" The Following " on FOX - Page 8

DAMMIT!!!

This episode had the Fonz in full leather jacket regalia on the water skies ready for his jump.

Is there no situation whatever when 43 trained ninjas who've dedicated their lives for a plan and place orchestrated years in advance won't appear?

Sad because the scenes where Bacon was held captive had great dialog and potential for the show but the writers went on to beclown themselves beyond redemption into self parody.

I like it.

it would certainly seem that the writers/producers from this show borrowed a few too many far-fetched ideas from 24

As funky as it was at times, thought it was one of the better episodes.

24 did come to my mind, as well, as far as the style and construction of drama. It would not surprise me if there are some 24 alumni working on this project. I like how they introduced/intertwined experiences of another cult relative to this murderer cult. It's an interesting element to what would otherwise be a standard murder/drama plotline.

Seems like the stand-off should have been over once mean-girl tried to tazor the pacemaker guy. That would have been a perfect moment for a "too close" moment, block her extension, spin her around, and now you have a nice bullet barrier. It always seems to work when a TV girl is wielding a gun. Then coerce the other 2 bad guys to release the hostage...but we can't have things be too straightforward in this "24" universe, right?
Edited by Mr. Hanky - 2/26/13 at 11:05am

The concept of establishing a perimeter comes to mind.

Love the way it takes forever for the FBI SWAT team to arrive and deploy while a bunch of sociopathic killers arrives on scene quickly, deploys and outflanks the FEEBs. Totally believable.

Our initial worst fears for this show are realized now that we know that the entire nation is infused with covert Followers all of whom have been biding their time in secret for several years just waiting to pop out at the exact right time and place.

Given the huge body count if this show is not a not too subtle subterfuge argument for capital punishment...

Indeed, I noted this in my post from last week. I am now convinced that the country has been invaded by aliens and that Carroll is their leader/controller, possibly related to the Body Snatchers race of aliens. I had not realized this show was actually another attempt at prime-time science fiction, had I known that from the beginning I probably would be enjoying the show more than I am, which is to say, not really at all. This show is too ridiculously stupid, some quality actors to be sure, but the story-lines and writing are basically incomprehensibly unbelievable. The only thing that would make any sense given what we've seen so far is that the whole thing is a drug and alcohol induced dream of Bacon's character and at the end of the season he'll wake up with one heck of a headache.

So this Carroll guy has a neat private army doing his deeds.. so it seems the cult-like killings are over and just guns-a-blazing army?

And if, somehow or some way, Carroll escapes while he is being transferred to the new prison, we will have leapt into the abyss of pathetic hack writer cliche, from which there is no escape, only eternal teeth grinding and frustration.

What's the deal w/ letting Carroll talk w/ outsiders w/o recording it? I thought all prison conversations, face-to-face and phone, were recorded. Is he currently serving a sentence? Just too many suspensions of belief going on.

+2. This kind of unfortunate storyline stuff recalls the old adage, "When anything can happen, who cares what happens." A definite shark-jumper for me, and just when I thought they might pull off a good episode.

Spot on. I thought that this episode would be where the writing team jelled and found their center. The scenes with Bacon baiting his captors were well done if slightly over acted by the captors. Great Bacon dialog and acting.

But NOOOOoooo! Who did not fear deep in their limbic system that the trite writers' trick of having nearly everyone on the planet be a Follower would get pulled? And they did it. I mean what better could someone do than spend years of their life working a profession while lying in wait for a perfectly orchestrated time and place opportunity years in the future to outwit highly trained specialists on moments notice because someone who gave a good class lecture wanted you to?

I don't think they can record what goes on between a prisoner and their attorney.

Ok, I am almost ready to check out of this show now, that was a frustrating mess of bad writting.

So, they know where the bad guys are at, so they mobilize everyone at the same time. But the SWAT doesn' arrive. They get on site, are able to setup a mobile command center, still no SWAT, the sun sets, they make multiple contacts, a lot of time has to pass for it to be pitch black out, still no SWAT. THEN they say that SWAT is an hour out. They make one phone call/e-mail and the bad guys are able to mobilize and get there in minutes. Lame.

The bad guys in the house are so pathetic, they are so bothered about Kevin Bacon talking and the things he says, but they are to stupid to put a piece of tape on his mouth, even AFTER he is tied up.

Kevin Bacon escapes, stabs a bad guy over and over again. He gets a gun but instead of killing these serial killers with the gun he runs out, but he had enough time to stab them over and over.

The lady takes the kid and puts him in the truck, and Kevin Bacon does not shoot at the tires, sure it might not work, but he didn't even try. And don't say he was worried about hitting the kid because he didn't hesitate to shoot right next to him to kill the cop.

The local police are the weirdest group of people i have ever seen. Every time they hear about someone getting killed they freak out and start to panic and can't do their job. Really, the police? Lame. Last week the cop was in total panic mode and almost couldn't do his job. This week multiple police on the road were in a state of despar over the news a cop was dead. Not anger, revenger, almost sheer terror that they have to be told to hold it together.

