Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 354

The Following 1.5: The Lawyer and the Swap

The Following 1.5 introduces yet another tentacle of Joe's distributed insane network:  his lawyer.  He gets her to read his statement to the press - another excerpt from Poe - and that's of course a trigger for Joe's bold move.

Did the lawyer realize that was a trigger?  Well, yes, she did.  So why did she do it?  Because, after thinking she was severing her representation of Joe in 2010, Joe makes her an offer she can't refuse - he has one of his following sever two of her fingers.   A psychotic fantasy fulfilled for any one who's ever been dropped by an attorney, I guess - and another reason why The Following is such good kick-in-the-gut television.

And what was the trigger for?  A plan to kidnap Claire, which works.  Question: why would she be so stupid as to give her FBI security the slip and not even tell Ryan what she was doing?  To see her boy Joey, of course - but, still, she knows what she's dealing with regarding Joe, and I can't quite believe she'd be so quick to throw caution to the wind.

As for Joey, he's pretty bright, and is seeing through his captors.  He almost escapes - but lets Emma talk him into taking him back to their cottage.  Surprising, given that Joey has just overheard Emma say she was lying to him.

But Joey looks good to be rescued, anyway, with Ryan closing in, and even though the episode ends with a gun to Ryan's head.  I'm predicting he will spring Joey, and that's why I'm seeing a swap in The Following's future.

I'm thinking as Joey is freed, Claire will be taken hostage.   In The Following, there is not yet any redemption.  The kidnapping must go on.   And so must this addictive show.


See also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash

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The Walking Dead 3.10: Reinforcments

From the point of view of sheer classic battle with reinforcements just in time - as in the tradition of Lord of the Rings - tonight's The Walking Dead 3.10 was peerless, one of the best episodes of the series.

The set-up was just right.   Glenn leaves the prison to work off his fury at what happened to him and Maggie in Woodbury.  Rick, as Glenn aptly puts is, is walking around outside the prison in "crazy" town, seeing visions of pale, beautiful Lori.  Hershel's on the inside of the outer gate, trying to talk Rick into coming back in, with no success.   Daryl saves some people in a car somewhere out there, fights with Merle, and then walks away from his ever-racist brother.   The only man with a gun in hand and able to move quickly back in the prison is Carl.  Maggie's inside taking care of the baby.

And that's when the Governor and his gang strike.  That was only a small surprise - no one believed that he would stay back in Woodbury and let Rick and his people be, except maybe Andrea.   He mounts a clever, vicious attack - deadly assault weapons with well-aimed bullets flying and a van load of walkers.   The nice guy from the prison is shot dead, Carol is pinned under him and Rick and Hershel are under fire and soon under attack from zombies.   Maggie comes out with guns.   She and Beth join the fight.  Michonne's doing what she can, so is Carl, but the gunfire from the Governor's attack is relentless and the zombies are gaining.   Rick and Hershel are inches from death and-

Michonne springs into top-notch samurai  action (Merle called her the last samurai last week) and decapitates zombies by the second.  But she won't get to Rick quite in time and-

Two things happen:  Glenn comes back in his pick-up and rescues Hershel.   And just as two walkers are about to rip Rick apart, an arrow through the head takes out one of them - fired by Daryl!  And a knife through the head takes out the other - Merle's good work!  One of the best battle scenes in years on television.  Movie quality.

So our people have gotten through this with just one loss - the last of the original prisoners.  (You know they were put in the story just to die.  I hope the new people in prison - at least Tyreese and Sasha -  do a little better.) But everyone else is ok.  Plus, Daryl is back and maybe Merle.   Any and all help is appreciated.

Because the Governor is still deadly and armed to the hilt, and Rick's still somewhat crazy.  What will it take to rid him of his hallucinations?  Tonight's heroic battle?  Probably not.  But I hope something snaps him out of it.  The hallucination thing is not only dangerous to our people, but the one trite note in  an otherwise  sheerly brilliant episode.

