Long before The Outsider or Lisey’s Story, Stephen King delivered one of his darkest, most claustrophobic masterpieces with Mr. Mercedes—and its 2017–2019 Audience Network adaptation (now streaming on Peacock and available internationally on platforms like Netflix and Prime Video) remains the most underrated gem in the King television canon. This is no supernatural horror. There are no clowns in sewers or possessed cars. Instead, it’s a cold, methodical psychological duel between a retired detective and a monster who hides in plain sight, taunting his prey through glowing screens in the dead of night. Viewers call it “pure nightmare fuel”—a slow-burn descent into obsession that feels terrifyingly real in our digital age.
Brendan Gleeson stars as Bill Hodges, a washed-up cop drowning in whiskey and regret after failing to catch the Mercedes Killer—a psychopath who, in the novel’s opening scene, deliberately plowed a stolen gray Mercedes into a crowd of job seekers, killing 16 and injuring dozens. Two years later, with Hodges contemplating suicide, the killer—Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway in a career-defining turn)—resurfaces, sending taunting messages via an anonymous chat app: smiley faces, countdowns, and chilling reminders that he’s watching. What unfolds is a nerve-tightening cat-and-mouse game played across computer screens and suburban streets, where every ping could be a death threat.
Treadaway’s Brady is the stuff of sleepless nights: a soft-spoken IT worker by day, a grinning sadist by night, living in his mother’s basement while plotting his next atrocity. Gleeson’s Hodges, pulled back from the edge by the game, recruits unlikely allies—tech-savvy teenager Jerome (Jharrel Jerome) and Brady’s own traumatized victim Holly Gibney (Justine Lupe, who steals Season 2)—to hunt the monster before he strikes again.
David E. Kelley’s adaptation stays ferociously faithful to King’s 2014 novel (the first in a trilogy), but director Jack Bender (Lost) infuses it with a visual language of dread: flickering screens, rain-slicked streets, and close-ups of Brady’s unblinking eyes that make your skin crawl. The supporting cast—Holland Taylor as Hodges’ sharp-tongued neighbor, Breeda Wool as Brady’s tragic mother—elevates every scene.
Critics were stunned: 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, with The New York Times calling it “the best Stephen King adaptation in a decade.” Viewers who discovered it during its Netflix resurgence agree: “I started at midnight and finished Season 1 at 6 a.m.—then immediately started Season 2,” wrote one. “Brady Hartsfield is the scariest villain since Annie Wilkes.”
Three seasons. Thirty episodes. Zero filler. Stream Mr. Mercedes now on Peacock (U.S.) or Netflix/Prime Video (select regions). But be warned: once Brady starts typing… you won’t sleep until he’s caught.
