2.2 For Joe That’s probably the strongest aspect of The Following in its second season. It figured out a tone that worked for the show, and it’s sticking with it. That tone is gleefully dumb nihilism. This is one of the most hateful, black, cruel shows on television, and it’s absolutely glorious. The violence is sudden and senseless and (typically) very brutal, especially given the way the Bateman Twins have taken to composing dioramas out of their corpse collections. When the show’s not performing bloody murders, it’s cracking jokes about those very same bloody murders. None of the show’s attempts at having stakes really work out—we’re too early in the season to care about any of the people the wannabe Carrollers are killing—but some really solid veins of dark comedy are being mined, usually in phone conversations where Ryan and various killers try to psychoanalyze one another while talking tough. None of it is subtle or delicate by any means; the show is more like a club than an assassin’s dagger, but it’s still somehow really effective because of its dumbness. Joe’s B plot didn’t really work for me anyway, so the quicker he’s back to doing his thing and leading his cult, the better off I think the show will be. Of course, there’s the little issue that all the surviving cult members seem to be incompetent (Emma aside), but it seems like the new people who are actively seeking out Joe, namely the twins and the kill-crazy French girl who is just aching to get her knife wet, are more than competent. Perhaps a little too competent to follow someone like Joe around, which might make for some great tension in the future when the twins figure out they’re a good enough serial killing cult on their own. The A plot, in which Ryan and the twins exchange tense phone conversations and attempted murders, is pretty standard stuff for The Following. The use of twins works pretty effectively in the hands of director Joshua Butler. The party is a fun distraction for Ryan, and it allows some cheap tension development as they stalk both Ryan and Lily (the survivor from the subway attack, played by Connie Nielsen). I like the idea that, after his experiences last time with the corrupt local police force and FBI moles, Ryan won’t trust the FBI with any information regarding the murderers, choosing instead to Dirty Harry his way around New York with a gun. I also like the fact that the FBI doesn’t seem to happy about this, and is making some ominous noise at Ryan about arrest and his general inability to put any faith in them. I’m fairly sure The Following won’t do anything nearly that interesting, but so far I’m still enjoying the experience. The dumber and bloodier the show is, the happier I think I am with it. Joe is definitely happier when he’s got a knife in someone’s belly. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Resurrection, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
