Josh recaps Season 2 Episode 14 of The Following, titled Silence, where Joe prepares for his final plan — which involves Kingston Tanner! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts on the episode.
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Episode Recap of The Following, Season 2 Episode 14: Silence
- This week’s episode of The Following, while a bit odd in terms of some story choices, was still an intense episode from start to finish. The Following episode titled Silence begins with the twins, Mark and Luke, driving a car. Luke is talking to the owner of the car, Trisha, and Luke wants to find his mother. Mark tries to snap Luke into reality, who doesn’t believe Lily is dead. He seems to come around, and then makes an ultimatum–everyone involved with her death is going to pay.
- In the next scene, Mike Weston, Ryan Hardy and are Max talking with the local police about Lily Gray’s death. Ryan lies through his teeth about what exactly happened, helping Mike get out of any trouble, while Max sort of “pleads the fifth”, stating she wasn’t there when the shooting went down. After the interview, Hardy and Agent Clarke discuss Joe’s next move, and Clarke reveals Claire’s terrible idea to reveal herself to Joe. After their conversation, Ryan tries to talk sense into Mike, but he isn’t having it.
- Later, at home, Ryan confronts Claire. He presses her about the poem she had Carrie Cooke recite on TV. She explains herself. Ryan tells her she has to go back into protective custody. She agrees grudgingly–or so it would seem. They share one last hug and kiss before parting. Claire then looks into Ryan’s arsenal, and finds some items she is going to “borrow”.
- Joe prepares for his final plan, and one of his followers seems to have a mission that she has been chosen for. Joe and Emma then meet, and Emma expresses her irritation with Joe’s obsession and weakness for Claire. Joe decides that Emma and Robert should be sent to see if Claire is actually alive.
- Meanwhile, at Kingston Tanner’s house, one of his security guards provided a secret message from Joe, and a “burner phone” to Kingston Tanner. Ryan pays a visit to Kingston, and Ryan tries to get Kingston to keep a low profile, or he “will die”. Kingston refuses. He then receives a call, on the burner phone. He takes the call in private, and Joe tells him to follow his directions to see his son again.
- Outside, the follower given a special mission reveals what it is–lighting herself on fire. This provides a distraction, and Kingston sneaks out the back with one of his security guards. There is a black van waiting, and Kingston heads for it alone. He is knocked out, and the van drives away.
- Ryan then approaches Kingston’s security, who admits to letting Tanner go. The guard tells Ryan that he planted a tracker on Tanner, and Ryan, Mike and Max head out to find Tanner.
- Joe and Emma talk again, and Emma pleads to be with Joe in his mission, but Joe refuses to allow it. Joe then professes his love for Emma, but it seems to be a ruse, as when he embraces Emma, he seems to have an indifferent look on his face.
- At a church, there is a Catholic service in progress, when a number of Joe’s Followers’ head into the church, taking a seat in the pews. Other followers begin setting up what appears to be bombs inside the church, and Kingston is also brought in.
- Ryan and Mike arrive at the church, and they call for backup of SWAT and FBI. The Followers make their presence known in the church, taking over the service, and locking the doors. Joe has also arrived, and begins preaching the word of Joe.
- Emma and Robert arrive at the location that Joe expected Claire to arrive. Emma is worried that Joe’s life may be ending at the church. Robert and Emma have a conversation about death. Emma professes that she believes death is silence, which she seems to be happy with.
- Back with Claire, she is being transported back to protective custody, but she has other plans in mind. She drops a tear gas grenade, pepper sprays one of the US Marshals, and makes a run for it.
- Ryan and Mike reach the church, and find a way in through a window, unnoticed. Outside, Max tries to make contact with Ryan. Ryan warns Max about the explosives. Joe begins his theatrics, starting a livestream on the internet, and bringing out Kingston’s son. Joe shows the video of Tanner’s son murdering the girl from last episode. Then, he makes Tanner renounce God and plead for his son’s life to Joe. Joe then decides to prove to Kingston and the world how easy it is to make a killer. He decides to have a little game–one reminiscent of one of my favorite movies again, The Dark Knight. He provides both Kingston and his son with a knife, and one must kill the other if they want to live (sounds like the ferry scene near the end of The Dark Knight doesn’t it?).
- Kingston makes a move for Joe, but is quickly put back in his place. Kingston then “forgives” Joe, and in a rather unsurprising move, chooses to take his own life. This seems to take Joe by surprise, and he seems to lose his bearings for a bit. Joe tries to play it off as cowardice for Kingston, but he is clearly rattled.
- Ryan and Mike decide to take a look around, to see what they can figure out to get SWAT into the building. Mike wants to just take Joe down, but Ryan seems to have something else in mind. Finally arriving at the location, Claire is seen by Emma and Robert entering the lodge as Joe thought she would. Claire moves through the lodge, looking for Joe, but finds Emma. Robert then comes out of nowhere and apprehends Claire.
- Emma demands to know why she wants to see Joe. Emma then tells Robert that she is going to kill Claire. Robert wants to remain loyal to Joe, but Emma decides it is time for Robert’s death, and shoots him. Claire makes a run for it, and Emma chases after. Claire gets the drop on Emma, and they begin to duke it out. Claire manages to shank Emma, and tosses her out a window. Claire heads down, to search Emma, but she isn’t quite dead yet. Claire has to impale her with some of the window frame that came down when Emma fell out of the window.
