‘The Exorcist’ TV Series Gave Us The Gripping Legacy Sequel That We Didn’t Realize We Needed Until It Was Too Late

The Exorcist: Believer arrived in theaters one week earlier than its planned debut — the marketing braintrust at Universal had Friday the 13th circled in blood red on their calendars for months — leading to a disappointing opening weekend box office take of $26.4 million. Universal blinked when Taylor Swift announced that her Eras Tour movie would also be opening theatrically on October 13, 2023, ultimately deciding that the burgeoning ExorSwift movement wasn’t going to be the second coming of Barbenheimer.

Universal spent $400MM to secure the rights to the franchise, but Exorcist fans will recall that this reboot isn’t the first attempt to inject new life into the iconic brand. For a short while in the late 2010s, we had our first and only Exorcist TV series, courtesy of future Moon Knight creator Jeremy Slater. From a distance, it sounds like a strange idea, particularly when you consider that the show wound up on the FOX network, without any of the gruesome freedoms afforded by premium cable or streaming services. But what might sound like an odd choice, even a cynical cash grab, quickly proved itself one of the most intriguing horror releases of 2016, a tense, ferocious new story that, years before Believer, gave us the gripping legacy sequel to The Exorcist that we didn’t know we needed. 

By the time Slater’s show came along, of course, The Exorcist had already gone through several evolutions. After the original film we got the misguided direct sequel (Exorcist II: The Heretic), the more respected, relatively standalone sequel (The Exorcist III), and not one but two prequel films (Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist and Exorcist: The Beginning) competing to tell different versions of the same story. In short, it felt like every avenue in the original continuity was thoroughly exhausted. 

So, The Exorcist TV series set out to, seemingly, ignore all of that continuity and just tell a new story about a family falling prey to demonic possession as a dark force gripped their teenage daughter Casey (Hannah Kasulka). For added gravitas, the show cast no less an acting titan than Geena Davis as Casey’s mother Angela, and pre-Succession Alan Ruck as Casey’s father Henry, giving the household a sense of drama even before anyone said a word. Then there are the priests, which the show also cast perfectly by giving us Ben Daniels as the battle-weary (and hot) Father Marcus and Alfonso Herrera as the new exorcist (and also hot) Father Tomas. That’s right, Fleabag fans: Two Hot Priests!

With that casting in place, Slater set out to make his new possession drama compelling and frightening without any of the encumbrance of the original stories, apart from the show’s title. And it worked. From the very beginning, The Exorcist is frightening, compelling, and full of great performances, and Slater and company up the ante by centering the possession in a world where a vast conspiracy against the Catholic Church is also afoot, raising the serialized storytelling stakes considerably and adding in even more great character work for his cast.

Then things take a turn. 

Spoiler alert incoming for a seven-year-old show, but yes, The Exorcist turns out to be a legacy sequel after all. Angela Rance, you see, is the new name adopted by Regan MacNeil, who attempted to start over after her possession and the ensuing media coverage changed her life forever. Unfortunately for Regan, evil doesn’t care if you change your name, and so dark forces kept hunting for her, until finally the demon Pazuzu found and latched onto her daughter. It’s an idea that creates an interesting enough hook on its own that you could easily see a movie unfolding with that premise right upfront, but what makes The Exorcist series different is how cleverly Slater’s team buries it near the end of the first season, and how much they earn it along the way. By the end of its first episode, which contains its own twist in revealing who’s actually possessed in the Rance family, The Exorcist establishes itself as a great, frightening, genuinely exciting standalone horror-drama, with no need to fall back on the stories that came before. We get emotionally invested well before any major reveals come into play, so when those reveals finally do come, we’re both thrilled and all the more invested in what’s happening to the Rance family. That it’s then all wrapped up in the grander-scale conspiracy theory only makes it juicier, and more of a standout in the grand scheme of the franchise. 

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and the Rance/MacNeil narrative was over by the time The Exorcist‘s first season was. But that didn’t stop it. It has nothing to do with the movies, but Season 2 of the drama does continue the adventures of Marcus and Tomas with a solid new possession story, and an even deeper dive into what it means to be an exorcist in a world where demons are demonstrably, for the characters and the audience, real and very dangerous. It’s not quite as rewarding as the first season, but it’s still emotionally satisfying, and if the show had been given a Season 3, the stakes would no doubt have kept rising. 

In short, The Exorcist TV series is a fantastic legacy sequel that achieves a great deal without ever coasting on said legacy. It’s smart, it’s scary, and its ability to slowly and carefully weave together the connective tissues of a franchise still makes it stand out, even if The Exorcist is about to move on yet again.

Matthew Jackson (@awalrusdarkly) is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire whose work has appeared at Syfy Wire, Mental Floss, Looper, Playboy, and Uproxx, among others. He lives in Austin, Texas, and he’s always counting the days until Christmas.