See also The Walking Dead 3.3 meets Meadowlands ... The Walking Dead 3.4: Going to the Limit ... The Walking Dead 3.9: Making Crazy Sense

And see also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis ... The Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy ... The Walking Dead 2.6: Secrets Told ... The Walking Dead 2.7: Rick's Way vs. Shane's Way ...  The Walking Dead 2.8: The Farm, the Road, and the Town  ... The Walking Dead 2.9: Worse than Walkers ... The Walking Dead 2.11: Young Calling the Shots ... The Walking Dead 2.12: Walkers Without Bites ... The Walking Dead Season 2 FinaleAnd see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season




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The Following 1.4: Off the Leash

A new wrinkle in The Following 1.4 tonight: the followers can do their own psycho business.  They can strike out on their own, not only Joe's orders.  In fact, they can torture and kill not to please Joe, but just themselves and their own impulses.  This, if it's possible, makes the following even more frightening.

The specific story tonight concerns Maggie, who did kill her FBI security last week on Joe's behest.  But tonight, she's in it for revenge, pure and simple - revenge against Ryan who killed her psycho follower husband last week.

It's all about family, as it always is.  Maggie kidnaps Ryan's sister to lure him to a place where Maggie will kill Ryan by short-circuiting his pace maker - which, as Maggie cleverly psychotically says, will actually mean that Joe's wound will have killed Ryan, since the pace maker was installed to keep his heart beating ok after the wound.   So Maggie manages to make this something on Joe's behalf after all. And Ryan's sister, after being forced to wach this happen, will be killed, too.  Mike of course saves Ryan just in the nick of time - it's way too soon for Ryan to die - but it's a good little chilling story anyway.

The other family story tonight concerns the threesome now with a woman tied up in the basement.  One of the guys, it turns out, has never killed anyone - he lied to the followers to stay in the group.  He told Joe the truth, and Joe, the understanding "father" of this sicko brood, said not to worry, you'll be able to kill whenever you're ready.  Ah, nothing like an empathetic fatherly psycho.

So the question tonight is will the follower with a conscience still alive be able to man-up and kill the tied-up kidnapped woman.  There are some good twists and turns in this, so I won't tell you what happened, except to say the twists are appropriately twisted.

See also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun

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Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox

A cracking good mystery in Bones 8.15 tonight - the best of the season so far - in which Bones is shot and nearly killed.  The mystery is not only who did it, but why there is no trace of a bullet, and no exit wound.

The idea that occurred to me and Hodgins was maybe a bullet made of ice.  Such a bullet would explain why it left no trace or exit wound - it melted in the heat of the body - but alas it turns out that a bullet made of frozen water would not be able to break the skin.

Another symptom provides a clue.  After Bones comes back from her first flatlining, she nearly dies again - some kind of allergic reaction.  But to what?  Hodgins figures out that it's an antibody reaction to someone else's blood in Bones' system.   And he has the answer: the bullet was not frozen water but frozen blood.  As a last touch, Bones volunteers for surgery to get a precise ID on the antigen inside her, so her would-be killer (and killer of a security guard at the Jeffersonian) can be nabbed.   Bones literally puts her body on the line - or on the table - to get the bad guy

As I said, an excellent mystery story.  But the magic bullet is really magical in a different way.  In Bones' near encounter with death, she sees and talks to her late mother.  (The history of Bones and her parents is worth reading up on if you haven't seen the first few seasons - it's a great story.)  Her mother now tells Bones that she has to let out some of the little girl kept locked deep inside all of these years - locked inside, so Bones with her brilliant indomitable logic could get in control of her nearly shattered life and succeed.  But for Bones to lead a truly full and happy life - which all who love her want for her - she has to live with more emotion.

