The Following - Guilt

Hello Addicts! Previously on The Following we are told that Joe Carroll was arrested for killing 14 girls. They told me that literally every single episode. I think at this stage in the season, everyone knows who he is. Do they really need to cover that aspect? Joe’s followers were killing off other women named Claire Matthews, like Joe’s wife. We also saw Jacob finally make his first kill with Paul, meaning he killed Paul. Roderick brings Jacob to Emma despite Emma’s obvious decision to not contact him again.

This is our episode opener.

Paul tries to wake Jacob up and ready for the day. He’s laughing and his usual self. Obviously it’s a dream. Then as Jacob goes into the bathroom he hears water on in the shower. He looks and there’s blood covering the curtain, with a very dead and cut up Emma laying inside it. Then he wakes up for real. How very Inception.

FBI guy (I still don’t know his name) tells Hardy that there was a hack into their system and that Claire’s position is now compromised. Hardy wants to be her protective custody but that’s obviously not going to happen. I’m starting to not like Claire. She bugs me. Obviously her whole life has turned to shit, but she gives off a sense of entitlement somehow, like she’s owed something for having dealt with all this chaos.

Joe meets with 2 new guys we haven’t seen before, because his following is of course endless. It sort of reminds me of that movie with Diane Lane and Colin Hanks, Untraceable. Where however many people went to the website, it killed the victim that much faster. It feels like that with this group of people. However many people they need, they will get them in an exponential way. So these two guys grew up together in a militia style environment. This means they know how to use guns and how to operate off the grid. They prefer the term, “constitutional extremists”. Would anyone want to be known by a title that included the word extremists. Joe tells Roderick to go with them, despite the fact that he has to report in for work. He is a sheriff after all. Joe tells him that he’s failed twice now to bring Claire to him, and he better not screw it up again.

Oh look! They remembered that Joey is still a character that hasn’t been killed off yet. He hasn’t been present for the last couple of episodes. Joey is excited to see Jacob and ditches Emma to go to him. Jacob still isn’t in a forgiving mood. I can’t blame him. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be the one to kill Emma. I see so many options for people to die. Emma will kill Claire, Jacob will kill Emma, Roderick will kill Joe, Emma will kill Roderick. The list goes on and on. Emma tries to tell Joey to go play so they can talk, and Jacob isn’t having any of it. He asks Joey to give him a tour of the house.

Claire is on lockdown at a hotel. I don’t know why, but for some reason the hotel room looks sort of dumpy. I know it’s not. It looks very much like many hotel rooms I’ve stayed in myself (and I’m no fan of a dumpy hotel room). But it bothers me for some reason. I’m weird. She’s on edge. There are many agents standing around looking at all the surveillance screens. Hardy shows up and Claire seems a little ambivalent about him being there. She hugs him, but I don’t get any real love from her. Hardy tells her about the Claire Matthews murders. “I just don’t know why no one can find him. How does a group of cult followers stay hidden for so long?”  Because he’s had years to plan this out Claire, all the while you guys are trying to play catch up. 

That’s why. I also think she’s kind of dumb.

Agents down in the hotel lobby notice the 2 assassins walk in since they’re not familiar faces to the hotel. Roderick somehow killed his way in through a window.

Ha, Roderick can’t put on a mask quite right. Those masks always bother me. They seem so uncomfortable and itchy. We had one in our house as a kid, and I always hated it. Claire is on the move getting ready to leave as the followers are headed right for her. One of the agents, hardy and Claire watch them come down the hallway and kill a bunch of people. The agent tells them to go out the backdoor? There’s a random backdoor that leads to the courtyard. I’ve never seen such a thing for a hotel. Maybe that’s why they picked it. The bad guys shoot the agent through the door. One of the guys jump out and grab Claire as they get to the car.

Hardy calls his bluff because he knows Joe wouldn’t allow Claire to actually be killed. She elbows him in the gut and he lets her go and Hardy shoots him twice. He reveals as he’s laying on the ground that he’s wearing body armor. How then, did a mere elbow hurt him? Hmm…Hardy tells Claire to take the sim card out of his phone, as he rips off the tracking device of the FBI vehicle he was using. They’re off the map.

The FBI assumes he’ll go back to his old place in Brooklyn. He doesn’t. He goes to visit Angel Batista?!

What are you doing here!? What happens to Dexter and Deb!? I have so many questions! But I have to wait until June to find out. Boo. (Stay tuned for it!) Apparently this time his name is Tyson and he’s an old friend of Hardy’s.  They went through Quantico together and Tyson has been in witness protection for the last 4 years.

We get a flashback to 2005 when Hardy was first writing the book about Joe. And all I have to say is that beards change the way a man looks. In a very drastic way.

For real? That’s not the same guy. He looks…worse. Tyson tried to talk him out of publishing the book before it will define who he is as a person. He’ll forever be the Joe Carroll guy. Hardy tells him that this is something he needs to do, for therapeutic reasons. Tyson then tells him to go for it.

Joey shows Jacob into Joe’s study area. That’s a lot of J names. Joey leaves when he sees Joe there. He’s not a fan yet. Joe tells Jacob to forgive Emma. Jacob protests but Joe says Emma was doing what she was asked to do. He basically orders him to forgive her. That’s not fun. Forced forgiveness can never be real. I should put that on a mug or something. Jacob keeps having hallucinations of Paul. This could get back for Jacob. His mind wasn’t meant for murder.

The FBI makes ID’s on the two militia men. One of the tech ladies cracked into emails and found a piece of code that has been repeated. Parker tells her to follow up on it and see if it works as a URL.

