A demented killer taunts a retired police detective with a series of lurid letters and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he can strike again.

Back in 2017 there was an advertisement for a new Stephen King based TV series, as a big fan of King I was excited.

This series was to be based on Kings ‘Bill Hodges’ novel Trilogy (“Mr. Mercedes”, “Finders Keepers”, and “End Of Watch”). If you’re a reader like myself then this is a trilogy I recommend, it strangely seems to be overlooked for some reason, which is quite sad.

The premise for the show was: Retired detective ‘Bill Hodges’ is still haunted by the unsolved case of “Mr. Mercedes”, who claimed 16 lives when he drove a stolen Mercedes through a line of job-seekers at a local job fair. An online cat-and-mouse game soon has deadly real-life consequences.

The casting for this show really got my hopes up that it was going to be something special. The fantastic Brendan Gleeson was cast as ‘Bill Hodges’, Harry Treadaway was cast as ‘Brady’ and we also got the likes of Holland Taylor, Jharrel Jerome, Breeda Wool and Justine Lupe.

Stephen King stated in an interview that he had Brendan Gleeson in mind when writing the character of ‘Bill Hodges’, so to get him cast in the role is just fantastic. I wonder how it was for King to see the character he wrote come to life by the person he imagined in the role.

I have to say that the show blew my expectations out of the water and from the first episode I was completely hooked, it was truly gripping stuff. The characters were so well written, the cast truly embodied their roles and it made for great viewing.

That entire first season was some of the best TV I’ve ever seen and I still stand by that, I just couldn’t figure out why people weren’t raving about this show. It seemed to be on nobodys radar and this just dumbfounded me, how could something so good go unnoticed?

I’ve seen this happen a few times with shows but it’s something we’ve sadly got used to seeing, but hey, at least it wasn’t cancelled. Luckily though viewers did pick up as the season went on but it still wasn’t as popular as I thought it had the real potential to be.

Watching the cat and mouse game unfold between Gleesons ‘Bill Hodges’ and Treadaways ‘Brady’ was so enthralling, it was done so well and had so many twists and turns in it that you could feel the tension oozing off the screen. Not an easy feat.

Admittedly things shifted in the second series and some viewers weren’t happy with it, but I still thought it made for gripping viewing and I understand that shows evolve over time and the story has to keep going as to not get stale and boring.

The character development as the show went on was just fantastic, as a viewer it really made for great TV. Plus I thought the storyline still had a lot in the tank to move forward with and they managed to do just that and in the right way, in my opinion anyway.

I have to give props to the studio though for season three, with most plot lines being tied up in season two they tried to let the show move forward and takesomething of a different direction with the characters in a way that the show might continue.

Unfortunately it seemed to struggle to move on from the main story, but I still have to give kudos as the writing was still of great quality and was still very well acted but it had the looming shadow of the first two seasons over it. That shadow was just too big.

“Mr. Mercedes” was one of the best pieces of TV I’ve ever seen, it had everything you wanted. It also served as a reminder that you can have something small of a great thing and appreciate it, not everything needs to be drawn out longer than it needs to.