The following contains spoilers for the season finale of Castle Rock season one. Please be advised before reading further. We recommend watching the episode on Hulu before reading, but it’s your scary story, so follow your heart.
Midway through the end credits of the Castle Rock finale, fans were treated to a fun little scene with Jane Levy‘s Jackie Torrance. Torrance, who named herself “Jackie” in honor of her maniacal uncle, Jack of The Shining fame seems to be keen on the family business. Perched in The Mellow Tiger bar, we see that she’s at work on a book. (Her laptop has a sticker for WKIT 100.3, which is the radio station Stephen King owns in Bangor, Maine.)
“The axe felt right in my hand,” Jackie reads aloud, “but let me tell you, when I heard the pop up a skull giving up its secrets, felt the root and stem of a cleft brain stopping the blade, I realized where that axe really belonged: dead center of the good professor’s head.”
Jackie seems to be documenting her killing of the professor who attacked Henry, and who she offed with an axe to protect him. A friend swoops in to ask about the story, and says he doesn’t get the title, Overlooked. “Backstory,” Jackie explains, noting that the story is part of her family history, before adding that she’s headed out west on a research trip.
“The best place to finish a book is where it started,” she says before the credits start back up. Sounds like Jackie is headed to The Shining‘s Overlook Hotel.
While this may sound like just a fun little nod to the larger Stephen King universe, it might also be a set up for season two of Castle Rock. We know the series will be an anthology, meaning each season will tell a brand new story. Jackie is a character who felt the most likely to break out of the main narrative and turn up in other seasons, given her relative distance from the Henry Deaver mythology.
It would also make sense to relocate the series to a new location, since many of the “answers” to the town’s larger mystery were wrapped up by the end of season one. A new story set in the Overlook Hotel could be an exciting way to visit another famous King location that’s rife with chaotic, supernatural energy.
Of course, King readers will know that the Overlook is destroyed by an explosion in the end of the novel. But in the movie, the hotel is left standing. Given the introduction of multiple universes near the end of season one, not to mention the opening credits including references specific to The Shining film, it’s possible that in this world, the hotel is still intact and could therefore be a feasible setting for season two.
What do you think? Would you like to see the Overlook Hotel in season two of Castle Rock? Let us know below!
Image: Hulu
