BWW Recap: Theo, Just Admit It on THE FOLLOWING

Ryan is hot on the trail of the Hacker, but Joe Carroll is slowly taking over his mind. Can Ryan put aside his obsession with Joe to focus and close this case or is Joe's power way too big for Ryan Hardy to dismiss?

Ryan is still not buying the fact that "Tucker" (Donovan's suspect) is the bad guy they are after. He once again opposes Donovan's orders and goes after his lead from the Tech company. Max tracks down the profile of "Sam" that she had met when she was there. As she further investigates, they pull all of his fake ID's up on the screens at FBI and they watch in disbelief as they all morph (ala Michael Jackson's Black or White video) into different people. Apparently, Theo put a self-destruct mode on his photo if they were ever pulled up in an FBI database. (Pretty impressive fail safe.) Mike and Ryan track the address to Theo's residence, but Theo, naturally, had an alarm set up to notify him. Once noticing that the house is not only unoccupied, but wired with cameras, Ryan narrowly saves Mike as the house explodes.

Theo's fake life with his wife, Cindy, is on the rocks too. Her nosy friend, Nancy (aka Betsy Kettleman from BETTER CALL SAUL) is convinced that Theo is cheating on her. Theo throws Cindy a surprise party. At the party, Nancy is still picking at Theo's covers stories from all his work travel he's been doing. Feeling he's been compromised, Theo kills Nancy and her husband, Bob in a rage. The next morning Cindy and Theo are "Horrified" to hear of Nancy and Bob's deaths in a murder/suicide. (Even though it's a different show, there was something oddly gratifying about seeing Betsy Kettleman taken out. I like to think that Jimmy/Saul is out there somewhere relieved.)

Ryan figures out that Theo must have had someone vouch for him to get hired in the first place in a company associated with the FBI. They track down Eldon Wyck and find a whole mess of trouble in his basement: ears hanging from the ceiling, dead dude in a closet with a lobotomy... it's a big old mess. They bring Eldon in and he tells them that "Sam" blackmailed him into vouching for him, but he saved his USB drive. Max traces the electronic signature to Maryland where Theo had hacked into Bob's email to set up the murder/suicide. (Ah, so haste seems to be Theo's weakness. It's the only time he makes mistakes.) As the the team flees there, Theo realizes that his time is precious and decides he must kill his family. When Mike, Ryan and Mendez arrive, Cindy is dead, but the kids are still breathing. Mendez decides this was the last straw and decides to retire. She implores Ryan to do the same.

Ryan is all sorts of messed up. Theo calls him and is most upset that Ryan found him, not that he just killed his entire family. So he's still out there. Joe is all up in Ryan's head as Ryan has been dropping his name and seeing him in hallucinations. Ryan and Gwen are in a big old fight when Ryan told her boss off when he complained that Joe shouldn't be executed. Even though Gwen's boss was being kind of douchey, Ryan did overreact JUST a tad by throwing them out of the house. And no surprise, Gwen is not pleased. So in essence? Ryan is once again, back out on that edge where he loves to be. No sign of creepy Tom this episode, but did my eyes deceive me or did we catch a glimpse of Mark in the preview for next week? Joe's execution is nearing and his psych evaluation has been nothing short of interesting. He is most disturbed by the fact that Ryan declined his invitation to attend. However, I find that hard to believe. I'm guessing Ryan will be front and center to watch Joe die.

I guess my biggest gripe at this point is that there isn't necessarily a "Following." Theo is a lone wolf, so it's basically just a cop show right now. Or, are we to believe, that Ryan unknowingly is evolving into Joe's follower? I'm not sure. I think Theo is a great villain expertly portrayed by Michael Ealy, but losing the show's root being based on a cult is really starting to make it seem average and not unique like it originally was. But, there are still a handful of episodes left, so I will give the writers the benefit of the doubt that we will get back on track before season's (or series?) end.

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Photo Credit: FOX