This puts a fine bow on tonight's story.  Bones is at the Jeffersonian, working in the wee hours, because she and Booth got into argument over Bones' scientifically logical dissection and analysis of every aspect of their lives, including having fun with baby Christine.  This is something Bones and Booth have been struggling with all season.   It takes Bones almost dying to get her to see that she needs to be more spontaneous.  But spontaneity is, after all, not easy for anyone to learn.

If someone asks you to be spontaneous, how can you comply?   If you then try to be spontaneous, you're actually not being spontaneous, because you're following an instruction.   In the case of Bones, it  took a magic bullet for her to break out of this be-spontaneous paradox.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.15: Real Life

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

                                                            

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Nashville: 'The Wrong Song' in the Right Series

My wife and I have been watching and really enjoying Nashville on ABC-TV.  We started watching it because we thought Connie Britton was fabulous in Friday Night Lights.  And I was a fan of Hayden Panettierre, at least insofar as that excellent first season of Heroes.

The two not only act engagingly but sing up a storm of brand new songs in Nashville.  Consider, for example "You've Got the Wrong Song," written on the show by Rayna (Connie) and Juliette (Hayden) but really written by Marv Green, Sonya Isaacs, and Jimmy Yeary.  The song is a tour-de-force put down, replete with quoted titles of "Stand by Your Man," "Baby Come Back," and "We Can Work It  Out" - as examples of everything the song is not saying - with an infectious melody and knockout performance by Connie and Hayden (see vid below).

Although the superb songs on the show are not written by the actors and actresses, they do all the singing.   In addition to Connie and Hayden, Clare Bowen as Scarlet has the voice of an angel, and gives a just beautiful rendition of another new standout song, "When the Right One Comes Along" (written by Georgia Middleman, Justin Davis, and Sarah Zimmermann).

The men in Nashville are not quite as powerful as the women, but get the job done.  Charles Easten as Deacon is especially noteworthy as Rayna's former and likely future lover - not to mention Scarlet's uncle, and both Rayna and Hayden's songwriting partner.   And the actor also plays a little guitar.

Even the story line is a little better than you'd expect, with not only the customary problematic parents and spouses, but some politics mixed in, and, best of all, a pretty realistic portrayal of the evolving music industry.   It's definitely the right series, when you're in the mood for something different a little different and refreshing on television, which around here is at least once a week.





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The Walking Dead 3.9: Making Crazy Sense

The Walking Dead was back for its Spring 2013 second half of season tonight - episode 3.9 - in good, grisly form.

Among the highlights -Darryl and Merle walk away both from the Governor (no surprise) and Darryl's "family" with Rick and the gang.  That was a little more of a surprise, but, if you think about it, there was no other way.  Rick was right not to want Merle with the group, and Darryl was right not to want to leave his brother, as brutal and racist as he is, alone again at the mercy of the walkers.  No one is happy about this - except to some extent Merle - and that means it's the right move for the story at this point.Beth is having more of an eye for Rick, which makes sense, too, at least from her point of you.  In this insane world, with Jimmy gone, she needs someone.   Carl's too young - whatever he may think otherwise - and Glenn's with Maggie.  So who else is there?   Rick's without Lori, Beth is taking care of their baby, so it all makes sense on some level.  This is certain to cause a problem between Rick and Carl, if it continues, which it likely will.Hershel is the only person who has a chance talking sense to Rick, with Lori gone.  But precisely because Lori is gone, Rick may be incapable of being talked sense to.   In fact, we see his mind literally starting to fray - his hallucinations of Lori from the first part of the season are still with him.  Interestingly, though, Hershel's view that Rick needs to trust the new people now in the prison with our group is not entirely right - we've already seen that the two younger guys,  Ben and Allen, would have attacked our people when Rick and the others were away.   On the other hand, Hershel's completely right about Tyreese and Sasha  (good to see Chad Coleman in this role - I've admired his work since The Wire).  So Rick, even in his craziness, may still be in part right ... which makes a strong story.I haven't said much about the Governor and Woodbury.  It's pretty predictable what's happening there, except for Andrea's apparent continuing attachment to the Governor, as evidenced by her resisting his attempt to factor her out of his life.   Is she playing him, or just playing it safe in terms of wanting him to think she still cares about him, or ... well, however that's resolved, it will no doubt play a crucial role as Woodbury begins to gear up for an expedition against our people in the prison.
See also The Walking Dead 3.3 meets Meadowlands ... The Walking Dead 3.4: Going to the Limit

