11.22.63: The Back To The Future Easter Egg In Stephen King’s Show Explained

11.22.63, Stephen King’s time-traveling thriller, paid tribute to Back to the Future Part 2 in a fairly clever way, leading to a fun Easter egg. King has tackled just about every type of story out there, at least when it comes to the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror realms. Time travel is something he’s had decidedly mixed results with though. The Langoliers novella doesn’t really make much sense at the end of the day, although it’s an interesting read. Short story The Jaunt, which skirts the edge of traveling through time, illustrates what can happen when it goes terribly wrong.

Then there’s 11.22.63, King’s only full-length book about the subject of time travel. In it, mild-mannered teacher Jake Amberson uses a time portal to travel back to the late 1950s, and is tasked by a friend with completing that person’s ultimate goal: preventing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While the Kennedy assassination is a common topic for time travel stories, King’s novel is arguably the best go at it to date, even if Jake’s story ends up being about much more than just saving Kennedy.

Since the portal sends Jake several years prior to Kennedy’s death, he needs to make a like for himself in the past, in order to fit in with his new time while making plans and preparations for how to save JFK. One of the ways in which he makes ends meet functions as a seeming nod to the Back to the Future franchise.

11.22.63: The Back To The Future Easter Egg In Stephen King’s Show

In 11.22.63, Jake isn’t sent into the past without some helpful tips and information, thanks to his now deceased friend Al, who had unsuccessfully attempted to save JFK previously. However, to make sure he has a steady income to pay bills and keep up appearances, Jake can’t just depend on the teaching job he gets in the past. Instead, he takes a page out of the Back to the Future Part 2 playbook, making bets on sports events he already knows the outcome of, in order to rake in guaranteed winnings.

While doing this does eventually attract Jake the wrong kind of attention, it’s still a workable strategy to an extent. Fans will recall that in Back to the Future Part 2, the dystopian alternate 1985 comes about due to Biff Tannen getting his hands on a sports almanac, then using the DeLorean to travel back and give it to his younger self, enabling young Biff to amass a fortune and accrue power. King doesn’t specifically reference Back to the Future Part 2 in this context during 11.22.63, but that’s certainly what must viewers are likely to be reminded of, and the most famous instance of that plot point being used.

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