Dow Jones’s Reviews > The Dead Zone > Status Update

The grad party rages & the radio announces the restaurant death toll & everyone’s devastated & amazed. J runs away shortly after & lives on the run in FL and AZ & I love the letters to him from Roger, Chuck, & Herb. Roger’s paid off his medical debt! He’s also trying to get him to cash a big check for saving lives. Now J is super sickly but buying a rifle & tickets to go assassinate Greg. Great stuff here!

Chuck graduates, Ngo’s got his citizenship and is head groundskeeper for a resort, and everyone’s at the Chatsworth estate for the grad party. Chuck thanks and hugs J when he has a vision that their 200+ steak dinner party will all die in a restaurant fire due to lightning. No one believes him, the owner gets pissed when they arrive w/ suspicions, but Roger notices no lightning rods like the owner said he had.

The FBI and police chief question J in their holding cell as he recovers & they genuinely expect him to reveal his psychic vision, but he doesn’t. Ngo tells J his opinion of Greg as the laughing tiger and he should be (politically) killed & J starts to get obsessed & have dreams about it. Stillsonphile. Reminiscent of 11/22/63 research & connecting dots & such.

J shows up at the Timbull rally for Greg Stillson. Meets with Ngo as his class shows up and everyone’s excited for their first rally. J knows he shouldn’t go for the touch but his instincts are overpowering. He’s pressed through to the front near the bike gang & towards the end Greg grabs his hand & J sees him being sworn in as president. G is shocked & as J turns to escape, he blacks out.

J and Mr. C watch and comment on Stillson’s buffoonery on TV. Ngo’s citizenship class field trip is going to his rally & J fights the urge to go but can’t help himself. Herb is finally making moves on a family friend whose house he’s fixing up.

Johnny has a breakthrough with Chuck to redirect his thoughts when answering reading comp questions & Mr. Chatsworth gives a $500 bonus and reveals he knows of Johnny’s abilities. Now they see Stillson on the news of the campaign trail. When J was short-order cooking, he met many politicians and shook hands w/ Carter & told of his vision of Carter winning. Secret Service agent is psycho assassin?

Johnny begins private tutoring a high school athlete class president, Chuck Chatsworth, in reading and comprehension. $600/mth and free room & board in their guest house. Sweet deal after so many unwanted packages and visitors showing up in Pownal. Different age than movie & I wonder if the dad knew of J’s abilities before interviewing him as in the film.

Johnny blacked out for 4hrs and the next few pages revealed his heroics but also that his new teaching contract was withdrawn due to being too controversial to teach high school. New letters and packages pile up for him but all he wants is privacy. Poor guy. Next starts part II: The Laughing Tiger.

Johnny names deputy Frank Dodd as the killer & Bannerman punches him & argues in his defense but slowly succumbs to the realization that the timeline matches & there’s another case when he was on police training. Dodd’s mom knew all along, covered up, & J seeing into her intensified his headache. Found Dodd w/ lipsticked “I CONFESS” & his own slit throat in a bathroom. Wild stuff & like the movie a bit.

Johnny meets Sheriff Bannerman after seeing a 9yr old girl was raped and strangled in the middle of town in the morning. They go to latest scenes and Johnny has visions of everything. Very grotesque description of finding her body & scary just how close his own daughter was to being a victim, within 10 minutes. Reporters crowd them & shit hits the fan now that a psychic’s involved.