The Following Episode 212
“Betrayal”
Written By: Lizzie Mickery
Directed By: Marcos Siega
Original Airdate: 7 April 2014
In This Episode…
Ryan is a bundle of emotions, staring at Claire. Once he accepts that she is there, alive and well, she gets down to what she is really there for: she wants to finish this by killing Joe. Her “brilliant” plan is that they can do it together. “I am the last thing he will see coming - we can surprise him!”
Pastor Tanner is doing an interview with Carrie, and Joe watches it, growing obsessively enraged. He rails against the hypocrisy of religion. When asked point-blank by Emma, Joe tells her, “No, I don’t believe in any god. I made that mistake once before, and I won’t do it again. Religion is only good for one thing: power.”
Joe’s next move is to send a van full of his psychos out to get a message to Carrie (one that is delivered with violence to her security detail, leaving Carrie untouched). The followers hand her a phone, and Joe, on the other end, instructs her to get his message out or he will kill her and her loved ones. (Same threat, different day.) A follower hands her a thumb drive and they take off. When cops arrive, Carrie turns the drive over to Ryan, but does warn him that she made a copy. She wants to stay with him tonight, but Ryan dodges the request by asking her not to air the video, at least not yet. Back at home, Ryan and Claire watch Joe’s video together. It is more ranting against religion, and his insistence that he will reveal the hypocrisy. Then Joe quotes a bible verse, which Claire finds curious: Joe’s family was very religious, which turned him into an atheist. Ryan is also an atheist, which surprises Claire; she believes in a god. (But how will they raise the children?) Whatever quote Joe recited made reference to children, and it wasn’t a far leap to figure out that the pastor’s only son, Preston, is in danger. Claire begs Ryan not to call the authorities in. She wants the two of them to go find him on their own. Ryan agrees, but he is just shining her on. She waits in the apartment while he “causes a distraction;” in reality, he is filling in Mike on the situation and heading towards the university with him while Max goes upstairs to do some research and keep an eye on Claire. Claire is pissed that Ryan left without her, and Max is uncomfortable babysitting the ex-wife of a serial killers.
The van of psychos gets to the university first. Preston lives in a frat house, so no one thinks twice when a pair of twentysomethings walk through the door and ask which room is Preston’s. They direct Lucas and Tilda upstairs, but find Preston’s roommate fooling around with a girl. Tilda wants to kill them, but Lucas holds her back - until they start insulting her weight. Then it’s on. By the time Preston arrives home, the house is dark and quiet. He enters with a girl, and the sounds of violence echo through the night. When Robert sees that Ryan is pulling up, he kills Preston’s girlfriend.
Mike and Ryan enter the frat house and creep upstairs. They follow a noise, and are initially attacked by a follower, wearing a mask. They quickly realize that the dozen or so people corralled in the bedroom are mostly hostages, the masks glued and stapled on to confuse the police. Ryan sees Robert and Tilda hustle Preston out of the house and he follows while Mike tries to sort out the hostages from the followers. They drive off in their van, and Ryan follows them. When Mike calls him later, after the rest of the cops arrive at the frat house, Ryan tells him he is following, and doing it alone. “I’ve got to get Joe. This is my chance.” He swears it has nothing to do with the Claire thing; “It’s about me ending Joe for good.” Ryan tosses his phone out the window.
After airing the footage from Joe, Carrie goes to Ryan’s apartment to apologize for running the piece. Max and Mike hide Claire in the bedroom, and Carrie explains that she just didn’t know what to do. Claire reveals herself, which shocks Carrie. “You want to help Ryan? Help me.” Carrie is speechless.
Emma is getting nervous that she can’t find Mandy, but Joe brushes off her concerns; he is too obsessed with Pastor Tanner. Then Emma finds security footage of Mandy jumping the fence, and finds that she looked up Lily’s phone number in the classifieds. Joe is furious and his first instinct is to call Lily. Emma begs him not to, certain that she can track even a burner phone. So instead he calls Mandy’s phone, which doesn’t make Emma feel any better. But it is not Mandy who answers the phone: it is Lily.
So let’s back up a bit. Mandy meets Mark in the middle of nowhere. His first question for her is where is Joe, but she won’t spill. He takes her back home (hood over the head, of course) and Lily greets Mandy warmly. “We have Mandy; who needs Joe?” She seems genuinely pleased to have Mandy back in the family, and she is baking a cake to celebrate Mandy’s return. The conversation darkens when Lily tells her how hurt she was that Mandy chose Joe, and her family was destroyed. Mandy apologizes and promises she wants to be part of Lily’s family. Lily needs an assurance of loyalty, which she can prove by telling her where Joe is. Mandy still won’t tell. “Joe is like a father to me. I don’t want to be with him, but I don’t want to betray him.” Lily insists she just wants to make things right with Joe, but Mandy sticks to her guns. Lily backhands her and tries again. She still won’t budge. “I can’t tell you how sad I am to hear that.” Lily turns her over to the twins, who force her into a demented game of Truth or Dare. She won’t answer for Truth (“Where is Joe?”) so they make her do a Dare (holding her hand in a candle while asking “Where is Joe?”)
Okay, so Joe calls, Lily answers, and she lets Mandy “say hello,” which is just Mandy shouting into the phone that she didn’t tell them anything. She has been badly beaten by this point, which makes Joe’s warnings that Lily will kill her a bit gratuitous. Lily is touched by Mandy’s loyalty, and gives him a choice: come pick her up himself, or they will kill her. Mandy begs Joe to come for her. “I love you,” he says and hangs up. He’s not coming for her - but at least he seems broken up about it. Emma tries to get him back on track with their latest chapter, but Joe is crying over Mandy. Joe then turns his anger on Emma, blaming her for not trying hard enough to get along with her. Emma says he should have left her in Arkansas, and Joe lurches towards her. For the first time, Emma seems a teeny bit scared of Joe. “She was mine!” Back at Lily’s house, she and the twins are eating Mandy’s cake. They toast her, and we see Mandy is sitting at the table with them - but she is very dead.
The psychos in the van are really bad at what they do, because they don’t notice Ryan following them on the lonely roads. So they lead him right to Corbin. Tilda and Robert present Preston to Joe, who tells him it is time he pay for the sins of his father. Ryan watches all of this from the shadows.
Dig It or Bury It?
Some random thoughts about this largely average episode:
Lily and Joe officially have the worst “divorce” in history. Custody battles rarely end in this much bloodshed.
Emma is really showing some surprising strength this season. She always showed more independence than the other followers, but she no longer seems like a follower at all - she is about as close to an equal as anyone will get.
RIP Mandy. She was sweet, and ultimately not a bad person; she just fell in with a bad crowd.
Prophecies?
Three episodes left this season. Looks like Joe and Lily are going to face off at some point - and Ryan may just be caught in the middle.