‘Buried In Barstow’: Angie Harmon’s New Lifetime Movie Is Getting a Sequel
Angie Harmon plays a woman with a very complicated past in the new Lifetime movie Buried in Barstow. Hazel King is a single mom and diner owner who will do whatever it takes to protect her daughter. The role marks the former Rizzoli & Isles star’s return to TV after a six-year hiatus from acting. And it won’t be the last we see of Harmon – or of Hazel King. A Buried in Barstow sequel is already in the works, and Harmon has said she hopes there will be even more movies in the future.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Buried in Barstow.]
Angie Harmon plays a single mom with a secret in her new Lifetime movie
In Buried in Barstow, Hazel leads a seemingly quiet life in Barstow, California, where she owns a BBQ restaurant and raises her daughter Joy (Lauren Richards). It’s a long way from her previous life in Las Vegas, where she was a teenage heroin addict plucked off the streets and molded into a calculating hit woman.
When she got pregnant with her daughter, Hazel left her violent life behind. But now, nearly two decades later, her past has caught up with her. Her old boss – played by Harmon’s Rizzoli & Isles co-star Bruce McGill – calls her back to Vegas to do one more job. Meanwhile, back in Barstow, she takes extreme measures to protect Joy from a bad boyfriend while getting involved with a stranger named Elliot (Kristoffer Polaha) who shows up in town under mysterious circumstances.
The movie ends on a serious cliffhanger. Hazel discovers that Elliot was working for her old boss, who he met in prison. But before she can confront him, she interrupts a kidnapping in progress and is shot outside her diner. Meanwhile, her daughter’s abusive boyfriend Travis (Timothy Granaderos) turned out not to be dead after all. He returns to Barstow, and Joy seems eager to rekindle their relationship.
‘Buried in Barstow’ is getting a sequel
Buried in Barstow concludes with a “to be continued…” Fortunately, viewers don’t need to worry about never seeing the next chapter of Hazel’s story. Lifetime has said the movie is the first in a planned series, and Harmon has confirmed that work has already begun on the follow-up film. She’s hopeful there could be half-a-dozen movies or more featuring her hitwoman-turned-waitress character.
“[W]e don’t have an exact number,” Harmon told Smashing Interviews Magazine. “I would like for there to be six to eight, and hopefully we can get there. I did see this more as a series. But I appreciate the vision that Tom [Evans, the movie’s screenwriter] has for it as two-hour movie segments. But I’m not sure. Maybe if people keep liking them, we’ll keep making them. Hopefully. We start filming the next one in the beginning of June.”
Harmon says ‘Buried in Barstow’ is different from the typical Lifetime movie
Harmon – who is also an executive producer on Buried in Barstow – says the movie, directed by Pretty in Pink’s Howard Deutch, is something of a departure for Lifetime. It’s darker and more violent.
“You can’t have a story about an assassin and have it not be dark and gritty,” Harmon told Emmy Magazine. “This is what they hired me for! To get away from the typical, cookie-cutter Lifetime movies. And to their credit, they were like, ‘OK, it’s a lot more violence than we’ve ever had, but I trust you.’ So we took it as far as we could go.”
She also compared the movie to the popular TV series Yellowstone.
“It’s kind of like Yellowstone in the way that these people don’t necessarily make sound ethical or moral choices, but you still root for them,” she told Smashing Interviews. “They’re not making the most ethical choices, but you still love them, you still want them to succeed, and you still root for them.”
For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s YouTube channel.
