreams and the pull towards whichever faction starts about halfway in the book and it’s what makes the story compelling when it’s introduced in the original way. Imagine if someone remade Star Wars and you get the opening with Leia and Darth Vader then the next scene is Luke on Dagobah. To me it’s that jarring. At this rate they should be done by episode 4. The casting was very unusual as well. Stu Redman is supposed to be this 40 something Texan but here he’s played by Cyclops. Mother Abigail is over 100 but yet they went with Whoopi. The deaf guy is missing an eye? Leon looks exactly like the deaf guy. And Eric Skaarsgard just isn’t menacing enough to pull off a diabolical character like Randall Flagg. This choice HAD to be because his brother did so well as Pennywise. I do like Larry Underwood’s casting choice and Harold’s as well. Even Nadine looks like the original Nadine. But all the rest just really take me out of the story. I also agree that the bloating just seems ridiculous as a symptom of this virus. It’s just overly done for dramatic purposes and doesn’t receive the desired result it tries to convey. I’m going to watch the full series but so far I’m having trouble enjoying it. But that’s just me being hypercritical simply because I love the source material so much. I highly urge whoever reads this to go out and get the book.