Six-and-a-half years after Ethan Hawke starred in the Blumhouse hit The Purge he will return to the film’s dark, dystopian mythology via the namesake USA series. The episode airs December 17 at 9/8C .

Hawke will revives the role of security system salesman James Sandin in the cold open of “7:01 A.M.,” the Season 2 finale of USA’s The Purge. The flashback scene takes the story back to one week before the first national Purge Night, the annual amnesty day that allows citizens to kill and victimize others for 12 hours without fear of prosecution.

“The finale picks up as Purge Night rages on and Esme, Ryan, Marcus and Ben fight for their lives and their loved ones,” according to a synopsis from producers.

Hawke introduced the role of Sandin in the 2013 film that piled up $89 million in box office against a scant $3 million production budget. No surprise, the original film, distributed by Universal Pictures and produced by Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes, has spawned three more feature films (sequels in 2014 and 2016 followed by last year’s prequel) and discussion of a fifth.

The namesake show on USA featured a Season 2 cast led by Derek Luke, Max Martini, Paola Núñez, and Joel Allen. The Purge television series was created by James DeMonaco, who also launched the big-screen franchise as the writer of all four films and the director of the first three. The Executive Producers are James DeMonaco Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Sébastien K. Lemercier, Thomas Kelly, and Anthony Hemingway.