Contrary to Madness!! The Following S2 Ep.2 Recap!!

CAREFUL! THESE SPOILERS ARE KILLER!!

Joe is living the quiet life in a trailer community with a woman who knows about him and what he has done. She could be a possible member. The FBI tries to deduce the difference between the two murders. At the hotel, Carlos is still in hiding from the FBI with Jazelle. Mark and Luke visit the Fisher where they attack a couple and kidnap their son. Hardy speaks with Lily Gray who tells her that Weston already talked to her. She has seemingly intimate knowledge about Ryan Hardy and Joe Carroll. Emma is in search of Carlos. Twins Luke and Mark have dinner with the dead couple just as they did with Heather. Ryan returns to his apartment. His niece Max is there where she tries to convince him to tell the FBI all the information he has on Joe Carroll. Mark and Luke set up the parents just as they did with Heather. Luke calls Ryan and talks to him briefly before hanging up when Ryan mentions Joe’s name. Max traces the call. Ryan arrives at the address only to find the cell phone Luke used on the roof. Luke calls it from a house across the alley. Hardy spots him and heads for the home. Inside, he finds the bodies of the parents propped up in chairs in the living room. Investigating a noise upstairs, Ryan finds the couple’s son hiding in a closet. Joe is watching a report about himself with Mandy. Meanwhile, the FBI grills Hardy on his knowledge about Carroll which Hardy keeps secret. Luke calls Hardy and tells him that he has been following Ryan and the subway attack survivor Lily Gray.

The reverend discovers Joe’s identity and tries to flee only to be stopped by Joe and Mandy. Ryan arrives at the museum where he receives a call from Mark. He spots Mark, who he thinks is Luke, and chases him but he disappears into the crowd. Ryan finds a FBI agent and tells him to find Lily. Elsewhere in the museum, Lily is found by Luke and Mark wearing Joe Carroll masks. The man she is with tries to defend her but he is stabbed. While she flees, Lily runs into Ryan. Ryan goes back and finds the injured man. He is attacked by a follower in a Joe Carroll mask. Ryan unmasks him revealing Mark. He is then attacked by Luke and is surprised that they are twins. Luke and Mark escape with Hardy shooting at them. Afterward, Weston chews Ryan out for acting recklessly. Emma manages to contact Carlos who asks her if she is with Joe. In the trailer park, Joe Carroll kills the reverend with Mandy watching. Seeing Mandy become upset, he consoles her.

Since the death of Claire Matthews and Debra Parker, Ryan has become extremely obsessed with finding the remaining cult members who will eventually lead him to Joe Carroll. This has led Ryan to make careless decisions in his hunt. Usually, he is more careful, thinking about protecting the victim. Weston stated that Ryan is so driven to stop this new uprising that he is willing to put innocents in the line of fire. Lily Gray’s life is put in danger because Ryan has started to develop a relationship with her. She bares a physical appearance to Claire Matthews which suggests that this may be a possible reason why he is attracted to her. The problem is that Lily will serve as Ryan’s Achilles’ heel since followers Mark and Luke know he is with her. This fact may drive Ryan to the point where his efforts to protect her will constantly put her in danger or drive her away. Ryan’s obsession has already ended his friendship with Weston who has had enough of Ryan’s emotional constipation. Weston was the only person left following the events of the first season after Parker’s death and Donovan’s departure. He tried to reach out to Ryan over the course of the year to no avail. Ryan has kept Weston far away from his personal vendetta which has grown now that Ryan knows that Carroll is alive. At some point, Ryan will realize that he may need Weston and the FBI’s help. Hopefully, this realization will come to occur before Lily Gray falls victim to Carroll’s followers just as Claire Matthews did.

More insight into twin brothers Luke and Mark is revealed. After killing and setting up a couple like human sized dolls, Luke speaks to the husband as if he were his father. Clearly, these two have some serious daddy issues just like Emma who had issues with her mother. I wouldn’t doubt they killed their father because they felt he wasn’t giving them the attention they felt was deserved. When he is contacted by Luke, Ryan suspects that the twin has parental problems and that Luke expects Joe will treat him like a son. The mention of this touches a nerve in Luke who plucks at Ryan’s strings by mentioning his failure to protect Claire. Luke and Mark are very cunning and extremely careful which makes them formidable against Ryan Hardy.

Joe Carroll has been in hiding for a year since his last confrontation with Ryan Hardy. He has been living the easy life in a rural community where he has used his infectious charisma to win over a woman and her adoptive daughter. The woman has been apparently sending Joe letters during his time in prison and now he is shacked up with her. Both are very aware of who he is. The daughter Mandy asks Joe what it is like to kill someone. This illustrates just how strong Carroll’s influence truly is as the teenage girl is not as old as his followers who are in their twenties yet she has inquiries about murder. Mandy gets her question after witnessing Joe’s brutality first hand when he kills the local reverend who learns about Joe’s true identity from a report on TV. Carroll is exhilarated by the reverend’s screams of pain just as he dies. It won’t be long before Joe Carroll return to his family and begins his torment of Ryan Hardy anew.