1.8 Welcome Home It’s a week of changes on The Following. Joe Carroll has to get used to his new house in the country with his murder parlour, scotch supplies, and legions of followers, both familiar and brand new recruits brought together by his talented lieutenants, some of whom were introduced this week. Meanwhile, yet another new FBI agent takes over the Carroll task force. Nick Donovan (Mike Colter) takes over for Agent Parker, who took over for someone else previously, and the first thing he does is make a whole lot of enemies by reducing Ryan’s role in the case (despite the fact he’s the smartest person affiliated with the FBI), punishing Weston for misbehaviour, and generally being a delay all around. It’s an odd choice on the part of the FBI. Granted, I know they need new people since the Followers seem to have been doing a number on law enforcement officials (and vice-versa), but I don’t get why they would shuffle the crew on the case around, rather than adding manpower to the existing bunch and leaving Parker in charge. It just seems like a weird choice from the crew behind the curtain. I know it’s not exactly going well, but it seems odd to alienate your best agent(s). Shawn Ashmore, like most of the show, is overshadowed by Kevin Bacon. However, of the FBI agents, he’s the only non-Bacon one who has shown any kind of personality or ability to carry an episode centering on himself. Parker’s cult stuff was a bit of a bore, but Weston getting horrible mangled by a gang of generic serial killer devotees? Now that’s an episode I can get behind! Of course, that won’t last forever and the show can’t continue to lean on murderers over heroes, but for now, it’s a nice break. Here’s hoping next week Kevin Bacon is back in the forefront (he had some good lines tonight anyway) and that we get a renewed commitment to craziness from The Following. US Correspondent Ron Hogan greatly enjoys The Following’s taste in music: lots of 90s and lots of metal/industrial flashbacks. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
