2.4 Family Affair More than any other show on network television, The Following knows how to make violence sound horrible. In fact, I’d probably put it just behind The Walking Dead in terms of the show’s ability to communicate terrible things through the magic of the sound stage. That’s high praise considering just how good The Walking Dead can be at its most horrifying and considering The Following is as much police procedural as it is slasher horror television show. There were two really stand-out sounds during Family Affair, and not surprisingly they were central to the best plot of the night, the episode’s B plot. Gillian (Camille De Pazzis) has been sent into the city by Lily to eliminate one of the hanging threads of her old life, her gallery partner David (James McCaffery). The first great/horrible noise of the night is the sound made by David after Gillian forces him to the ground and wraps a garrotte around his neck to snuff out his candle. The second comes much later in that plot line, when there’s a brief but impressively violent scuffle between Gillian and Ryan Hardy in which he proves that chivalry might not be dead, but that also doesn’t mean you can’t punch a murderer square in the face and break her nose. Where else but on The Following are you going to see the hero straight-up punch a woman in the face? Usually during any movie, you’ll see the token female henchman for the heroine to fight, because the good guy doesn’t hit women even when they’re serial killers. I love that this show takes all the usual conventions of television behaviour and arbitrarily decides whether to follow them (the FBI is incompetent) or not follow them (Ryan breaks a girl’s nose; Joe may or may not be a hero this time around; Emma was our major love story in the first season). The fight scenes are also pretty good, courtesy of director Marcos Siega, and there’s a lot of tension generated by the way Max stalks Gillian (and Gillian stalks David earlier on). There’s not a lot of flash to his style, but it’s effective for the show, and has done a lot to establish the program’s style while not detracting from the general craziness of its violence and writing. Sometimes you just have to get out of the way and let Kevin Bacon make jokes while murdering people. I have to admit that I’m really enjoying this season of The Following, especially since the object of obsession isn’t Poe, but Joe. The more the show messes with convention and tries to make me identify with terrible people, the more I enjoy myself. Maybe I’m liking it for the wrong reasons, but at least I’m enjoying myself. Give me more snark, more blood, and more crazy twists, The Following. Keep feeding me that TV junk food and I’ll keep cleaning my trough and asking for more. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Trust Me, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan hopes that Joe keeps that epic beard all season, if only because Joe Carroll is a good member of the bearded brotherhood. 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.
