The Following season 3 has found an excellent villain in the mysterious hacker played by Michael Ealy. Can he top even Joe Carroll?
First and foremost, let’s clear up a little confusion. For a while now we’ve been calling Dr. Strauss’ best student by a variety of vague monikers — the mystery man, the hacker, the mystery hacker. You get the idea. He’s mysterious and he’s a hacker.
In our The Following season 3, episode 7 recap, we talked about how one of the other employees of Manatech Security called him Sam. However, considering the lengths to which this man has gone to conceal his true identity, we’re fairly certain this isn’t his real name.
Related: The Following season 3, episode 7 recap: Killing with impunity
As further evidence, actor Michael Ealy continues to refer to his character as Theo, which is also the name of his character on IMDb. So, we’re just going to call him Theo.
Theo has proven to be a calculating and brutal serial killer for The Following season 3. In a way, he’s the perfect killer. He’s supremely intelligent, unassuming, and has no particular modus operandi, which means he’s able to commit murders without ever being detected. The only reason he’s running from the FBI now is because Strauss forced him out into the open, and now Theo has to tie up loose ends in order to slip beneath the surface again.
We’ve only seen Theo in a few episodes of The Following, but considering he’s made such an impact on both the other characters and the audience, we have to ask the big question — will he be worse than Joe Carroll ever was?
Joe took up two seasons of The Following‘s storyline. He’s currently in jail, but not necessarily out of the picture. Joe is also intelligent and unassuming, but he certainly had an MO, which he carried out with each murder he performed. However, Joe also had something Theo doesn’t — a following. Joe’s followers were a major part of his operation, and allowed Joe’s reach to travel further and further with every person he brought into the fold.
Related: Will The Following season 3 actually kill off Joe Carroll?
Perhaps Michael Ealy sums it up best in a tweet when discussing this question:
"@SleepyAddicts: #TheFollowing I think @MichaelEaly is going to be worse than Carroll if that's possible" ***different.
— Michael Ealy (@MichaelEaly) April 7, 2015
We’re going to agree with Ealy because Theo and Joe do operate in completely different arenas. Joe’s killing spree was theatrical. He had his followers, his literary references, his Poe masks, and his novel. Theo’s rampage was born out of necessity. It was gruesome, but it was also quick, done alone or in partnership with one other person, and solely for the purpose of allowing him to fly under the FBI’s radar once again.
Theo may seem more dangerous at the moment because he’s operating right in front of our eyes, but let’s not forget how charismatic and cruel Joe Carroll can be. We wouldn’t want to meet either one of them in a dark alley. Or in a classroom. Or at our job. Or in our own home.
Or anywhere, for that matter.