What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 3, Episode 3 “Exposed” (F)

I think we all learned an important lesson from this episode: if you’re a serial killer with a particular interest in boxing people up, it’s best to try to make a clean getaway without a memory-handicapped family member by your side. It’s extremely hard to believe that Neil Perry managed to stay in the wind for so long when he snapped and nearly killed his father’s nurse for letting her out of his sight for a minute and he was so well known for his specific talents that Haley could identify him to the FBI in mere minutes. Usually, it’s police incompetency that rules the day, but in this case Ryan and his pals actually did okay, getting spotted on their way into the market but not allowing any innocent to die while they were in pursuit, which has to be a record. Sure, those two reporters got killed during Mark’s interview, but that’s actually a pretty low body count for an episode of this show. I can’t comprehend why Kyle and Dawn are so set on keeping Mark in the dark about their real purpose when they obviously think he’s crazy and don’t actually need him for whatever their ultimate endgame is. Bugging Max’s apartment is a worrisome development, but one would think that as a main character, she’s immune to true harm, since it’s only fringe characters who actually get killed, with the exception of Debra and, on the other side of things, Emma. Regarding the latter, fortunately actress Valorie Curry has moved on to much better things in her current recurring stint on “House of Lies.” After starting on this show, however, is there any way to go but way up?

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 3, Episode 2 “Boxed In” (F)

I need to make sure that, at the very least, my reviews of this show are decently entertaining since this show is a true horror in every sense of the word. Killing off Agent Clarke is an easy way for this show to demonstrate how deadly and threatening its new villains are without actually harming any of the four central law enforcement characters it now features, and while he died brutally, we didn’t have to see it, and his wife wasn’t needlessly suffocated while he wasn’t even there. I didn’t recognize Joy Osmanski, who I remember from her days on “The Loop” nearly a decade ago, as his wife, who got to appear just to be flirted with in the supermarket and then nearly asphyxiated just for sport. What gets me every time is just how incompetent the FBI and the police are on this show, to the point that local law enforcement had vehicles prepped for them to conduct searches within minutes of being notified of their landing but couldn’t have bothered to start the searching themselves to actually save Clarke. The unpredictable insanity of the bad guys continues to clash deeply with their ability to stay off the grid due to their supposed superinteligence, and the fact that Mark is being used as a pawn without any knowledge that he’s being played makes little to no sense. This season is unfurling its purpose very slowly, and we didn’t even get to see Joe when Ryan went to a maximum-security facility for a heart-to-heart, with Dr. Arthur Strauss instead. I’m still not convinced that Gwen is an innocuous non-threat, but arranging for her to be the doctor who saw Clarke when he had a heart attack seems like a stretch, even for this show’s omniscient villains.

What I’m Watching: The Following (Season Premiere)

The Following: Season 3, Episode 1 “New Blood” (F)

Why do I still watch this show? I don’t know, but I think it would best be described as “hate-watching.” I’m torn between finding it so needlessly disturbing, particularly that Gina couldn’t even be permitted some peace on her wedding day with a heartbroken father who turned out to be a twisted murderer carrying out a nefarious plot throwing blood all over her wedding dress, and just plain stupid, with Sam Underwood now playing two roles at the same time, speaking to himself and eating dinner facing a mirror rather than a dead body. I’ve always taken such issue with this show’s impossible contradiction of deranged killers plagued by internal demons and actual lunacy and their incredible ability to evade all detection because of their apparent brilliance. The power of cults is also highly questionable, since somehow Mark is reenacting the circumstances that led to the death of his mother and the impending execution of Joe Carroll yet he’s not actually in charge and someone else is pulling the strings for entirely different reasons. Am I interested to find out what’s really going on? A little. Will I pleased when I find out? Surely not. I do appreciate the casting of Hunter Parrish, who was good on “Weeds” but always destined for something darker like this. It is awfully jarring to see Zuleikha Robinson, most recently seen as terrorist Roya on “Homeland,” in the role of Ryan’s new girlfriend and potential new roommate. Do we suspect that she’s actually a killer? Yes. Should he have fallen for that again? No. Does that mean she’s in store for a brutal death, regardless of whether she’s actually good or bad? Definitely.

