The Next Following

The second series being over for a while, it still took me some time to build up the interest to watch The Following, but then I was able to binge my way through it.

In this season, the bad guy comes back, because of course they couldn't really kill him off. And there are more cults and more psychopaths and more people who turn out to be working for the bad guys...

Which is the problem to me. Narratively, we often get into the position of "oh noes, the bad guys are about to be caught", but fortunately another bad guy turns up to help them get out of the situation. Basically, it's treating the bad guys as heroes. And that can be done. Dexter being a prime example. But what that series does that this doesn't, is that this series hasn't earned it. We aren't presented with a troubled past that gives the characters believable flaws and makes the audience care about them. Nope, the bad guys are presented as just that, and unredeemable. But the series wants to have its bad guy cake and eat it with the audience too. That just doesn't work.

And on the good guys side, aside from a lot of running around, we don't get amazing character development either.

Why am I watching this again? And why does it have a third season?

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