'The Following' Shocker: Can the Show Survive Without ?

Warning: Spoiler from the April 27 episode of The Following abound!

“Quoth the raven: ‘Nevermore.’” Quoth Breanne: Good riddance.

Admittedly, that’s a little harsh, but the truth is, The Following has gone from a really fun (albeit depraved) cat and mouse chase between Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) and Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) to a show about a far more depraved bromance, so Joe’s death by lethal injection felt like a necessary means to the end. And, by the end, we mean series finale. His Edgar Allen Poe-inspired last words drives that home even further.

While decisions have been made yet as to the future of The Following, the death of the show’s big bad Monday night begs the question: Can it survive without Joe Carroll? And, more importantly, should it?

We know Carroll is gone, but not forgotten — he’ll be appearing in flashbacks and hallucinations throughout the rest of this third season — and Hardy already has a big task in front of him in nailing creepy killer Theo Noble (Michael Ealy), but I’m not so sure there’s a show worth watching without the Carroll-Hardy dynamic in the flesh. In other words, I agree with Joe: Their relationship is the most important one in Ryan’s life.

Related: Michael Ealy’s Big Bad on ‘The Following’ Is No Clown

Since The Following’s origins, it’s always been about the two strikingly similar men sitting on different sides of the same bloody coin. No offense to Shawn Ashmore and Jessica Stroup, but pretty much every other character in the series has been little more than set dressings since the first season. And, frankly, when the series dropped its heavy Poe references (as was called back in Monday’s episode for the first time in AGES), the show’s mysterious appeal nosedived. Do people even remember that Joe was an aspiring writer?

And, so, consider this my plea… to put Ryan Hardy and, thus, The Following, (as well as my DVR) out of its misery. Make this season finale a series finale.