“The Continental: From the World of John Wick” arrives as a three-episode miniseries on Peacock, a prequel spun off from the John Wick films and built around the hotel where professional killers are supposed to leave their work at the door. It premiered September 22, 2023, and finished its run on October 6. The show stars Colin Woodell as a young Winston Scott and Mel Gibson as Cormac O’Connor, and it carries a Metacritic score of 53. Our score is 5.3 of 10.
Trailer, via Peacock.
A 1970s New York, Rewritten
The premise is the selling point: how Winston Scott came to run the New York branch of the Continental, the chain of hotels that serve as safe havens for assassins, on the grounds of which no business may ever take place. The series sets this in an alternate-history 1970s New York, and drags Winston into a past he thought he had left behind. He charts a course through the hotel’s underworld in an attempt to seize the place where he will eventually take his throne.
That is a clean hook, and it is the reason the show exists. The trouble is that a hook is not a story. Three episodes is a strange shape for a prequel this loaded — long enough to feel like a padded film, short enough that nothing settles.
Winston, Cormac, and the Rest of the Guest List
Woodell plays Winston younger and hungrier, the young version of the character from the main John Wick films. Gibson plays Cormac O’Connor. Around them: Mishel Prada as Kate “KD” Di Silva, Ben Robson as Frankie Scott, Hubert Point-Du Jour as Miles Burton, Nhung Kate as Yen, Jessica Allain as Lou Burton, Ayomide Adegun as Charon, and Jeremy Bobb as Mayhew.
The casting history is worth noting because it explains the show’s shape. Mel Gibson was announced first, in October 2021, with the rest of the lead cast following. By November 2021, Peter Greene and Adegun were set as younger versions of Uncle Charlie and Charon, and Bobb was cast as Mayhew, a new character. February 2022 brought Katie McGrath as the Adjudicator, Ray McKinnon, Adam Shapiro as Lemmy, and Mark Musashi and Marina Mazepa as Hansel and Gretel.
That is a lot of names for three episodes. The show has to introduce a franchise’s worth of players and still tell one story. It does not manage both.
The Schedule
| Episode | Air date |
|---|---|
| Episode 1 | September 22, 2023 |
| Episode 3 | October 6, 2023 |
The series ran on Peacock in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video internationally. Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, and Shawn Simmons developed it; Coolidge and Ward served as showrunners and wrote the scripts with Simmons and Ken Kristensen. Albert Hughes directed the first and third episodes. Charlotte Brändström directed the second.
That split matters more than it should. A three-part story with two directors and two showrunners is a committee, and it shows in the seams.
What the Hotel Actually Costs
The Continental’s premise has always been its best trick: a neutral ground where the rules are the drama. The films use it sparingly, which is why it works. This series makes the hotel the whole subject, and the mystique thins out under the light.
The genre labels — crime, drama, action and adventure — describe a show that wants to be all four at once. The neo-noir framing is there. The 1970s alternate history is there. What is missing is a reason to care about any of it beyond the setup.
The Metacritic score is 53.
Where This Leaves the Franchise
The verdict is that “The Continental: From the World of John Wick” is a prequel that mistakes explanation for depth. The films never told us how Winston got the hotel, and that was fine. This series answers a question the films left open, and it answers it in three hours that feel longer than they are.
The casting of Gibson as Cormac is the show’s biggest swing and its most distracting element. Whatever the intent, it pulls attention away from Woodell, who is doing the actual work of building a character we already know the ending for.
What is worth watching here is Adegun as Charon, and the idea of the hotel as a business with a history. What is not worth watching is the plot mechanics that get us there. The show is caught between being a Winston Scott origin story and a Cormac O’Connor story, and it never picks one.
Fans of the franchise will find the pieces they came for. Everyone else will find a miniseries that explains the Continental without ever making it feel dangerous again.
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