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| − | '''''[[File:Tumblr_lqgoi2ilTo1qj7asxo1_400.jpg|thumb|332px|Larry Underwood (Adam Storke) in The Stand. ]]Larry Underwood''''' is one of the main characters in [[The Stand]]. Before the breakout of the superflu Underwood wrote and performed a well-known single called, "''Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?''". He suffers from low self-esteem and does not believe that he is capable of good, and that he must change the way he is. |
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| + | |name = Larry Underwood |
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| + | |image = |
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| + | <tabber> |
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| + | |-|Miniseries (2020)= [[File:NewLarry.jpg]] |
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| + | |-|Miniseries (1994)=[[File:Tumblr_lqgoi2ilTo1qj7asxo1_400.jpg]] |
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| + | |-|Marvel Comics=[[File:LarryNYC.jpg]] |
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| + | </tabber> |
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| + | |born = |
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| + | |age = |
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| + | |status = Deceased |
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| + | |alias = |
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| + | |gender = Male |
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| + | |job = Musician |
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| + | |home = |
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| + | |loyalty = [[Abagail Freemantle]] |
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| + | |actor = [[Adam Storke]] (1994)<br>[[Jovan Adepo]] (2020) |
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| + | |family = |
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| + | |weight = |
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| + | }} |
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| + | '''Larry Underwood''' is one of the three main protagonists (alongside Stuart Redman and Nick Andros) in ''[[The Stand]]''. |
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| + | ==Personality== |
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| − | Larry, who is in deep debt and feels that he is incapable of anything good, tries to redeem himself by visiting his mother (who he has not seen in years) in New York, which means leaving his beach house in California, after some time spent in New York more and more people start to catch the superflu (and consequently die because of it), including Larry's mother. After the death of his mother at the hands of the superflu, Larry was called to [[Mother Abagail]] in [[Hemingford Home, Nebraska]]. He escaped New York City with [[Rita Blakemoor]], a woman with crushing anxiety and prescription drug addiction. Larry finds that, as much as he likes Rita, she can annoy him incredibly easily. He loses his temper a few times with Rita and shouts at her once or twice. At one point Rita leaves the then apologetic Larry, but returns, to Larry's delight, as she was too scared when by herself. Rita eventually overdoses on pills and chokes to death during her sleep, Larry to scared and upset by Rita's death, leaves her body in the tent in which they were sleeping. After travelling for a while by himself he feels as though he is determined to become a new man, "a new Larry Underwood". After more travelling he begins to be stalked by [[Nadine Cross]] (a troubled soul) and [[Leo Rockway]] (a young boy who's family died due to the superflu, and was taken into care by Nadine) - Leo's past traumatised him and left him in a temporary violent and Neanderthal-like state, a state which he was still like during the stalking of Larry. After a while Larry starts to suspect that he is being followed, and once he reaches Maine, is attacked by Leo (who is barring a knife), Larry manages to disarm Leo and is urged by the the worrisome Nadine not to harm him - which he was not intending to. Larry teams up with Nadine and Leo. Along Larry's journey he is successful in gaining the trust and love of Leo (whose real name turns out to be Joe), which Larry originally wanted to impress Nadine, but later feels genuine love for the boy, who slowly returns back to the way he was before the superflu - Leo even starts to talk again, instead of making animal-like grunts. After some more travelling a distressed woman by the name of [[Lucy Swann]] spots the threesome and joins them. Once Larry and his group reach the Stovington base, which he knew how to reach due to directions left by [[Harold Lauder]] and [[Fran Goldsmith]] on a barn, which were left for all survivors and passersby, they follow further directions to Nebraska, ultimately leading to Boulder. Larry's group, which consisted of less than 20 people joined the survivors at Boulder, the survivors at Boulder consists of Mother Abigail, Nick Andros, Stu Redman, [[Glen Bateman]], Harold Lauder, Ralph Brentner, and many more. |
