Josh recaps Season 2 Episode 12 of The Following, titled Betrayal, where Mandy has run away from Joe and gone straight to Lily, and Joe makes his move against the televangelist, Kingston Tanner! Meanwhile, Claire and Weston try to explain themselves to Ryan. Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts on the episode.
Don’t need the Following episode recap for Betrayal? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s The Following episode, titled Betrayal, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of The Following, Season 2 Episode 12: Betrayal
- The episode starts again with Claire visiting Ryan. Weston tries to explain, but Ryan seems shell-shocked. Claire and Ryan have a moment alone, and Claire explains why and what happened–it was to protect Joey. They share a touching hug. Ryan admits he would have joined her in Witness Protection if she would have told him she was alive. Claire then gets bloodthirsty, telling Ryan that they should kill Joe.
- Joe is watching his “buddy” the televangelist, Kingston Tanner, on Carrie Cooke’s TV show. Joe is very animated as he talks to the TV, telling Carrie the facts, despite her being unable to hear him. Joe then goes on a rant with Emma about his disbelief in God, and the violence religion has caused.
- Mandy meets up with Mark and another of Lily’s people. Mark tries to get the location of Joe, but she isn’t willing to divulge that information. He shrugs it off after a while, and they go to visit home sweet home. Lily talks with Mandy, and seems happy to see her, and she doesn’t seem concerned with where Joe is. While baking a cake, Lily’s demeanor seems to change–and she begins demanding where Joe is. She then slaps Mandy, and begins to get rather harsh.
- Mandy, Luke and Mark decide to play “Truth or Dare”. The game doesn’t go well for Mandy though, as they try to torture her for Joe’s location. Later in the episode, Emma tells Joe she found that Mandy has left the compound. Joe feels betrayed, and Emma finds out where she went.
- Joe decides to give Mandy a call, despite Emma’s protests. Lily picks up the phone, and she gives the phone to Mandy, who is severely beaten. Mandy says that she didn’t tell Joe’s location. Lily offers to let Joe pick up Mandy, or she will die–Joe refuses, and tells Mandy that he loves her. Afterwards, Joe is genuinely broken up about Mandy. Joe is then angry with Emma, accusing her that she didn’t try to get along with her enough.
- Carrie Cooke finishes her interview with Tanner, and heads to her car, complete with bodyguards. Stuck in traffic, her bodyguards are ambushed and beaten. One of Joe’s followers then gives a phone to Carrie–Joe tells her to broadcast another message–or else.
- Ryan meets up with Carrie, and she tells him what happened. Ryan begs her to not air the message, but she is scared and wants to air it. She then asks to spend the night at his house, but Ryan side-steps the question.
- Ryan looks at the message Carrie was given, and it’s Joe again. He threatens Tanner and people like him. Claire reveals Joe’s family was religious, but Joe became atheist. Claire is able to figure out that Joe is planning on hitting Tanner’s son in Connecticut. Claire wants her and Ryan to go investigate, but Ryan pulls a fast one, ditching her and meeting up with Weston. Ryan has Max play babysitter to Claire.
- Claire discovers some lipstick in Ryan’s bathroom, and doesn’t seem to happy to see it. She pays a visit to Max, who is in Ryan’s “lair”, doing research it appears. Claire seems sad that Ryan has “moved on”. Max calls Ryan, and tells him the location of the frat house Tanner’s son is at.
- On the way to Connecticut, Weston explains he wanted to keep Claire safe for Ryan, and that is why he made the call to not tell Ryan. Ryan seems relatively ok with the decision.
- The Followers show up to a frat house. Outside, two remaining followers, Robert and another girl, are waiting for a signal from the two inside. The two inside murder a couple–not Tanner’s son though. Tanner is finally seen, coming back to his frat house with his girlfriend. They enter the dark frat house. The Followers take them both, and then murder the son’s girlfriend. Ryan’s car pulls up, and the Followers get spooked.
- Ryan and Mike move in, and they immediately can tell something is wrong. They search the house, to find a room full of white masked people. Mike shoots one, and then they realize–the masks are glued onto the people’s faces, and innocent people have been mixed up with the Followers. Luckily, the one Mike shot was Lucas.
- Ryan spots Robert and the other followers with Tanner’s son, and chases them down, but they are able to make it to the van. Ryan hops into his vehicle and begins following the van. Mike had called for backup, and calls Ryan to figure out where he is. Ryan explains he is following the van. Mike wants to call back up, but Ryan refuses.
