Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 8 of The Following, titled The Messenger, where Hardy goes after Joe Carroll’s mentor, and Joe gives Micah advice about killing people! Following the recap, Violet shares her thoughts on the episode.
Episode Recap of The Following, Season 2 Episode 8: The Messenger
- Hardy and Max attend the funeral of Weston’s father. Micah welcomes Joe, Emma, and Mandy into the Korban family, and allows them to remove their masks. A woman from Hardy’s past approaches him after the funeral, fishing for information to confirm that Joe Carroll is still alive.
- Mandy makes a new friend. Julia warns Joe that although Micah is their leader, she runs things. Micah asks Joe for help killing people. At the funeral reception, Director Franklin offers to sanction Hardy off the books to search for Joe Carroll. Weston wants to help Hardy, but he tells him he should be with his family right now.
- Hardy and Max look at the contents of the thumb drive Franklin gave Hardy which contains what the British uncovered about Joe smuggling the body of his half brother into the country. Hardy recognizes Dr. Arthur Strauss from a picture, and Max realizes that Strauss lives an hour from the lighthouse where Joe supposedly died.
- Micah educates Joe about their religion, and explains that he wants to kill people to save souls. Micah wants Joe to write a book about him. Hardy visits Strauss at his residence and tries to get more info about Joe, since Joe called him his mentor. Hardy plants a bug there.
- The woman who approached Hardy after the funeral, Carrie Cooke, visits Strauss. When Strauss realizes she knows too much, he jabs a needle into her neck, and Hardy hears her scream. Hardy runs back to the house and breaks in. A young man attacks Hardy and sprays something at him, making him collapse.
- Micah shows Joe where he keeps the mentally unstable and killers locked up in a pit. Max gets worried that she can’t get ahold of Hardy. Weston shows up and demands to know what Hardy is up to.
- As Hardy wakes up and sees Carrie laying nearby, we see a flashback to 11 months ago of Hardy waking up from a drunken night and Carrie informing him that he talked about Joe Carroll, and then Hardy realizes Carrie is the reporter writing the book. In the present, Hardy discovers that Strauss is the one who trained Joe, and Strauss admits he has had many similar students.
- Micah gets advice from Joe about his killing spree. Strauss and his student, Cole, prepare Carrie for surgery and wake her up. Julia warns Micah to be guarded against Joe, and is worried about getting attention from the outside world. Strauss admits that Joe stayed with him a month after he faked his death, but that he doesn’t know where he went.
- Weston sneaks up on Cole when he goes to retrieve a sledgehammer, and shoots him when he resists. Hardy escapes his restraints, and Weston and Max help him apprehend Strauss, who they put on the operating table. They kick Carrie out while they question Strauss, and find out that the FBI mole is a woman.
- Micah throws a party and passes out communion wafers and wine. Hardy asks Carrie to keep quiet about what happened, and she reluctantly agrees because she thinks there’s a bigger story. People at Micah’s party begin dropping dead, including Mandy’s new friend, but Micah tells his children not to be afraid, and starts the chant “Send them home with shouts of praise!”
- Julia is upset with Micah for what he did – only the ones who doubted him died. She blames Joe, and Micah has her taken away. Max sits with Weston to help comfort him. Joe assures Emma that he can control Micah.
- We see that Carrie is the author of The Havenport Tragedies. In a flashback to 5 months ago, Carrie informs a drunken Hardy that the book will be published on the anniversary of Joe’s death, and tells him he should get sober, otherwise Joe has won. In the present, Joe tells Emma that his next step is to inform the world that he is alive.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 8 of The Following: The Messenger
Another interesting episode of The Following. Looks like Joe is one step closer to pulling his plan off. You know, the plan where he takes over Micah’s cult. Now with Micah locking Julia up, she’s no longer around to get in Joe’s way, and Micah is none the wiser about Joe’s plan. Micah seems to trust Joe completely, and is in no way suspicious of him the way Julia was. I wonder how long it will be until Joe is able to steal Micah’s followers for himself. The next thing Joe wants to do is to tell the world that he is still alive, though I’m not sure what he plans to accomplish by doing that. Although that will clear things up for Hardy with the FBI and their skepticism about Joe being alive.
Surprise! Some lady we’ve never seen or heard of before is the author of The Havenport Tragedies book that we’ve seen all season! I guess I never really thought about who actually wrote the book. It didn’t really seem all that important to me. It was just a book about what happened. But apparently it was important, because the author, Carrie Cooke, was an investigative reporter who got all the juicy details from Hardy when he was drunk one night 11 months ago. Then 5 months ago, Carrie let a still drunken Hardy know that the book was going to be published on the anniversary of Joe’s death, then told Hardy he only had himself to blame for being a drunk and blabbing all the info about Joe Carroll, and that he should get sober. I guess he really took her speech to heart, because in the first episode this season, we learned that Hardy was 5 months sober. Looks like this episode will not be the last we see of Carrie Cooke though.
They seem to be slow playing the Max and Weston romance, but it’s obvious they’ll eventually get together.
Looking forward to the next episode, where it appears that Joe Carroll is back in full force!
Scenes from The Following, Season 2 Episode 9: Unmasked
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Following, titled Unmasked:
