Tonight, thriller Mr. Mercedes returns for a second season on the AT&T Audience network. In the first season, retired detective Bill Hodges found himself suddenly thrust back into one of his unsolved cases. Brady Hartsfield, the psychopath who mowed down a crowd of innocent people at a job fair with a stolen Mercedes, started taunting Hodges on a private message board, letting him know that he was planning something even more devastating. Hartsfield tried to manipulate Hodges into taking his own life, and even murdered the love of Hodges’ life in the process. However, with the help of young assistants Jerome and Holly, Hodges managed to figure out what Hartsfield was up to, and stopped him before he massacred hundreds more innocent people. However, in the process, Hartsfield got his head bashed in and fell into a vegetative coma that he was unlikely to ever recover from. Hodges vowed that he would keep visiting Hartsfield at the hospital so that if he woke up, he would pay for his crimes.

While the first season of the series stayed very close the first novel of Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy, the second season borrows from both the second and the third books. As the second season opens, Hartsfield is in this vegetative state, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still plotting and planning his revenge on Hodges. D.A. Tony Montez (Max Hernandez, The Last Ship) is anxious to prosecute Hartsfield, but there’s not much he can do with Hartsfield in his current state. At the same time, cocky brain surgeon Dr. Felix Babineau (Jack Huston, Boardwalk Empire) is being pressured by his ambitious wife Cora (Tessa Ferrer, Extant) to use Hartsfield as a human test subject for a new drug designed to counteract tumors. Over the course of the next year, Brady continues to receive treatments, while Bill teams up with Holly to start a private investigative agency called Finders Keepers. As they solve whatever small cases come their way, Bill also picks up the odd repossession job. Meanwhile, the other folks affected by Brady’s actions also try to move on with their lives.

I loved the first season of this series, and had been really looking forward to seeing what happens next. I was curious to see how the series could work with Hartsfield in a coma, but the writers have found a really unique, creative and creepy way to show what’s going on inside Brady’s mind. And even though his physical body doesn’t work, there is a bit of a supernatural element to the series this season that allows Brady to resume his terror from his hospital bed. We will also see how the events of last season affected the rest of the characters—Jerome had a promising academic career, but the trauma of these events may have sent him in a downward spiral. And how has having the one person you thought was your friend try to murder affected Lou? I’ve watched the first two episodes of the season and it’s just as creepy as ever. I can’t wait to see more. The one disappointment is that the series only airs on the provider-specific Audience Network, so only those with AT&T U-verse or DirecTV as their TV providers will be able to watch.

At San Diego Comic-Con, I participated in roundtable Q&As for the series, with the series creator as well as several of the stars. Check out my videos from the press room.

Tonight I’ll also be watching/recording Big Brother, MasterChef, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Misfits & Monsters, and The Sinner.