The Following - Season 3 Recap "New Blood"

Picking up a year after the events of last season, we find Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) having finally moved on with his life.  He's put his obsession with Joe Carroll behind him - along with a criminal investigation of his 'methods' to capture Joe - and found new love in the form of Gwen (played by Zuleikha Robinson).

Meanwhile, we find Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore) having done the exact opposite.  He's obsessed with finding Mark (the twin who wasn't killed, played by a really talented Sam Underwood) which has cost him everything in his life including his relationship with Max (Jessica Stroup) who has now moved on with someone else.

The season kicks off with everyone at FBI lead Gina Mendez' wedding (who knew she was a lesbian?) with Ryan giving a touching toast about finding true love, but not before he's interrupted by what's seemingly a grieving father splashing blood on Ryan and accusing him of murder for killing his daughter (who was one of Joe's followers).

This of course leads Ryan on a search to find out who this man's daughter was and apologize properly to her family.  This is all well and good until he realizes the real girl's father isn't the man from the wedding; someone's an imposter.

We come to find out this 'imposter' is actually working for Mark (along with a new psychotic, young couple) to terrorize Ryan and Co. to get revenge on their actions for killing his mom and brother.  Mark has precisely been setting up crime scenes with dead bodies to portray the killings that Ryan, Mike and Max lied about to hunt down Joe.

This all leads to that 'imposter' being captured, with him telling Ryan that he has no idea what's coming (haven't we heard this before?), which Ryan sort of comically points out that this isn't the first time someone's threatened him with those exact words.

Overall, I'd say this was a pretty good start to season 3.  We obviously know Joe is still alive somewhere, locked down in a 24/7 facility awaiting death row (though we can assume not for long), which we can imagine will play a part in this new threat facing Ryan this year.

I'd give this episode a solid B+ and hope the best is yet to come for this coming season.

Notes/Questions: 

• So after all Mike and Max went through together, they were only dating for 1 month?
• It's nice to see Ryan has moved on, but did anyone else get a 'creepy' vibe that Gwen isn't as innocent as she seems?
• I'm not sure who writes the scenes for Sam Underwood, but that guy is an extremely talented actor.  To go from playing two people to now playing one with a seemingly split personality...wow.
• How many episodes will you bet until we see Joe again?