To reiterate my introduction to Part I of this two-part essay – "If you go in for television serial dramas that are dark, noir-ish, and pulpy; featuring haunting imagery, jarring violence, and enough head-scratch inducing mind-play to keep even the most jaded of viewers coming back for more, then this is the season for you!"

Between Dawson’s Creek and the Scream franchise, Kevin Williamson isn’t just dialed-in to the pop-cult, but he’s helped to shape my generation’s view of it.  Now, Williamson brings us The Following (Monday nights on FOX) – one of the most grim, violent, and mind-scramblingly twisted series ever to be shown on one of the big commercial broadcast networks.

The series stars Kevin Bacon as “Ryan Hardy” – a former agent in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit – who was responsible for the original capture of Edgar Allen Poe-obsessed college professor turned serial killer, “Dr. Joe Carroll” (played deliciously by James Purefoy).  But Carroll escaped from prison, aided by one of the obsessed junior serial killers who hand upon his every nuance and whim, who lend the series its name.

Before the first commercial break in the pilot, viewers witnessed a gory prison break, and a woman who undressed in the FBI’s mobile command center, revealing a body covered in the words to Poe’s The Raven, and who proceeded to commit suicide by deliberately ramming an ice pick into her own eye.  In another episode, one of the followers kills a book critic who had negatively reviewed Carroll’s only novel, by dressing-up as Edgar Allen Poe, dousing the critic in gasoline, and publically immolating him at a coffee-cart.

Then, of course, there’s the whole kidnapping plotline involving Dr. Carroll’s young son, “Joey”, with his ex-wife “Claire Matthews” (who, upon getting her divorce, began an affair with Agent Hardy).  Tied-in to this plotline is this crazy (literally) love-triangle involving three very attractive twenty-somethings, who are as sociopathic as they are sexy.

It’s not just the writing and the acting that pulled me in to this series (some of which leans toward the predictable and cliché), but also the production design and art direction that vividly divulge many of the details, dictate the moods, and aid masterfully in driving the plot and layering the suspense.

But don’t just take my word for it: Watch the video, below; and make up your own mind!

The Following on FOX
Mondays 9/8c
Click HERE for info

Get into it!