The Following - Recap: In Rod We Trust
Recap and review of The Following - Season 1 Episode 14 - Havenport:
While I haven't softened too much on my stance that The Following is just awful, awful television, I do have to admit that "Havenport" does some pretty interesting things with the story. Interesting enough to give me some measure of hope about the endgame for this season. Joe's cult remains insufferable, to be sure, but the episode works when it focuses on the broad strokes of the storyline, without trying to tell a character-oriented story. What I mean is that the thriller aspects work far better than the elements of the story that ask us to care about, say, Jacob (Nico Tortorella), who remains a willing follower of a cult led by an obvious psychopath and murderer. No amount of attempted humanizing is going to change that unless he changes the circumstances himself. But the actual thriller at the heart of the episode? Totally works. Roderick (Warren Kole) has never been that compelling a character on his own, only in relation to his power struggle with Carroll (James Purefoy). Yet with his complete mental breakdown, following his having been recognized by Weston (Shawn Ashmore), he becomes far more interesting than he has been at any point prior. The hunt for Roderick, who has abducted Joey (Kyle Catlett) from the Carroll compound, forms the body of the episode, and it's these segments that prove most satisfying. I'm still not sold that The Following is a good show, but I can at least believe that it's capable of producing a good episode, here and there. And right now, I think that's the best I could ask for.
Credit: Giovanni Rufino/FOX
So Roderick gets made by Weston at the police station and beats a hasty retreat. He heads back to the mansion and pleads with Carroll to enact their evacuation plan, in which the cult members flee in groups to an unspecified safe location. However, Joe won't hear of it, and the ensuing argument leads to the two men fighting it out, as Carroll throttles Roderick and nearly kills him. All-in-all, it's a bad day for ol' Joe, who now has to deal with Ryan (Kevin Bacon) offering immunity from criminal prosecution to any member of the cult who comes forward and assists in bringing this whole ugly mess to an end. Roderick, sensing that his days are numbered, seizes his opportunity to buy an escape. He abducts Joey right out from under Claire (Natalie Zea) and hits the road. A furious Joe sends Jacob and two other followers after him, with instruction to retrieve Joey and kill Roderick ("Make him suffer, if possible," says Carroll, in one of Purefoy's most chilling line deliveries). And like that, we have an episode in which a number of different variables are in play.
Credit: Giovanni Rufino/FOX
Roderick, whose real name, we learn, is Tim Nelson, seeks out an old friend: Betty, a waitress whom he abducts at gunpoint, because I guess asking nicely isn't in Roderick's playbook. As he forces Betty to drive him to an unspecified location, Roderick kills two state troopers along the way, and nearly kills Betty herself before Ryan and the FBI intervene, following up on a tip that led them straight to the killer. Alone in the interrogation room with Ryan, Roderick tries to play the Joey card, revealing that he has the boy captive, and that he'll only turn Joey over to Ryan in exchange for his freedom. When Ryan comes up against opposition from his superior, Nick Donovan (Mike Colter), Ryan decides to take matters into his own hands. He whisks Roderick away in the uniform of an FBI agent, saying that once he has Joey safely returned, he'll drive Roderick to a safe spot, at which point he'll be on his own. Roderick holds up his end of the bargain, taking Ryan straight to Joey, at a house in the middle of nowhere. Yet he doesn't intend to allow Ryan to escape, as he draws a gun while Ryan is untying Joey. Enter Weston, Ryan's ace in the hole, who followed them straight to the location. He holds Roderick at gunpoint and threatens to shoot, in retaliation for Roderick nearly killing him several episodes back. However, Jacob and the other followers take care of that for Weston, pumping Roderick full of lead. The ensuing fight is one of the better action setpieces the show has done, as Ryan and Weston trade fire (and then fisticuffs) with Jacob's escorts while Jacob escapes with Joey.
Credit: FOX
Earlier in the episode, Claire pleaded with Jacob to get Joey to safety and not bring him back to the mansion, and it's part of an episode-long arc in which Jacob is shown to be a little less than a monster. That said, I feel like the episode tries to establish a rapport between Jacob and Joey that was never really there. If anything, Joey's rapport was with Emma (Valorie Curry), not Jacob. Yet, with a single throwaway line at the beginning of the episode about Jacob being his "favorite", we're meant to believe that Joey is fond of Jacob, and vice-versa? Granted, it's not really implausible or anything, but it didn't feel like an organic development, since we've been given no indication that Jacob cares about Joey at all, beyond what he means to Carroll. However, the plot relies on this point, as Jacob eventually decides to do the right thing and let Joey go. Once and for all, Joey is safe under the FBI's protection, and while Jacob escapes, we get the sense that law enforcement is closer to the compound than they've ever been. Of course, the big victories are undermined by smaller defeats, as a crazed follower turns herself into the cops, offering to tell them everything she knows about Carroll's plan. She then pulls out her hairpins and stabs Nick Donovan in the eye. And that's where the episode ends. Because...I don't know, violence?
Credit: FOX
While the thriller elements work (and sure, I'll even give them Jacob, and his character arc), there's nearly as much that doesn't work. Joe flips out on Emma for failing to keep an eye on Claire and Joey, which resulted in Roderick absconding with his son. Emma validly responds that she couldn't go near Claire, since Claire threatened to kill her, and there was no guarantee she wouldn't follow through on it. Now, mind you, this is all preceded by an unsettlingly awkward conversation in which Joe explains to Emma that their sexual dalliance was just that, and nothing more, to which Emma responds that she's not some starstruck girl who doesn't know the difference between love and a good lay (though you wouldn't be able to tell from how her character has been depicted throughout the season). Their intimate relationship makes her failure all the more upsetting to Joe, who slaps Emma in a fit of rage. Emma's eyes well up, and she storms off, and I'm left wondering, again, why we're supposed to care about the feelings of a remorseless killer.
This includes Joe Carroll himself, who takes his pain and tries to turn it into material for his novel. At this point, Claire enters the study and makes a proposition: she'll willingly stay with Joe and do everything he says. She'll even try to love him again. But, in return, he has to let go of Joey, once and for all. Though Carroll is initially hesitant to go along with the plan, he eventually gives in. Granted, he's helped along by Claire's kiss, which he reciprocates like a thirsty man who hasn't seen water in days. Yet this proves to just be a ploy to allow Claire to get close enough to Carroll to stab him. Unfortunately, Claire is a moron and stabs him in the gut, as opposed to the head, neck, eye, throat or anywhere else with the potential to kill him instantly. Claire is apprehended by the followers, and Joe tapes up his wound and calls Ryan, telling him that Claire has officially lost her role as the leading lady in this little drama of theirs. He tells Ryan that it's time for Claire to die. Ah well, I guess the show requires that at least one Matthews remain in trouble at all times, and if it's not going to be Joey, it might as well be Claire.
Credit: Giovanni Rufino/FOX
"Havenport" is as worthwhile an episode as The Following has produced in weeks, and while I'm still not high on the series as a whole, I found myself enjoying this episode in and of itself. The more the show indulges its knack for telling taut thrillers as opposed to luxuriating in needless violence and nonsensical plot turns, then the show might turn itself around into a compulsively watchable guilty pleasure. I'm just not holding my breath.
