The Following Recap: “Guilt”

The Following Recap: “Guilt”
Original Air Date (Fox): Monday March 25, 2013
Season 1 Episode 10

by Julianne Snow:

The tenth episode of The Following, titled ‘Guilt’ begins as Jacob wakes up at the compound. Paul walks into the room and the sight of Paul confuses Jacob immensely. Getting up, he goes into the bathroom to find Emma in the bathtub with her throat slit. By this point, Jacob is freaking out, not knowing what to do or perhaps what he’s done. Then he wakes up, relieved to find it all a dream.

Meanwhile at the FBI task force headquarters, Parker is talking to Ryan about Amanda, rattling off her likes and dislikes. Donovan comes in to tell Ryan that he will have no access to Amanda – something that Ryan is frustrated with. Donovan then tells them about the breach in communications and asks for Ryan’s help in convincing Claire to move.

Back at the compound, two men are talking to Carroll and Roderick about recovering Claire. They are part of the Following but grew up with parents that lived a little off the grid, believing that the US needed a homegrown militia for protection. Carroll wants Roderick to go with them, but he tells Carroll that he needs to go to work. Carroll simply looks at him and tells him to make it happen.

The scene switches to Jacob coming down the stairs. When Joey sees him, he runs to him, happy to see him again. Emma asks Jacob for a minute to explain but he tells her that he’s not interested.

Perspective shifts again and Ryan is going to meet Claire where she is being held under witness protection. They hug and Claire tells him that she’s tired of not being told the truth. She doesn’t understand why no one can find Joey or Carroll. Ryan reiterates that they need to move her, for her safety.

At that point, two men enter the hotel and are noticed by security on the first floor who radios their presence to the Marshalls upstairs. Turns out that Roderick is with them and has killed a maid for her master key. The lead Marshall sends two of his men out to do a walkthrough of the floor and they are subsequently shot. As Roderick and the two men check all of the rooms with the master key, Claire and Ryan sneak out the back. When Roderick uses the key on one of the doors but cannot get in, he shoots through the door, killing the last Marshall.

In the parking lot, Claire is grabbed by one of the Followers who had been left outside to watch all of the exits, but Ryan shoots him. Ryan then removes the tracker the car and asks her to remove the SIM card from his phone, telling her they are going someplace safe.

Later, when Donovan and Parker are talking, he tells her that it was smart of Ryan to ditch the trackers. They surmise he will go to Brooklyn which is a four hour car ride away. Instead they head to one of Ryan’s dearest friend’s house and former Quantico classmate, who also just happens to be in witness relocation since being declared dead some time ago.

In a flashback, Ryan and Tyson are discussing Ryan’s book on Carroll. Tyson tells him that it’s good, but that by publishing it, he will always be known as the ‘Joe Carroll Agent’.

Meanwhile, life at the compound is looking up for Jacob as he is treated to a tour of the house by Joey. Joey tells him that he’s not happy and that he misses his mom. When Carroll enters the room and hugs Jacob in greeting, Joey walks away. Carroll wants Jacob to talk to Emma and would consider it a favour to him if he would listen to her side of the story. Jacob agrees and when Carroll leaves the room, Paul comes in and calls Emma a ‘selfish bitch’. Yet another one of the hallucinations he’s been having…

Back at HQ, Parker and Donovan are talking about the intended kidnappers, both of whom were raised by militia. The tech interrupts them to say that she has found something in the URLs in the emails that she was analyzing. Telling her to keep on it, Parker thinks aloud that Ryan and Claire have disappeared.

At the compound, Jacob decides to talk to Emma: she’s happy, he’s wary. Emma tries to explain herself and her actions but Jacob just looks at her and says “you didn’t have to leave us”. Emma explains that she was doing what Roderick told her to do, stating that Jacob would have done the same thing had he been in her shoes. Jacob stops her by telling her “that’s where you’re wrong”/ Again, Emma is trying to explain and reveals to Jacob that she loves him.

