Father Marcus is a trauma machine—a man who performed an exorcism as a child that killed his own mother. Father Tomas is a skeptic forced into the supernatural. Their relationship is part Lethal Weapon , part Doubt . When they pray, it sounds like they’re begging.

And then Fox cancelled it after two seasons. Because of course they did.

Posted on October 14, 2024

Let’s be honest: when Fox announced a television adaptation of The Exorcist in 2016, most of us rolled our eyes. A network TV sequel to the most terrifying film ever made? Starring a guy from Daredevil ? It sounded like sacrilege.

But by the time Season 1 wrapped in early 2017, something miraculous had happened. We weren’t just watching a horror show. We were watching a genuine, bleeding-heart tragedy about faith, trauma, and the terrifying silence of God.

The show earned its R-rating-on-TV moments (head-turning, spider-walking, pea-soup vomit), but the real horror happens at the dinner table. You don’t need CGI for that. Most exorcism media treats the Church as a prop. The Exorcist (2017) treats it as a battlefield.

You can find both seasons on Amazon Prime (in the US) or AMC+.

That’s the knife-twist. The show never gives an easy answer. Episode 5, "Through My Most Grievous Fault."

But for those of us who stuck around? Season 2 (set in a group home for troubled boys) was even better. More intimate. More brutal. Featuring John Cho as a father desperate to save his son from a demon that feeds on grief. The Exorcist (2017) is not a guilty pleasure. It is a straight-up pleasure. It respects the original film while building something new: a serialized horror novel about the cost of belief.