Despite being a novelist, Stephen King has always had strong opinions about movies and TV shows, and he’s not afraid to share them.
On March 7, the popular horror book author used his Twitter account to express a particular thought about onscreen recoveries. King commented on how fast TV characters typically heal from injuries, something most viewers seem to agree with. If only real-life medicine worked like this…
This single tweet opened up the gates for other folks to express their frustrations regarding this subject. It seems like near-fatal wounds being magically cured happens way more often than viewers are okay with. On the other hand, falling down the stairs or coughing seems to be the real threat to a character’s life. Can’t be too careful with those colds.
My pet peeve is when a person gets hit over the head with a whiskey bottle gets up twenty minutes later…no concussion not even a headache
— KENNETH M. GRAY (@KennethMGRAY2) March 8, 2023
Have you ever noticed that when a character coughs, it’s all over? Someone coughs during a movie, that’s it. That character is going to be dead in about 20 minutes.
— Mary (@Zalm1_1) March 8, 2023
But falling down stairs in a Lifetime movie = instant death.
— Jimmy Magahern (@JimmyMagahern) March 8, 2023
While King kept his words vague, not specifying what stirred the thought in the first place, other Twitter users were quick to connect the post to HBO’s hit series, The Last of Us. In the latest episode, viewers saw Joel make quite a speedy recovery after Ellie administered antibiotics to his infected gut wound, gaining his strength back just in time to torture and murder some intruders for information about the teen’s whereabouts.
When baby girl’s in danger… you heal fast! pic.twitter.com/ZSxismfoQ4
— 📚 Hughes Ouimet 📚 (@hughesouimet) March 8, 2023
In a mushroom/fungus apocalypse, you just have to assume the penicillin is just really fast acting, like the fungal infections themselves. It makes complete sense.😉
— Paul Korney (@PaulKorney) March 8, 2023
Magic penicillin, or maybe one of the healing packs from the game! pic.twitter.com/GW8ttC1FYJ
— Phil End ⚽️ (@Phil_End) March 8, 2023
Thankfully, those antibiotics kicked in for Joel…
— paula t (@pt32453573) March 8, 2023
Given King’s critical eye for all things TV, we can only hope that HBO Max’s upcoming IT prequel lives up to the author’s standards. The show has already received his stamp of approval, which is encouraging, but there’s still a long way to go before it drops on the streaming platform. Plenty can go wrong in the meantime.