Jacob goes to see Emma. She tries to explain herself by saying she didn’t really think he was dead, but she wasn’t sure. How does that work? He left you a ton of voicemails. She blames Roderick for making her take care of Joey first. Jacob isn’t buying her bullshit.

Tyson and Claire discuss Hardy’s past and his death curse. Everyone that he’s loved somehow ends up getting killed. Tyson tells Claire about one of Hardy’s last girlfriends. Molly.

Tyson tells her that Hardy has a fetish for sock puppets. Ha. It makes me giggle. He says she tried to hold on, but Hardy bailed. He then tells Claire the only one he was ever really serious about was her. When 

Hardy comes in she brushes her sweater and pulls up a small chip. The followers tagged her while they were at the hotel and now they know where she is. RUN! That’s my first thought. Get the hell out. Instead, what do they do? Hunker down and wait for them to show up. Stupid. Tyson tells them that the vest isn’t an issue for his particular shotgun.

Joey whines that he doesn’t like bologna. Emma tries to explain why all the people that are friends of his dad live in the house together. Joe then comes in to try and bond with Joey. He looks in the cupboard and pulls out marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate. He tries to assemble them, but he’s doing it wrong. Joey keeps correcting him. Joe uses his charm on his own son. When Joe tells him that smores are his favorite food, he gives his heavy sigh and resigns that it’s his favorite too. He’s adorable. And James Purefoy is super talented. Joey just wants to see his mom. Joe tells him he’ll see her really really soon. That appeases him. Hasn’t he been told that for like the last month? Wouldn’t you start to question things? Even as a kid!

The runaways are ready for a showdown. Claire confesses to Hardy that she loves him. He says that’s a really bad idea but he loves her too. They kiss. Aww. I can’t even be happy for Hardy because she bothers me so much right now. Again, you’ve had HOURS to get away. It was light outside when you discovered the tracking device, and now it’s dark. You could’ve been miles away by now. This is a dumb decision.

One of them goes to scout the place out and he looks in the back door window. He can’t get a good look at what it is so he gets closer. BOOM! (I apologize for startling you) Shotgun blast at close range and the bullet proof vest doesn’t stand a chance. Moron Claire comes downstairs but doesn’t announce herself so Hardy just about shoots her. Roderick knocks on the front door and tells Claire he knows she’s in there, that he’ll take her to Joey, no one else has to die. Then Tyson goes and shoots like crazy, and then shows Hardy that in fact was the one that got shot. Batista, no!! You got shot in season 1 too! Hardy hands Claire a gun and goes down in the basement. Then, like the idiot she is, she runs outside and voluntarily gets in the car. What a bitch. For real. I’m over you, Claire. At this point, I don’t even care if you die. As Hardy goes to get into his car, he sees that they slashed his tires. Now you’ve killed Tyson. By giving yourself up, you did in fact, get someone else killed. Skank.

Emma knocks on Jacob’s door and is clearly trying to manipulate him into the puddle he was before Paul died. She says it will take time, but she wants to win back his trust and that she loves him. She kisses him and he gets aggressive and kisses back. He pulls off his shirt and they start to go at it, in an angry sort of way.

Tech lady tells Parker that the piece of code was a password for a website. It’s a montage of Poe, Joe (ha) and screaming and murder and death. Parker sees it as something other than just a fan-page. She takes the cursor (or as she calls it, pointer) and finds a secret link.

It’s a form of steganography, a secret form of communication that only the sender and recipient are aware of. When they click on it they get a video of someone sitting in one of those creepy Poe masks from the first episode. It tells them congratulations on being allowed entry. They are told to enter their name and email and someone will get back to them. So in other words, the creepiest recording machine ever.

While Jacob and Emma are boning, Paul keeps appearing. Causing Jacob to get up and go into the bathroom. Paul says Jacob knows why he’s there. He tells Jacob to kill Paul. He puts a knife in his hands. Jacob says he won’t do it, and stabs Paul instead. Paul keeps insisting that he knows Jacob wants to kill her, that she deserves it. He slices Paul’s throat.

That’s quite the acid trip. He stumbles into the bedroom and tells Emma that he was the one that killed Paul by smothering him. Emma is shocked. “I’ve killed now. I killed my best friend because of you. I have a real taste for it now. I’d watch my back if I were you.” He squeezes as she tries to struggle. Yup, I’m gonna go with the idea that Jacob will in fact, kill Emma.

Hardy is with Tyson at the hospital (oh good, he didn’t die!) when Joe calls. Joe pokes the wound of dead loved ones from Hardy’s life. Hardy sits down, tears in his eyes and calls it quits. Joe says he saved Hardy’s life and has allowed him a second chance. This feels like when Dean told Castile to find someone else to save the world, because he had given enough, in Supernatural. Joe tells him he’s not quite the man he needs to be yet, but he will be. Hardy tells him to go to hell and hangs up.

After a flash of Tyson telling Hardy not to push Molly away, we see the car pull up to Joe’s house. Out walks a woman. This is the moment Joe has been waiting for all season.

Molly!? She runs up and hugs Joe. Ok. We’re starting to put our water skis on here to jump the shark. I’m getting a little concerned, guys. I’m also getting lost on the time line. When were they together, when did Joe go to jail the first time. I’m confused. There’s only so much reality I can suspend before it all caves in and ruins everything. We have 5 episodes left. It also seems a little ridiculous that they keep advertising it on TV with serious suspense that there are 5 episodes left. I could see, maybe with 2 to go, but 5? They even did 6! That’s 37% of the season left to go. Ah well.