At Tyson’s house, Tyson is talking to Claire about Ryan and how he holds everyone at arm’s length. He tells her to stick with him and reveals that the only serious girlfriend that he ever had was Claire: one other woman had come close, Molly, but she was nothing compared to Claire. At this point, Claire finds the tracking tag in her sweater and Ryan surmises that the guy who attacked her in the parking lot must have placed it there. Now the Followers know they are at Tyson’s house. Claire apologizes to Tyson for bringing trouble into his home. When Ryan and Tyson take stock of their ammo and realize it’s not a lot, they quip they had better make it last.

At the compound, Joey tells Emma that he hates bologna amid a plethora of questions; why does everyone live here together; why is my dad not in jail anymore. Emma suggests that he ask his dad himself as Carroll comes into the kitchen to make s’mores. When Joey tells Carroll that he’s doing it wrong, Carroll invites him to help and tells him to ask as many questions as he would like. Joey decides to help Carroll and then asks when he’s going to see his mom.

At Tyson’s house, Ryan is watching out one of the windows. Claire asks him if he is okay, telling him that she knows he believes that everyone dies around him. Claire wants to talk so they do. Claire tells him that she loves him to which he responds “that’s a really bad idea and I love you too”. Then they take what I would consider an ill-advised moment to share a kiss.

Shortly after, Roderick and a few of the Followers are lurking around the area and find the house, sending one guy in. Tyson shoots him in the chest and he dies instantly. Ryan goes to check on Claire in the house and as he is investigating a noise he heard, she startles him. Roderick picks that moment to speak through the front door, telling Claire there will be no more bloodshed and that he will take her to see Joey. Tyson gets shot, and then shoots randomly into his backyard. Ryan and Claire work together to get him inside, finding that he has two wounds. They hear another noise which Ryan goes to investigate. Claire takes a gun and it appears that she is about to go after him, but instead, she goes out the front door and runs straight to the Followers car, pointing her gun at the men. In an odd twist, Claire readily discards her gun and gets in the car with them. Ryan runs after her, but he’s too late. When he runs back to his own car, he finds the tires have been slashed.

At the compound, Jacob is in bed when Emma knocks on his door and comes in. She says that she wants to check in on him, but in truth, she wants to win back his trust. She kisses him and they end up having sex. Jacob sees Paul as he’s having sex with Emma and it freaks him out. Going to the washroom, he asks Paul why he’s doing this. Paul explains that he wants Jacob to kill Emma. Instead, he kills the figment of his imagination that constitutes Paul before coming back out into the bedroom. He tells Emma how Jacob died and when she tries to comfort him, he says “I killed my best friend because of you”. Emma begins to get worried and Jacob tells her to watch her back.

The next scene has Ryan at the hospital with Tyson when he gets a call from Carroll. Ryan warns him that if he hurts Claire… Then he tells Carroll that he quits and that he’s done. Carroll tells him that this is his story, his rebirth, saying “you can’t quit yet, you’re not the man you need to be”. Ryan tells him to “go to hell” and hangs up the phone. In a flashback, Tyson counsels Ryan about not dying alone.

At the compound, a car rolls up to the front door and the scene switches to the interior of Carroll’s study. When the new guest is announced it is Molly and not Claire that walks through the door. Awkward!

As much as I enjoy this show, I’m finding that the constant breaks between the stories of the police and the Followers are getting old. You’ll have one scene that speaks to something important but you only get the first part because something (and I’m not talking flashback here) is snuck into the middle. It does a lot to the atmosphere and helps to build the tension, but just as your mind is working on side of the puzzle, they add in a different seemingly unrelated piece.

DarkMedia contributor Julianne Snow was first lulled into the horror genre by her parents during an ill-advised viewing of Alien when she was only 4 years old. Since that date, it’s been a given that Julianne will watch and read anything that is horror related. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies from Sirens Call Publications and Open Casket Press, as well as The Sirens Call and various other websites showcasing short fiction. She is the author of the Days with the Undead series, which can be found on her website dayswiththeundead.com. Her first novel, Days with the Undead: Book One was published in early 2012 and is based on her popular web serial. Find her on Twitter @CdnZmbiRytr.