CASTLE ROCK: Lizzy Caplan, Elsie Fisher, Tim Robbins, Garrett Hedlund, and More Join MISERY-Inspired Season 2

Hulu has revealed CASTLE ROCK’s season 2 theme and a gaggle of new cast members.

The second anthology installment will be a MISERY prequel, and follows a young Annie Wilkes (who was played by Kathy Bates in the 1990 film). Per Hulu, “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.”

MASTERS OF SEX’s Lizzy Caplan has been cast as Annie, “a nurse and superfan battling to overcome mental health issues.” EIGHTH GRADE‘s Elsie Fisher will play her daughter, Joy, who begins to worry something is wrong with her mother.

Tim Robbins will play King character Reginald “Pop” Merrill, who appeared in 1990’s short story, “The Sun Dog.” In CASTLE ROCK, “Pop is dying of cancer and at a reckoning with his family.”

Garrett Hedlund plays his nephew, John “Ace” Merrill, who previously appeared in “The Body” and “Needful Things.” (Kiefer Sutherland played the character in STAND BY ME, which was based on “The Body.” In CASTLE ROCK, “Ace is taking over his uncle Pop’s businesses and threatening a fragile peace with nearby Jerusalem’s Lot.”

Matthew Alan rounds out the Merrill family as Chris, Ace’s brother, who “struggles to keep peace between the Merrills and the Somali community.”

Additionally, Yusra Warsama has been cast as Dr. Nadia Omar, a “Harvard-trained Somali medical director of a rural hospital in Jerusalem’s Lot [whose] rational and scientific mind will be put to the test.” Barkhad Abdi will play Abdi Omar, “the tough, older brother of Nadia, [who] leads the charge to build a Somali community center that will deepen the roots of his people in Maine.”

At first glance, it appears that the second installment of CASTLE ROCK will more deeply rely on King’s text. The first anthology season used SHAWSHANK as a touchstone and iconic King character Alan Pangborn (played by Scott Glenn in the Hulu series), but largely told a story separate from the author’s work.

However, the end tag of the first season played into another other well-known King property: Jackie Torrance (Jane Levy), the niece of Jack Torrance, the protagonist-turned-antagonist of the 1977 novel “The Shining,” decided she was going to go to the hotel where her uncle went mad to do research for her upcoming book.

Though the final moments could have been teeing up a second installment, there were a few obstacles in the way: There is a movie adaptation of “Doctor Sleep,” the book sequel to “The Shining,” in the works; telling a story in the same universe so close together might not have been ideal. Additionally, Levy is currently attached to a new pilot.

The first season of CASTLE ROCK starred André Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Melanie Lynskey, Sissy Spacek, Levy, and Glenn.

After CASTLE ROCK’s first season finale, co-creator Dustin Thomason acknowledged they had a lot of room to play in the King universe. “Are we going to bump into other King characters? Of course the answer is yes,” he said at the time. “I think part of the pleasure is going to be finding out who and how and where we’re finding them.”

And with the show establishing a legitimate multiverse—with mysterious timelines that may not exactly be in sync—when they tell their stories is also in the mix. “We always thought from the beginning, certainly we are not restricted to a CASTLE ROCK season that takes place in modern day,” Thomason said. “Even leaving aside the idea of multiple timelines, the idea for us of doing a CASTLE ROCK season set in, say, 1945, right around the time they were building the atomic bomb could be a really exciting show. One of the things we love most about King is the unpredictability about where the stories go next. Within reason, I think there’s something exciting about the DNA of this show that gives you that flexibility.”

The alternate universe element means the show really can do anything with its take on MISERY—including, potentially, stopping Annie in her tracks before she fully snaps—but with this team (who produced the best show and episode of 2018), I’m intrigued to see what’s in store.

CASTLE ROCK’s entire first season is streaming on Hulu.

RELATED:

• CASTLE ROCK Season 1 Finale: Dustin Thomason on That Mysterious Smile, Timelines, and Season 2
• Did CASTLE ROCK’s Finale Tease the Season 2 Theme?
• CASTLE ROCK: Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason on Getting the Tone Right in a Stephen King Adaptation
• CASTLE ROCK: ‘The Queen’ is the Best Hour of the Series So Far
• CASTLE ROCK Renewed by Hulu
• CASTLE ROCK: Melanie Lynskey on Molly’s Secrets
• CASTLE ROCK: Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason on the Draw of Small Town Stories, Stephen King’s Blessing
• CASTLE ROCK: Bill Skarsgård on Diving Back into the Stephen King Universe

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