“The Following” is pure sadism — and it’s on network TV

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:07:00 +0000

Fox’s “The Following” is network TV's rejoinder to all the blood and guts on cable: It is well made, gruesome and morally suspect. Charming sociopathic college professor-turned-serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) breaks out of prison (half a dozen dead guards, covered in blood) to slaughter the one victim who got away on his previous murder spree (he stabbed and slashed 14 other female college students, cutting their eyes out before he was caught). Surprisingly, at the end of last night’s episode, to show the audience what type of show this is — one that is "not messing around" — Carroll successfully kills the survivor (she gets strung up, has her eyes plucked out). He gets caught and sent back to prison, but the FBI, and especially the troubled former agent and alcoholic who caught him last time, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon, not at all a Hardy Boy), realizes that Joe is no longer working alone. While in prison he’s hit the Internet, using the teachings of Edgar Allan Poe to spawn a cult of copycat serial killers who will do anything for him (a woman takes off her clothes in a bank, and unassisted, puts an ice pick through her eye; another disciple practices his murder skills on dozens of puppies; another kidnaps Carroll’s son), who have been in deep cover as normal people for years, biding their time, waiting to be unleashed upon the world.

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“The Following” is pure sadism — and it’s on network TV