Here’s the best thing about the second season premiere of The Following: Kevin Bacon finally looks like he’s having a little fun.... Bacon and Hardy are in on the joke.
This season instantly ratchets up the sadism with the aforementioned treatment of a comely corpse as a living doll. Unlike the first time around, that’s pretty much doused my interest in playing along any further.
A helpful lapse of time can’t fully right the ship or smooth over the plausibility-straining aspects of this serial-killer-and-his-adoring-acolytes conceit.
The Following similarly takes one of the oldest genre conceits in the book, strips away all manner of personal detail, gallows humor, and the genuinely grotesque, and tries to sell what remains as horrifying instead of plainly sadistic.
Sorry to say that from the evidence of the season premiere, not a lot has changed. Morbid curiosity may keep me following this bloody cat-and-mouse horror show for a while longer, but not at the risk of murdering what few brain cells I have left.