The Following- "The Final Chapter"

So we have come to the end of the first season of The Following. It has been a long and exciting journey to get to this point, with a few bumps and high points along the way. Kevin Bacon has firmly entrenched himself as one of the best actors on television. The show on the other hand has become a shell of the show that it was in its first five episodes. There is just a continuous stream of cliches and gaps in logic that are slowly taking away from the quality of this series.

The season long battle between Joe and Ryan was a little anticlimactic after the season long buildup. They are onscreen together for five minutes and their "battle" lasted three of those minutes. Joe is a fantastic antagonist but he is so over the top sometimes that he becomes goofy. He spouts of these grand declarations and his actions are rather brash for someone who planned so well for 90% of the season. Ryan acted according to logic for most of the episode for once and did his best to save everyone but he failed miserably.

The death of Agent Parker was pointless given how she told Ryan that there was no "death curse" and then immediately died. She was very underutilized in the second half of the season but was still one of the most interesting characters in the series. Her death was the most dramatic portion of the episode and had me on the edge of my seat. I really didn't think that they would have the balls to kill her but I was wrong. At least the writers didn't kill off Weston, or we wouldn't have any supporting characters to root for.

This was a decent close to the season and set up a lot of questions for next season with one hell of a cliffhanger. Claire and Ryan getting stabbed was pretty jarring but not unexpected. Having "the Angel of Death" come back for the finale was unexpected as I felt like they were going to save her thread for next season. She was forgotten for almost 5 episodes and then she just pops up and destroys Ryan and Claire's happy ending. She was the most interesting of the followers but she has had almost no character development since she was introduced. Looks as though she is going to be playing a big role in the next season.

This was a satisfying end to the first season of The Following, but it left a lot of opportunities on the table. With Joe's questionable "death" at the end of this season there needs to be another antagonist to come to the forefront of the series. Ryan needs to break the "death curse" somehow and Claire needs to stop being an asshole. The writers need to get back to the creepy vibe that permeated every moment of the first few episodes of this season. Overall this was a great start to an intriguing series and I hope the show runners take full advantage of the seeds they laid in this season.