Joe Carroll kills again and Ryan Hardy is drawn deeper into the New York City murders in The Following's “For Joe.”

This week the audience learned more about what Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), or ‘Darryl,’ has been up to for the past year. After narrowly escaping the fire at the lighthouse, Carroll ran away to Arkansas and found solace in the arms of a prostitute named Judy (Carrie Preston). Judy lives alone on a small property in the middle of nowhere with her teenage daughter, Mandy (Tiffany Boone). Mandy reads the details of the subway murders to Joe behind her mothers back before leaving for school. When Joe goes into the house for breakfast, Judy asks him if he’s tempted to go back to killing people, so, it’s safe to say she knows all about Joe’s past as a serial killer. He says he’s put that all behind him.

Twins Luke And Mike Stage Another Murder For Joe Carroll

In New York, Carlos (J.D. Williams), Giselle and creepy identical twins Luke (the seemingly more insane one) and Mark (the ‘sensitive’ one), both played by Sam Underwood, are planning their next murder to lure Carroll out of hiding. While Giselle plays guard dog to Carlos in the motel, the twins break into a brownstone and kill the couple that lives there and locks their young son in the closet. When one of the brothers meets the boy, he wears a Joe Carroll mask so the boy would only be able to identify him as Carroll. Together, the twins cook dinner, set the table and tie up the corpses of husband and wife to make the perfect dinner scene. The boys join their “parents” at the table and have a family meal, with Luke telling them all about the young blond girl they met – really the girl they met and killed in last week’s episode.

When they’re done with dinner, Luke and Mark create another scene in the living room. The man sits in an armchair with a lit cigar in one hand and a glass of alcohol in the other. The woman sits in a chair opposite him, but far away. It is another recreation of Carroll’s work. For a finishing touch, Luke calls Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon). Luke asks him if he liked their previous work (again, the blond) and lure him to their location. Hardy gets the phone call when he’s in his apartment with his detective nice, Max (Jessica Stroup), and she reluctantly traces the call for him and gives him a head start over the police.

At the location, Hardy finds a burner phone on the roof of an abandoned brownstone, left for him by the killers. Luke calls again, appearing on the doorstep of a brownstone across the street. He waves and introduces himself, inviting Ryan over. Hardy calls Max and tells her to send the police while he rushes into the house. The twins are long gone, but Hardy finds the dead couple in the living room and finds the boy in the closet upstairs. When the FBI arrives at the crime scene, Mike (Shawn Ashmore) tries to lure Ryan back in, bouncing theories off of him, but Ryan just walks out. Then he gets another call from Luke. This time, Luke taunts Ryan with Lily Gray (Connie Nielsen), the only survivor of the Subway Murders, who Ryan visited the other day at her art gallery to do some solo investigating. Luke tells Ryan he should get to Lily’s benefit party soon, before something happens to her.

Just like that, Ryan is off to the benefit Lily is throwing, but, unable to reach her or locate Luke, he stops an FBI agent, who is there undercover, and informs him that Lily is in danger and needs to be found ASAP. Lily, of course, is on her way down an empty hallway with a man heading towards the back entrance where a car is waiting to take her home. Luke attacks them in the hall, all while wearing a Joe Carroll mask, and the man is stabbed, but Ryan gets there just in time to save Lily. He leaves her with the FBI agents and goes after Luke. They fight, and it looks like Ryan has the upper hand when he rips off Luke’s mask, but then Mark comes out of nowhere and kicks Ryan off his brother, revealing himself. The two make a run for it, but aren’t fast enough, as Ryan recovers fast enough to get a few shots in. He hits Luke in the arm, but by the time Luke and Mark truly realize Luke has been shot, they are already in a van and on their way out of there.

When Mike arrives at the benefit, he tries to get Ryan to get over his lone wolf mentality. He’s furious; Ryan unnecessarily put these FBI agents in danger. If he has a lead, he should call Mike, or the FBI – he has to call somebody. Ryan doesn’t make any promises, and he attempts to make a small step to repair their friendship by explaining to him how it was he was lured onto the scene of the crime, but Mike doesn’t want to hear it. “Tell it to Mendez. I’m done with you,” Mike says before walking away.

Joe Carroll Kills Again

Meanwhile, in Arkansas, it’s revealed that Judy wrote to Joe Carroll in prison, telling her daughter that she could save him. In fact, Judy is pretty sure she has saved this deranged serial killer and bans Joe and Mandy from watching the news while she’s out on the job all night. Of course, Mandy and Joe, who have formed a sweet father/daughter bond, disobey and they watch a special on Carroll’s murderous ways on television while Mandy passes Joe her tablet. She pulled up the Baltimore classifieds, just like he asked. In the classifieds is a notice for a missing heart-shaped purse. It’s a message for the remaining cult members, and the number listed on the ad is the number of a burner phone that Carlos, Giselle and the twins have. Joe writes the number down, but is still hesitating to call it.

Just then, the preacher comes in looking for Judy. This less than honorable preacher clearly makes Mandy uncomfortable, and he invites himself over to wait for Judy to come home. He sits down and turns on the television, where the Joe Carroll special is still playing and sees Carroll’s mug shot. Immediately, Carroll knows that the preacher has recognized him, and, though the preacher tries to make a quick exit, Carroll and Mandy incapacitate him and tie him to a chair in the house. Mandy begs Joe not to kill the preacher, and Joe toys with the idea himself. Joe gives a speech about how he is depressed and failed at being a husband and a father (and a cult leader). At one point, it appears that the preacher might just live to tell the tale of Joe Carroll, but, no. In the end, Joe takes a knife and jams it into the preacher, killing him. Mandy sits on the couch, crying. Joe goes over to give her a hug. Mandy tells him that her mother will be home soon, and she’ll be mad.

Finally, the burner phone that Gisele and Carlos have rings. They think it’s Joe calling them, but it’s Emma (Valorie Curry), who saw the ad. Carlos asks if Joe is with Emma, to which Emma responds, “Joe’s dead.” Gisele promptly hangs up the phone, leaving Emma confused.

The Following airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on FOX.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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