‘The Following’ season 2, episode 12 review: Ryan Hardy and Mandy’s deadly situation

Tonight, we returned to “The Following” hoping to see a show that made at least a modicum more sense, and tried to get some of the religion talk out of the equation.

Instead, what we had was an episode featuring Joe Carroll trying to destroy a religious leader, and Ryan Hardy deciding that he was ready to put his life on the line to stop his longtime adversary at all costs. It’s no surprise that he is willing to die, but this episode was intense nonetheless.

It wouldn’t be “The Following” without torture, though, would it? Mandy was on the receiving end from some nasty stuff from Lily, mostly because she wouldn’t disclose the whereabouts of Joe. Eventually, this moment did lead to her death, and she joins one of many others on the show this season to not make it out of the season alive. Her postmortem dinner scene had to be one of the creepier moments of the season.

Save for the death of this character, though, we cannot really say that this episode enthused us that much. A few more people learned the truth about Claire being alive, and Ryan started up his plan … but that’s it. The emotional zenith of this episode was pushed back, and we were reminded yet again of why we enjoy and loathe this series at the same time. It does some things effectively, but then tries to torture viewers the same way it tortures some of its characters. Sometimes, we’re willing to go along for the ride, but other times, we’re not down for it. The ending this time was a little much. Grade: C-.

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