Mr. Mercedes has found a new home in NBCUniversal’s recently launched streaming premium platform, Peacock.
The move to Peacock yields a new lease on life for Mr. Mercedes, the Stephen King adaptation crime series, which started life in 2017 as a broadcast offering on the AT&T-owned, DirecTV-exclusive Audience Network, only to be left derelict with an uncertain future after the channel’s dissolution this past January. With the move—announced on Sept. 21, King’s birthday, of all days—Mr. Mercedes Seasons 1 and 2 will be bingeable on Peacock starting on October 15. That premiere will eventually be followed by the show’s most recent outing, 2019’s Season 3, which will arrive on a date to be announced.
The series, which operates under a prolific creator/showrunner in David E. Kelley, adapts King’s novel trilogy—2014’s Mr. Mercedes, 2015’s Finders Keepers and 2016’s End of Watch—into a serialized format. The story centers on retired police detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson), who has been drawn into an ongoing demented psychological rivalry with psychopathic serial killer Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway), who bears the morbid nickname, Mr. Mercedes, after a claim-to-fame crime of driving a Mercedes into a line of job seekers. Yet, Hartsfield utilizes a criminal skill set that far-surpasses vehicular manslaughter, thrusting Hodges into a perpetual struggle to protect himself and his loved ones.
The cast of the series also consists of names such as Mary-Louise Parker, Jack Huston, Kelly Lynch, Jharrel Jerome, Holland Taylor, Maximiliano Hernández, Justine Lupe, Breeda Wool, Scott Lawrence, Ann Cusack, Tessa Ferrer and Nancy Travis. Additionally, notables like Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager), Natalie Paul (The Blacklist) and Brett Gelman (Fleabag) fielded runs in Season 3. In addition to running the day-to-day of the series, Kelley serves as executive producer and writer, joined in that same dual capacity by Stephen King himself.
Interestingly, Peacock’s announced rescue did not come with an update of any kind of the status of Mr. Mercedes Season 4, for which there is currently no news to be had at the moment, seeing as the series was widely written off as canceled after Audience went off the air. However, with this prominent pickup, the series—a production of Temple Hill Entertainment and Sonar Entertainment—might just be the kind of ready-to-go dark content that the burgeoning Peacock platform needs to complement a developing lineup dominated by comedies, specifically comedy reboots and revivals like Saved by the Bell, MacGruber and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air‘s dramatic reinvention, Bel-Air. Moreover, if Netflix’s series acquisition strategy remains standard practice, then Peacock might just greenlight at least one new season of Mr. Mercedes, if anything, for the purpose of promoting the series’ bingeability as an ever-green back-catalogue offering.
Nevertheless, Mr. Mercedes will return, this time in binge form, when the first two seasons premiere on Peacock on October 15, followed at a later time by the third season. We will certainly keep you apprised on any substantive developments regarding the show’s future.