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"After last week&amp;#039;s bizarro twist, The Following&amp;#039;s loved-up serial killer threesome Paul (Adan Canton), Jacob (Nico Tortorella) and Emma (Valorie Curry) are sharing not only a common goal, but also a bed. Distracted by the intricacies of their strange Three&amp;#039;s Company set-up, the evil trio remain oblivious as young captive Joey (Kyle Catlett) reaches his mother Claire (Natalie Zea) by phone. The boy provides the FBI with the lead they badly needed, given that our moody hero Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) isn&amp;#039;t actually any closer to tracking Joey down than he was five weeks ago\u2026  Emma is forging ahead with her perverse quest to corrupt Joey - ignoring Paul&amp;#039;s advice to give the boy &amp;quot;a-smackin&amp;quot; - while Paul himself continues to torture poor kidnap victim Meghan (Li Jun Li), who&amp;#039;ll only remain alive for as long as it takes Warren to step it up and strike her down. &amp;#039;The Siege&amp;#039; sees things start to go badly wrong for the murderous triad. Warren is struggling with both his sexuality and his murderous urges, and his &amp;#039;impotency&amp;#039; shows no signs of abating - the closest he comes to violence is beating himself up. Joey meanwhile is able to make good his escape, dashing off into the woods... But any flickers of intelligence on Joey&amp;#039;s part soon dim - having found refuge with a kindly old couple, he then *willingly* returns to serial killer central with Emma. It&amp;#039;s never made entirely clear what motivates his change of heart and it feels like sloppy writing - one moment he&amp;#039;s terrified, the next, he&amp;#039;s walking hand-in-hand with Emma like nothing&amp;#039;s wrong\u2026  Luckily for the good guys, another break comes their way when Paul&amp;#039;s image is captured by a convenience store camera and the footage - coupled with Joey&amp;#039;s near-escape - points Hardy and his team towards their quarry. Agent Debra Parker (Annie Parisse) is supposed to be acting as &amp;#039;babysitter&amp;#039; to Ryan Hardy - but if she were a real babysitter, she&amp;#039;d be feeding her wards ice-cream and letting them play video games, since she&amp;#039;s hardly strict on Bacon&amp;#039;s sour-faced agent, deputising and arming him despite his much-vaunted maverick tendencies. Not that I&amp;#039;m complaining - getting mismatched pair Hardy and Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore) back on the streets and back in the action is definitely a good thing. Let&amp;#039;s just hope that Weston isn&amp;#039;t a Carroll plant as some have speculated - he&amp;#039;s one of this show&amp;#039;s more sympathetic characters right now.  Weston *is* rather conveniently occupied when Hardy launches an assault on the evil trio&amp;#039;s house of horrors, meaning that our protagonist&amp;#039;s only back-up is yet another faceless cop who couldn&amp;#039;t be more clearly marked for death if he was wearing a red shirt. With the FBI&amp;#039;s bungling at an all-time high, the evil trio escape justice yet again, and the bureau&amp;#039;s about to hit another snag with Joe Carroll lawyering up, securing the dubious services of his appeal attorney Olivia Warren (Renee Elise Goldsberry). A quick visit from one of his creepy disciples and Joe&amp;#039;s able to manipulate Olivia into serving as his puppet - James Purefoy&amp;#039;s villain, though less visible than usual, is back on top in &amp;#039;The Siege&amp;#039; after a minor wobble in the past few episodes. As we draw to a close, his son and wife remain trapped in his web and now Ryan has stumbled into danger too...  &amp;#039;The Siege&amp;#039; is one of The Following&amp;#039;s stronger episodes - with Ryan disrupting the evil trio&amp;#039;s homemaking, there&amp;#039;s enough of a shake-up to keep things interesting. The show is improving - slowly but surely - and while at its worst it still resembles a watered-down 24 / Criminal Minds hybrid, at its best The Following can be genuinely compelling.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-following/review/a460032/the-following-episode-5-review-at-its-best-genuinely-compelling/>