The Following: Season 1: Episode 4: Mad Love Review

Joe Carroll‘s Trio of Followers

With Joe Carroll’s plan in the works, Rick Kester’s wife, Maggie, abducts Ryan Hardy’s sister and chef, Jenny. But it is only bait for Ryan Hardy as he confronts Maggie and subdued — and tortured. Prior to that, Agent Mike Weston attempts to get to know Ryan Hardy, but Ryan is a difficult man to deal with — as he himself is dealing with the ghosts of the past and the present. Mike Weston finds out that the trio of Emma Hill, Paul Torres and Jacob Wells has Claire Matthews son, Joey, somewhere in New Jersey. And back with these three, the tension heats up, and their victim, Megan, gets killed. With the killing of Megan, the trio bonds — highly sexually.

Overall, this episode did pick up the pace, but as with Fox, the censors perhaps got in the way. The torture of Ryan Hardy by Maggie was unusually tame, given the circumstances. And the showing of Joey being trained in the ways of the serial killer, like his father Joe Carroll, was tame as well. It was implied more than anything else and not acted upon. I think The Following would be great — if it was on the Starz Network or other cable channel and allowed to be unleashed. The Following so far has been sanguine other than the pilot episode in my opinion. The intensity needs to be cranked — hard.