The Following: “The End Is Near”, Review
Let it end. Please, just let it end...
It is almost over. My blood pressure will finally settle back to manageable numbers as soon as this vile program ends. It has become like those last college credits that you have no choice but to take in order to graduate. Thank God, because I do not know how much more I can stand. I am an episode away from starting my own cult with only rule: Do not watch The Following.
Joe, Claire, Jacob and Emma accost a couple getting ready to leave their residence before Emma quips, “I really was hoping that you wouldn’t be home” or some other idiotic phrase. Between Jacob and Emma, a stiff breeze could blow them over. The gun Jacob pulls out is bigger than Emma herself. Naturally, they keep the couple gagged and Joe tries to work the charm with mundane questions over drinks. Enough boozing drinks to frighten the meek pair senseless. Claire tries to get him to stop, but he just keeps prattling on like the English professor you hated in college.
Hardy and company go outside in Havenport, Maryland and the media is already flanking the building. Two of the lady followers are amongst the crowd and one goes up to a live on-camera reporter to make some silly cult quote before stabbing the poor journalist. Hardy disarms her by putting the crazy in a chokehold. The male suspect that was in the crowd seemed to disappear, but (wouldn’t you know it) the woman wanted to get caught as part of the bigger plan. She starts asking Hardy if he will grieve for his love (Claire). She keeps toying with him until he throws the table and pushes the mentally unstable woman against the wall with a gun to the head. Meanwhile at the house, the accosted owners of Phil and Vicky, as well as Claire, are sitting at the dinner table with Joe. None of them have really gone ballistic or even attempted to take a much-wounded Joe down. Instead, he is in their kitchen making up a pasta dinner. Granted their hands are bound, but Joe is more delusional than usual as he is bleeding like a stuck pig. I will say this: the pasta he made did look good.
Joe starts reminiscing about faculty dinners that he used to take Claire to and what a bore those parties were. While in severe pain and with an unable to uncork the wine bottle, Claire offers to help do the honors. So, he cuts her rope off and LETS HER OPEN THE WINE. You heard me. With her hands free, Claire opens the bottle and pours everyone a glass. How about knocking Joe’s head over with the bottle of wine while pretending to open it? Two State Troopers come and ring the doorbell, but naturally pixie Emma says that everything is fine and then shoots them both dead. Finally, the distraction Claire needs happens. As Joe collapses from the pain, she stabs him with a fork (don’t ask). So Claire, Phil and Vicky get away, running terribly fast to get to their neighbor’s house.
Hardy and the FBI people are trying think of what Joe’s last chapter is going to be. Since the newscast has said that the town’s Recreation Center is the one safe haven, the Feds deduce that that is where the townsfolk will gather. Wow, solid intelligence gathering, guys. Going exactly where the news already said is the safest place in town. I don’t know who is consulting on the show, but these law enforcement officials on this program are completely inept. When they get to the safe haven of the Rec Center, Agent Parker announces that there are about 100 people in there and none have been screened for identifications or aliases. WHAT?! Instead, they slowly descend on the center with jackets that say “FBI” on them, causing a panic that gets a lot of people killed in a grotesque fashion.
Claire and friends are running through the woods looking for shelter, yet somehow Emma and Jacob have tracked Claire down! Obviously, both of these cultists reached very high levels in the Cub Scouts and The Brownies. The serendipitous nature of Claire exiting the woods exactly at the same time that Emma and Jacob are driving by has higher odds than me winning the Powerball Jackpot. Or even a scratch-off. Now, Jacob and Emma are with Claire in tow and meet at the marina where Joe just happens to be. He is British, so maybe he did go to Hogwarts and learned magic, because I have no idea how he gets to all of these places. It just has to be Apparition. So now, Joe and Claire are on a very expensive boat that takes off, leaving idiots Jacob and Emma to drive off to meet Alex (whoever that is). However, before driving away, Jacob breaks the news to Emma that Joe’s cause is not something he is willing to die for. Emma is floored. As they embrace for what will be the last time, Emma nuzzles up to Jacob and says she loves him too and then proceeds to slice his throat from ear to ear. As she pulls back, letting us see the arteries bleed out, Emma saying that she cannot love the both of them.
Lastly, Agent Parker has been kidnapped from the whole thing that happened at the Rec Center. She is buried Kill Bill Vol. 2 style, except she has no badass ninja skills to punch her way out. Thus the ending is just her screaming in a wooden coffin. The end. The preview for next week looks to be even more absurd than anything we saw tonight. They best not go two-hour special episode on me, because I do not think that I can make it! Granted, it is a different genre but when Fox cancels something like Firefly over a decade ago after 12 episodes and keeps this hilariously bad drama on for a full season, I start to lose hope in television altogether. Now, I have a migraine and the pain scale is at seven.
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Jarrett Kruse has been writing professionally since graduating the University of Wisconsin-Madison cutting his teeth writing script coverage for major movie studios like MIRAMAX, 20th Century…