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| + | He is a young professional musician; while not actually a bad person, Larry has spent much of his life being reckless, immature and self-centered. These qualities are a frequent source of frustration for his friends and family; in fact, they are often noticed and pointed out by people he has just met. |
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| + | |||
| + | Underneath, Larry is aware of his less-than-honorable tendencies, and disgusted by them, though he does not believe, that he is capable of changing for the better. |
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| + | |||
| + | ==Biography== |
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| + | On the eve of the [[Captain Trips|superflu outbreak]], Underwood had written and recorded a breakout hit titled "''Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?''". It starts to earn him money but his royalties from his recording company are paid to him quarterly. |
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| + | |||
| + | Larry quickly descends into a decadent lifestyle. When he spends nearly all of his first advance royalty check on a wild, drug-fueled party raging at his rented Malibu beach-house, a member of his band, Wayne Stuckey, takes him aside and gives it to Larry straight: he informs Larry of the extreme damage to the beach-house by his guests, the bill he's run up for food and alcohol, and how much he owes a drug-dealer named Dewey the Deck. Larry is very resentful of Stuckey's tough love conversation but accepts his friend's offer to talk to Dewey and give Larry more time to make good on the debt. Driving across the country to his mother's house in Manhattan, Larry hopes to lay low for a while. Alice Underwood has not seen her son in years and knows his habits all too well, but grudgingly agrees to shelter him until his next advance check comes in. Unfortunately, during Larry's stay in New York the plague hits and brutally wipes out the population of the city, including his mother. |
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| + | |||
| + | In the waning days of the plague Larry meets a middle-aged, pampered socialite named [[Rita Blakemoor]]. Lonely and desperate, the two become lovers, and decide to escape Manhattan before all the bodies rotting in high summer make it even more unbearable to stay. |
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| + | |||
| + | As a travelling companion Rita turns out to be neurotic and high-maintenance. She suffers mood-swings and is hooked upon an alarming variety of pills. Larry is frequently exasperated by Rita's neediness and complete lack of common sense. At the same time, he is earnestly trying to become a better person, and rises to the challenge of taking care of her. The resolve to leave Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel since it's relatively close and they can avoid hiking to the George Washington Bridge about 60 blocks north through the new dangers in the city. They separate for a while in Manhattan when Larry screams at her for wearing the wrong type of footwear, which has chafed her feet until they bleed. The reunite at the Lincoln Tunnel and after several hours of walking through it in the dark, they emerge in New Jersey. Traveling by motorcycle, they reach Bennington, Vermont, by July 4. Rita overdoses and dies in the night. Although her death is "seventy percent accident and thirty percent suicide", Larry still feels responsible, and the incident haunts him for a very long time. |
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| + | |||
| + | Alone now, Larry travels aimlessly towards the ocean and reaches Maine, where he is stalked by two other plague survivors: [[Nadine Cross]], a mysterious grade-school teacher, and [[Leo Rockway]], a traumatized feral boy she has adopted (she refers to him as "Joe" because he cannot tell her his real name.) Leo carries a butcher-knife and repeatedly expresses the desire to attack Larry with it; eventually, when Nadine loses control of him, he nearly succeeds. After a rough introduction and an uneasy truce, Larry reluctantly agrees to let them both travel with him. |
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| + | |||
| + | Larry is attracted to Nadine almost immediately, and the feeling is mutual. But Nadine rebuffs his advances, initially finding Larry to be shallow and self-centered. There are other, more sinister reasons Nadine refuses to permit any relationship between them, but she never elaborates on them further. |
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| + | |||
| + | Meanwhile Larry has a series of breakthroughs with Leo; as the boy gradually begins to trust and bond with Larry, he begins to recover his ability to speak, albeit in monosyllables. |
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| + | |||
| + | On their way to the [[Stovington, Vermont|Stovington Plague center]] in search of other survivors, Larry's group passes through Enfield, New Hampshire where they are joined by a young widow named [[Lucy Swann]]. They realize they have all been sharing the same nightmares about [[Randall Flagg]], and the same dreams of [[Mother Abagail]]. |
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| + | |||
