‘The Following’ season 3, episode 7 preview: Michael Ealy talks playing Theo

While Joe Carroll may still exist within the world of “The Following,” he is a character who is somewhat limited still by him being locked away behind bars. There is no real indication that this is going to change in the near future, so that gives us an opportunity to at least briefly look at some other people who are serious threats for Ryan Hardy and company to take on. One of these said threats is Theo, a man played by Michael Ealy who may mean serious trouble for all of the FBI. He’s a master chameleon, but someone who has the potential to inflict a great deal of damage and hurt to anyone he comes into contact with.

In the sneak peek below, you can see Ealy speaking out in part about getting to play this character, who is terrifying (to borrow a word from Kevin Bacon) in a variety of ways. He’s a family man, a skilled liar, and capable of inflicting damage in a variety of pretty awful ways.

While we are not always the most positive about this show as a whole, one of the things that they’ve done a tremendous job at with the Theo character is introducing him more or less via a slow build. We’ve gotten a chance to really get to know him more over time, which has in turn yielded opportunities for us to slowly form conceptions about him that can be broken later.

By the end of the new few episodes, maybe Theo’s world will start to unravel a little bit. For us, it is always the most fascinating to see these villain characters in at least a little bit of peril.