Why I Unfollowed The Following

Why I Unfollowed The Following

Sorry Joe...

After listening to countless people (Chelle) telling me how good The Following is I decided to watch the entire first season on Netflix. The Following’s first season focuses on Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) a former FBI agent and his pursuit of Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), a teacher turned serial killer, who has birthed a cult following who do his bidding. The first three episodes were intriguing setting up a kidnapping of Joe Carroll’s son and what not, but once the show got going it lost me.

There will be spoilers, you've been warned.

The Characters 

Emma/Jacob/Paul

Emma Hill (Valorie Curry) one of Joe Carroll’s most loyal follower who played a pivotal role (as a babysitter) in abducting Joey Matthews, Joe Carroll’s son. She is a manipulative, cunning woman who is secretly in love with Joe Carroll unbeknownst to her boyfriend Jacob Wells (Nico Tortorella).

Jacob Wells pretended to be a gay with Paul Torres, who is in love with Jacob. Emma and Paul did not like each other in the beginning, but ended up having a threesome with Jacob. Yup halfway through the first season of The Following it (for at least a few episodes) became a remake of that awful Stephen Baldwin movie aptly titled Threesome. Jacob who was uncomfortable with the whole thing afterwards. Oh I forgot to mention that in a following full of killers Jacob has never killed anyone and lied about killing a person for the majority of the season. By the time he actually does kill someone (Paul putting him out of his misery due to a fatal injury) he becomes "killerman 2K13" jumping at the chance to kill again. By the end he comes to his senses and plans to leave Joe Carroll only to be killed by Emma.

Claire Matthews

Claire Matthews is the ex-wife of Joe Carroll and Joey Matthews mother. She also had a previous relationship with Ryan Hardy. Claire throughout the season was portrayed as a worried mother who wanted her son back at the cost of not having a plan if she ever got him. While under police surveillance Claire escaped for a chance to see her son based on Joe Carroll’s manipulation. Luckily for her the police found her and hid her.

Then later in the season after Joe’s men find her again she willingly gives herself up. Which ok I understand she was trying to look out for Hardy, but once she got to Carroll’s mansion she started making demands and being defiant as if she wasn’t surrounded by killers. When she does get to see her son, she tries to sneak out by waking up early and walking out the front gate! Really Claire? You and Joey was going to walk to the nearest police station and let them know Joe’s whereabouts without any problems?

Joe Carroll

Professor Joseph "Joe" Carroll is the big bad in The Following, a serial killer responsible for the Virginia Campus Murders at Winslow University where he taught. Later he would create a cult of serial killers known as The Followers. The thing I didn’t get about Joe was how did he spawn these followers, they seem to willingly want to contribute to Caroll’s plan. They claim to be outcast who want to be able to just be themselves, but these people kill, steal, and even sacrifice themselves for Carroll, becoming “chapters” in his novel. Carroll is a writer as well and not a good one. His first novel The Gothic Sea was a flop commercially and critically (I did enjoy when Claire called him out on being a bad writer) which spawned his first killing spree. His second novel is both the catalyst and downfall of Joe in the first season, his obsession with getting every detail right and his madness when Ryan (the protagonist and both the show and his novel) outsmarted him.

Ryan Hardy

Ryan Hardy led the FBI team that captured serial killer Joe Carroll in 2003. He was stabbed in the heart by Carroll so he was placed on disability and removed from active duty. And he has a pacemaker which comes into play from time to time. Hardy would play by his own rules, if he had the time to actually sit down and make em. Most of the time he just does what he wants without any regard for human life. Case in point a sex shop worker who was wired, let Hardy know she was in trouble he still let her get abducted. The only reason she was alive is so the bad guy could escape. 

The more frustrating part about Ryan Hardy is the fact that he seems to know more than everybody else about how Joe and his cult reacts and yet everyone still either questions everything he does or just does the complete opposite and when that does not work they do what Hardy said to do in the first place without an ‘I’m sorry, my bad, you were right Hardy.”

The Plot

Besides the characters the plot sometimes was so ridiculous I had to channel my inner Muppet Baby to suspend my disbelief. Early in the season it looked as if the FBI had Emma, Jacob and Paul dead to rights, only for two members of the tactical team to turn out to be Carroll’s men dressed as swat. They take out the other swat members so Jacob and Paul can escape. How convenient and lazy of the writers, granted I should’ve known better since there was still 10+ episodes to go, but still.

Then there is the whole everyone (law enforcement) who shouldn’t be afraid of Joe Carroll but are and therefore do his bidding even when they know it will just end up with more people dead. Case in point his attorney Olivia reads a message from Joe to the public triggering certain events and goes along with mostly anything he asks albeit through tears nonetheless.  

The warden is worse though, he fakes video of Joe’s prison transfer, while Joe hid in the trunk of Olivia’s car. He did all this because Joe had his daughter kidnapped. Now I don’t have kids, but I would like to think that 1. I wouldn’t live in a country that took this long to kill such a dangerous man and 2. if I was in that situation I wouldn’t free a known killer/cult leader.

Then there is Roderick (Warren Kole) who is Joe Carroll’s right hand man and also a legit sheriff of some small town that has to have absolutely no crime. This guy spent so much time at the mansion Carroll’s cult stayed at it made you wonder if he was on paid leave. Plus he had some serious issues (sexual and otherwise) I don’t know how he passed a psych test to be a cop in the first place.

I don’t claim to be a TV snob, heck I watched 3 seasons of Vampire Diaries. But with Vampire Diaries I knew what to expect, it has Vampires in the title, whereas The Following seemed to take place in the normal world in modern day. That’s what made watching this show so frustrating. Maybe one day when I’m bored beyond reason and I’ve watched everything in my Netflix que I’ll checkout season 2. 


Jon is  a non-single father of none, who spends most of his time watching Netflix creating/editing podcasts and maintaining a decent nice guy to a**hole ratio.

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