| + | The Stovington trip turns out to be a fruitless venture, as all within the facility are dead. But [[Harold Lauder]], [[Fran Goldsmith]], [[Stu Redman]] and [[Glen Bateman]] have left instructions that they are heading for [[Hemingford Home, Nebraska]], and the group decides to follow them there. Along the way, Larry finds himself the reluctant leader of an ever-increasing band of survivors; using Harold's signs and clues, he is able to lead them halfway across the continental United States. Their destination changes one more time to the [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder Free Zone]]. |
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| + | |||
| + | Just before reaching town, Lucy confronts Larry about his fixation upon Nadine. Despite the fact that Lucy and Larry are now lovers, she has no delusions about the nature of their arrangement, and knows that Nadine is both more attractive and alluring than her, while she herself must seem common and cheap by comparison. Larry does not deny any of this, but protests candidly that he "loves her as much as he can." Lucy declares that she would support his relationship with Nadine, free of any grudges or ill-will, if only Nadine would reciprocate his feelings, since love is the only thing that will get any of the survivors through the post-plague ordeal. She does, however, warn Larry not to let himself get hurt in a fruitless pursuit of Nadine. |
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| + | |||
| + | Later on in Boulder, Larry is one of seven people elected to the [[Boulder Free Zone Committee]]. Accepting the nomination took a great deal of persuasion from Stu Redman, but [[Judge Farris]] recommended him highly, due to the leadership potential he showed guiding his group of survivors across the country. |
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| + | |||
| + | Eventually Nadine realizes she underestimated the quality of Larry's character, and missed out on her chance with him. Nonetheless, one night, in a desperate attempt to break Flagg's hold over her, she tries to seduce him. But Larry demonstrates a great leap in his maturity by rejecting her advances, choosing instead to remain loyal to Lucy. |
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| + | |||
| + | Prompted by psychic impulses, Leo warns Larry that Harold is up to no good in Boulder, and that the details are "all written down", urging him to join forces with [[Fran Goldsmith]]. From Leo's clues they guess that Harold has been keeping a diary, which they find after breaking into his house. But they are unable to tease from it the specifics of Harold's plan: that he plans to assassinate the entire Free Zone Committee with a dynamite bomb. Larry survives the bombing incident without a scratch and feels extreme self-loathing about doing so, when so many other Zoners are slain, maimed and injured. |
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| + | |||
| + | Just before Mother Abigail passes away, she summons Larry along with Glen, Stu, and [[Ralph Brentner]], informing them that they must travel westward to stand against Randall Flagg. Larry is to be Stu's second-in-command, and ends up leading the mission after Stu breaks his leg and must be left behind. |
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| + | |||
| + | Captured and brought before Flagg, Larry is sentenced to public execution by dismemberment. However, Larry's post-plague experiences have made him a very different person, and he prepares to meet death with peace, dignity and resolve, openly defying Flagg to the last. |
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| + | |||
| + | The execution is interrupted when the [[Trashcan Man]] arrives, hauling a nuclear warhead out of the desert and into the assembled crowd. The "hand of God" detonates the weapon, destroying Las Vegas and vaporizing everyone at ground zero, including Larry. |
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| + | |||
| + | The following spring, back in Boulder, Lucy Swann gives birth to Larry's twin children. |
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| − | Larry pays a visit to Fran, believing that she lives with Harold - Larry wanted to thank Harold for the directions that he had left and wanted to do so with payday candy bars and some wine. Larry forms a friendship with Fran after telling her about his background and how he reached boulder. At a later date Larry pays Harold a visit for the afore mentioned reasons, whilst inside Harold's house he nearly stumbles upon Harold's hidden "Ledger" under a loose stone in his living room but decides against investagating any further out of respect for Harold. Larry (after some persuading by [[Stu Redman]]) becomes one of the seven members of the [[Boulder Free Zone Committee]] despite his self-doubts. Larry and Fran sneak into Harold's house due to Harold's increasingly strange behaviour, Larry and Fran discover and read Harold's so-called "Ledger" and find out that Harold intends to kill Stu out of jealousy (Harold is jealous of Stu and Fran's relationship), Larry takes this to stu who also reads it. However, the dairy did not mention Harold's plan about bombing the next [[Boulder Free Zone Committee]] meeting, therefore Larry, Stu, and Fran are oblivious to the Committee's inevitable danger and decide to discuss the newfound diary at