The Following - Season 1 Episode 6 - Recap and Review - The Fall
Recap and review of The Following - Season 1 Episode 6 - The Fall:
I've trumpeted the possibility of improvement for weeks now, but with tonight's "The Fall," I'm not entirely sure anymore if The Following is actually capable of becoming a better show than it is. There's just too much wrong with it, and there isn't much indication of improvement on the horizon. Tonight's episode was supposed to be something of a game-changer, if the crowing of the promos were to be believed. Yet we're no farther along in our progression than we were before. We're out of the farmhouse, and that's all well and good, but Joey (Kyle Catlett) is still a captive of Emma (Valerie Curry), and Ryan (Kevin Bacon) is no closer to finding. There's just an exhausting sense of being sent back to square one, by the end of this. And I'm not sure that it helps for a show to be as deleterious to the soul as The Following tends to be on a weekly basis, the way it seems to luxuriate in human depravity with no real silver lining. This is not to say that all entertainment needs to have a redemptive value, the suggestion of the good guys possibly winning in the end. But there does need to be some sense that this isn't an entirely pointless endeavor. And I'm not sure "The Fall" gives the show any greater feeling of purpose than it had going in. And that's kind of a lousy place for the show to be, six episodes in.
Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/FOX
The episode sees Ryan taken hostage by Valerie, Jacob (Nico Tortorella) and Paul (Adan Canto). I will admit that this first half of the episode is amusing, if only for how Kevin Bacon adds a certain sarcastic levity to everything, as Ryan picks at the wound of the love triangle between the three kidnappers. He doesn't care if he lives or dies, and he knows they aren't going to hurt Joey, so why not have fun getting into their heads and making fun of their ludicrous set-up? As it turns out, Meghan (Li Jun Li) is the reason he shouldn't, as the trio has no qualms about hurting her, if need be. She's their leverage and they know it, so they use the threat of harming her as reason to get Ryan to comply, ordering the squad cars and SWAT Team to back off. But the internal cracks within the kidnappers' alliance have already started to form, and it isn't long before Emma is taking Joey and making a run for it, as the revelation of Carroll followers within the SWAT Team creates an opening for her to escape. And all the better for her, as Ryan is able to secure a knife, cutting himself free of his hand restraints, and stabbing Paul multiple times in the abdomen and setting Meghan free. Ryan leaves to chase after Emma and Joey, while Jacob escapes with Paul during the chaos with the SWAT team outside. The plot thickens, as it's revealed that Carroll also has followers within the police department, most notably Officer Marsden (Lisa Joyce), who shoots Mike (Shawn Ashmore) so that Emma can escape with Joey. Stranger yet is Carroll's mystery second-in-command, named "Roderick", whom we don't see, but whom all of the other followers claim to take orders from. Any theories on who "Roderick" could be? Is it someone we know? Or is it an entirely new character? At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if Parker (Annie Parisse) were revealed to be a follower, since her appearance in the second episode was as sudden as the disappearance of Joey. This is without mentioning her back story, which we learn tonight, via flashbacks.
Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/FOX
As it turns out, Parker was motivated to become an expert on cults by having been raised in one. We see the horror of young Parker being forced by her mother to have sex with an exceedingly creepy man as part of the sharing culture of the society. We flashback to a more recent past, in which Parker returns to the cult to meet with her parents for the first time since her escape from the cult fifteen years earlier. Her parents remain fully-indoctrinated, and though Parker is sincere in her attempts at reconciliation, neither her mother nor her father seem interested in bridging the gap, given their anger at nearly having been exiled themselves over their daughter's desertion. However, as Parker reveals before leaving, she didn't come to ask her parents' forgiveness, she came to forgive them. Parker tells her parents that she loves them and always will, before turning around and walking out the door. I can appreciate that the arc has a purpose in fleshing out Parker as a character -- it also draws significant parallels in the hostage negotiations, as Parker attempts to connect with Emma by relating, over the phone, to the kidnappers' maternal issues. If anything succeeds in this episode, it's these scenes, sparse though they are. Really, the flashback structure is one of the only things that really works for me, since it gives us time away from the bleaker circumstances of the present. Speaking of which...
Ryan comes upon the scene and checks on Mike, who was, luckily, wearing his bulletproof vest. Mike urges Ryan on, and Hardy is actually able to catch up with the kidnappers, even though his pacemaker has been giving him trouble. He shoots Marsden, but he isn't able to stop Emma, who ducks into a truck with tinted windows, escaping from the scene with Joey. As he returns to Claire (Natalie Zea), the pain of failure is written all over his face. She snaps, beating at his chest and refusing his embrace. But Ryan persists, holding her until she melts into tears. Claire, after all, has been through her own harrowing ordeal.
Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/FOX
As we left her last week, Claire had been taken by one of our new followers, whom we learn more about this week. Charlie is an ex-military man with extensive experience in computers. He was assigned by Carroll (James Purefoy) to watch over Claire, to observe her every movement and document it, before reporting back to him. Over time, Charlie falls in love with Claire from afar, and he makes his move on her here, in the present. Claire immediately rebuffs his advances, and Charlie scolds himself for breaching the lines of civility, claiming that what he did was "impure." He then bashes his head against a steel pole because he's out of his damn mind, while Claire escapes. I have no idea what the point of any of this is, but it somehow factors into Carroll's plans, as he tells his lawyer that the next phase must begin: we then see a press conference in which Carroll's attorney announces that they're suing the prison for violating Carroll's eighth amendment rights. How this fits into Carroll's big Poe-esque master plan is anyone's guess.
"The Fall" is a meandering episode at best. There's just no real sense of purpose here, and I just don't know if that feeling of purposelessness is something the show is ever going to shake if things keep resetting each week.
