"The Following" is indefensibly terrible yet still hella entertaining.

[nenena]

So lately I've been asking myself: Self, why are you wasting time watching "The Following" when it is so clearly awful on so many levels?

The answer is because it is so, so bad that it actually manages to punch through the metaphorical wall of television badness and into something resembling pure, undiluted awesomeness.

In other words, it's like FOX decided to take every terrible shounen thriller animu from the past five years, distill it into its purest form, and air it on primetime television starring Kevin Bacon.

That's right. "The Following" is basically JUST LIKE MY KAWAII ANIMES and it is glorious.

To wit, we have:

- maniacal supervillian with insanely convoluted, cartoonish revenge plot,
- most shocking reveals accomplished when characters sit around and try to out-exposition each other,
- a genuine real-life moe moe yandere female lead character, and
- beautiful tortured gay pretty boys
- who are serial killers
- whom the audience is supposed to empathize with the most (even though they're serial killers)
- whose interpersonal drama and romantic relationship take up most of the airtime in each episode (even though they're serial killers)
- also there are no less than two ongoing love triangles so far
- no seriously most of every episode is like romance/romance/love triangle and the serial killer characters doing cute everyday slice-of-life things
- but with occassional ridiculous shock deaths
- and then there's also the adorable precocious genius kid
- and Shawn Ashmore bishounening up the screen as the prettyboy rookie cop
- and lots of pretentious literary references and ~*deep*~ intellectual posturing on the part of our aforementioned maniacal supervillian
- and on top of all of this, the goddamn Kevin Bacon.

So basically it's like if Death Note and Future Diary and Psycho Pass and oh EVERY OTHER terrible shounen thriller anime that you can think of had a lovechild that somehow mutated into a live-action American primetime drama.

This is the show.

This is kawaii murder animu brought to life.

Like I said, it is glorious.

(Oh, and spoiler alert: The black cop is the first cop to die. Good job, FOX. Way to be twenty-first century right there.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I knew there was a reason why I kept going back to show! You should've also mention something about the flashbacks.

[imorca]

It's *completely enthralling, just like that. And it's Kevin Bacon's best work. What does *that say?

I tweeted about it...and whoever's running the show's official account tweeted back to me. I always figure that's a sign of something kind of weird going on.

My prediction, from episode one, is that the season 1 finale will be Westin turning out to be one of The Following. Based, of course, on his cuteness factor. Nobody that looks like that is in the FBI without being planted there as a plot device, and nobody is planted in the FBI as a plot device who doesn't turn around and stab you in the kidney with a fork during the cliff-hanger.

[nenena]

I definitely wouldn't bet against you on the Westin thing.

The twist that I secretly hope turns out to be true, though, is that the wife secretly engineered the whole thing all along.

[meiousei.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. It's completely true.

It's such a terrible show, though. I stuck around for about four episodes, hoping that there would be some sort of turning point where the show would become clever. But no, it's pretty much every cliche that has ever happened on television ever.

Also, Kevin Bacon having a Past with this maniacal serial killer that has physically crippled him and also he's slept with the dude's ex-wife and could be THE TRUE FATHER of her child!! = A+

It's unwatchable, but perhaps with this entertaining spin, I could get back into it.

[nenena]

It's almost impressive how many cliches it managed to hit in just the first episode alone, isn't it?

The moment when I truly realized that I was watching a kawaii animu, however, was at the end of the fourth episode when Emma, Paul, and Jacob had that kawaii group hug and did the whole "We believe in you, Jacob! WE'RE YOUR NAKAMA" moment. It was just like when I suffered through Future Diary last year and kept having to stop myself from yelling at the screen "NO YOU CANNOT HAVE CUTE AND TOUCHING FRIENDSHIP MOMENTS YOU ARE SERIAL KILLERS GODDAMMIT!!!"

[(Anonymous)]

Lolz I didn't know you liked psycho-pass; such a good anime with awesome style and ass-kicking storyline.

With your entertaining writing style, haven't you considered making a mini-review psycho-pass's episodes? I would gladly read you :3

[nenena]

Actually, I really hate Psycho-Pass. So no.

[(Anonymous)]

That explains why I like the show so much. You're absolutely right, it's very animesque and it's got a lot of that fun kind of ridiculousness you tend to find in those thriller series.

The black cop wasn't the first cop to die though. The "gay neighbors" killed two in the pilot, and I'm pretty sure Jordy killed that one in the second episode.

[nenena]

Oh yeah, those guys.

But still, Reilly is the first actual character among the good cops that dies. He's the first of the good cops that we know and care about who bites it, and that's pretty inexcusable.