- It looks like Claire is out of the woods after a long zoom out of Emma, but it turns out, somehow Luke and Mark somehow learned of Claire or Emma’s whereabouts, and they decide to abduct Claire.
- Back at the church, Ryan begins to stealth around, but Mike Weston makes a poor, almost deliberate move, being seen by a Follower. Hearing the commotion, Joe threatens the invader with killing Kingston’s son.
- Mike makes his presence known, and offers himself in place of the preacher’s son. Joe not being an idiot, realizes Ryan must be around, and begins calling out. Mike also calls out, telling Ryan to kill Joe. Ryan refuses to come out, and Joe provides a countdown ultimatum, or Mike dies. Joe counts down, and the screen goes black, we hear a gunshot, and the episode ends.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Following, Season 2 Episode 14: Silence
There was a lot of excitement in this episode of The Following, but also, I feel like a lot of disappointment as a viewer as well. There were a lot of things going on this episode that feel either too predictable, or just didn’t really make sense from a story perspective.
A big problem I had with this episode was the utilization of certain characters, with a big one being Kingston Tanner. From the beginning of the episode, when Kingston is jumped into the van, I knew he was going to sacrifice himself. It was disappointing to have him so out quickly, and without a whole lot of story going on I feel like.
Also, why would Kingston’s security team just simply let Kingston Tanner get into the vehicle? I get that he placed the tracker, but I guess even Kingston’s security team is so devoted to his cause, they will let him be taken by known murderers that have been out to get him. This seemed a little off to me.
As for Claire, Emma and Robert’s confrontation, I feel that Robert also went out with a fizzle. He seemed like a character great for playing up the dissention for the Korban followers, but Emma basically just murders him. Then Claire, who has seemed to become quite the combatant, shanks Emma. For a character that has been around the show for nearly 2 seasons, I feel it was another weak way out. I guess this primarily comes from my disdain for the “Claire-coming-back-to-life” storyline.
So as I predicted last week, Luke and Mark were able to snatch Claire. My question is how they found a location that only Joe and Claire knew the location of. The best “pass” I can give for this seemingly odd plot point is that Mark and Luke somehow located Emma, and decided to follow her, rather than Joe. This seems really far-fetched in my opinion, but it is the best solution I can come up with.
The last thing I feel warranted to discuss about this episode is Mike Weston’s seemingly obvious “blunder”, when he is seen by one of Joe’s men. The way the scene was shot, Mike seemed to purposefully walk out to get seen. I guess this may go back to his mental instability as of lately, and he is hoping to kill Joe at any costs, and wants to force Ryan to do the same thing. It seemed like a rather odd move though, as getting to Joe secretly seems like it would be more productive than yelling for Ryan to come out and attempt to get a shot off.
On the surface, this episode had a lot of action, and suspenseful, and even surprising moments. But I also felt that if you think about any one moment for more than a couple seconds, the logic and consistencies seem to break down rather quickly, which is a pet peeve of mine. I understand movies and shows have a hard time with consistencies versus entertainment value, but most good shows are able to mask this balancing act, to where the viewers can’t as easily recognize them. I am disappointed that this episode of The Following seemed to miss out this week in this regard.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 14 of The Following: Silence
Pretty intense episode, and understandably so, considering that it was the last one before the season finale. But this show continues to do the thing that I find annoying about it, which is senselessly kill off characters that it seems like the show was building up a bigger story for. And it’s not like a Joss Whedon or George R.R. Martin killing off of characters where it’s emotional and even though you hate him for killing off that character, it’s understandable because it serves a greater purpose to the overall storyline. No, almost every time it happens on this show, it feels like a cheap shot, and like their death and even their existence on the show was meaningless.
So it felt pointless when Emma randomly shoots Robert, and then she and Claire get into their little brawl and Claire ends up killing Emma. Um, okay. True, I didn’t see a confrontation that I didn’t see coming, but did anyone really care about a confrontation between Emma and Claire? I know I didn’t.
Of course, there’s also the Kingston Tanner forced suicide. He did what any parent that loves their child would have done, though I wasn’t sure if he was going to kill himself or tell his son to kill him. Actually, I thought something was going to happen to intervene, but it didn’t. And so, just like that, Tom Cavanaugh is already gone from the show! So disappointing, as I had hoped he would be around for a lot longer. Just yet another wasted character. Oh, I also found it weird that Joe took Kingston to a Catholic church, when Kingston is a televangelist for a mega-church. Why wouldn’t he have brought him to his own church? Although I suppose you could argue that Joe doesn’t care about the distinctions between religions, so a Catholic church is no different to him than any other Christian church.
Finally, we come down to the question of whether Mike Weston is really dead or not. Normally, my money would be on not, because another show we watch recently pulled this stunt of having a gun held to someone’s head and then the screen going black as the shot is fired, making you assume that the person was shot, but then it turns out the next episode that he wasn’t. If it were any other show, I would say that that’s what happened here. However, seeing as how the show likes to kill off people just for the sake of killing people, I’m not really sure. I hope he’s not dead though. Love me some Iceman! Besides, Max and Mike still have to get together!
As for predictions for the season finale, your guess is as good as mine. The big bad Luke and Mark have Claire, and are going to try to use her to get to Joe. If Joe dies, which seems like a possibility, will it be by their hands? Or by Claire’s? Maybe Ryan’s, just so he can prove Joe’s theory wrong about him not being able to kill him because they are the same. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but hopefully it’ll be a good season finale!
Scenes from The Following, Season 2 Episode 15: Forgive
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Following, titled Forgive:
