The Following Season 2 Finale: The Living

An excellent, nerve-wracking, powerhouse Season 2 finale of The Following tonight, in which, against all odds - almost no one significant dies.

So, as the series goes to black until next year, we have Joe, Claire, Mike, Max, Mark, and, of course, Ryan, all alive if not all well.   Mike and Max are especially good, though, finally connecting in each other's arms.   Claire and Ryan won't be together - her call, not his, though he doesn't object overly much - and Joe's off to prison.

All of which - none of these characters dead - is probably the biggest surprise of the finale.  It was a bold move.  Leaving Joe and Claire alive saves them for some future appearance, though it sure looks as if their stories on this show have run their course, lest the show repeat itself next season.  My guess is we'll be seeing both of them again, but not any time soon in this series.

So that leaves Mark.  Luke has apparently been killed.   But with these twin psychos you never know for sure - never know even more than you never know for sure about any deaths on television, unless you see a character's head clean blown or chopped off.   But these two guys, from the earliest episodes, relished play acting with the dead, dancing with them, clad in a bikini, as if the victim were alive.  So maybe Luke is dead, and Mark is taking care of his twin's body, or maybe Luke was badly wounded, and Mark is trying to get to a place where someone can give him medical treatment.

We'll presumably find out next season.  Which brings us to the final question, one which will likely set up the whole season to come.  Who was driving the car that picked up Mark, and Luke either dead or alive. Whom did Mark apologize to for calling?

My wife thinks it's likely their father, whom we've never met.  That's a good hypothesis.  I'm also wondering if there was anyone else in the twins' past that we met this season, either dead but actually alive - like, say, Mandy - or someone we encountered who wasn't killed?   Could it be even Emma, who perhaps was not really killed by Claire?

In a show about serial killers, the ultimate question at this point may be who wasn't killed who's helping the killers.

See also The Following Is Back for Its Second Season ... The Following 2.2: Rediscovering Oneself ... The Following 2.3: Coalescing ... The Following 2.4: Psycho Families and Trains ... The Following 2.5: Turning Tides ... The Following 2.8: Coalescing? ... The Following 2.9: The Book Signing ... The Following 2.11: Lily not Joe ... The Following 2.13: The Downfall of Mike ... The Following 2.14: Twists and Deaths

And see also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash ... The Following 1.5:  The Lawyer and the Swap ... The Following 1.7: At Large ... The Following 1.9: All in a Name, Or, Metaphor in the Service of Murder ... The Following 1.13: At Last Something of a Day for the Good Guys ... The Following Season 1 Finale: Doing Dead

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