‘Tis the season to start getting ready for the holidays. And there is never a better place to start than the Hallmark Channel, which is gifting us with a third season of their deliciously devious mystery series, Mistletoe Murders.
And if you are new to the show, strap in because this is more than your average cozy rom-com confection (which we also love). Nope, this one is edgy and unexpected. Sarah Drew (Grey’s Anatomy) stars as Emily Lane, a seemingly cheery young woman who has moved to the so-Hallmarky hamlet of Fletcher’s Grove in Upstate New York, where she runs a year-round Christmas shop, as well as an inner monologue that belies her sunny exterior.
Because as we’ve learned over the last two seasons — as Emily has fallen for dreamy local cop Sam Wilner (Peter Mooney) while helping him crack the town’s alarmingly frequent homicides — she is actually a former member of a hacker group known as Chimera that morphed into a domestic terror cell. Not exactly Tyler Hynes kissing Hunter King at a Chiefs game, right?
“We started on our Hallmark+, so we had a little more flexibility,” says showrunner Peter Cuperus, who created Mistletoe Murders as an Audible series with wife and co-EP Michelle Melanson. “And they’ve just been [great]… They have certain rules we need to follow and that’s awesome, but they’ve been really open to letting us do a little bit more, pushing the boundaries a little bit of what they’ve done in the past. So I’m loving that.”
And we are loving this first-look pics from the season’s opening episodes, which will deal with the sudden return of Emily’s ex-partner at Chimera (Aaron Ashmore) and set up a potentially major change for the show moving forward.
So take a look…and keep a lookout for news on when Season 3 is headed our way!