the next Committee meeting. At the next Committee meeting, the bomb is triggered by Harold - killing two Committee members, those members being Nick and [[Sue stern]]. Larry, Glen, Ralph, Fran, and Stu survive the blast due to the return of Mother Abigail - who had been missing for a large amount of time. Harold and Nadine flees town to join up with [[Randall Flagg]] Just before Mother Abigail passes away due to her wounds, Larry is told (along with Glen, Stu, and Ralph) that he must travel west to [[Las Vegas, Nevada]] to stand against Randall Flagg, and is told that, in this mission, he is second in command - just behind Stu. On the journey to Nevada, Stu breaks one of his legs in multiple places and must be left behind ([[Kojak]] stays with Stu, who is later found by [[Tom Cullen]] and taken back to Boulder), this leaves Larry in charge. Larry and his group intentionally gets caught by Flagg's men so they could complete their mission of somehow destroying him, Larry and the other two are then put in seperate cells in different wings of the Nevada police department. Glen is shot by [[Lloyd Henreid]] at the command of Flagg. Later on Flagg orders his men to construct two steel cages with square holes in each side, meaning to kill Larry and Ralph in front of his followers by ripping them apart, tying their arms to chains connected to trucks and ordering the men in the vehicles to drive forward. However, Larry accepts that he is going to die and feels that his and Ralph's gruesome deaths will cause an uprising against Flagg, most of Flagg's followers start to turn against him - one follower, Whitney, the chef, stands up to Flagg and preaches to the crowd that Flagg is insane, a statement to which they agreed. Flagg kills Whitney by creating an electrical/firey substance from the tip of his finger and forcing it to cover Whitney's face and ultimately float away into the sky, Flagg then challanges the crowd, asking if anyone else would like to speak up. Before he can even get an answer [[Trashcan Man]] returns to the Dark Man begging forgivness and bearing the gift of a neuclear weapon (The nueclear weapon which gradually gave Trashcan Man radiation poisoning), The crowd run away with terror as the electricty that Flagg had created and used to kill Whitney with was slowly being drawn toward the nuclear weapon. Flagg and Lloyd fail at persuading Trashcan Man to take the bomb away in time. Larry witnesses Flagg scream in anger and evaporate/disappear completely. Larry finds comfort as he thinks to himself "I will fear no evil". The bomb then explodes killing all of Flagg's men, along with Larry and Ralph. The nuclear bomb destroys the whole of Las Vegas. Later on it is revealed that Lucy Swann (who became Larry's partner before Boulder and would stay as his partner up until his death) is pregnant due to Larry. Stu mentions, in a conversation with Fran, the fact that Lucy gave birth to twins and has no trouble looking after them. |
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==Portrayal== |
==Portrayal== |
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| − | Larry Underwood is portrayed by Adam Storke in 1994, in [[The Stand (miniseries)]] |
+ | Larry Underwood is portrayed by Adam Storke in 1994, in [[The Stand (miniseries)]]. The miniseries screenplay makes a major change to Larry's journey: the character of Rita Blakemoor is eliminated entirely, leading Larry to meet Nadine Cross a lot earlier in the story. |
| ⚫ | |||
| ⚫ | |||
| + | Larry is portrayed by [[Jovan Adepo]] in the [[The Stand (2020 Miniseries)|2020 miniseries]]. |
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| ⚫ | |||
| + | ==Loyalties== |
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| ⚫ | |||
| + | {{TheStand}} |
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| ⚫ | |||
| + | |||
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| ⚫ | |||
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| + | *''[[The Stand (2020 Miniseries)]]'' |
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| + | * ''[[The Stand: American Nightmares]]'' |
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| + | * ''[[The Stand: Captain Trips]]'' |
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| + | * ''[[The Stand: Hardcases]]'' |
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| + | * ''[[The Stand: Soul Survivors]]'' |
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| + | {{DEFAULTSORT:Underwood, Larry}} |
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[[Category:Males]] |
[[Category:Males]] |
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| − | [[Category: |
+ | [[Category:Heroes]] |
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| + | [[Category:Lovers]] |
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| + | [[Category:Leaders]] |
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| + | [[Category:The Stand]] |
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| + | [[Category:Musicians]] |
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| + | [[Category:Protagonists]] |
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Latest revision as of 21:11, 21 February 2024
Larry Underwood is one of the three main protagonists (alongside Stuart Redman and Nick Andros) in The Stand.
