The following…are cordially invited to dinner.
Forgive me for saying, but after a shaky start, “Forgive” becomes a fun and satisfying season ender for “The Following,” no apologies necessary.
To the surprise of no one, Mike survives last week’s “gun goes off” cliffhanger, with Carroll putting one in the sobbing preacher’s son to shut him up. Even as the episode opens, it seems over the scenario in the church and eager to move on to the real meat of the finale. Which, fair enough, but it’s a little frustrating given all the weeks the show spent at the Korban campus building towards this moment.
So it’s suddenly super easy for Ryan to slink around and disarm the explosives on the doors, which seemed like a much bigger deal last week. There’s no rush because, even though he’s always loved the sound of his own voice, Joe rants for a ridiculously long time before he again threatens to shoot Mike. And while the FBI overall came off slightly smarter this season, they still get eye-rollingly outmaneuvered here, with Ryan and Joe escaping (through a restaurant randomly connected to the church…okay…) and Mike and Max somehow free to follow them instead of being arrested for aiding and abetting.
Whatever problems I’ve had with the show – and with Joe Carroll specifically – one of its strengths has always been the interplay between Ryan and Joe (and Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy) when they share scenes. So the season ender wisely sets up a situation where they’re not only together, but on the same side. The twins have Claire (how they knew where she was going to be is, irritatingly, never explained) so they team up to save her, which leads to lots of biting banter between them, the two nemeses bickering like buddy cops as they road trip to the rescue. Fun!
Luring Ryan and Joe to a lavish mansion left to them by Lily (which the pompous Carroll amusingly calls ostentatious), the twins creepily return to their roots as they stage another macabre family dinner and play a mash-up of Truth or Dare and Russian Roulette. It’s an engaging set piece, with denouncements (loved Luke loudly calling Joe out as a failure) and disclosures (in a nice touch, Mark reveals that he used to tail Ryan to AA meetings right before Luke pours a bottle of booze down his throat) and even some levity (at one point, Luke invites his guests to help themselves to a drink and Joe hilariously shrugs and reaches for a scotch). Sadly, the show missed out on some gallows humor by not inviting Emma’s corpse to the meal, but hey, can’t have everything.
Once the dust settles, Luke is dead (or, hopefully, just near death, don’t die, Luke, you’re the snarkiest serial killer I know!), Mark has escaped, and Ryan finally has his chance to kill Joe Carroll. But he doesn’t. Claire, Max, and Mike seem surprised, but they didn’t see the scenes between them earlier in the episode. He has been eager to embrace death, but Ryan realizes watching the world forget his existence, behind bars where he can’t monologue to an enthralled audience, is a more fitting fate for Joe. I also think Ryan recognized that – after the taunting recently about Mike being his follower – he needs to be the example.
Ryan may have gotten his man, but he doesn’t get his woman (relatedly, wasn’t it weird that annoying Carrie was completely absent?) as Claire decides that things between them are too tainted by the past for them to ever have a future (guess this is good-bye, Natalie Zea). Reclaiming his life has been something Ryan has spoken about a lot lately, but given his nightmare in his last scene of the season, it’s likely to be easier said than done.
Max and Mike becoming a romantic item has been inevitable since, well, since the show announced they were casting Ryan’s age-appropriate niece. Luckily, Jessica Stroup and Shawn Ashmore had the chemistry to back up the predestination and I liked how their rapport developed and deepened over the course of the season. Plus, Max’s “Finally!” when Mike laid that smooch on her was pretty cute. Curious to see where this goes next, guessing Mike’s Lily baggage will be a speed bump on the relationship’s road.
How about that cliffhanger, huh? Instead of a gory exclamation point like last year, they leave us with a question to ponder – who did Mark call for help? Lots of theories out there, but me, I’m thinking it’s connected to what we learned about Carroll’s teacher Strauss, how Joe wasn’t the first or last murderer Strauss tutored. That just seems like too interesting an idea not to explore. So maybe the twins tapped into this network of killers and they’ll become the show’s new cult. And it’d also leave the door open for James Purefoy to stick around, with Joe leveraging information, Hannibal Lecter-style. In any case, I’m psyched the twins (or maybe just Mark) are still going to be around. Sam Underwood was such a highlight this season.
That’s it for this season of “The Following.” Thanks for following (heh) my reviews here at SpoilerTV, as scattershot as they’ve been. See you back here in the spring for season three!
