Picture Credit: Warner Bros. Television
Over the past few months, we’ve seen a bunch of Warner Bros. Television titles (perhaps unsurprisingly given the big news!) either join or rejoin Netflix, including Absentia and The West Wing. Next up, we’ll see the Kevin Bacon series The Following return to service eight years after it was removed from the streamer.
Long-time subscribers will remember The Following being a staple of the Netflix library during the mid-2010s, with the final third season dropping in late December 2015. Just a few years after that third season dropped, it departed for other streaming shores in September 2018. Since its removal, it’s found its way onto several services, including its most recent stint on The Roku Channel, per JustWatch.
Now, as part of the massive licensing wave between Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, the Kevin Bacon-led drama is heading to Netflix once again, albeit only in the United States for now.
We have confirmed that all three seasons (45 episodes) of The Following will be available to stream on Netflix starting Saturday, January 3rd. We’ve also confirmed another Warner Bros. Television series, Found, which has just wrapped its second and final season and will air in early January 2026.
What is The Following?
Premiering on Fox in 2013, The Following was created by Kevin Williamson, who recently worked on Netflix’s The Waterfront, which was sadly canceled after a single season, and is also the creator behind the Scream franchise and The Vampire Diaries.
The series is a cat-and-mouse crime drama that begins when notorious serial killer Joe Carroll escapes from death row. But Carroll isn’t just a killer; he’s a charismatic former literature professor who has used his time in prison to cultivate a network of devoted “followers”—sleeper agents ready to kill at his command. To stop him, the FBI calls upon Ryan Hardy, a damaged and alcoholic former agent who captured Carroll nine years prior. What ensues is a bloody, fast-paced war between Hardy’s team and Carroll’s ever-growing cult of psychopaths.
The series was canceled by Fox in 2015. While the third season wraps up the major storylines, there was definitely room for more with some fans at the time even requesting that Netflix be its saviour.
Who is in the cast?
Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Mystic River) headlined the show as Ryan Hardy, a rare TV appearance for the actor at the time, although he’s since adopted the format a bit more, albeit still quintessentially a movie star. He appeared alongside James Purefoy (Rome, Altered Carbon) as Joe Carroll, the antagonist obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.
The supporting cast features several familiar faces, including:
- Shawn Ashmore (The Boys, X-Men) as Agent Mike Weston
- Valorie Curry (The Boys, The Tick) as Emma Hill
- Natalie Zea (Justified) as Claire Matthews
- Adan Canto (The Cleaning Lady) as Paul Torres
Will you be joining the cult of The Following on January 3rd? Let us know in the comments below.
