First Three Episodes of Castle Rock Season 2 Land on Hulu Early

Stephen King fans are known to experience a number of surprises when reading his books, though the latest surprise for fans being that the first three episodes of Castle Rock Season Two have landed on Hulu ahead of schedule. For the months leading towards the debut of the second season, fans have known it would premiere on October 23rd, with this debut not only giving us the content early, but treating us to three whole episodes. Fans will likely expect new episodes of the series to arrive on the platform on a weekly basis, with this second season consisting of 10 installments.

In Season Two, a feud between warring clans comes to a boil when budding psychopath Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan), Stephen King‘s nurse from hell, gets waylaid in Castle Rock.

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 such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.

With Kathy Bates having previously brought Wilkes to life in Misery and earning her an Academy Award for the performance, the stakes were high for Caplan. According to co-creator Dustin Thomason, the decision to enlist the actress was rooted in her own excitement for the first season.

“When [co-creator] Sam [Shaw] and I first talked about the show, the idea, before Season One even, of doing an Annie Wilkes origin story always felt like one of the most exciting things and chapters to fill in,” Thomason shared with ComicBook.com. “In a way, we had been thinking about it for a long time. And then, actually, I don’t know if anyone knows this, but Lizzy, during Season One, emailed Sam to tell him that she was really enthusiastic about the show, because they had worked together on something else. And so, in a way, I think the conversation began all the way back during Season One, at least in our minds.”

Thomason continued, “When I started thinking about Season Two as the Annie Wilkes origin story that we had been trying to tell all along, Lizzy was the first name that came to the forefront. I guess it was a happy accident, and it was maybe in a story about a woman who is a big fan, it was fun to cast somebody who was actually a fan of Season One without having any connection to it.”

Check out Season Two of Castle Rock now on Hulu.

Will you be diving into the new season? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!