And see also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis ... The Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy ... The Walking Dead 2.6: Secrets Told ... The Walking Dead 2.7: Rick's Way vs. Shane's Way ...  The Walking Dead 2.8: The Farm, the Road, and the Town  ... The Walking Dead 2.9: Worse than Walkers ... The Walking Dead 2.11: Young Calling the Shots ... The Walking Dead 2.12: Walkers Without Bites ... The Walking Dead Season 2 Finale

And see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season



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Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome: Review

I caught the prequel Battlestar Galactica movie tonight - Blood and Chrome - shown as a two-hour program rather than the 10 episodes of 12 minutes each online this Fall - and found it excellent.

The first Cylon War has been raging in space for 10 years.  It's Bill Adama's first mission.   Which puts Blood and Chrome in between Caprica and Battlestar Galactica proper, which is about where it is in quality, though closer to BSG than Caprica, which was slow-moving but had its moments.

The action in Blood and Chrome was sharp, and there was even a Star Trekian / Star Warsian bunch of action and storyline on an ice moon, replete with a proto-fleshy-Cylonic being and some cyborgian slithering monsters with (by at least one account) some flesh that makes tasty eating.

Young Adam's mission is to bring a woman scientist to the moon on some mission (she says) of crucial importance in the war.   She turns out to be right, but not the way she thought.  I figured out all the twists until the very last one, which makes the story satisfying and a winner in my book.  I was also glad to see Adama sleep with her.  As the Admiral in BSG, he spent far too many nights alone in his cabin.

And it was good to see humanity waking up from its Capricorn coma of obliviousness.  Humanity in Blood and Chrome is desperate again, on the edge.  Not as desperate, of course, as they'll be in BSG, but we're beginning to realize that the toasters are a lot smarter and resourceful than we realized.

We might even have beaten them, given our awakening, had not been been for the Cylons being so far along in their development of human-like beings.   We get just a taste of that in Blood and Chrome, and I'd love to see even more.  But as it is, we've been given a much-needed way station on the road from Caprica to BSG.

See also:  Battlestar Galactica Caprica: Exquisite, Flawed Copies ... 1.2:  Dawn of a Different Machine ... 1.3:  Daughters, Missing and Present ... 1.5: Adama's Daughter ... 1.6: The Chip and its Roots ... 1.7: The Cylon and the Dog ... 1.8: The Metaphysics of Flesh ... 1.9: Zoe at Large ... Caprica Back 1.10-1.12: Cleaner, More Powerful Lines ... Unseeen Caprica: The Rest and the Best

More Battlestar Galactica - see: Battlestar Galactica, Final 1: Dee, Ellen, and Starbuck ... Final 2:Baby and Mutiny Make Three ... Final 3: Galactica Alamo! ... Final 4: Shout-Outs to Lampkin, Lee, Tyrol ... Final 5: (Almost) All Explained ... Final 6. The Necessity of Hyrbrid ... Final 7. 'Since I Died in Your Arms' ... Final 8. Father of a Million ... Final 9. 'Every Man and Woman Over the Age of 15' ... Battlestar Galactica: Superb Series Finale

See also ... Battlestar Galactica's Back and Bristling! ... 4.2 Mysteries and Satisfactions ... 4.3: Deaths, Lessons, Questions ... 4.4 A Little More about Cylons ... 4.5 Mutiny on the Demetrius ... 4.6 Cylon on Cylon ... 4.9 Finally, Bill and Laura ... 4.10: Earth

See also:  Battlestar Galactica: Razor Sharp ... Galactica Dylan

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Talking about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan

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Bones 8.14: Real Life

A serious Bones 8.14 tonight - serious because it deals with something very important in our real world.

