Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: B+ | 42 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Ding, Dong, the Joe Ain't Dead
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.19.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The Following returned without the benefit of Claire and her constant need for Ryan Hardy to rescue her, but instead with something of a four-sided die to play with in season two.
Months after losing Claire – we assume, because he's been playboying his way around the city – Ryan Hardy has returned to his life as a professor and he seems to have relinquished all ties to crime fighting. Still, the game is afoot and thugs, dressed in Joe Carroll masks, have attacked a woman on the subway and killed five others. The police bring both Ryan and his old partner Mike out of their semi-retirement (Mike's on suspension until his case is cleared after the mess in the woods last season) to help consult on the new case, but Ryan refuses to actually participate despite knowing that the masked men yelled "Joe Carroll is alive and Ryan Hardy can't stop us" when attacking their victim.
It seems somewhat understandable that Ryan would want out, but he's actually hoarding his own secret crime-solving station with the help of his niece Max. Now that the Carrollers have supposedly committed a crime – the police aren't sure if these are fans or the followers from last season – Max thinks Ryan needs to hand his evidence over to the police, but he won't.
Instead, he lurks around the investigation long enough to let them know he's off the case, nabs their information, and does some investigating of his own. He follows the only suspect they were able to identify, Carlos Perez, home and tries to pump him for information. He finds that Carlos was the one who drove Joe away from his fake fiery death at the lighthouse, but that he lost track of Joe when they hit a police checkpoint. Eventually, Carlos escapes and Ryan searches his apartment to find his Joe Carroll mask, a souvenir he takes home and wears later as part of a seemingly pointless creepy montage.
But Carlos doesn't seem to be working with the actual Carrollers. After Ryan leaves, Emma shows up looking for Carlos, who appears to be a defector from the true Carrollers. Carlos finds his way to a hotel where a French woman is waiting for him. Twin brothers – who earlier in the episode killed a woman named Heather and played with her body as if it were a doll in her apartment – show up to question Carlos about how he managed to get his face on the news and Ryan Hardy on their trail. They play a creepy little game, but eventually kill him and take Heather's body out on the town. They tape Heather to a bench so it looks like she's reading Joe Carroll's book – a text the twins appear to be rather fond of.
And by episode's end, Ryan finds the Carrollers' only living victim and apologizes to her for getting her into his mess; Emma and the true Carrollers are confused about Carlos' defection and who might be behind the subway attack; and Joe finally shows his spectacularly bearded face in the boonies, where he's found a family who's apparently not scared of him.
Sure, we're not exactly back where we started – we've got Ryan versus the police versus the Carrollers versus whatever the twins are doing – but we're certainly somewhere similar, with a twist.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The Following returned without the benefit of Claire and her constant need for Ryan Hardy to rescue her, but instead with something of a four-sided die to play with in season two.
We open with five new deaths in New York City on the anniversary of Joe Carroll's death, and naturally, the media has already assumed the two events are connected. In order to solve the mystery -- which the police assume is either an act of Carroll followers or fans of those followers -- they bring in Mike, who's on suspension after the incidents surrounding Deborah's death at the end of season one. Luckily for Mike and the detective in charge, Gina Mendez, one of the victims is still alive and thus can tell them about the crime… eventually. (You know, when it's convenient for the flow of the episode.)
At the same time, another young woman's fate is a little more grim. A young modelesque man confronts her in her apartment building in a typical meet cute gone wrong situation. It's only moments until we cut to the man in bed with the clearly strangled woman, telling her he doesn't want to have sex. "Touching is more important. If you do it right, you can feel it always -- even after you stop," he says. It's apparently also important to play house in her apartment for the rest of the day and play with her like she's some sort of life-sized doll. He finishes his sick game by dressing the victim up in makeup and putting her in a body bag with the help of what turns out to be his twin, because of course he's a twin. Double the creeper, double the creepy.
After Mike is brought in, the investigation enlists Ryan as well. He's gone into a life of seeming normalcy, simply teaching a college course at a local school. Mike recalls seeing Hardy months prior when he was in a bar, drunk, cavorting with 20-somethings; Mike found Ryan to ask him not to tell the jury about killing Joe's minion while his hands were tied behind his back when they were trying to rescue Deborah. Unfortunately, the newly depressed Ryan was far too drunk to comprehend the significance of what Mike was saying and as a result, their relationship remains strained to this day and if you weren't clear on the season two concept reboot by this point, you may want to go back and re-watch those first few minutes.
Just as Ryan was reluctant to care when Mike confronted him eight months prior, he's reluctant to care about the actual crime at hand. Despite the detective's insistence that his help is essential, Ryan swears there's nothing he can do -- but let's not forget the last time he helped, he lost the love of his life. Still, there's just one major problem: the subway victim is finally awake at the hospital and she confirms the message from her attackers. Shocker of all shockers, it involves Ryan. They said "Joe Carroll lives and Ryan Hardy can't stop us." Somehow, our "hero" still manages to leave the investigators high and dry.