The Following “Mad Love”

“Mad Love” is a pretty solid episode compared to past weeks.  I’ve bashed The Following before because of lazy writing, they cut the killers a lot of slack in order for them to…you know, kill, but the last couple of episodes they’ve done what they excel at: Character driven drama.  This episode challenges Ryan to save his sister, reveals a secret about one of the killers that could possibly destroy his standing in the cult, and I only shook my head in disbelief once.

The episode starts as more of Ryan’s past is revealed through flashbacks.  The flashbacks introduce Ryan’s sister, Jenny, who becomes important to the plot when she is kidnapped by Maggie.  Who, if you remember, is a member of the cult who lost her husband last episode when Ryan shot him.  As Ryan is leaving to confront Maggie without the rest of the FBI he’s joined by Special Agent Parker, who is seeking revenge for his friend who Maggie killed.  Normally when the killers are involved I start assuming someone’s going to do something really stupid to give them the edge, but for once a killer on this show became someone dangerous, leaving me on edge to see what she would do next.  She uses magnets to upset Ryan’s pace-maker so he dies a slow death in front of his sister.  Parker comes in and kills her, but her plan worked pretty well and it was well thought out with the right amount of evil.  Okay, maybe a little more evil would have been nice, but she did a decent job.

At the house with Joe’s kidnapped son, Paul has abducted a woman out of spite.  Last episode he struggled with Emma and Jacob’s relationship and put them all at risk by seducing a woman and bringing her back to the house.  In danger of Joe’s son seeing the woman and figuring out that he was kidnapped Emma tells Paul to kill her.  Paul asks Jacob how long he plans on lying to everybody and tells Jacob to take care of her.  Jacob has trouble with this, though, because he’s never killed anybody like the others in the cult.  He made up a story be get accepted because he loves Emma, and now he has to kill a helpless woman tied to a chair.  She convinces him to let her go leading to an abysmal chase scene that left me shaking my head (happens once an episode).  She gets caught again because she’s horrible at running from killers and keeping doors from slamming.  Jacob sees she’s back in the house and goes upstairs to find Emma and Paul in the shower where he is invited into a three-way.

The relationship between the killers looking over Joey, Joe Carroll’s son, becomes more intriguing as Ryan Hardy’s past becomes too cartoonish.  I like the idea that he’s followed by death, because of the juxtaposition between him and Carroll, but at what does his back story become ridiculous?  I think it was after his mother died in one accident, then his father died was shot, then his older brother died some way.  I understand he’s a tortured individual who has dealt with death, but come one.  At least keep it believable.

The Following keeps me interested with their character relationships, but overall the show suffers from weak writing in areas and unbelievable circumstances.  In spite of all that, The Following somehow brings in seven million more viewers a week than Hannibal, which I don’t understand at all.  Shaking my head at reality.