The Following season 3, episode 7, “The Hunt,” just finished airing, and Max came face-to-face with Dr. Strauss’ best student. Read our recap and discuss!
The Following season 3, episode 7 begins with a couple of cops transporting Duncan, one of Strauss’ followers. But something quickly goes wrong when their GPS reroutes them and then their car dies. It’s pretty clear that sneaky hacker of Strauss’ is behind everything. The man quickly kills the cops and then recruits Duncan to his cause.
Ryan tries to get Joe to reveal who Strauss’ best student is, and Joe’s response is, of course, “You’re looking at him.” Ryan doesn’t miss the opportunity to tell Joe that Strauss thought Carroll was a failure. Joe changes the subject, asking Ryan about his new love, but they’re interrupted by an officer who tells Joe he officially has seven days to live. On the plus side, he gets to choose his mode of execution.
Related: Will The Following season 3 actually kill off Joe Carroll?
Nick Donovan shows up, and although he’s looking better, his missing eye is a reminder of what happened to him not so long ago. He’s there pending Mendez’s disciplinary hearing and to make sure the office is being as transparent as possible considering how much scrutiny it’s under.
Max tries discharging her gun, but she’s still sore from her run-in with Strauss and Daisy. Mike shows up to tell her and Ryan they’re looking for a man named Luis who’s involved with the fake IDs they found with Strauss.
Meanwhile, our mysterious hacker wants Duncan to help him tie up loose ends, saying, “It’s gonna be a very messy day.” Their first target? Luis. Luckily for Luis, he heads out from a poker game just as Duncan and the hacker find his friends and tear them apart.
Ryan and Mike find the scene, and back at the office, Max and the cyber security team realize the breach in their servers came from Manatech Security. Max follows up with another officer despite still being injured, and you just know this isn’t going to end well.
As the hacker and Duncan are about to take a hit on Luis, the hacker gets a call, leaving Duncan to do the dirty work. The mystery man doesn’t depart without a word of warning which Duncan would do well to take seriously. Where is our hacker going? Manatech, of course. Because he’s an employee there. Oh, and one of the other employees calls him Sam. We doubt this is his real name.
One of the lead technicians at Manatech, Peter Collins, tries to tell Max she doesn’t know what she’s talking about looking for a single person as the culprit for hacking the FBI’s servers. But Max has a secret weapon up her sleeve — four years working in digital security. She knows her stuff, and she shuts the Collins down.
The hacker uploads something to Collins’ computer and we assume it’s incriminating evidence. On his way out, he literally bumps into Max, but she doesn’t suspect a thing. And now he knows how injured she really is.
The FBI get an ID on Luis’ girlfriend, and Ryan grabs Mike from a heated argument with Max’s boyfriend before it comes to physical blows. But Duncan made it to Luis’ girlfriend’s apartment first, and murders the woman before knocking out Luis and taking him.
At Manatech, the crew find that last week’s files were corrupted and one employee called in sick the day of Dr. Strauss’ trial. That person was none other than Peter Collins. He’s promptly arrested, but another employee, Kent, comes forward in confidence and admits Collins was with him on the day he called in sick. Collins couldn’t say anything because he has a wife.
Kent helps Max by finding out someone duplicated Collins’ entire system, but before they can track anything down, the system goes out. Kent says it’s normal and heads down to the basement to reboot the system. That’s where Sam is hiding, and he kills Kent by stabbing him in the heart.
The rest of the FBI have tracked down Duncan and Luis to a warehouse, where Duncan is burning all the evidence and is about to end Luis’ life. Before he pulls the trigger, though, Sam asks for one more job from Luis. Will this allow the FBI to stop Duncan in time?
Max finds Kent’s body downstairs, and as soon as she sees it, the lights go out. She calls for backup and whips out her gun, despite her cracked ribs. Sam stalks her in the dark, and right as he nearly stabs her, the cops show up and he escapes, rather than risking detection. Max has no idea how close she was to death.
The FBI converge on the warehouse as Luis is finishing up his final job for the hacker. Luis is quickly handcuffed, but Duncan escapes. After a little game of cat and mouse, Duncan shoots Ryan in the chest. Lucky for him (and the world), Ryan was wearing a vest. He kills Duncan.
Ryan finds the new passports for our mystery man, but it’s not actually him. When he shows the photo to Max, she says it’s Tucker, the man who runs Manatech. Sam shows up at his boss’ house, ready to frame him. When the FBI descend on the home, Tucker is in the wind (or, more likely, Sam made him disappear).
Ryan doesn’t buy it, but Nick orders him to go after Tucker and find him no matter what. That night, Ryan has an unsettling dream about Joe. They’re buddies, drinking and playing pool, and Joe repeatedly tells him he’ll always be there for Ryan. They even hug it out. Ryan wakes up confused and a little horrified. Us too, Ryan. Us too.