The bad guys are able to go out a window and escape even though the house is surrounded.

They have SWAT engaging a house of serial killers, everyone knows they have used other people to carry out their work, multiple times, and while they are waiting a stranger approaches the SWAT in the middle of the night and in the woods and they just say get down. I highly doubt they wouldn't check their perimeter, take the guy down physically to subdue him, etc. Lame.

So many other things to bring up, then the previews look like it is going to be another bad episode with an obvious event happening.

I finally caught this week and as expected (stated as much last week) it wasn't any different. At this point you have to accept it for what it is... whining about it is like whining about a zebra having stripes.

The other followers that have visited him are not his attorney.

I'd whine about it if the zebra combined the the stripes with polka-dots in an effort to be different or "edgy"...

It's not whining to poke fun at this enjoyable train wreck of a show. Great cast, edgy premise attracting viewer interest, mindblowingly awful writing (excepting the hilarious dialog between Bacon and his captors).

I'm gone.

C'mon, this is the best comedy show on television. Do what I do fast forward thru the boring scenes like the women fleeing that you KNOW will be re-captured and all of Bacon's emotional scenes with his ex-mistress (even though I watched the show initially because I like Bacon and Natalie Zea). Fast Fwd let's you get to the plot hilarity points without wasting a full 45 minutes.

Agreed.

But it's turned into "V". There are aliens EVERYWHERE, lurking as moles in every corner of law enforcement and just waiting to spring into action (when they get a phone call from their handler, who just got an encrypted email or "bat signal" from someone else on the payroll like the silly lawyer), exactly when they're needed, to turn on their colleagues and just shoot them dead so that the main bad guys can get away!!!

This is just juvenile stuff, not to mention the "Lost" styling ripoff.

I'd rather watch every episode of "The Americans" and "Justified" with my precious viewing hours.

There ya go throwing facts at me:)

Well, I think it raises an interesting question...when the cops set up a perimeter (in real life) to contain a foe, are they really expecting an attack from the outside going in? That would be tactically indefensible, wouldn't it? The perimeter, itself, becomes even more vulnerable than the surrounded location they are trying to contain.

Probably not but if you are securing multiple serial killers and someone approaches you out of the woods, in the pitch dark, without another house close by, I think the reaction would be different.

I don't find some of the unbelievable things to be as unbelievable. We are meant to believe this guy is a Jim-Jones-like inspirational guy who can get people to follow him blindly. We have seen in real life (Jim Jones, Charles Manson) that charismatic men can get people to do some crazy things... and can develop a large following. That actually seems realistic to me.

We also have reports of gang leaders running their gangs from within prison... so that works too. It might seem unlikely given who we are (reasonably sane people) but it isn't impossible and might happen more than we know.

Meanwhile... if he has gotten some strategically placed moles around... and spent several years (as it seems to be the case) setting things up... from our perspective it seems "out of the blue" to have a new revealed mole in the midst... but in fact he set that stuff up over a period of years.

Also, his plan isn't perfect either.

Claire got away... she wasn't supposed to get away like that. Also, they weren't supposed to find the house that quickly... and he now has a rift with his followers where Emma has his son and ditched the other 2 guys... somehow that will screw up his plan as those guys feel let down and appear to be setting up to bond again and be counter to his plans.

I'm not saying this is great literature... but I'm entertained and anticipating where it is going week to week.

Watching the show makes you feel like the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" who said she "sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast"

 

I tend to agree with you. Based on the concept (itself). Now some of the details I have a harder time letting pass which leads one to question the bigger picture.

Tonight I actually blurted out, "come on". I only continue to watch because of Bacon.

I can suspend my disbelief pretty well, but only based on genre. If its Scifi, I'll accept aliens. If its a fantasy, giants and/or faries. But a show like this has to at least resemble real life.

Charles Manson and Jim Jones didn't run their cults from prison, if I remember. Gangs are set up like small armies. And I've never heard of one using sleepers. Maybe that cop was Russian.
I not believe, after it became obvious he was running things from behind bars, that they would continue to let him visit privately with his attorney (this is the age of Homeland "Security").

Speaking of prison, he was in a maximum security prison, but escaped with the help of one guard?

They attacked Bacons pacemaker twice now. Joe Carroll seems to have more access to their info then they have to his.
I don't believe Bacon would have entered the house before the FBI arrived unless he had reason to believe the kid was about to die.

Short hair bit*h grew up as a shy meek low self esteem teen, but after meeting Jim Jones turned into Hitler?
And fake gay guy is somehow able to pretend to the world he's gay, until Bacon accuses him of being gay, which, for some reason, infuriates him.

Thank god these guys weren't assigned to get Bin Laden.

I'm sure I'll finish the show, because of Bacon, but thank god it's only like 15 episodes!

Sent from my Nexus 7
Edited by leebo - 2/28/13 at 12:34am

Well it is the combination of all of those elements (cult leader, orchestration from prison, and sleepers) that makes this unique and interesting, right? That was the whole point of this exploration, I thought.