The Following: We Can’t Move On Quite Yet

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Episode recaps
Photo Courtesy Of Giovanni Rufino/FOX

Warning: Spoiler Alert

The first two seasons of the FOX series “The Following,” revolved around a cat and mouse game between FBI Agent Ryan Hardy and serial-killer/cult-leader Joe Carroll. However as we rejoin Hardy and company for season three, Carroll’s been behind bars for a year, with his execution scheduled for the following month. Hardy’s especially proud that he’s moved on, now involved with a beautiful dark-haired Emergency Room doctor named Gwen (portrayed by Zuleikha Robinson, who appeared in the final two seasons of LOST.) We join the couple along with Ryan’s niece Max at the wedding of FBI Agent Gina Mendez and all are blissfully happy, except for a mysterious looking waiter working the affair.

Fellow agent Mike Weston arrives late to the party, just arriving from the airport. He’s no longer involved in a romantic relationship with Max Hardy, after spending the last eleven months looking for Mark Gray, the only surviving member of Lily Gray’s murderous clan. Ryan introduces Weston to Gwen, who tells the agent her boyfriend talks about him constantly. There’s an awkward reunion between Mike and Max, as she introduces him to her new boyfriend, a member of an FBI SWAT team from New York.

Ryan and Gwen go out on the balcony to talk about her possibly moving in with him, when he dodges the question, by saying he’s got to get some cake. She smiles and looks out at the skyline, when she turns back towards the room, the waiter’s almost on top of her, then apologizes for startling her. He asks Gwen if that’s Ryan Hardy and she responds it is. He says he arrested Joe Carroll and now everyone calls him a hero, she excuses herself, says she’s got to get back inside.

Hardy’s giving the wedding toast, standing next to the two brides and talking about how amazing love is and the way it makes us feel. Many times when we aren’t even looking for it, it enters our lives, healing our wounds and turning our fortunes around. Gina starts getting teary-eyed, when we see the waiter reach into his jacket pocket, for what at first seemed like he was grabbing a pistol, instead it was a bottle filled with blood that he throws on Hardy and the formerly happy couple.

The waiter then breaks into tears and calls Ryan a murderer, says his daughter got killed in the raid on the Corbin compound last year. He said his daughter Sherry was so beautiful and didn’t deserve to die, then just really starts crying. Hardy tells the two FBI agents holding him to let him go, they ask if he’s sure and then the waiter leaves the room.

The next morning Ryan asks Gina how her bride’s holding up and she says as well as can be expected, after getting doused in blood on her wedding day. She then says they’re not taking a honeymoon until after Carroll’s execution. Hardy says she’s learning quickly she’s married to the FBI. Mike and Ryan quickly talk, Hardy mentions that Carroll’s getting executed in a month and Weston asks if Ryan’s gone to see him. Hardy says no, that he’s moving on with his life.

Weston’s not following that course, obsessed with catching Mark Gray, mainly for vengeance, as Lily slit Mike’s Dad’s throat and sent the tape of the execution to his cellphone. In one of the most shocking scenes from season two, Weston lost his Boy Scout morals forever, as he executed an unarmed Lily Gray. Hardy took the blame for the shooting, saying that Gray forced him into it.

Mike briefs the rest of the bureau’s agents on his basically fruitless search for Mark Gray, although he says that Gray’s running low on funds and will likely surface soon. Mendez reminds the agents that Carroll’s getting executed in a month, they should monitor the situation vigilantly, so they don’t get caught with a surprise attack.

We move to a hotel bar and see a couple sitting at a table when a woman with long jet-black hair, whose dressed to advertise walks in and sits at the bar. The man says to his companion her, and she walks over telling the woman they’re celebrating their second anniversary and would she have interest in celebrating with them? The woman says of course, but she charges more for couples.

Up in the room, the husband’s all over the hooker, while his wife just kinds of stands and watches, the woman tells the husband this need’s to be fun for her as well, then proceeds to take off the wife’s dress and they tie the wife’s hands with some silk scarves. The husband starts making out with the call-girl again when a knocking sound starts and she asks what it is? The wife says it sounds like it’s coming from the closet and when he opens it, he finds a hotel maid bound and gagged inside. He turns around and the Brunette stabs him to death, then walks over to the bed and takes the wife’s life as well. She then pulls off the wig, revealing her to have short blonde hair.

The door opens, it’s her teammate and lover Kyle, he asks if he arrived too late and the woman, named Daisy says there’s plenty for him to do.  The door opens again and this time it’s the waiter, he tells the couple that this is all wrong, if we don’t get it right he’ll kill us.

The FBI investigate the room in the next scene, the couple have wires attached to them to put them in certain positions, the husband has a knife in his hand. The couple was Natalie and Kenny Brooks, in from Greenwich, the bartender saw them leave with a hooker, but Hardy says, she had some help. On the shower stall, reads Ryan Hardy Lies written in blood, the maid’s body got discovered as well.

