Mr. Mercedes (Season 2) Audience, AT&T,
Produced by: David E. Kelley Productions, Nomadicfilm, Temple Hill Productions, Sonar Entertainment
Starring:
Brendan Gleeson as Detective Bill Hodges
Harry Treadaway as Brady Hartsfield
Jharrel Jerome as Jerome Robinson
Scott Lawrence as Detective Peter Dixon
Breeda Wool as Lou Linklatter
Justine Lupe as Holly Gibney
Holland Taylor as Ida Silver
Makayla Lysiak as Barbara Robinson
Jack Huston as Dr. Felix Baineau
Tessa Ferrer as Cora Babineau
Maximiliano Hernández as Antonio Montez
Nancy Travis as Donna Hodges
Mike Starr as Al
Tammy Arnold as Nurse Wilmer
When the second season of Mr. Mercedes came out, I had two hopes: that it would continue to be a fine adaptation of King’s original work, and that it would be as good as the first season.
It does neither.
Instead, it manages to improve on that excellent first season on both counts.
King’s “Mercedes” series is a trilogy, the second of which is Finders Keepers. The name is based on the private detective agency that Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) establishes with Holly Gibney (Justine Lupe). The first episode keeps those story elements, and touches on others such as the presence of antiquated computer games (“Zappits”) and Jerome Robinson (Jharrel Jerome) and his sister.
So the viewer has good reason to suppose that the storyline will be the one in Finders Keepers. Why not? Season One fairly faithfully stuck to the first book, Mr. Mercedes.
That struck me as a bit of a problem. King wandered into the realm of the supernatural, turning a great cat-and-mouse story into a slightly awkward hybrid of gritty realism and King’s daemon worlds. Also, the story dragged a bit. (The third novel, End of Watch, may be even less adaptable as is to the screen, but for different reasons).
The series proceeded to go off in an entirely different direction. The characters remained the familiar faces (with a number of notable new additions), but by mid-season the storyline bore only the faintest resemblance to the novel. Anyone settling down to watch with the comfortable feeling that they know what’s coming next (and it’s not clear what the point of watching a suspense/mystery is if you know the story already) are in for some major surprises. [Warning: Spoilers. The ship sinks. Bruce Willis was dead all along. The South lost. End spoilers]
The acting is stellar. Brendan Gleeson and Harry Treadaway get to interact directly (sort of) and the extraordinary game between the two adversaries continues to intensify. Maximiliano Hernández, Breeda Wool and Jack Huston are transfixing, living up to career roles.
The writing and dialogue are sublime, giving the lead actors more than ample opportunity to explore and express their roles. The series largely downplays the supernatural aspects, replacing it with some pseudo-scientific medical process that I first thought was just plot spackle, but which turned out to be the vital core of how the story progresses. There are plot twists of the very best sort: you don’t see them coming, and they make perfect sense when they do.
The first season was unique in that it equaled the original story in quality, characterization and suspense, areas where King shines.
Season two actually surpasses the original work, taut, intelligent and with utterly unforgettable characters.
There’s a lot of great television out there, and it seems to be only getting better. But at this point, I think there’s a very good chance that season two of Mr. Mercedes will be the best series I’ve seen this year.