The Following

The Following
Genre	Drama Thriller
Created by	Kevin Williamson
Starring	Kevin Bacon Natalie Zea Annie Parisse Shawn Ashmore Valorie Curry Nico Tortorella Adan Canto Kyle Catlett James Purefoy
Composer	John Frizzell
Country of origin	Template:TVUS
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	2 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Kevin Williamson Marcos Siega
Producers	Rebecca Dameron Michael Stricks
Production location	New York City, New York
Cinematography	David Tuttman
Editor	Rob Seidenglanz
Camera setup	Single camera
Production companies	Outerbanks Entertainment Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network	Fox
Release	January 21, 2013 (2013-01-21) – present

The Following is an American television drama series starring Kevin Bacon and created by Kevin Williamson. It premiered January 21, 2013 on Fox. The series is produced by Outerbanks Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. It also stars James Purefoy and Natalie Zea.

Premise

The series follows an FBI agent who finds himself in the middle of a network of serial killers, when a diabolical serial killer uses special technology to create it. In Entertainment Weekly, features TV writer Melissa Maerz wrote in a preview article, "Purefoy plays Joe Carroll, a former college professor who taught the works of Poe and killed young women in the gothic hero's honor—until he got caught. Since then he's been spending hours on a computer in the prison library, building a social network of copycat killers who hang on his every command. When the series begins, he's just escaped from death row with help from those followers, and the FBI calls in former agent Ryan Hardy (Bacon)—who brought down Joe the first time—to consult on the case".

Production

Conception

Kevin Williamson pitched The Following to Fox, because it was "home of his all-time favorite show, 24". Comparing Hardy with Jack Bauer, he told interviewer Maerz, "Sometimes I lie awake at night and cry for Jack Bauer! Clearly, there's some of Jack in Ryan. Ryan will die saving the moment. He carries the weight of every victim on his shoulders".

Williamson knew that he wanted to produce a show that would be gory; he knew it would also be controversial. Marisa Guthrie of The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Fox Broadcasting Chief Operating Officer Joe Earley about the subject material; Earley answered, "We definitely feel pressure to bring in a big, broad audience with something that we are telling people right up front is very intense. But this show is such a fantastic, thrilling, edge-of-your-seat ride".

Writing

To slip gory scenes past the Standards and Practices department at Fox Broadcasting, Williamson explained, "There are tricks... Okay, in the same episode there's an actor cutting someone in the jugular, and you're harping on the sex scene? So I sent a little email to [Fox Entertainment chairman] Kevin Reilly, and within 15 minutes the broadcast-and-standards people were like, It's okay".

Casting

Williamson wanted to cast a tough guy with a boyish side. "I told my agent, 'I want to get someone like Kevin Bacon.' And he said, 'What about Kevin Bacon?'" As it happened, Bacon had spent four years trying to find a television program he would like to do. Bacon told Maerz, "I had been looking for quite some time, even trying to develop stuff for myself. One thing that's consistent about the shows I'm drawn to is that they're life-or-death situations". Jeananne Goossen was cast in the role of FBI agent Jennifer Mason in the pilot, but the role was reworked and in subsequent episodes of the series her character was replaced by Special Agent Debra Parker, played by Annie Parisse.

Cast

The main actors from The Following, standing side-by-side.

From left to right: Jacob Wells, Emma Hill, Paul Torres, Joe Carroll, Claire Matthews, Joey, Ryan Hardy, Mike Weston and Debra Parker