What I’m Watching: The Following (Season Finale)

The Following: Season 2, Episode 15 “Forgive” (F-)

What a season this has been. It’s incredible to me how quickly these characters can forget the circumstances they were in just hours earlier. After Joe stalled so that he could make empty threats about killing people close to Ryan - something he’s now never actually been able to do - he got instantly convinced by Ryan to abandon his big show of fear-mongering to escape the crowded church to help him save the woman that he ordered killed. Another inconsistency of this show is the careful execution of all of the cult’s operations that then leads to being taken down by an idiotic oversight, namely the fact that they were sitting ducks when the police turned off the lights in the church and took each one of them out. I’m not sure how long it will take the FBI to learn that Ryan will always go off-book, and new couple Max and Mike will likely follow to help him get away with whatever scheme he has hatched. Luke and Mark keeping all of their dinner guests alive was strange given that they’ve never managed to do that before, and that meal really was all about Joe being sarcastic and overdramatic, transforming into a completely different person. Ultimately, this finale was rather anticlimatic, and I’m not sure where the show goes from here since I sincerely doubt that Mark can restart a cult on his own and the show has killed off most of its other villains. This has been an inarguably awful season, and I really hope that I don’t tune in to season three next year.

Season grade: F
Season MVP: None

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 14 “Silence” (F-)

It’s perplexing to me, and I know I’m not the only one, that this show is so eager to kill off its best (and I use that word liberally) characters in ways that completely don’t advance the story. Sure, Lily’s death means that her sons want to kill Mike all the more, and Emma’s death means that Joe will actually want Claire dead for murdering the one person in the world he actually liked more than he and Ryan. Emma is a staple character who has been around since the beginning and who I’ll admit isn’t nearly as stupid or pointless as everyone else, much more determined to remain (relatively) sane and reasonable while those around her do incredibly idiotic things. It’s strange to see Claire be the one to kill her, though I guess it does make sense since posed as Joey’s nanny for a few years and deceived Claire the whole time. The latest show of theatrics that was more important for Joe to be present at is another brutal, endlessly disturbing act of public violence, and probably the most literal and unsubtle yet. Joe essentially declaring himself God was high-handed but not too surprising given his history, and both for the sake of his accent and his dignity, it’s a good thing that, unlike his son, Tom Cavanagh’s Kingston Turner ended his own life rather than take someone else’s. Ryan got to fulfill his episodic dose of preventing other people from killing themselves (two this time), and now we’ll have to see in the show’s season finale if Mike is really dead at Joe’s hand (making the twins pointless) or if more sinister and stupid things are in store for the two cops trapped inside a church with a bunch of psychos.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 13 “The Reaping” (F)

It’s abundantly clear that both Ryan and Joe are operating so much on their own that anyone else is hopeless to be able to control events given the shared obsession they have with each other. It’s funny, of course, that Joe insists on keeping Ryan alive while Ryan would love nothing more than to kill Joe so that he would no longer be able to plague his life and the world. What’s less funny is that their actions are so thoughtless and stupid that they’re hindering their own progress. I’m not sure what Ryan hoped to accomplish by shooting during the human sacrifice session at Korban, and Emma’s assumption that the FBI was right behind him would make sense if anything he did was logical. Similarly, there was an unintended hilarity to Emma’s whining about Joe refusing to kill Ryan and stalling as long as possible so that they could narrowly escape. Lily’s attack on the compound was rather deadly, though it worked out worst for her since, no matter what, everyone on this show who isn’t Joe or Ryan dies. Mike shooting her was predictable but so far from advisable, and all it really did was give Ryan another chance to unsuccessfully try to talk someone down from doing something regrettable. Joe’s busy being chased out of his own compound by the law and the rival cult, but I’m sure he’ll find time to take Claire’s message too much to heart, something that only she would know but which she easily could have relayed to someone else before she allegedly died. I’m not sure where Tom Cavanagh’s preacher will fall in all this now that Joe has moved again, but I’m sure Joe will use the fact that he manipulated his son into committing murder in the most destructive way possible.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 12 “Betrayal” (F)

You’d think that if the person that the FBI was protecting realized that there was something suspicious going on in front of their car, the FBI agents themselves would have some idea too and think carefully before stepping out of the car and ensuring their immediate deaths. It makes just as much sense for Ryan to tail Joe’s new followers to their compound without any backup so that he can kill Joe himself and not worry about other people getting in the way, not to mention the fact that Joe’s followers don’t need him to be alive to commit atrocious acts of murder. Gluing masks to the unfortunate people unlucky enough to be at the fraternity house when Joe’s followers arrived was definitely a new level of creepy, and not in a good way (though there’s little on this show that is). Lily and her boys didn’t waste much time in revealing their hand to Mandy, offering her cake before confirming to her that they just want her to tell them where Joe is right away. It seems quite senseless for them to have killed her immediately instead of hoping she might eventually break, and Lily being present for the latest family dinner with a dead person at the table was even more gruesome and unwatchable than the last time the twins did it. Claire isn’t keeping the fact that she’s alive very much under wraps, and I can’t imagine what she and Carrie could possibly do that would both help the good guys and keep this show on the air, which is it going to be for at least another season.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 11 “Freedom” (F)

