Hello Friends,
You’re alone.
Alone, and out to fix all the wrongs done to you in recent years. Wrongs perpetrated by one person in particular. The end-result of a complicated relationship that had only recently concluded.
Or did it?
You can’t trust anyone, because you never know who’s actually on your side. And sometimes it feels like no one really is. Your friends, peers, family, even figures of authority. Are they really there for you, or just reporting back to that person every time you blink? How are you supposed to move on, or get closure, or REVENGE, under such circumstances?
What do you do? What can you do?
No, I’m not talking about high school (and I’m sorry for any flashbacks I may have caused you), I’m talking about the second season of FOX’s thriller series, “The Following.” And what an interesting season it has been, even after a mere six episodes.
As Season One ended, all was well. Main antagonist, serial killer Joe Carroll (charismatically portrayed by the charismatic James Purefoy) was dead, and ex-FBI agent Ryan Harding (played by the increasingly Skeletor-looking Kevin Bacon) had saved the day. He defeated the bad guy, saved lots of good people, and got the girl. The end.
So how could there possibly be a second season, you ask? Easily, the ending wasn’t that simple.
You see, we never did see Carroll’s body, and both Hardy and the girl, Carroll’s ex-wife Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea), both got stabbed right before the season finale credits began to roll (all in typical horror/thriller fashion). So it was all open-ended enough to leave room for more. But more of what, exactly?
I couldn’t imagine where they could possibly go from there without essentially repeating the entire first season. What, more Carroll (assuming he survived) and Hardy playing cat-and-mouse? More drunken self-deprecation with Hardy? More about his heart condition? More Edgar Allan Poe references? More blossoming forbidden love between Hardy and Claire? More tension between Carroll and Hardy because of the aforementioned relationship? More FBI versus demented cult followers murdering innocent people?
We’ve already seen all that.
So if not that, what? Well, Season Two’s premiere quickly answers that.
Taking place one year later we learn that, surprisingly, Claire ultimately succumbed to her injuries and Hardy is no longer affiliated with the FBI. Despite being devastated by the loss of Claire, he seems to have moved on to a better, healthier life, having sobered up completely and adopted an exercise routine to strengthen his health problems. It’s only when the past comes back to haunt him that we learn that all is not exactly what it seems.
When a trio of killers celebrate the first anniversary of Carroll’s “death” by butchering subway passengers, the FBI (most notably Hardy’s former protege/partner Mike Weston, played by Shawn Ashmore) seek Hardy’s knowledge regarding the horrific crime. But when Hardy declines, stating an utter disinterest in allowing anything Joe Carroll-related to control his life ever again, it honestly seems as though he wants nothing to do with the case. That is until we learn the truth of what Hardy has been up to this part year; unlawfully hunting Joe Carroll (whom Hardy is in the minority of believing still lives) with the help of his niece, Max (Jessica Stroup), a New York City detective.
And it’s here where the first major difference of Season Two comes glaringly into play. Hardy is no longer the [relatively] law-abiding authority figure he was last session. He’s a vigilante. Working outside the law, he’s no longer seeking Carroll for societal justice, he seeks revenge. Hardy doesn’t want to incarcerate Carroll, he wants to end him.
And just like that, Hardy goes from only slightly-outside-the-box FBI informant to full on vigilante. Like Batman. But just a Batman that, you know, He-Man would wanna punch in the face. And suddenly, with this twist, what could be a tired reenactment of the previous season gets new life and any trepidation I had diminishes.
Slightly.
After all, the vigilante angle is all good and fun, but it doesn’t mean history won’t repeat itself in other capacities. It doesn’t mean that Carroll (who is still alive… of course… duh) won’t regain his status as leader of a murderous cult of batpoop crazy lemmings. Hardy being above the law won’t change that.
But thankfully something else just may.
Something else in the form of all the remaining followers from Carroll’s original cult being rounded up and either arrested or killed fairly early on in Season Two, leaving Emma Hill (played by the very spritely, and yet somehow still rather annoying Valorie Curry) as the lone survivor. Does this mean Carroll will have to start recruiting all over again? Or will something else altogether play out as both Carroll and Emma eventually find refuge with an entirely different group. Namely, those responsible for the subway massacre, creepy twin brothers Luke and Mark (portrayed by an apparently heavily Patrick Bateman-inspired Sam Underwood) and their looney-tune adoptive mother, and seemingly female equivalent of Carroll himself, Lily Gray (Connie Nielsen)?
So many questions.
Furthermore, is Claire really dead, or just in witness-protection with her son?
And what are Lily’s intentions? Is she really trying to help Carroll, or did she lure him out to get revenge on him for some yet-to-be specified reason?
And who else is in on it? The beauty of this show is that you can literally accuse every single character of being involved with Carroll at any given point, and still have a fifty-fifty shot at being right. You can’t even get those kinda odds at a charity gambling event.
These are the plot points and questions that have kept this season fresh. And fun.
So far, anyway. Obviously all of this is still up in the air, as the season is only one-third over at this point. There’s plenty of time for it to go either way.
But so far, so good.
I just hope it manages to stay the course.
Final Verdict [so far]: 3 out of 3 roses (and half a bottle of cognac).
Live, Love, Learn,