As Stephen King fans eagerly anticipate the arrival of It: Welcome to Derry, a new HBO series developed by the creators of the recent It movies, including director Andy Muschietti, here’s a reminder that it’s not the first series to expand King’s horror world with original stories.
While Derry riffs on flashbacks from the 1986 book to build a history for Pennywise’s reign of terror, the Hulu series Castle Rock also zeroed in on a picturesque yet cursed part of Maine explored in King’s many works. While the two shows will no doubt have many differences between them—Castle Rock was an almost entirely original creation; Derry draws from a specific novel as well as two movies—we’re anticipating similar tales of small-town terror and dread, with background characters brought to the forefront, tiny plot details getting intriguing expansions, and Easter eggs a-plenty.
With that in mind, here are five things Castle Rock did so well we wish it had gotten more than two seasons.
A Central Mystery
Castle Rock’s two seasons followed almost completely standalone stories. But there were still similarities beyond sharing a setting. Both incorporated different moments in Castle Rock history, with criss-crossing timelines, shifting memories, and explorations of important events from different points of view. Both shared a fascination with perception in other ways too: what’s real, what’s being filtered through an unwell mind, and what’s being caused by supernatural interference?
They were also both propelled by a central mystery—as you’d expect in a show with J.J. Abrams in its credits. In season one, attorney Henry Deaver returns to a hometown that was glad to see him leave. Once there, he must reluctantly face up to a troubled past—as a boy, he mysteriously vanished for a brief period that coincided with his adoptive father’s equally mysterious death—while being drawn into the case of “the Kid,” an unnamed and unaccounted-for prisoner being kept in an unused wing of Shawshank State Prison.
Season two offers a backstory for Annie Wilkes, the unforgettable antagonist of Misery, as she becomes enmeshed in a terrifying cult that’s been waiting to reawaken beneath Castle Rock for centuries. Though Annie and Henry don’t meet, “the Kid” pops back up in a different guise, this time as “the Angel,” a spin on the character that underlines the dark revelations about him in season one.
A Mix of Old and New Characters
Annie Wilkes is the most famous Stephen King character to be featured in Castle Rock, but other denizens popped up: Sheriff Alan Pangborn, who appears in The Dark Half, Needful Things, and other works, is a key player in season one; various members of the Merrill family—a last name familiar across many of King’s stories—help steer events in season two.
There are also some fresh creations who feel like they’re winking at the viewer, including Jackie Torrance—the niece of you-know-which Overlook Hotel caretaker in The Shining.
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