Matt Smith reviews the fourth episode of The Following season 2…
Making a TV show is all about teamwork. You’ve got your directors and your stars, but you’ve also got the little people who open doors and shine shoes. And everyone in between. It’s a shame Ryan Hardy didn’t get the memo and decided it’s always better going solo.
It does help that, as pointed out this week, there’s only three members of the Hardy clan left. And there doesn’t seem to be anyway he’s going to cooperate with the FBI anytime soon, which is probably going to be a long running element of this series. Hardy’s death curse, which apparently covers the entire family, seemingly taking over his mind and rendering Hardy unable to connect with almost anyone who tries.
The teamwork and togetherness this week comes from the more unlikely source of Joe Carroll and his band of followers. Shortly after Carroll teaches Mandy Lang (Tiffany Boone) a thing or two about caring for family and friends, he makes an emotional reunion with Emma and is introduced to the potential new group of Lily Gray (Connie Nielson) and family. All around, it’s happy families for Carroll and cult. Screwed up, violent, happy families.
But once again, in order to draw in and keep viewers tantalised, questions are asked. Is Lily Gray just another Joe Carroll, like the show a character that’s ruthless and smart enough to bring people into the fold? Will a power struggle ensue in the coming weeks?
This week is more about setting up situations and asking more questions than it answers, and it just about keeps the level of excitement up, even if the tension the series is built on is severely lacking. To make up for the seeming lack of action, there’s a toe-curlingly gruesome death that shows off yet another murderous member of Gray’s cult. Even if her sneaking into the home of her victim would be undone by the simple switch-on tone of the laptop she uses, and her method of disappearing is a two-step plan of ‘wear a hat, act as suspicious as possible’.
The end of the episode shows Ryan Hardy why teamwork may be the best thing, while simultaneously leaving a cliffhanger that may prove to show Hardy learnt the lesson to late. This series has the same level of the personal and the gothic (family and settings have seen to that), but the tricks of the TV trade are beginning to show a little too obviously. The stopgaps between episodes in the form of questions and cheap violent thrills are acceptable if they’re at least unexpected and there’s more to an episode, but this week feels like nothing more than a filler episode. The audience may still be sitting here waiting for next week, but perhaps with a feeling of impatience to go along with the wondering about what’s going to happen.
Matt Smith – follow me on Twitter.
Why not head on over to our newly-launched Flickering Myth Forum to discuss this story, or anything else that takes your fancy…
Originally published February 13, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
