‘Mr. Mercedes’: How The Stephen King Series Can Continue [TCA 2017]
By Fred Topel/July 26, 2017 9:00 am EST
“Obviously we have to see how it performs, but that is the plan,” Long said. “I think the plan is to go into the other two books.”
Bender confirmed the first season is focused on the story of the book Mr. Mercedes. Hodges never solved the case of a killer who ran over people in line at a job fair with a stolen Mercedes. The killer comes back to taunt Hodges after retirement, and plans a new massacre. However, in the book Mr. Mercedes plans to bomb a boy band concert. Bender and Kelly decided to change his target, and this was well before a real-life Ariana Grande concert suffered an explosion in May of this year.
“We decided early on that we thought there was a better way to make it a potentially catastrophic event at the climax, but that it would be truer to the town coming back [together],” Bender said.
Kelly and Bender also added a new character to the story, Ida Silver (Holland Taylor). Silver is Hodges’ neighbor who tries to socialize with him, even propositions him at one point. Given the book develops a relationship between Hodges and Janey Patterson (Mary-Louise Parker), the sister of the stolen car’s owner, a new character in Hodges’ life could complicate that. Gleeson says Silver is no threat to Patterson.
“All of these people are insisting to him in different ways that the abyss is not for him,” Gleeson said. “Particularly Holland’s character is insisting because she’s seen her husband go into that dark place, insisting on knocking on his door and being a presence and shining a light on the world and dragging him back to a place where he can recognize himself. It comes down to one simple thing which is love. There are people insisting love is still within him and possible for him and he has no right to deny it, or go black.”
King will cameo in an episode. Mr. Mercedes premieres August 9 on Audience, DirecTV channel 239 or the DirecTV NOW app.
