The Following “The Fall”

After last week’s face-palm inducing ending I didn’t expect too much from The Following this week, but I was surprised to enjoy, for the most part, the sixth episode in this series.  Last episode ended with Ryan storming the house where Joe Carroll’s cult has been keeping Joe’s son, Joey.  He gets in the house, finds the girl they’ve been keeping in the basement, and finds Joey upstairs.  The part that boggles my mind is Ryan’s decision to have a conversation with Joey while standing in front of the open front door.  Which I hope I don’t have to tell you is a bad decision when there are three killers running around.  Long story short, he gets a gun pointed to the back of his skull when one of the killers comes in the front door…you know, the one he’s standing in front of…sheesh. 

So, Ryan is caught by the killers and for most of the episode he is trapped in the living room.  After the horrible decisions that led to his capture, I really held no hope for his detention in the house, but these scenes turned out to be some of my favorite in the show so far.  Kevin Bacon’s snarky attitude toward the killers is hilarious and watching them squirm is satisfying.  The interesting dynamic of their relationship creates the perfect scenario for this tone.  Carroll has created this plot, at least I believe, to torture Ryan.  He might have some outlying reasons for creating a following to do his evil bidding, but he seems to focus most of his energy at testing Ryan, pushing him to his limits.  So the killers can’t kill Ryan, and they can’t threaten Joey, because Ryan knows Carroll has a plan for him, so they have no leverage over Ryan for a time.  He uses this advantage to sow dissent amongst the killers.  He figures out about the strange love triangle that exists between his captors and uses this knowledge to aggravate them, getting them off balance.  Eventually he gains possession of a knife, because the killers aren’t really thinking this through, and gets free, but we’ll continue that discussion in a moment.

While Ryan is held captive, the FBI gathers their forces to take the house where he is being held.  While Agent Parker is attempting to communicate to the kidnappers, and successfully messing with Emma’s head, we are given flashbacks into her past where we learn why she’s an expert on cults.  Seems she was raised in one until she ran away.  I like this insight into her character, I found the story of her past intriguing, but I’m beginning to wonder if we really need these flashbacks.  They seem to stagnate the flow of the story.  I don’t really want them nixed all together seeing as how they do shed light on some important information, but there are times where the flashbacks stop all the action and get in the way.

After a fracturing of the killers, Ryan gets away and it seems like the killers are actually going to get caught when two things happen.  One of these things was really good, and one I don’t buy.  I don’t know why I don’t buy it, but I don’t.   The end of this episode marks a pretty momentous occasion.  The Following surprised me with a twist.  Special agent Weston and a sheriff catch Emma taking Joey away through the woods, and it seems like everything is going to be okay, when the sheriff turns and shoots Weston before revealing herself as part of Carroll’s following and ushering Emma to safety with Joey.  Why she shoots him in the chest I will never understand.  She had to know he was wearing a vest, but oh well, they still got me.  The bad part of the end occurred when a couple of people from Carroll’s following shoot a couple of the SWAT members and sneak into the house disguised as them to free Jacob and Paul.  Something about this plan seemed false.  I can’t quite put my finger on why a red flag is going off in my head, but something isn’t right.  If you know why this is ringing as false, let me know in the comments, or if I’m completely wrong leave a message to.  I want to know what you guys think.

So this episode was okay.  It had its rough moments, but the scenes with Bacon antagonizing the bad guys and some interesting character work between Parker and Emma carried the episode. 

If you like The Following I strongly suggest Hannibal…just saying.