We learn early on that Booth needs to spend some time in a hospital.  Bones knows the reason, but no one else, including the viewers, do.  As the murder investigation in the episode proceeds, our attention is increasingly drawn to what is drawing Booth to the hospital.  Angela's upset that Brennan is not confiding in her, Cam gets drawn in, and we can't help but be concerned.

Bones assures everyone that it's not because Booth is sick.  But, what then is happening in the hospital with Booth, and why doesn't he want anyone other than Bones to know about it?

Bones this year, different from any previous season, has been working real-life issues into its stories.   The Neanderthal / Cro-Magnon episode a few weeks ago could have beeb a continuation of Nova's recent, excellent "Decoding Neanderthals".  The denouement tonight was even more topical, because it focused on something not in history but in the current world, something that affects thousands of people.

Booth is going to the hospital, not for himself or a member of his family, but to spend some time with children suffering from Neurofibromatosis (NF), a genetic disorder in which benign tumors grow wherever there are nerve cells.  This includes the optic nerve, where the result could be blindness.

This could almost have been an episode of House, except there was no brilliant cure discovered by a genius doctor, because there is not yet a cure known for NF.  Just the kindness and attention shown by Booth, and the series for focusing on this ailment.



See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

                                                            

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The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun

In case it's not yet clear, The Following has something in common with Criminal Minds - serial killers and a BAU (FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit).   Except, whereas Criminal Minds has a serial killer in just about every episode, The Following has most of them acting in sociopathic syncopated concert every night.  The Following is the BAU on speed.

Tonight's episode 1.3 had at least four psychos and plots in various tandem, with Ryan and the BAU a crucial step or more behind in every instance.   Even when the killer in the hospital divulges a crucial bit of information under Debra's astute badgering, the information is too late to save Agent Reilly, who is stabbed in the neck and killed - by the victim he was protecting.  She, too, is part of the following, and escapes Ryan - who does at least manage to get her psycho husband.

This BAU's victories, at present in this series, are so small as to make them the least successful police unit we've ever seen on television.  The reversals encountered by Jack Bauer and his CTU seem, if not small in comparison, certainly a little less frequent.   In just an hour, we had not only the above tonight, but a man set on fire by the psycho in a Poe mask (who turns out be Rick, Debra's husband, this time), a dean or some academic official stabbed in the neck and killed because he didn't give Joe the mastermind tenure (The Following is no friend to the academic world), and a woman beaten unconscious and kidnapped.

All of this is possible because Joe has his diabolical following in simultaneous and sequential operation.   And there may be some hierarchy that we're just beginning to glimpse.  Joe's at the top, calling the shots, of course, but he's in prison and presumably could not have sent the text message that signaled it was time for Reilly to die.  So, who did?  Likely Rick, but who knows.

As I said last week and will probably keep saying, everyone is suspect.  Tonight it was one of the victims.   I'm still thinking someone in the FBI, maybe even the BAU, may also be under Joe's control. Given the kind of mind games Joe exults in, he might very well have an agent in the BAU who is now helping Ryan, only to turn against him at a crucial time.

The only people who couldn't possibly be under Joe's control are we the viewers, right?  Near the end of the episode, the pyschos holding Joey send Claire and Ryan a video in which Joey's being schooled in the ways of death - being encouraged to enjoy the suffocation of a mouse and the burning of a bug in the sun under a magnifying glass. That bug is our usual television sensibility. The Following is not only Criminal Minds on speed but Dexter turned on his head.   Not for the weak of stomach, but television like you've never seen it before.

See also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan

                                                                


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