Main cast

• Kevin Bacon as Ryan Hardy, a former FBI agent who in 2003 led the FBI team which captured serial killer Joe Carroll. Although placed on disability, after being stabbed in the heart by Carroll, requiring him to wear a pacemaker, Hardy is called back to service as a consultant after Joe Carroll escapes prison. Hardy has also authored a book on the Joe Carroll case entitled "The Poetry of a Killer".
• James Purefoy as Dr. Joe Carroll, a professor of English literature with a focus on the romantic period at Winslow University. and a budding novelist. Believing, like his hero Edgar Allan Poe, in the "insanity of art", he initially went on to make "art" by eviscerating 14 female students. In prison (Virginia Central Penitentiary, Waverly, Virgina), Carroll gathers a cult-like collection of followers, who are willing to murder, kidnap, and even sacrifice themselves in order to execute his plan of revenge focused on Ryan Hardy.
• Natalie Zea as Dr. Claire Matthews, Joe Carroll's ex-wife, who also had a relationship with Ryan Hardy. Like her ex-husband, she is a college professor.
• Annie Parisse as Debra Parker, an FBI specialist on cult behavior, and runs the Bureau's Alternative Religion Unit. Parker is called in to head the investigation of Carroll and his followers.
• Shawn Ashmore as Mike Weston, a young FBI agent. Weston wrote his thesis on Joe Carroll while in training and sees Ryan Hardy hero. He is considered the team's expert on Joe Carroll.
• Valorie Curry as Emma Hill/Denise Harris, a fan of Joe Carroll, Emma Hill meets Dr. Carroll at a book reading in 2003, and she becomes one of the first of his followers. She later, at his direction, takes the position as the Nanny, Denise Harris, in Carroll's ex-wife's household, caring for Carroll's only son, Joey Matthews.
• Nico Tortorella as Jacob Wells/Will Wilson, Jacob Wells is Emma Hill's lover and another of Carroll's followers. As Will Wilson he lived next door to Sarah Fuller (the woman who got away from Carroll) with Billy Thomas as a gay couple as part of their cult activities.
• Adan Canto as Paul Torres/Billy Thomas, as Billy Thomas (with Will Wilson) he lived next door to Sarah Fuller. And as Paul Torres he is now having to share Jacob with Emma, and is unhappy with the relationship.
• Kyle Catlett as Joey Matthews, Joe Carroll and Claire Matthews' son.

Recurring

• Billy Brown as Agent Troy Riley
• Steve Monroe as Jordy Raines, a prison guard at Virginia Central Penitentiary and serial killer in training. Raines is instrumental in Carroll's internet contact with his followers while in prison, as well as his subsequent escape. Raines kills three sorority girls on the Winslow University campus before being captured by Hardy and the FBI.

Series overview

Season		Episodes	Originally aired		DVD release date
			Season premiere	Season finale	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
	1	15	January 21, 2013 (2013-01-21)	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Production code	U.S. viewers (million)
1	"Pilot"	Marcos Siega	Kevin Williamson	January 21, 2013 (2013-01-21)	296815	10.42
Infamous serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) escapes from prison and Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon), a retired F.B.I. agent responsible for capturing Carroll is pulled back into the field to assist the manhunt. The police secure both Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea), Carroll's ex-wife (and mother of his son Joey) with whom Hardy had an affair, and Sarah Fuller (Maggie Grace), the only one of Carroll's victims to survive. Assisted by FBI agents Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore) and Jennifer Mason (Jeananne Goossen), Hardy attempts to track down a prison guard who helped Carroll escape and is now being taught how to be a serial killer. When a young woman commits suicide in front of Hardy at Carroll's request, Hardy begins to suspect that Carroll has used the internet to create a following of disciples he uses to carry out his plans. Sarah is kidnapped by two such followers (men posing as her gay neighbors) and is tortured and killed by Carroll. Hardy is too late to save her, but Carroll allows himself to be taken back into custody, where he tells Hardy that this is only the beginning. Another of Carroll's followers, pretending to be a babysitter for Claire, kidnaps Joey and hands him over to the two men who kidnapped Sarah.
2	"Chapter Two"	Marcos Siega	Kevin Williamson	January 28, 2013 (2013-01-28)	2J7402	10.10
Special Agent Debra Parker (Annie Parisse), an expert on alternative religions, joins the case as the hunt for Carroll's son intensifies. Carroll's prison guard protege Jordy (Steve Monroe) makes his first kill, slaughtering three college girls in their sorority house. Claire tries to discover Joey's whereabouts from Carroll, but the interview only serves to reveal her prior relationship with Hardy to everyone. Joey's babysitter-turned-kidnapper Emma Hill (Valorie Curry), having convinced him that he's on an adventure, takes him to an isolated house, along with Sarah Fuller's fake neighbors Paul Torres (Adan Canto) and Jacob Wells (Nico Tortorella). Tensions begin to rise between the three as Paul, having pretended to be Jacob's lover for years, is now jealous of the intimate relationship between Jacob and Emma. Hardy is attacked by a mysterious masked man while investigating Emma's old residence. Jordy attacks Claire in her home, but Hardy wounds him and he is arrested. Parker delivers a book of Poe's works to Carroll in prison, which results in a short but noticeable unspoken communication between the two of them. The next day, the masked man picks someone off the street and lights him on fire.
3	"The Poet's Fire"	Unknown	Unknown	February 4, 2013 (2013-02-04)	TBA	N/A
4	"Mad Love"	Unknown	Unknown	February 11, 2013 (2013-02-11)	TBA	N/A
5	"The Siege"	Unknown	Unknown	February 18, 2013 (2013-02-18)	TBA	N/A
6	"The Fall"	Unknown	Unknown	February 25, 2013 (2013-02-25)	TBA	N/A

