We are back in the universe of Hulu’s Castle Rock (2018-2019) for the series’ second—and unfortunately, final—season. With this continuation, Castle Rock situated itself as an anthology series, with a new cast of characters and stories, rather than a direct narrative continuation of Season One, though the two seasons remain within the same universe and there are notable points of overlap and intersection. 

Season One featured a few familiar characters from Stephen King’s fiction, particularly with Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn), one of King’s “good guys,” though Castle Rock complicated this straightforward reading of his characterization in his interactions with the Kid (Bill Skargård). Season Two also draws in some familiar King faces, though this time, the established characters are significantly less heroic. Ace Merrill (played by Paul Sparks) was the lead bully in the novella The Body (in 1982’s Different Seasons) and a boogeyman for plenty of Castle Rock kids. Pop Merrill (played by Tim Robbins) is the misanthropic proprietor of the Emporium Galorium, whose most extensive story comes in the novella The Sun Dog (in 1990’s Four Past Midnight), and of course Annie Wilkes (played by Lizzy Caplan) is one of King’s most terrifying and recognizable human villains, novelist Paul Sheldon’s biggest fan and tormenter in the 1987 novel Misery. Much like the showrunners subverted audience expectations of Pangborn’s characterization in Season One, viewers learn more about Ace, Pop, and Annie than they do in their original stories, with intimate insights that invite viewers to see and understand them in a different way, even if they don’t necessarily come to empathize with or like them. 

Caplan’s performance as Annie Wilkes is tremendous: the stiff arms and tense body language of her brisk walk, her wide-eyed look that simultaneously conveys fear and defiance, and her precise, clipped speech, peppered with Annie’s curse-free idioms bring Annie Wilkes to powerful and terrifying life. She is intense and unstoppable, thrumming with a barely-restrained manic energy. But at times she is also achingly vulnerable, a woman who has clearly experienced trauma, struggles with mental illness, and is doing her very best to keep it all together. We see all of these different sides of Annie’s characterization in the season’s first episode, “Let the River Run.” The mystery of her traumatic past is communicated through flashbacks and hallucinations, while her sheer desperation is abundantly clear in her interaction with Dr. Nadia Howlwadaag (played by Yusra Warsama), as Annie explains her self-medication regimen, with the ferocity of her tone and rationale uncompromised even as tears fall from her wide, unflinching eyes. 

While viewers get this privileged understanding of both Annie’s past and present, the violence of which we know she is capable is never far from our minds and is reaffirmed when she murders Ace Merrill. Ace isn’t a good guy by any stretch of the imagination and in this opening episode alone we see him abuse his power, set Howlwadaag’s house on fire with Molotov cocktails, and attempt to blackmail Annie. But when she snaps and murders him, it is incredibly brutal, as she loses control, going overboard in force and violence. Just because she is vulnerable doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous, and even when we can understand why she does some of the things she does, that doesn’t make them any less disturbing, a delicate balance that Caplan navigates masterfully. 

This opening episode of the second season also makes incredibly effective use of music, echoing the repeated strains of Gene Pitney’s “24 Hours from Tulsa” in Season One. The opening scene of Season Two’s first episode features a montage set to Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run,” which serves as the backdrop for several years of Annie and her daughter Joy’s (Elsie Fisher) itinerant life, with scenes of Annie stealing her meds from hospital pharmacies and Annie and Joy’s never-ending road trip. “Let the River Run” serves several key functions here: the montage shows us the passing of time, as Joy grows from a girl into a young woman, while also highlighting the slow deterioration of the thrill of constant travel. While young Joy enthusiastically sings along with her mother, as the song and the montage go on, her enjoyment wanes, as she first dutifully continues mouthing the words, then eventually becomes listless and silent. The song also serves to highlight complex elements of Annie’s identity, highlighted in the dissonance between her vigorous belting of the lyrics and the abrupt shift to graven seriousness as she reaches for her pills when the clock ticks to 8:00. 

The second season of Castle Rock also draws together two of King’s most iconic, terrifying towns, shifting the geographic location of Jerusalem’s Lot in King’s fictional universe to move it right next door to Castle Rock. The new Somali mall is breaking ground near the Marsten House and there is absolutely no way that’s going to end well. There’s no word of vampires (at least not yet), but legends of witches and the swarm of bugs that emerge from the hole Annie falls through in the episode’s final moments let us know that there are plenty of other supernatural threats close at hand, while the racist anti-Somali discourse playing on Ace’s truck radio reminds us that human beings are capable of plenty of hatred, violence, and danger without supernatural assistance. 

At the end of the season’s opening episode, tension and potential hang in the air, leaving us wanting to know more about these characters, both old and new, and a little scared of what we might find.