If I lived in the world of “The Following,” and I’m certainly glad I don’t, I would be more insecure about the fact that the police can’t protect anyone than that there are multiple cults gunning for innocents in broad daylight. We hadn’t heard much about Lily in a while, and now her brat of a son Luke, who always needs to know what’s going on instead of just being grateful that he’s being rescued, is pulled quite easily from the hospital without the detail assigned to him doing much to stop them (they ended up dead, of course, but they let his cohorts get way too far into the wing before stopping them, so they don’t get much credit). Now, Lily and her twin sons are reunited, and can prepare to wreak more havoc on the world. Maybe we’ll even get a cult-on-cult war since she’s angry at Joe for ditching her. Mandy calling Mark does add a twist to everything, but I can’t imagine that’s going to lead anywhere coherent or good. Tom Cavanagh is an odd choice to play the preacher hellbent on eschewing Joe for corrupting the bible, and he’s going to pay dearly for that offense in the coming episodes, I’m sure. For someone who knows that he’s a major target for multiple cults, Ryan is getting awfully publicly attached to someone, and Carrie doesn’t seem to have any clue that she’s probably going to die soon. At the same time, Claire decided that, since she has to come back to talk to Ryan anyway, she may as well show up and stand in the hallway for a while as Ryan catches his breath just to increase the chances of a follower of some cult spotting her and realizing that she is not in fact dead.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 10 “Teacher’s Pet” (F)

It turns out that last week’s big shocker is going to be more of a slow burn reveal, as, inexplicably, Claire decides that she should leave witness protection and go back to New York so that she can try to stage a run-in with Joe or something else moronic. Meanwhile, Ryan, expert at subtlety that he is, opted to play his hand right away, answering Janna’s phone as soon as Joe called to tell him that they were on to him and intended fully to attempt to track his location over the phone. Having Carrie report that Dr. Strauss had been arrested and was cooperating was at least moderately clever, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect. At the very least, this show can be commended for getting back to its roots, which mainly involves Joe’s followers committing random acts of heinous violence and terrifying murder just for the fun of it. Joe strangling a cat during his speech to his followers was especially campy, and protecting Mandy from the wrath of Emma seems pointless since she’s a prime candidate to go crying to the FBI and mess everything up. Ryan’s choice ridiculous moment in this hour was his reaction to the quick demise of Mallory, who was portrayed by Emily Kinney of “The Walking Dead” and made the mistake of committing her food-related atrocity at place she used to work. When Patrick slit her throat, Ryan’s “Nooooo!” was one of horror, followed up by a very “Monty Python”-esque effort to convince Mallory that it was only a flesh wound.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 9 “Unmasked” (F-)

This episode exemplifies the most serious problem this show faces, and it has little to do with all of the ridiculous exaggerations and preposterous elements I’ll still critique in this review. At even the mere suggestion that she might have been corrupted by Joe, Jana flipped and immediately proceeded to stab Gina. To constantly believe that the FBI is always half a step behind the cult members just isn’t possible given that their deranged and psychotic natures would prohibit them from being able to execute a foolproof plan without letting their predilections get ahead of them. Ear-cutter Lance staying behind at the bookstore also seemed far-fetched, and he immediately gave himself away when he acted, for lack of a better word, crazy. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned public group stabbing session, and for the amount of screen time she’s had so far, Carrie has been pretty dramatically terrorized for most of it. As if Ryan’s behavior wasn’t irresponsible enough, getting involved with Carrie probably isn’t a great idea. Moreover, though I thought that Mike was headed to find a captive Lily and make her pay for what she did to his father (this show seems to have forgotten about her altogether), he instead came to see Claire, who is very much alive and likely to cause plenty of problems in the near future. I never believed she was dead since the show refused to show her death on screen, but I thought Natalie Zea had safely abandoned this show, which apparently is not the case. I am relived that Joe managed to dispose of both Julia and Micah so efficiently and comically, and now he’s got a whole new horde of lemmings to use as he sees fit.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 8 “The Messenger” (F)

