‘The Following’ is a real thriller
It took the dark genius of Edgar Allan Poe and the television savvy of Kevin Williamson to lure Kevin Bacon to star in a series.
“The Following,” premiering at 8 p.m. Monday on Fox, is a scary thriller. Under no circumstances is this for children or anyone distressed by gore. Incredibly well done, the deeply disturbing story haunts viewers long after watching.
From the opening scenes, it’s shocking. Someone kills several corrections officers in a maximum-security prison. On the lam, the serial killer is off to finish whatever he left undone.
Only one man understands the killer’s psychotic mind enough to nab him. And that man is exFBI agent Ryan Hardy (Bacon), who initially arrested him.
He recalls reading scripts and thought this dark series was for cable.
“He’s not the sort of character you read it and know who he is automatically,” Bacon says.
The 15-episode series pits good against evil, but Hardy is not entirely good. Like any great character, he is flawed. He has a drinking problem — when you’re pouring vodka into a water bottle, you definitely have a problem. And when he was on the job, he slept with the serial killer’s wife, Claire (Natalie Zea, “Justified”). However, they weren’t lovers until the killer was imprisoned. Still, the FBI frowns on such behavior.
This killer happens to be a brilliant and dashing former professor, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy, “Rome”), who specialized in Poe.
“It could be real,” Purefoy says. “It’s a difficult idea to get one’s head around. If you play it real, it becomes so terrifying. There is a very real feel to the whole thing.”
Though Carroll is evil incarnate, he is so intelligent and charismatic, it’s easy to see how he holds sway over people. His specialty, besides the works of Poe, is seducing people, making him even more dangerous than your average serial killer.
He’s so masterful at this he developed a cult. This means that not only does he kill — slicing up his victims with gruesome nods to Poe — but his disciples also slaughter innocents.
Again, there are scenes in the first four episodes that will make some recoil.
It does seem curious how inept most police officers are in this and how only the one FBI agent who had to be called back truly understands Carroll’s manipulative genius. He is so deadly that if there were a drinking game of doing a shot per victim, players would be plastered by the end of the pilot.
“He has a certain eloquence,” Purefoy concedes of his character, and that gains him everyone’s trust.