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Stephen King is not only one of the most prolific and popular authors of the last 50 years, but also someone who is never shy about letting his opinions be known about pop culture. It's something that he has been doing for decades, as his pull quotes are featured on a wide variety of movies, books, and more, and in recent years it has been one of ways he utilizes social media. Hell, in just the last few weeks he's let his followers know how excited he is for M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, Old, and how much he loves the series Servant on Apple TV+ (which, funny enough, Shyamalan produces).
Now he's at it again, launching a quick new post on his personal Twitter page – and this time around he's highlighting one of the best adaptations of his books (Mr. Mercedes) and a show that he enjoys without having any personal connection (The Sinner). Check out his Tweet below!
It was back in February of this year that Stephen King first started ringing the bell for Mr. Mercedes on Peacock, informing his followers when all three existing seasons of the show would be available on the streaming service, and now that that's the case his promotion of the show rightly continues. Previously part of the now-nonexistent Audience Network, the mystery series is based on the trilogy of books written by King between 2014 and 2016 – Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End Of Watch – and follows the story of retired Detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) as he continues to investigate a maniac (Harry Treadaway) responsible for purposefully driving a luxury sedan through a crowd at a job fair.
Creatively expanding on the source material, Mr. Mercedes unfolded across three seasons as one of the best modern Stephen King adaptations, and if you consider yourself a fan of the author but haven't checked it out yet, you're definitely doing yourself a disservice. Clearly King has a bit of bias when it comes to the show, but take it from this Constant Reader that it is worth your time.
Having not written the book that The Sinner is based on (credit for that goes to Petra Hammesfahr), Stephen King's opinion on that show comes from a more of an objective place, and the sentiment is intriguing. Like Mr. Mercedes, it too originates as a cable series – specifically part of the USA Network lineup – and is constructed as an anthology series after originally being planned as a simple miniseries (only Season 1 is based on Hammesfahr's novel of the same name). Its third season aired in 2020 (a fourth has been ordered), and all three of them star Bill Pullman as Detective Harry Ambrose investigating a single case over the course of eight episodes.
As noted by Stephen King, one of the nice things about both Mr. Mercedes and The Sinner is that they are are easily accessible to anyone who has now found themselves intrigued by their respective premises. All three seasons of the latter are now streaming on Peacock, and all three of the former are available on Netflix (you can also purchase individual episodes of both shows on Apple/iTunes).
