BWW Recap: THE FOLLOWING Asks That Age Old Question, What's In The Box?

Two lessons Ryan Hardy's brother taught him: 1 - Never go looking for trouble and 2 - When it's on, do whatever it takes to win. I think Ryan heeded that advice and yet, he just can't win as he loses yet another member of his team.

Mark Gray is ready for the next phase in his plan as he hires a torture expert who is in possession of an electric chair. Ryan, Max and Mike gain a lead on Mark's truck and locate the torturer's hideout. Naturally he has an escape plan for Mark, but the torturer is taken out by Ryan.

Psycho couple, Daisy and Kyle, pick out a random stranger in the supermarket and follow her home. They tie her up and force her to call her husband home. Turns out, not so random, she's Agent Clarke's wife, Anna. Anna is left for dead by suffocation but Ryan arrives in time to save her. However, Daisy and Kyle escape taking Agent Clarke with them. And their Plan B torture expert, Neil, is way worse than Plan A.

When Mark Skypes into the Police Department and tells the team that all they have to do is tell the truth and the death will stop, Mendez becomes even more suspicious that she doesn't know the whole story of the death of Lily Gray. Through their investigation, Max is able to find a connection to Mark's follower, Andrew, to Joe Carroll. Agent Mendez encourages Ryan to go see Joe for information, but Ryan instead chooses to go see Dr. Strauss. Turns out Andrew and Joe were classmates in Dr. Strauss' class, but Dr. Strauss is tight-lipped.

Agent Clarke makes a temporary escape and is able to call Ryan for a general location to where he is, but he is quickly recaptured by Kyle and his torture is explained to him in great detail by Neil. As Ryan, Max and Mike zero in on the location, a video is leaked online of Clarke's confession to the execution of Lily Gray he committed with Ryan Hardy.

Ryan finally zeroes in on the location, but when he arrives there is nothing but a box. And much like Gwyneth Paltrow's head (Se7en Spoiler alert), you can guess what's in the box; Agent Clarke. Ryan isn't what you'd call... happy? And oddly enough, neither is Mark Gray. He wanted to be there to hear the confession and isn't pleased that his followers took matters into their own hands as he threatens to kill Kyle.

In his flashbacks to his friendship with Agent Clarke, we find out that when Ryan took Jeff to the hospital when he was having an anxiety attack about covering up Lily Gray's murder is when he met his current girlfriend, Gwen.

Seeing yet another one of his colleagues and friends killed because of his actions is probably not going to be the best thing for Ryan Hardy's fragile psyche. At least this time he is turning to someone instead of running and hiding. And I can't imagine Mike and Max are going to take this all that well either. That was an absolutely brutal death of one of their friends and I would tend to think they won't be able to get that out of their minds for a long time. We finally got a glimpse of a prior villain, Dr. Strauss, the man who taught Joe Carroll everything he knows and now we know that Andrew may have been another mentee. Is Andrew just as dangerous as Joe? And will we even see Joe this year? They sure led us to believe we would this episode, but it was a rouse. But we also know how much Mark hates Joe, so does that, in turn, make Joe and Ryan allies? It's very disturbing, regardless. And it's interesting to see tension among the ranks in Mark Ray's camps. Are Daisy and Kyle going to strike out on their own against Mark? More importantly, which team will creepy Neil go with? I mean it's nice to know he takes care of his ailing father, but...

And if we've learned anything, it's that we really have to get back into the habit of memorizing phone numbers. At least, your friends in the FBI's phone numbers or at the very least, Kevin Bacon's.

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Photo Credit: FOX