‘The Following’ season 2: Kevin Bacon, burden focus of latest Fox promotional poster

“The Following” now has an official premiere date in Monday, January 20, and for Fox, this is almost like creating an open invitation for them to start crafting the rest of the promotional material for the show.

In the latest promotional poster for the new season, the one thing that we take away from this right away is that no matter how far removed Kevin Bacon’s Ryan Hardy may be from Joe Carroll and his league of minions, there may not be such a thing as escape for him. Instead, he may just be caught in the same sort of vicious cycle of having to go through and witness this drama time and time again. What we love about the poster is that there are two separate hands grasping at his face, which clearly shows that there is more than one adversary that he is going to be squaring off against. What also makes this so effective is that by keeping his hair and a good percentage of his face out of the light, Bacon almost looks like a completely different person, or a skeleton of the man he used to be.

Early on during season 2, we will start off by seeing Hardy in a little bit of a better place than he was throughout season 1, which is really not saying much. We assume that much of the reason for this evolution will be that he has figured out a way in which to handle the stress and the difficult circumstances that come with his job, and move forward to focus on mostly the happier times. But with the sort of nagging feeling along the way that Joe Carroll may not actually be dead, this could be a little bit more of a challenge than it first appears.

What do you think about this poster, and given the way in which season ended, are you still excited to see what is going to happen next? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below! Meanwhile, click here if you are interested in checking out some of the new minions that Ryan will be contending with throughout the story this season.

Photo: Fox (via The Hollywood Reporter)