Violet recaps the Season 2 premiere of The Following, titled Resurrection, which picks up on the one year anniversary of Joe Carroll’s death. Following the recap, Violet shares her thoughts on the episode.
Episode Recap of The Following, Season 2 Episode 1: Resurrection
- Claire dies as a result of Molly’s attack. One year later, Ryan Hardy is 5 months sober and is now a professor at the New York College of Criminal Justice. He is close with his niece, Max, who is a cop with the NYPD.
- Three people wearing Joe Carroll masks attack a car of subway riders, and only one woman survives. The FBI brings Mike Weston to New York to consult on the case. Hardy tries to stay out of it, but is brought in as well. A pair of identical twins kills a woman and plays with her body in her apartment.
- The FBI questions the surviving victim of the subway attack, who reveals that the attackers said, “Resurrection,” “Joe Carroll lives,” and “Ryan Hardy can’t stop us.” Emma, who now dresses like a punk, wonders who is responsible for the attack. The FBI uses software to identify cult member Carlos Perez as a match for one of the attackers. Hardy doesn’t seem interested.
- It turns out Hardy has been secretly working on the case with Max. She uses her NYPD resources to find out where Carlos lives. Hardy finds Carlos when he breaks into his apartment, and Carlos reveals that he picked Joe up on the beach after the boathouse exploded, but hasn’t seen him since. Carlos runs away, and Hardy gets hit by a car trying to chase him down.
- Hardy returns to Carlos’s apartment and discovers that the next victim is Heather Clarke – but she is the woman the twins killed. Her body has been propped up on a park bench, reading a book by Joe Carroll. Carlos goes to a hotel room where a French woman is waiting. His face is all over TV. The twins, Mark and Luke, show up at the hotel room, clearly in charge of things, and unhappy with Carlos.
- Hardy visits the surviving victim, Ms. Gray, in the hospital to apologize. Emma reports to her friends that she saw Hardy at Carlos’s apartment. In the final scene, we see a bearded Joe Carroll, now going by the name “Daryl,” at a house in the woods with a few other people.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 1 of The Following: Resurrection
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Season 2 premiere of The Following would be airing right after the NFC Championship game, even on the West Coast. This was nothing special for the East Coasters, but for us West Coasters it meant that we got to watch it a little after 7, as opposed to a little after 10, as it aired simultaneously for all U.S. time zones. (assuming Alaska and Hawaii followed suit). I thought we were going to have to wait until 10, because that’s usually was 10/9c means. But nope, we got an extra early showing, even earlier than the normal “primetime” timeslot, which starts at 8pm PT. That being said, I was also surprised at the level of violence that was allowed to be shown at such an early timeslot, and so early on in the episode. Isn’t that usually limited to later timeslots? Doesn’t really matter to me personally, since I don’t have kids, so I wasn’t offended, but it might have mattered to other people.
Anyway, there was quite a lot that took place in just the first few minutes of the episode. First, they played out the last scene of the Season 1 finale, where Hardy and Claire think everything’s over, that Joe is dead and they’re safe – only to have Molly attack them. Then we get to see the bloody aftermath of them being brought into the hospital, and learn immediately that Claire didn’t make it. I never expected her to, I just assumed she was dead as soon as I saw Molly attack. This also fits in with Joe’s plan for Hardy to become a worthy adversary, that he had to lose the woman he loved, and further reinforces his notion of his Death Curse. It appears that Hardy is in a good state of mind now, a year later, but that he struggled with his alcoholism for 7 months after losing Claire. He has been sober for 5 months, attends AA meetings, and has a sponsor. He also has some random niece, Max, that he seems to be very close with, even though we’ve never heard of before, and who just happens to be a cop with the NYPD. Was she the one who helped pull him out of his drunkenness, perhaps with promises that she could help him investigate? I did find it odd early on in the episode that it appeared that Hardy had zero interest in the case, but that quickly was explained when we found out he’s been secretly working the case on his own, with the help of Max. Maybe he got tired of the FBI’s incompetence and figured he could do it better himself!
So then we have the subway attackers who wore the creepy Joe Carroll masks, which apparently the show is swapping in for the creepy Edgar Allan Poe masks this season. It was a little suspicious, however, how thorough they seemed about killing everyone on the train car, but how easily Ms. Gray escaped. Did they intentionally leave one survivor so that she could report the things they were saying? Or did they let her off easy because she is in fact one of them? As we learned from last season, anyone could be a cult member. It seems like there is a new leader of the cult now, though – the twins, played by Sam Underwood, who played Zach on Dexter. Coincidentally, he was also a serial killer on that show. Some people had speculated that he might get a spinoff show, and now it seems like he kind of does with this season of The Following. Being a Dexter fan, I’m actually happy about that, because Zach had started to grow on me, so it’s nice to see him fulfill his potential as a serial killer, even if he is a completely different person. Well, two different people actually.
Early on in the episode, I had started to question whether Joe Carroll, in fact, still lived, or if it was just the lunatic ravings of the cult members who just wanted to perpetuate the myth and go around wearing Joe Carroll masks. Silly me, I should know by now that the villain pretty much never actually dies. What exactly is he up to, anyway? We see him with a full beard at the end of the episode, in a house in the middle of the woods, kind of looking like a lumberjack (yet another Dexter reference!). Just before we see him, inside the house we see money exchanging hands for sex. Is he running some sort of redneck brothel? Not really sure what was going on there! Guess we’ll find out soon what his deal is, because I’m sure these murders will pull him out of this temporary obscurity. Oh, and what’s up with Emma? Why is dressing like a punk now? What is her role in all of this? It seems like her cult friends are no longer associated with Carlos, or most of the other members of Joe’s cult. Is Joe going to look her up when he comes out of hiding? Does she even know that he’s still alive? She seemed pretty broken up when she saw the news report about Joe’s death in the season finale.
Seems like we have a lot to look forward to this season of The Following, and based on this first episode, I feel pretty optimistic that it will be a good one!
Scenes from The Following, Season 2 Episode 2: For Joe
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Following, titled For Joe:
What did you think of the Season 2 premiere of The Following, titled Resurrection? Let us know in the comments below!
I thought it would have been fine to just leave the finale alone and not have a second season. I dont know if it was a good idea to keep going.