Matt Smith reviews the third episode of The Following season 2…
Some say that behind every great man, is a great woman. With the obvious implications the following question hints at, what happens when the great women turns out to be not so great and in fact goes against everything you stand for?
That’s quite an extreme turn around, but that’s the way things go in this week’s The Following. Ryan Hardy and Joe Carroll have always had a parallel when it comes to their love lives. It used to be the character of Claire that would bind them, but now it’s the betrayal from those they thought were there for them.
Since the first week of seeing her in a hospital bed, the thought of Lily being a follower has been constantly appearing. Eschewing the obvious tension-filler of the ‘is she, isn’t she?’ question that constantly filled the mind, the producers this week decided to show her for all she is. While that makes it seem like the show may find it difficult in terms of keeping up with the twists, turns and huge revelations in order to keep the pace up, it shows the producers aren’t afraid of showing a bit of their plans ahead and that they’re also in touch with the viewers.
Another example of this is the Claire Matthews situation. How the producers both kill her off then move months ahead in time and still keep the character’s memory intact and relevant are together a testament to the writing of the series as a whole. Just when you think you have all the evidence and you think you have all the answers as to what will happen next, The Following surprises you at the next turn.
Another person who can’t quite add it all up when the evidence is there in front of him is Agent Weston. A falter for this series (especially when compared to the first one) is the amount of exposition needed to convey situations to the viewer. It seems this week is the turn of Weston to explain, who takes all of Ryan Hardy’s good evidence (and even helps Hardy through some of it, in true expositional tradition) and promptly turns away from it all once the viewer knows where everything is.
Just like the big Joe Carroll picture Hardy keeps around in his case room, it seems the producers can’t quite bring across the idea of whatever they’re trying to convey without resorting to tired old clichés. Why would you ever need a giant picture of the Big Bad at the top of the wall is beyond me, especially when his followers wear masks of his face. If Ryan Hardy can’t remember what he looks like then his alcoholism must’ve been worse than first thought…
Joe Carroll’s remembering what it’s like though. Going back to his past in last week’s episode, he murdered a pastor, in front of his adoptive daughter no less. This week he has to deal with the reaction he gets from his sort of-wife. Is Joe actually scared of her? He certainly doesn’t seem frightened of his past, with said adoptive daughter simultaneously showing that he hasn’t changed from the cult leader of the first series, that he isn’t quite a complete sociopath and that she may possibly be the coldest, most ruthless character of the whole bunch.
Like the vaguely humorous scene featuring a character’s death (and the ensuing ‘that was mine’-style argument), are we now going to get scenes where Joe is over protective of his daughter when it comes to young men at the same time they’re planning on brutally murdering someone? Darkly hilarious, possibly, or just overdone.
Love is perhaps the name of the game this week, with Emma’s coming to the fore coinciding with the twins’ romantic lives. It’s a shame that Ryan Hardy’s obligatory love interest had to be shown to be someone else. But it’s a great sample of getting in the heads of the viewers, anticipating what they’re thinking and providing what’s needed. And, to be brutally honest, the scenes between Hardy and Lily were a tad bland. Bland is too good to be true for Ryan Hardy. His life is one of heartache and, unfortunately, death.
So, both men are lost, perhaps because of the loss of the woman that was standing behind them. Ryan Hardy is betrayed and shoved back to the state he was in months ago with the metaphorical loss of another love, while Joe has helped murder the wife he had in his hideaway. Both of their lives coinciding to explode dramatically in the next coming weeks means the series should work like clockwork to create something exciting and tense. The producers of the show have done a great job this week of putting the audience in the palm of their hand and playing around with them, showing why The Following has possibly some of the best series writing on TV at the moment. Behind every good TV series is a good writer, and so far they haven’t let series two down.
Matt Smith – follow me on Twitter.
