Hulu is about to release the latest season of its Stephen King anthology series Castle Rock, which sees a new cast join the show to tell a new plot made up of components from some of the horror author’s most classic works. The trailer promises that Season 2 will feature Annie Wilkes (played by Lizzie Caplan), the classic character from Misery.
When does Castle Rock Season 2 air?
The Hulu premiere of the new season is on October 23, with the first batch of episodes being released at 12 a.m. Three episodes will be released that day, with the rest of Season 2 following in upcoming weeks.
The season will have 10 episodes, the last seven of which will be released weekly on Wednesdays.
Who is in the cast of Castle Rock Season 2?
Season 1 cast members like André Holland, Bill Skarsgård and Sissy Spacek are out for Season 2 and will be replaced by a group of new stars. These will be led by Masters of Sex star Lizzy Caplan, playing a younger version of Annie Wilkes, the character played by Kathy Bates in an Oscar-winning turn in Misery.
Speaking to , Caplan said of her role: “I found it really easy to slip into that level of insanity, and then I didn’t really take it home with me…There’s something nice about not trying to look pretty or be sexy, and just be fucking bonkers.”
The version of the character she is playing is a younger version of the character, who comes to Castle Rock years before she takes Paul Sheldon hostage in Misery.
While Caplan plays a younger version of a King character, Boardwalk Empire‘s Paul Sparks plays an older version of Ace Merrill, who was portrayed by Keifer Sutherland in 1986 film Stand By Me. In Castle Rock, his uncle Pop Merrill (who appears in two King novels) is played by another actor associated with the author, Tim Robbins, who appeared in King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption.
Also starring in the new season as new characters are Eighth Grade‘s Elsie Fisher as Annie’s daughter Joy, The Last Days on Mars‘ Yusra Warsama as medical director Dr. Nadia Omar and Captain Phillips‘ Barkhad Abdi as her brother Abdi.
What will happen in Castle Rock Season 2?
The official Hulu synopsis reads: “A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption) are set in there. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that unites King’s themes and worlds and brings together the author’s most iconic and beloved characters.
“In Season 2, a feud between warring clans comes to a boil when budding psychopath Annie Wilkes, Stephen King’s nurse from hell, gets waylaid in Castle Rock.”
It has also been revealed that Dr. Omar will be working as a medic in Jerusalem’s Lot, the setting of vampire novel Salem’s Lot, which suggests this season may have a supernatural element. Speaking to , showrunner Dustin Thomason said of this: “One of the things, when you think about Salem’s Lot, it’s sort of inextricable in the King canon from the Marsten House. So we’re definitely going to find our way there, and as we know about the Marsten House, a lot of terrible things have happened there and a lot of different, terrible creatures have found their way there. So I’m excited to see which ones pop up this year.”
Is there a trailer for Castle Rock Season 2?
At the end of September, Hulu released a promo for the new season. This trailer mostly focuses on the arrival in the Maine town of Annie Wilkes, who is on the run for murder. Though we get no hint at any Salem’s Lot references, the trailer does end with the caption, “Misery arrives October 23.”
Castle Rock Season 2 starts October 23 on Hulu.