Reception

The Following was given 62% on Metacritic based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

USA Today's Robert Bianco rated the show highly, calling it "one of the most violent, and certainly the most frightening, series ever made by a commercial broadcast network," adding "some plot twists seem implausible at best, others are overdone or gratuitous. But some implausibility comes with the horror/suspense genre, and there's no question [Kevin] Williamson has mastered it — just as there's no question that the match of wills between the wounded [Kevin] Bacon and malevolent [James] Purefoy is exceedingly well played."

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly stated: "The weakest part of The Following is the idea that Carroll was a college professor who held his classes spellbound with lectures about Thoreau, Emerson, and, most crucially, Edgar Allan Poe." He added: "The drama's strongest elements override this flaw. Both Bacon and Purefoy are so intensely earnest, The Following quickly supersedes its patent Silence of the Lambs setup. The moments that focus on Carroll's criminal cult give the series its real power, and the modern-day variations on Charlie Manson's kill-crazy crew are genuinely spooky."

The Wall Street Journal's Nancy Dewolf Smith considers the series "both better and worse than those movies where a procession of young people get killed so reliably and gorily that the audience laughs after it screams," adding, "There is some suspense here, even if it is mainly because the violence when it comes is so swift and sickening. But the show still feels slack. Is it a case of a serial-killer cliché too far?"

Hank Stuever of The Washington Post called the series "a trite, gratuitously violent exercise in still more stylishly imagined American horror stories." He added, "It is filled with melodramatic sleuthing that you've seen over and over."

Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times said the series was "hard to turn off and even harder to watch" and that "precisely because it is so bleak and relentlessly scary, The Following offers a more salutary depiction of violence than do series that use humor to mitigate horror — and thereby trivialize it."

International broadcasts

Country	Network(s)	Series premiere	Timeslot
Argentina	Warner Channel	February 21, 2013	Thursday, 10:55 p.m.
Australia	Nine Network	TBA	TBA
Brazil	Warner Channel	February 21, 2013	Thursday, 10:55 p.m.
Canada	CTV	January 21, 2013	Monday, 9:00 p.m.
Colombia	Warner Channel	February 21, 2013	Thursday, 10:55 p.m.
China	Sohu TV	January 22, 2013	Tuesday, afternoon
Cyprus	NovaCinema 1, NovaCinemaHD	February 4, 2013	Monday, 9:00 p.m.
Greece	NovaCinema 1, NovaCinemaHD	February 4, 2013	Monday, 9:00 p.m.
United Kingdom Ireland	Sky Atlantic	January 22, 2013	Tuesday, 10:00 p.m.
Iceland	Stöd 2	January 27, 2013	Saturday, 09.45 p.m.
Israel	Yes Oh	January 26, 2013	Saturday, 09.30 p.m.
Italy	Premium Crime, Sky Uno	February 4, 2013	Monday, 9:15 p.m.; Tuesday, 9:10 p.m.
Netherlands	SBS 6	January 29, 2013	Tuesday, 9:30 p.m.
Philippines	Jack City	TBA	TBA
South Africa	MNet	January 30, 2013	Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.
Spain	TNT	January 29, 2013	Tuesday, 10:15 p.m.
Turkey	Dizimax Vice HD	January 23, 2013	Wednesday, 10.00 p.m.
Hungary	RTL Klub	TBA	TBA

External links

• Official website
• The Following at IMDb