by Violet
Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 5 of The Following, titled Reflection, where Lily and Emma both want to spend time alone with Joe, and Max and Hardy follow Giselle after she gets off the train! Following the recap, Violet shares her thoughts on the episode.
Episode Recap of The Following, Season 2 Episode 5: Reflection
- Joe shaves his beard and gussies up to have a drink with Lily downstairs. Giselle gets off the train and calls Luke, who tells her he’ll pick her up in the morning. In the meantime, she ditches her phone and heads to “the factory” to wait. Max follows her, while Hardy drives to them, still 20 miles away.
- Lily introduces Joe to her children. Lily tells Luke to take Jamel with him to pick up Giselle. Emma asks for time alone with Joe, and asks him why he abandoned her. He apologizes for failing her. The FBI watches video of the incident with Giselle at Grand Central Station, and expands their search to all possible train stops on the route.
- Hardy intercepts Giselle, and Max knocks her out with a punch. The FBI begins looking into Judy’s murder, and the disappearance of the Reverend and Mandy. Hardy and Max handcuff Giselle to a motel room bed and question her. Joe further apologizes to Emma and tells her that he has a plan for them to start over.
- Lily asks Mark to occupy Emma so she can spend time alone with Joe. When Giselle spits in Hardy’s face, he begins to strangle her. Max pulls her gun to get Hardy to stop, then starts to call it in, which prompts Giselle to tell them location of the factory. Outside, Hardy and Max congratulate each other on the successful performance. Hardy has Max stay behind with Giselle while he goes to the factory.
- Mark takes Emma to his mother’s art studio. Hardy arrives at the factory, but no one is there. Giselle dislocates her thumb, gets out of the handcuffs, knocks Max out, and runs away. Luke and Jamel arrive at the factory, and Hardy shoots Jamel in the leg. After Luke and Hardy talk for a moment, Jamel shoots at Hardy. Hardy runs around the corner and lays on the floor, pretending to be unconscious, then shoots and kills Jamel. Hardy runs into the woods and we see that he has been shot.
- Mark tells Emma he likes her and they are about to kiss, but he freaks out when she touches him because he has haphephobia, the fear of being touched. Emma tries to leave, but discovers she is locked in. Giselle joins Luke at the factory, and they put Jamel’s body in the trunk of the car. Lily brings Joe to a kill room she had set up for him, complete with a college girl locked in a cage. Joe is offended and leaves the room.
- Luke and Giselle go into the woods to look for Hardy, who has broken into a house to patch himself up. A woman is home, and Hardy makes her wear a blindfold. Joe tells Lily he does not want to be controlled. Hardy puts the woman in the closet as he sees Luke and Giselle approaching. Hardy confronts Giselle, who tells him she killed Max. Hardy stabs and kills Giselle. Luke enters the house shooting, and Hardy runs out the door. Luke cries over Giselle’s dead body.
- Joe goes back to the kill room alone and kills the girl. The FBI track down the Reverend’s missing car, and obtain a photo of Mandy and Joe at a gas station, from which they are able to identify Mandy, but not Joe. After Joe finishes his kill, he goes to Lily’s room still bloody and has sex with her. Emma lightly touches Mark as he sleeps. Hardy returns to the hotel room and hugs Max, relieved that she’s alive.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 5 of The Following: Reflection
Well, Ryan Hardy has gone full vigilante now, having killed two people: Jamel and Giselle. The question is when the FBI will figure that out though, considering that not only did Luke take both of the bodies, but they were both presumably undocumented, so their blood would most likely not turn up in the system. The factory was abandoned, so there were no witnesses there, but there was a witness at the house that Hardy broke into. Although she was blindfolded and hiding in the closet, she heard everything, not to mention there’s still blood all over her floor, and will definitely be contacting the police, so it’ll soon get back to the FBI. They’ll find Hardy’s blood, as well as Giselle’s blood (though the FBI won’t know whose blood it is), and conclude what Hardy did.
I’m not sure what Joe thinks of Lily Gray and her family, though he seems to be getting comfortable and settling in. He probably enjoys living the “high life” again, instead of living a redneck life in the back woods out in Arkansas like he had been for the past year. He seemed really offended by the way Lily set up the kill room for him, telling her that he does not want to be controlled. But then after she explained that she wasn’t trying to control him, he went back and used it. The killing was apparently a turn on, because after he was done, he went to Lily for sex. It was probably a turn on for her knowing that Joe had just killed. Wonder what Emma’s reaction is going to be once she figures out what’s going on between Joe and Lily…
Joe is making quite the effort to apologize to Emma for excluding her from his plans, and telling her that he has a new plan for them to start over, but to me it seems like he doesn’t really mean what he’s saying, and that he’s just saying those things to appease her so that she doesn’t give him any trouble. He probably never meant to see her again after he faked his death, but now that she’s around, he has to deal with her. I’m not sure what’s going on in Emma’s head right now. It seemed like she was starting to like Mark, because he seemed to be normal compared to the rest of them, but then he turned out to have haphephobia, so she equated him as being just as crazy as everyone else there. In the end, she draws Joe’s face into the drawing she had begun of Mark, but right after she finishes, she goes and brushes Mark’s hair to the side as he is sleeping. It seems to be an affectionate gesture, but was she just doing it because she could? Because if she tried to do that at any other time, she wouldn’t be able to?
I find it a bit hard to believe that the FBI was unable to identify Joe from the picture they have of him and Mandy. I suppose you could argue that since they believe Joe is dead, it wouldn’t even cross their mind to consider that the man in the picture is Joe Carroll. Plus, on top of that, they’re used to seeing Joe as clean shaven, so they wouldn’t immediately recognize him anyway. However, I think that since Weston is aware of Hardy’s theory about Joe still being alive, that he was able to consider the possibility that it could be Joe, and they have may have in fact recognized him, but just didn’t want to say anything. It looks like he may do a little off-the-record investigating of his own in the next episode.
Things are starting to get interesting, but I’m ready for Hardy to confirm the fact that Joe is still alive and have a run in with him.
Scenes from The Following, Season 2 Episode 6: Fly Away
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Following, titled Fly Away:
What did you think of Season 2 Episode 5 of The Following, titled Reflection? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
I’m kind of surprised this show is still around. I watched the first season and it was alright, but I didn’t think it had the staying power to deserve a second season. From the recaps, it looks like it’s pretty similar to how it was in the first season.