Personality
He is a young professional musician; while not actually a bad person, Larry has spent much of his life being reckless, immature and self-centered. These qualities are a frequent source of frustration for his friends and family; in fact, they are often noticed and pointed out by people he has just met.
Underneath, Larry is aware of his less-than-honorable tendencies, and disgusted by them, though he does not believe, that he is capable of changing for the better.
Biography
On the eve of the superflu outbreak, Underwood had written and recorded a breakout hit titled "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?". It starts to earn him money but his royalties from his recording company are paid to him quarterly.
Larry quickly descends into a decadent lifestyle. When he spends nearly all of his first advance royalty check on a wild, drug-fueled party raging at his rented Malibu beach-house, a member of his band, Wayne Stuckey, takes him aside and gives it to Larry straight: he informs Larry of the extreme damage to the beach-house by his guests, the bill he's run up for food and alcohol, and how much he owes a drug-dealer named Dewey the Deck. Larry is very resentful of Stuckey's tough love conversation but accepts his friend's offer to talk to Dewey and give Larry more time to make good on the debt. Driving across the country to his mother's house in Manhattan, Larry hopes to lay low for a while. Alice Underwood has not seen her son in years and knows his habits all too well, but grudgingly agrees to shelter him until his next advance check comes in. Unfortunately, during Larry's stay in New York the plague hits and brutally wipes out the population of the city, including his mother.
In the waning days of the plague Larry meets a middle-aged, pampered socialite named Rita Blakemoor. Lonely and desperate, the two become lovers, and decide to escape Manhattan before all the bodies rotting in high summer make it even more unbearable to stay.
As a travelling companion Rita turns out to be neurotic and high-maintenance. She suffers mood-swings and is hooked upon an alarming variety of pills. Larry is frequently exasperated by Rita's neediness and complete lack of common sense. At the same time, he is earnestly trying to become a better person, and rises to the challenge of taking care of her. The resolve to leave Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel since it's relatively close and they can avoid hiking to the George Washington Bridge about 60 blocks north through the new dangers in the city. They separate for a while in Manhattan when Larry screams at her for wearing the wrong type of footwear, which has chafed her feet until they bleed. The reunite at the Lincoln Tunnel and after several hours of walking through it in the dark, they emerge in New Jersey. Traveling by motorcycle, they reach Bennington, Vermont, by July 4. Rita overdoses and dies in the night. Although her death is "seventy percent accident and thirty percent suicide", Larry still feels responsible, and the incident haunts him for a very long time.
Alone now, Larry travels aimlessly towards the ocean and reaches Maine, where he is stalked by two other plague survivors: Nadine Cross, a mysterious grade-school teacher, and Leo Rockway, a traumatized feral boy she has adopted (she refers to him as "Joe" because he cannot tell her his real name.) Leo carries a butcher-knife and repeatedly expresses the desire to attack Larry with it; eventually, when Nadine loses control of him, he nearly succeeds. After a rough introduction and an uneasy truce, Larry reluctantly agrees to let them both travel with him.
Larry is attracted to Nadine almost immediately, and the feeling is mutual. But Nadine rebuffs his advances, initially finding Larry to be shallow and self-centered. There are other, more sinister reasons Nadine refuses to permit any relationship between them, but she never elaborates on them further.
Meanwhile Larry has a series of breakthroughs with Leo; as the boy gradually begins to trust and bond with Larry, he begins to recover his ability to speak, albeit in monosyllables.
On their way to the Stovington Plague center in search of other survivors, Larry's group passes through Enfield, New Hampshire where they are joined by a young widow named Lucy Swann. They realize they have all been sharing the same nightmares about Randall Flagg, and the same dreams of Mother Abagail.
