Oh, "The Following." I had such high hopes for you. Your print and television ads looked pretty cool. I listened to a whole interview on Howard Stern with Kevin Bacon, who was surprisingly personable and funny (ok it was during a five hour drive and Big Guy was driving so he had radio control). I bought into the whole thing, expecting a radical new television drama that would give the cable dramas a run for their money. So far the only thing that has shown up as promised are the pierced eyes and blood. Let me point a few things out to you:
-- Yes, your head serial killer is charismatic and has a particularly smarmy British accent. But he's all over the place. He's a professor who got too into his subject matter; he mesmerizes girls and boys; he wants to create a cult; he wants revenge against his wife; he wants his son back; no, wait, what he really wants is to be Kevin Bacon's puppet master. I'm beginning to think the reason they have him in jail is they understood he couldn't accomplish all this unless he had a lot of free time on his hands.
-- I don't know where this all takes place but boy, does the law enforcement stink. A serial killer on death row easily escapes. Three characters who are intimately close to people intimately connected to the serial killer (his son's nanny and the gay - but not really but actually one may be -couple living next door to the only victim who survived his attacks) are shown *on prison video that is on record* to have visited the serial killer multiple times in jail. With no significant disguises I might add. There they are on camera strolling pretty as you please to chat with a serial killer on death row. I would think there would be a little more interest in who was visiting him and what they did when they left (I'm no expert, but I've seen movies on the subject and my god, the hoops even the person's lawyer goes through to visit). Just one basic check? "Hmmm, looks like today's visitor is identical to his son's current nanny but she used a different name to visit him...should we investigate further?"
-- Speaking of the wife, boy is she handling the whole situation well. Granted she is starting to fall apart a bit more now that her son has been kidnapped by the nanny/acolyte. Who by the way got away with murdering her own mother in cahoots with her boyfriend, another acolyte, all while visiting the serial killer on death row; seriously, the law enforcement in this town is really bad. But I digress - back to the wife. In the flashbacks, she has just finalized her divorce from her fellow college professor husband who she just found out was a brutal serial killer. So what does she do to celebrate? Calmly hits on (throws herself at?) Kevin Bacon with quite witty repartee, the cop who caught her husband (no weird boundaries/relationship issues there) while enjoying a glass of nice red wine in her lovely home, glad to have the whole awful mess quite neatly behind her. Call me crazy, but don't the families of criminals (much less serial killers/mass murderers) experience some turmoil in their lives- guilt by association, they must have known, did they help cover it up, did they make him do it, etc. etc. You know, the things a scapegoating society tends to do. And where's the press? This is a serial killer on death row! And if nothing else, isn't it too soon to introduce another man into her son's life - the son whose father was just sentenced to death for being a brutal serial killer? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
-- And Kevin. Poor Kevin. Is it hard carrying around all of those stereotypes? Retired FBI guy who is called back to catch a serial killer a second time since he is the only one who can do it (big morale booster for current staff) and despite the fact that he's retired because of the mental and physical injuries he suffered from said serial killer. A heart problem, a drinking problem, and mental anguish from the deaths you didn't prevent and the fact that you boinked the serial killer's wife? And yet, you mesmerize girls and boys alike as evidenced by the blind devotion of said wife, his only surviving victim, the FBI rookie (who is about 10 years old and yet was in charge of this high profile case because he apparently had studied its history the most due to his infatuation with you and yet he didn't recognize you when you first showed up) and anyone else who comes in contact with you (except for that one guy who doesn't believe anything you say forcing you to continually go rogue, breaking every law but everyone overlooks it despite the fact that it always ends in more dead, bloody bodies). Yes, you mesmerize them just like the serial killer.
Just like the serial killer? Wait a minute, wait a minute! Could you be just like the serial killer, except you use your obsessive focus and awesome mesmerizing-ness for good? Could - gasp - the serial killer see - no, feel! - this inner connection and will, at some future dramatic moment announce that you are just...like...him (cue the really hard rock music the show uses when they show ending scenes without dialogue that build upon a plot twist hinted at in the prior scene). Because no one has ever done that before.
I'll probably finish watching you Following, partly to see where you go with all this, but mostly because the apartment I'm in has no premium cable (Oh, if only I had Game of Thrones!) But if you decide to show Kevin's butt during sweeps week, I'm outta here.
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