- Carrie ends up airing the message since she did not hear from Ryan. Weston returns back to Ryan’s house, and then Carrie Cooke comes to visit. She wants to talk to Ryan. Claire then makes her presence known to Carrie, and asks for her help.
- The episode ends with Lily, Mark and Luke having dinner. They all thank Mandy for the evening, and toast to her. She however, appears to be dead, posed at the dinner table like Luke and Mark’s previous killings. Then we see Joe confronting Tanner’s son in Korban, as Ryan Hardy watches from the shadows.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 12 of The Following: Betrayal
With only 3 episodes left, things are starting to get really good in The Following. First we had the inevitable Claire and Ryan reunion that’s been a couple episodes coming. Lucky for Ryan, Claire came by at a time when Carrie was conveniently not there for once, so he was able to avoid that awkwardness. Then when Carrie asked him if she could spend the night at his place, Ryan masterfully avoided the question in a way that didn’t raise any red flags for Carrie. I wonder if Claire suspects something is going on between Ryan and Carrie, the way she just randomly showed up at his apartment looking for him. After all, Claire did find the lipstick in Ryan’s bathroom, so she knows he has to have some woman in his life. Again, lucky for Ryan, he’s out at Korban spying on Joe, so he doesn’t have to be around for the awkwardness between Claire and Carrie.
Ryan seems to be handling the return of Claire rather well, both in terms of Claire having made the tough decision to go into Witness Protection for her son’s sake, and in terms of Weston having known all along and kept it from him. Unfortunately for Claire, her plans are foiled when Ryan tricks her and takes off without her, leaving Max to keep an eye on Claire. Still not really sure what Claire plans to accomplish by temporarily coming out of hiding. I didn’t realize that Ryan would find his way into the compound so quickly and easily, so these last 3 episodes should be pretty interesting.
I’m really not sure what the point of Mandy’s character was, considering that they killed her off. I don’t know what she was thinking, leaving Joe to go to Lily, if she was still loyal to Joe! It doesn’t make any sense. I figured she was done with Joe and that she was going to get back at him by going to Lily. In any case, how does Lily know that Mandy would even be able to tell them where Joe was exactly? For all Mandy knows, they were just out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. If Mandy wanted to keep Joe’s whereabouts secret, she should have taken that stance and played dumb, rather than blatantly saying that she wouldn’t tell them where Joe is. With Mandy simply being killed without her revealing any information, it feels like her character ultimately served no purpose in the show. It would be one thing if she were the reason that Lily found Joe, or if she was unable to provide Joe’s whereabouts due to ignorance, but still joined up with Lily to take down Joe, but her going out the way she did seems like a waste. It feels like when Roderick was killed off last season. There was all this rebellion against Joe hinted at in Roderick’s character, but then he just gets killed off. The only purpose of Mandy’s death that I can think of is that it may have helped drive a wedge between Joe and Emma, since Joe appears to blame Emma for Mandy running away. I didn’t realize Joe really cared that much about Mandy, the way he’s been acting towards her lately.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing what Ryan plans to do now that he is secretly inside the Korban Community!
Josh’s Thoughts: The Following, Season 2 Episode 12: Betrayal
I’ll get the negative out of the way, while completely predictable, after thinking about it for a while, I really feel Claire’s reappearance is not a good choice for the show. We already had the “damsel in distress” last season, and so far, I am betting that is going to be the case with Claire once she makes her presence known to Joe. I also am not really believing the bloodthirsty Claire either. I could understand her need to want to have Joe captured or even dead, but her desire to do it herself is hard to swallow for me.
There is a lot of good stuff this episode though. I thought Mandy’s character, as tragic as her scenes were, were great. I felt sad for Mandy even though she really is going from serial killer dad to serial killer mom, and already has a kill under her own belt. She should be one to be despised, but the show was able to make me empathize with her.
I also enjoyed the spat between Emma and Joe. We are setting some tension up there, and I am curious how this will play out. Will Emma potentially flip on Joe at some point if this divide increases? Perhaps Robert and Emma decide they want to lead the cult? There are some interesting possibilities with their “schism”.
While completely bogus, Ryan’s decision to go without backup to Korban certainly does make you wonder–what happens next? There are still a lot of people between Ryan and Joe. It will be interesting to see Ryan’s next move. Could this be the end of Joe and the rest of the season has Ryan and Mike chasing down Lily? I am excited to see how the next episode plays out.
Scenes from The Following, Season 2 Episode 13: The Reaping
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Following, titled The Reaping:
What did you think of Season 2 Episode 12 of The Following, titled Betrayal? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