I have to take issue with the serious troubling policework in this episode, though that’s hardly something new for this show. That Ryan had tried to interview Dr. Arthur Strauss earlier and he had politely declined should in no way indicate that on Ryan’s next visit he suddenly becomes suspect number one and acts like it, inviting intrepid reporter Carrie Cooke into his home with the intention of carving her and Ryan up just for fun with the help of his live-in apprentice. How did he go from not being scrutinized at all to a fully prepared and willing killer? It wasn’t a great role for the usually terrific Gregg Henry, from “The Riches,” “Hung,” and much more, though he did his best, and I was more intrigued by Sprague Grayden of “Jericho,” who made Carrie as interesting as possible despite the overzealous writing of her character. Fortunately for Carrie and Ryan, Arthur was too busy talking about cutting out eyes to think about backup, so they made it out okay. Charles S. Dutton is quite the actor to play the FBI director, who opted to hire Ryan off the books, a decision that never proves intelligent when the one doing the hiring gets taken out. Meanwhile, happenings at Micah’s cult are absolutely ludicrous, and I really think that Joe is backing the wrong horse by trying to control the delusional Micah instead of allying himself with the actually coherent Julia. My big takeaway from the ridiculousness in the woods was that there is only pre-life, which has something to do with Neptune and eating sins. Because that all makes a whole lot of sense. And FOX has opted to renew this show for a third season, another puzzling occurrence.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 7 “Sacrifice” (F-)

Okay, so this is officially the worst episode this show has ever aired. I’m so tempted once again to just abandon it altogether, but it really is like a train wreck where you just can’t look away. There are now three cults all of a sudden, one bent on vicious revenge, another on mindless public displays of killings to only their followers, and our original clan, now made up of three people who have absolutely no power or ability to do anything productive. Introducing Jake Weber’s Micah is so completely unnecessary, and he is an outright caricature who makes Joe look good, which is a difficult feat considering his very cartoonish nature these days. I was appalled that they might have killed off Emma, since saving her this long would have been pointless, though to have her and Joe and Mandy stay in that horrifically stupid place is going to be truly miserable and lamentable. Lee Tergesen’s vicious serial killer proved not to be too bright, enlisting his son’s assistance in kidnapping Max and then letting her convince him to consider hunting her just enough to strangle him with her legs and escape. You’d think a seasoned serial killer would be more skilled at both keeping his prisoner captive and making a shot at two targets that didn’t realize they were in his crosshairs. Lily killing Mike’s father on camera was pretty awful, and it more embodies the futile nature of her entire enterprise, which now seems to be to create chaos and misery for no reason. What a horrific mess this is.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 6 “Fly Away” (F)

Not that I necessarily mind, since it was getting awfully disturbing and unpleasant, but this show is really getting away from its cult activities and focusing on some soap opera drama instead. Instead of bringing the FBI with him when he was following up on what he believed to be reliable information from his good friend Ryan Hardy, the brilliant Mike opted to come alone so that he could manage to beat Luke to a pulp and not succeed in capturing his brother or his mother, leaving the FBI a few steps behind once again. Worrying about a mole is one thing, but not trusting anyone seems foolhardy. Lily’s escape plan to Venezuela never felt like it was going to work out, but drugging Joe to force him to go along with it was an incredibly bad idea. Now Lily has invested all of this murderous effort into trying to win his affection, and he’s completely done with her. It’s only a matter of time before Emma and Mandy go to war, but for now they’re hiding somewhere very close to where the entire FBI currently is, which of course means they’ll go undiscovered for a good long time. What’s going to happen now is that there will be two cults, and Joe will be too obsessed with trying to stay hidden to do anything, while Lily and Mark will wreak havoc on behalf of their murdered comrades. It could be interesting to watch, but I’m sure that, as always, it will be purely ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but Jessica Stroup, one-time star of “90210,” is absolutely awful as Max and adds nothing to the show.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 5 “Reflection” (F)

