Castle Rock deserved a Season 3, and even Stephen King thought so

Castle Rock basically felt like a Stephen King fever dream that ended mid-sentence. This anthology from Hulu was building toward Season 3.

And perhaps the most damning detail of all is that even Stephen King thought the series was cancelled too early! For a show rooted in his mythos, that’s a huge endorsement.

Between Bill Skarsgård’s double act and unrealized plans tied to The Shining, Castle Rock had only run out of time. Read on.

Castle Rock was finally finding its voice

From the start, this show wasn’t a straight adaptation.

Creators Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason treated King’s fictional Maine town as a shared universe playground. They were remixing characters' locations into something familiar. Season 1 paired André Holland’s disgraced lawyer with Skarsgård’s mystery figure known as “The Kid,” who was discovered locked in a cage beneath Shawshank Prison. Sadly, we didn't get any real answers.

Season 2 reimagined Misery’s Annie Wilkes through Lizzy Caplan and placed her within a broader supernatural conspiracy. This was when the series finally stitched its anthology threads together. Skarsgård returned as “The Angel,” who felt like a devil who cracked Castle Rock open. Suddenly, the show was flirting with a multiverse, and this town was a crossroads between realities.

Stephen King later said it was this moment that the series had its feet under it. The author, who is famously protective of his work, indicated that Season 2 had momentum and he would have liked to see the show continue.

Bill Skarsgård would've met The Shining in Season 3

Castle Rock's secret weapon was Bill Skarsgård.

Across two seasons, he played two distinct figures who anchored the show’s mythology without fully revealing it. The questions around “The Kid” were an easy setup. Season 3 could properly cash in on that mystery.

Then there’s the revelation that makes the cancellation sting more. So Jane Levy (who briefly played Jackie Torrance) later revealed that Season 3 was planned around her character, aka the niece of The Shining’s Jack Torrance! That would have turned this show into a continuation of King’s most iconic story and could have explored the Torrance family legacy in Doctor Sleep.

If it continued, we could reframe Jackie’s underdevelopment in earlier seasons as patience. The groundwork was there, and Skarsgård (whether as demon, trickster, or something worse) would remain central to the mythology.

Unfortunately, Hulu pulled the plug in 2019, reportedly due to shifting studio priorities. The result was a show that stopped before it could fail.

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Castle Rock is available on Hulu.

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