The Stovington trip turns out to be a fruitless venture, as all within the facility are dead. But Harold Lauder, Fran Goldsmith, Stu Redman and Glen Bateman have left instructions that they are heading for Hemingford Home, Nebraska, and the group decides to follow them there. Along the way, Larry finds himself the reluctant leader of an ever-increasing band of survivors; using Harold's signs and clues, he is able to lead them halfway across the continental United States. Their destination changes one more time to the Boulder Free Zone.
Just before reaching town, Lucy confronts Larry about his fixation upon Nadine. Despite the fact that Lucy and Larry are now lovers, she has no delusions about the nature of their arrangement, and knows that Nadine is both more attractive and alluring than her, while she herself must seem common and cheap by comparison. Larry does not deny any of this, but protests candidly that he "loves her as much as he can." Lucy declares that she would support his relationship with Nadine, free of any grudges or ill-will, if only Nadine would reciprocate his feelings, since love is the only thing that will get any of the survivors through the post-plague ordeal. She does, however, warn Larry not to let himself get hurt in a fruitless pursuit of Nadine.
Later on in Boulder, Larry is one of seven people elected to the Boulder Free Zone Committee. Accepting the nomination took a great deal of persuasion from Stu Redman, but Judge Farris recommended him highly, due to the leadership potential he showed guiding his group of survivors across the country.
Eventually Nadine realizes she underestimated the quality of Larry's character, and missed out on her chance with him. Nonetheless, one night, in a desperate attempt to break Flagg's hold over her, she tries to seduce him. But Larry demonstrates a great leap in his maturity by rejecting her advances, choosing instead to remain loyal to Lucy.
Prompted by psychic impulses, Leo warns Larry that Harold is up to no good in Boulder, and that the details are "all written down", urging him to join forces with Fran Goldsmith. From Leo's clues they guess that Harold has been keeping a diary, which they find after breaking into his house. But they are unable to tease from it the specifics of Harold's plan: that he plans to assassinate the entire Free Zone Committee with a dynamite bomb. Larry survives the bombing incident without a scratch and feels extreme self-loathing about doing so, when so many other Zoners are slain, maimed and injured.
Just before Mother Abigail passes away, she summons Larry along with Glen, Stu, and Ralph Brentner, informing them that they must travel westward to stand against Randall Flagg. Larry is to be Stu's second-in-command, and ends up leading the mission after Stu breaks his leg and must be left behind.
Captured and brought before Flagg, Larry is sentenced to public execution by dismemberment. However, Larry's post-plague experiences have made him a very different person, and he prepares to meet death with peace, dignity and resolve, openly defying Flagg to the last.
The execution is interrupted when the Trashcan Man arrives, hauling a nuclear warhead out of the desert and into the assembled crowd. The "hand of God" detonates the weapon, destroying Las Vegas and vaporizing everyone at ground zero, including Larry.
The following spring, back in Boulder, Lucy Swann gives birth to Larry's twin children.
Portrayal
Larry Underwood is portrayed by Adam Storke in 1994, in The Stand (miniseries). The miniseries screenplay makes a major change to Larry's journey: the character of Rita Blakemoor is eliminated entirely, leading Larry to meet Nadine Cross a lot earlier in the story.
Larry is portrayed by Jovan Adepo in the 2020 miniseries.
Loyalties
| v - e - dThe Stand |
|---|
| Stu's Party |
| Stuart Redman | Frances Goldsmith | Harold Lauder | Glen Bateman | Kojak Perion McCarthy | Mark Braddock | Dayna Jurgens | Susan Stern | Patty Kroger |
| Nick's Party |
| Nick Andros | Tom Cullen | Ralph Brentner | Dick Ellis | Gina McCone | Olivia Walker | June Brinkmeyer |
| Larry's Party |
| Larry Underwood | Rita Blakemoor | Nadine Cross | Leo Rockway | Lucy Swann | Judge Farris |
| Other Party |
| Lloyd Henreid | Donald Merwin Elbert | Whitney Horgan | Julie Lawry Rat Man | Barry Dorgan | Jenny Engstrom | Hector "Heck" Drogan |