NOTE: Spoilers
With new showrunners and a formula different to that we saw in the first two seasons, The Following returns this year to an audience that are hoping it can again provide the thrills and scares it's done so well in providing in the past.
Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) is now back behind bars after the FBI's successful capture of him towards the end of the second season, and while he's waiting to face death on Death Row, with just under a month to go until he will be killed, things are looking up for Ryan and Max Hardy (Kevin Bacon and Jessica Stroup). Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore) however is still reeling following his father's murder, and out for revenge, hoping to take down Mark (Sam Underwood) after his escape in the back of a mysterious vehicle last season.
Now that Carroll's out of the way, there's of course a new 'big bad' in town, and though that at first seems to be Mark and his loyal yet small group of followers, his unhinged personality and further spiral into madness could see him fall at one of his first hurdles. Who's really pulling the strings here? (No pun intended - those stringed-up murders throughout episode one were brilliantly horrific, though).
Attending the wedding of a fellow officer, Ryan's acting as Best Man to Gina Mendez (Valerie Cruz), but when he's called upon to do his speech for the ceremony, he's accosted by a man who claims to be the father of a girl shot dead during the police raid at the cult of Korben. Throwing fake blood over Ryan and leaving the wedding party in tatters, it's a different opening to the season to the ones we're used to. We all expected a knife or a gun, but instead got a strong act of defiance against the police department. It was a nice switch-a-roo, but the violence did come later.
Viewers were then transported to a hotel where a happy couple were celebrating their first anniversary of marriage, picking up what they thought was a working girl from the bar to treat them to a threesome. Little did they know that under the wig she was the murderous Daisy (Ruth Kearney), who's working with her lover Kyle (Hunter Parrish), alongside Andrew (Michael Irby), all under the watchful eye of Mark. It's later revealed that Andrew was the one who picked up Mark and his dead twin Luke at the end of season two - not the most exciting reveal to such a big cliffhanger, as we'd never before been introduced to him.
With his new squeeze Gwen (Zuleikha Robinson) insisting she and Ryan have something special, she refuses to allow him to push her away when he's once more brought into the violent world of cult crime, and when he realises the deaths that are being orchestrated are a tableau of the killings of those close to Mark, he knows this isn't something that's going to be immediately solved, admitting it could consume his life for the next few months.
It's hard to see Ryan still failing to find any happiness, as he and Max looked ready to move on with their lives - she with a new relationship after the break-down of her time with Mike, and Ryan with Gwen. 'Ryan Hardy lies' at the first murder scene is followed by a second which have the words 'Max Hardy lies' scrawled on the wall. When a third murder is planned, the cops figure out just where Mark will be attempting to find a doppelganger for his mother Lily, but fail in making it there in time, finding an unfortunate civilian murdered with the words 'while you lie, more die' written around her and another series of corpses.
With Mark later promising that "one of them dies" in our second episode, it's a long wait for viewers to find out just who he was alluding to, and the suspense builds when it was confirmed a recurring character's time is up early on this season. Who'll face the chop? Our money's on someone outside of our main three (Ryan, Mike, Max).
We're off to a good start this year with The Following. The tension is ramped up once more but we seem to be treading a different path, which can only be a good thing. Switching the show up at this stage was definitely a risk, but one - we think - that has paid off to no end.
Check out the short promo for the second episode of The Following, season three below. It premieres in the UK on Sky Atlantic, 9pm on Saturday, March 14.