For once, I think that the good guys may actually be winning. That’s not to suggest that Ryan is actually following protocol or exercising proper form in his solo pursuit of bad guys, or that the FBI isn’t wasting its time by monitoring Ryan and Max instead of the members of Joe’s cult. But the body count favors the good guys, since Ryan managed to take out the relatively personality-free Jamel, who we barely got to know, and then Giselle, who did a marvelous job of being so irritating by refusing to speak English that her departure is not an unwelcome occurrence. What those killings have done is manage to break the unflappable Luke, who now really wants to kill Ryan. At least the murderous Giselle didn’t bother to take out her killer instincts on Max, leaving her behind and unharmed so that Ryan didn’t actually feel overwhelming pain when he returned to the motel. Emma and Mark might have made for a good couple if not for Mark’s unfortunate case of haphephobia, and I hate to break it to her, but she’s also technically crazy because she’s a villainous member of a cult. After a shaky start, Lily turned into the best possible ally and playmate for Joe, which is a good thing for her since he didn’t seem like he was taking to her all that well. The FBI is far from hot on his trail, but that image of him hidden by a beard and hat – which shouldn’t make him that hard to identify – put them dangerously close to actually accomplishing something productive.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 1, Episode 4 “Family Affair” (F)

It’s good to know that Joe isn’t absolutely intent on killing everyone who crosses his path, even if his newest acolyte is more than eager to murder at every opportunity. Leslie Bibb’s Jana turned out to be a major ally of Joe’s, which means that she and her family are safe, though, in another shocking and completely unbelievable connection, she does happen to be the ex-wife of one Agent Gina Mendez, who happens to be in charge of the investigation into the subway murders and Joe’s whole cult. The FBI’s discussion about the fact that Lily’s villainous tendencies came out of nowhere is further compounded by the fact that Mendez would have no clue that the woman with whom she shares children is actually a close personal friend of Joe’s. Mike continues to waste time telling Ryan and Max that they need to stop working the case, and arresting Ryan was an unnecessary move that led to nothing productive. It did mean that Max was tailing Giselle all by herself, who, fresh off her strangulation of poor David, who apparently knew who she was, was intent on outwitting all Hardy family members by using her superb karate skills to fend them off. After Ryan stumbled and forgot to say that he was a federal agent before Giselle managed to get away on the train, Max seems to have been clever enough to follow her, though I presume that can only end bloodily for her. Lily and her multilingual family is a whole separate level of far-fetched, and let’s home that at least Lily and Joe share a good and intriguing connection.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 3 “Trust Me” (F)

As with every episode of this show, I can’t negotiate the consistent gross incompetence of every law enforcement official on this show with the absolute brilliance of every Joe Carroll follower, able to deceive everyone around them even when their own collectives are far from organized. I suspected that Lily was actually a devotee of Joe’s, especially because she is played by Connie Nielsen, an unfortunate follow-up to her terrific work on “Boss,” though I didn’t predict that she was the twins’ mother. And that’s the problem – to think that a relatively public figure would actually be working with a cult and had managed to keep adult twin sons who happen to be fluent in French a secret is absolutely ridiculous. Gillian throwing a tantrum over not getting to kill Carlos was idiotic, and I can’t even begin to address the way in which she refuses to speak English yet understands it and is understood perfectly makes little sense. It also seems to me that Emma basically went underground for a year, complete with a very flashy new haircut, and only left her apartment once, which just happened to be when the building was raided and almost all of its inhabitants killed. While the FBI is busy tailing Ryan and accusing but not charging him, Joe is making a slow but serious comeback, assisted heavily by Mandy, who loves her new father so much that she was willing to kill her own mother, poor Carrie Preston, just for the pleasure of seeing what stabbing someone a whole bunch of times for no reason felt like.

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 2, Episode 2 “For Joe” (F)

Why do I keep watching? I just don’t know. This episode took things even further than the one before it, letting its new pair of homicidal twins – who love surprising people, first the audience and now Ryan – with the fact that they’re twins kill a couple in their home and then have dinner with them acting as if they were their parents. There are few things creepier than those Joe Carroll masks, though the twins are certainly frightening. The latest act of FBI incompetence, Ryan exempted, was the presence of agents at the event Lily was attending who failed to notice that she was being escorted by a lone man through a dim, abandoned section of the building, where she was easily concerned by her assailants, who are just as incompetent at stabbing, never bothering to hit the right arteries or organs. Mike lecturing Ryan about impeding the investigation is unnecessary, and no one is getting much of anything done. The phone marked “Joe” was hilariously obvious, and now Emma is going to start brewing since she found out that Joe is still alive and she knows that Carlos is working with the competing cult. Joe’s supposedly cathartic priest murder was far from worth watching, and it’s simply a sign that he’s going to have his own plotline for most of the season before people finally figure out where he is. Casting Carrie Preston on this show was a real coup, and I will note that she isn’t nearly as bad as most of the actors on this show, though her role could always change that with time.