Kyle and Daisy are making out at the house they’re staying at when the waiter, whose real name’s Andrew enters and asks if “he” said anything. Daisy says no, he’s in one of those moods. Andrew says it’s time to pull their next job, but Kyle tries to get the older guy to wait a while. Andrew says he’ll handle this one himself.

Ryan gets the information on the waiter’s daughter, she was Sherry Miller, a 19-year-old young woman from Queens. Hardy heads to the house and rings the bell and Sherry’s mother answers, he says he apologizes for her daughter’s death. She responds that she loves her daughter, but she was always troubled and she doesn’t blame Hardy for her death. He asks to speak to her husband, but it’s not the waiter, Andrew merely said that Sherry was his daughter.

Andrew heads to a grief counseling meeting next and starts the waterworks with the group, crying over the loss of his beautiful Sherry. A young man approaches him after the meeting and says he just lost his sister two-weeks-ago and Andrew asks him to join him for coffee.

Gwen shows up at the bureau and Ryan reacts the way he always does with women, try to push them away in crisis situations and she calls him on it. He denies it, but she tells him they’ve got something special going  and she’s not going to let him screw it up.

Andrew’s picture matches up with a man identified as Adam Jacobs, Max, Mike and Ryan head to the home that he’s said to live at. They drive over and there’s all sorts of fencing and wiring around the place, but Weston gets them through. They get inside and the place is in shambles, with walls falling down, blocking their way, they find a staircase leading up from the basement and an entire walls covered with snapshots of Andrew in various stages of crying, from floor to ceiling. They head into the kitchen and find three more bodies posed, this time with Max Hardy Lies, written in blood on the wall.

Mike says these seems eerily familiar and Hardy says, it is familiar, they lived this moment. Andrew, Kyle and Daisy had posed the bodies to reenact the moment that Max killed Luke Gray, he says the one in the hotel room got staged to show when Ryan killed Luke’s stepsister. Mike then announces the obvious, that Mark Gray’s behind all of this, Hardy says and the next victim will resemble Lily.

If you haven’t gotten creeped out enough yet, the next scene will certainly satisfy you, as we get our first appearance of a now orange-haired Mark Gray, who’s gone completely loony-tunes. Both Luke and Mark were psychotic, behavior encouraged by their adopted mother Lily, but with Luke and Lily gone, Mark’s gone completely around the bend. He’s eating dinner with either a headless corpse, or a mannequin in a suit, with a vanity mirror as the head, so he’s still having dinner each night with his twin brother.

Mark’s adopted Luke’s more dominant personality, when he speaks in his brother’s voice, while crying and showing his weakness when speaking as himself. Sam Underwood, who portrayed both brothers last season’s doing some incredible acting in each scene, having arguments with himself as he takes on the roles of both he and Luke.

The next evening’s when they’re going to kill their Lily Gray doppelgänger and Andrew asks Mark if he’ll be joining him on this mission, but Mark says no, he’ll stay at home and the three of them can handle it. As soon as Andrew leaves the room, Luke tells his brother that they’re going and Mark has to get through it. Just as Kyle, Daisy and Andrew are about to leave, Mark comes downstairs wearing a fake beard and glasses and says let’s go have some fun.

A surveillance camera picks up Andrew coming out of the Lincoln Center subway station, dressed as a waiter, they quickly deduce that he’s headed to an event at the Arts Center five blocks away. Inside that soiree Mark finds the woman he wants to portray his mother in his next project. He picks out a woman and Andrew spills champagne on her dress, then directs her to the restroom on the lower floor. As she attempts to blot out the champagne, she sees Mark grinning standing right behind her.

Hardy captures Andrew, but he tells the FBI agent that Mark and the woman are gone. We see Mark driving in a car and we hear the woman’s muffled screaming from the trunk. He stops and then fights things out between Luke and himself, agreeing to kill the woman. He gets her from the trunk, we see Kyle and Daisy are there, also each holding a pistol. Mark starts to cry, then says I’m sorry mom and then kills the woman with one shot, he instantly cradles the corpse crying, please don’t leave me mom, I’ll be all alone.

Hardy’s questioning Andrew back at the bureau, when he asks Ryan the time, the agent asks if he has somewhere to go and Andrew says you do. Max, Mike and Ryan find the final reenactment, but instead of having the Hardy character killing Lily, it’s setup that Weston’s substitute, shot Lily. The message this time says, While You Lie, More Will Die. But only the three of them are aware of that fact, how could Mark know?

The final scene’s back at Mark’s house, as he and his Luke stand-in have dinner, Luke tells Mark how proud he is of him. Mark says and the next one’s going to be easy, but Luke corrects him, saying the next one’s going to be awesome, cause one of them dies.

Oh by the way, we have yet to meet this season’s “Big Bad” yet, Michael Ealy, whom you may remember as the Android in last season’s FOX series “Almost Human.”

The Story Continues Next Monday Night at 9:00 pm on FOX.

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