‘The Following’ season 3: James Purefoy scooped up for another series

After what happened to his character on “The Following” this season, it took almost zero time at all for James Purefoy’s next big role to be announced. Heck, we wonder whether or not this was confirmed before Monday night, but the announcement was delayed just to keep spoilers from getting out.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Purefoy will appear next in the Sundance TV series “Hap and Leonard,” playing one of the show’s title characters in Hap. He is a plantation worker in Texas who was previously imprisoned for dodging the draft. He also has a bond with Leonard, an openly gay man who actually did serve in the Vietman War played by “The Wire” alum Michael Kenneth Williams. The show is based on the series of novels by Joe Lansdale, and the first six-episode season is going to premiere at some point in 2016.

So long as Purefoy continues to do great work, he will most-likely continue to be offered great roles. The issue with Joe Carroll on “The Following” was mostly one of timing. Namely, there was only so long that a man this evil could exist in the world without the show starting to lose all semblance of reality. Trust us when we say that they definitely stretched the bounds of that for as long as possible for the past three seasons, and have really made us question the effectiveness of the FBI.

Purefoy will at least continue to appear periodically the rest of this season, as Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) will have visions of him in his mind. Given that the show is probably getting canceled after this season anyway, it really did not matter whether or not Joe Carroll’s time ended here. It only just made it easier for him to look for other work.