What I’m Watching: The Following (Season Premiere)

The Following: Season 2, Episode 1 “Resurrection” (C-)

This show is back on a week when there aren’t all that many series airing new episodes, which is pretty much the only reason I watched it since season one didn’t impress me all that much as it got worse and worse as it went on. While there aren’t nearly as many glaring instances of law enforcement incompetence in this premiere as there were in a given episode of season one, I still couldn’t help feeling when I was watching the scene on the train that this just isn’t the type of show anyone needs to be watching. Its cult behavior, which is usually senseless, is just disturbing, and I don’t see any reasonable reward in terms of the quality of the show to make up for that off-putting aura. I’m also very irritated by the babyish nature of the criminals, who taunt each other and call them names, which contradicts the complexity of their carefully-orchestrated operations. The fact that Emma doesn’t know anything about what’s going on suggests an even greater level of disorganization which makes the FBI’s inability to track them more than questionable. There really is no escape for Ryan, who gets called back into things just because someone felt the need to say he couldn’t stop them. Working covertly on the case instead of cooperating with the FBI is pretty silly, and it’s going to impede process considerably. Unsurprisingly, Joe is very much alive, though he too doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Should I continue watching this show? I’m just not sure anymore.

What I’m Watching: The Following (Season Finale)

The Following: Season 1, Episode 15 “The Final Chapter” (C)

I wasn’t expecting much from this show’s finale at this point because of the way things have gone throughout this season, and I got about what I thought I would. Debra dying after the valiant rescue attempt by Ryan and Mike was demoralizing, and I’m not sure that Mike surviving qualifies as a true game-changer since Ryan didn’t let him come experience the final chapter anyway. Mike flip-flopped once again on his torture policy in this hour, though at least he didn’t support Ryan’s execution of their hostage, which still happened despite his objections. The fact that Ryan managed to talk Joe down enough to distract him and rush him by telling him that his book should be less predictable and insulting Poe was somewhat silly, and it’s never a good idea to have your villain die in a fire since they can presumably escape unscathed and come back to haunt you in future seasons. There’s no reason that Joe couldn’t be dead and his followers wouldn’t start a new plan, but I think that we would have seen Joe actually die if that were the case. The glaring incompetence of the FBI had to make an appearance, of course, which allowed for Ryan’s girlfriend and Joe’s henchwoman to break into his secure apartment and stab him. I thought that was a relatively lackluster ending, since she hadn’t even bothered to seduce him first this time, but stabbing Claire was a decent twist. The problem is that this show is now left without characters if the three deaths it has foreshadows do in fact occur, so I suspect that things will look much different at the start of next season. I had high hopes for this show based on its pilot, and I’d love to see it revitalize itself in season two, but I’m not so sure that’s possible at this point.

Season grade: C+
Season MVP: Annie Parisse as Agent Debra Parker

What I’m Watching: The Following

The Following: Season 1, Episode 14 “The End is Near” (D+)

As this show’s plot continues to unfold, it becomes less and less bearable, and more like the deranged ravings of a lunatic and his completely crazy posse. What was initial so impressive about Joe and his followers were how organized they were, and now they’re wielding axes and stabbing each other just for the hell of it, while Joe cooks spaghetti and feeds his unfortunate guests. His continued inability to understand that Claire does not love him and wants only to get away from him is baffling, and he’s just going to keep getting physically attacked if he doesn’t stop letting her roam free and find sharp objects. I’ve never been pleased with the FBI’s intellectual capacity, but the fact that it took them three-quarters of the episode to figure out something that was obvious to me from the moment they first mentioned the evacuation center, that it would be the target for Joe’s followers, is especially jarring. Ryan’s credibility is also dwindling, as he once again employs force and the threat of death to interrogate Joe’s followers, using what could well become his catchphrase, “Stop all the creepy cult stuff.” Annabelle sure was frightening, and it’s difficult to say whether she or Emma is the more dangerous foe, loyal to Joe enough that she would kill Jacob after he tried to convince her to run away with him and leave Joe behind. I suspect that Claire is not as expendable as the rest of the cast and that Ryan will be able to save her, but I can’t say the same for Debra, who I do hope survives, since watching her being buried alive was extraordinarily unsettling and disturbing.