‘The Following’ season 4: A tease at what could have been with Fox renewal

Unfortunately, Fox has canceled “The Following” after three seasons, and despite some brief overtures suggesting that someone else may be interested in picking up the series for more episodes, it does not look now in any form like this is going to happen.

So what would a season 4 have looked like? We had some hints throughout the two-hour finale, mostly in that it was clear that Theo was a part of something greater, and something far more mysterious than the omnipresent Joe Carroll was in the life of Ryan Hardy. So speaking about what could have been for a fourth season to TVLine, showrunner Alexi Hawley (who has now moved on to “Castle”) made it clear that there was a fascinating among the writers about how the wealthy serial killers for the most part have better success getting away with their crimes:

“Most known serial killers are poor or middle-class. Why is that? This idea that the über-rich, except for possibly Robert Durst, don’t get caught as serial killers [is fascinating]. That can’t possibly genetically be that they don’t get that gene, that they don’t have those proclivities.”

Hardy ended season 3 presumed dead by many, and having him lead the ultimate undercover operation could have been very interesting. Here is of course the sad irony of it all: Theo’s story really started to pick up towards the end, and as much as we loved James Purefoy, killing off Joe was finally going to allow the show to move forward rather than having to balance two separate worlds at the same time.

If a season 4 doesn’t happen, we suppose that we’ll just have to imagine that it could have been the best season of the show to date.