"The Stand" finale is aggravating confirmation that Stephen King still needs more Black friends

If you watched all nine episodes of the CBS All Access remake of "The Stand"... why? If you're wondering what this has to do with the ninth and final episode of "The Stand" then you haven't been keeping up with the numerous critiques of King's representations of Black or non-white people in his work, and this one in particular. It doesn't take much of a deep dive; type Stephen King Black people into Google's search engine and the first entry that comes up is "Stephen King Needs More Black Friends." What he consistently proves himself to be is a 73-year-old rich man who lives in one of the whitest states in the nation and probably doesn't encounter many people of color who aren't Academy Award nominees like Erivo, who plays his character Holly Gibney in HBO's adaptation of "The Outsider". One crucial way that King is like anyone else is he's capable of the sort of thoughtful evolution we never see in this version of "The Stand" – not from the start and at no point in an ending that isn't merely unoriginal, it's uninspired.