Buried in Barstow Is Finally Coming Back With Two New Movies

Buried in Barstow fans can finally stop wondering whether Hazel King was left bleeding on the floor for all eternity because Lifetime has officially ordered not one but two new movies continuing Angie Harmon’s wonderfully pulpy action drama.

That sentence has been a very long time coming.

Lifetime announced that Harmon will return to star in and executive produce Buried in Barstow: Blood for Blood and Buried in Barstow: The Reckoning, both working titles, with Kristoffer Polaha and Lauren Ashley Richards also reprising their roles as Elliot and Joy. 

The new installments are expected to premiere sometime in 2027, along with another Lifetime project that Harmon will direct.

After four years of silence, two movies almost feels like an apology. And, frankly, we accept.

The original Buried in Barstow premiered in June 2022 and introduced Harmon as Hazel King, a former assassin who escaped that life after becoming pregnant and eventually built a new home for herself and her daughter in Barstow, California. 

Naturally, because quiet lives rarely support movie franchises, Hazel’s past came roaring back after Elliot arrived at her diner and pulled her into another dangerous assignment.

The movie had action, romance, family drama, and enough twists to make it immediately clear that Lifetime was building something bigger than a standalone film. It also ended with Hazel shot and Elliot racing to save her as the words “to be continued” appeared on screen.

And then it did not continue.

Years passed without another installment, and fans who discovered the movie on Lifetime, streaming platforms, and digital rentals continued arriving at TV Fanatic to ask the same increasingly desperate question: Where is Part 2?

Some were patient. Others were understandably irritated. One viewer said the cliffhanger turned a five-star movie into a zero-star experience, while another demanded a refund after paying to watch a story without an ending. 

One particularly committed fan simply repeated, “We want Buried in Barstow, now!!!!!” seven times, which seemed excessive until another year passed without news and it began to feel like the only reasonable response.

I had reached the point of telling readers that the planned sequels had probably been scrapped, possibly becoming casualties of the strikes or shifting priorities at the network.

That was especially disappointing because everyone involved had originally spoken as though more movies were already on the way.

When I talked with Polaha before the first movie premiered, he told me there was interest in telling at least four stories and that the cast was prepared for the long haul.

“I would love to keep telling these stories because I think our story is just getting started,” he said at the time, adding that Hazel and Elliot were only beginning to explore their complicated connection.

He was right. It was just getting started. Lifetime may have decided to take a four-year intermission before getting around to the rest, but now, we know it’s on the way.

Richards was equally excited about continuing Joy’s story when we spoke in 2022, and she believed the cast would be filming another installment almost immediately. 

She had already connected deeply with Joy, whom she described as outspoken, emotional, and desperate for a life beyond the town and diner where she had grown up.

Joy’s relationship with Hazel gave the first movie much of its emotional weight because, beneath all their arguments and Hazel’s sometimes suffocating protectiveness, mother and daughter were fiercely devoted to one another. 

Richards also imagined that discovering the truth about Hazel’s past could initially drive Joy away before their bond eventually pulled them back together.

That conflict should finally have room to unfold in the new movies, especially now that Joy can no longer remain sheltered from who her mother was or the enemies who still know exactly where to find her.

The movies will also introduce Megan Follows as Zadie, the enigmatic matriarch of a powerful construction family whose interests in Barstow begin colliding with Hazel’s in increasingly dangerous ways. 

Anyone familiar with Follows’ work on Reign knows she can make a formidable matriarch positively terrifying, so Zadie sounds less like a minor inconvenience and more like someone who may force Hazel to dust off every old survival skill she possesses.

Harmon’s daughter, Finley Sehorn, will make her acting debut as a younger Hazel, which suggests the sequels will reveal more about Hazel’s early years and the circumstances that transformed a vulnerable teenager into a trained killer.

That history has been one of the franchise’s most intriguing elements. Hazel was taken from the streets of Las Vegas at 15 and molded into an assassin before pregnancy gave her a reason to escape, but the first movie could only offer pieces of that story. 

Casting a younger Hazel signals that the new installments may finally show us what she endured, how she survived, and why leaving that world behind was never going to be as simple as opening a diner and hoping nobody came looking.

The official description for the continuing franchise finds Hazel still trying to create a quiet life for herself and Joy as new threats and unexpected connections force her to navigate loyalty, motherhood, redemption, and the woman she used to be.

Elliot will also be building a new life alongside Hazel while attempting to reclaim the medical career he lost.

This is a welcome confirmation that Polaha’s character remains central to the story rather than becoming merely the handsome man who carried Hazel out of danger before disappearing between films.

Harmon and Polaha had immediate chemistry in the original, and Polaha understood that Elliot’s mystery was part of the attraction. 

He described the role as exciting because viewers could never be entirely certain where Elliot was coming from or what he really wanted, and he believed Hazel and Elliot could bring out qualities in each other that might either save them or get them both into much deeper trouble.

That relationship deserves two more movies almost as much as fans deserve an answer to the cliffhanger.

The original Buried in Barstow also looked and felt more cinematic than viewers might have expected from a television movie, and Polaha credited director Howie Deutch and the production team with creating that atmosphere while still working at Lifetime’s typically fast pace. 

He called the film surprising and beautifully shot, and that care helped elevate the story beyond its deliciously heightened premise.

Alexandra La Roche will direct both upcoming installments. Thompson Evans wrote Blood for Blood, while Chris Pozzebon wrote The Reckoning.

There are no premiere dates yet beyond the promise that both movies will air in 2027, which means Lifetime is still asking fans to exercise patience after thoroughly exhausting their previous supply. 

But the scripts are written, the director is attached, the returning cast has been announced, and two films are officially moving forward.

This is finally real!

Buried in Barstow was introduced as a movie series, and viewers invested in Hazel, Joy, and Elliot because they believed the first chapter would lead somewhere. 

The long silence made it increasingly difficult to believe that Lifetime intended to keep that promise, particularly as new viewers continued to discover the movie and reach that unresolved ending.

Now they will get more than the missing second chapter.

Hazel King is alive, Elliot is coming back, Joy’s life is about to become even more complicated, and two new threats are headed for Barstow.

After four years of waiting, that “to be continued” is finally going to mean something!

Who else is incredibly excited for this news? Share your cheers in the comments below!