Poe and Joe

In this television show, The Following, Ryan Hardy (the at-the-time ex FBI investigator who first captured Joe before he escaped prison) easily devoted his life to figuring out all of Joe's reasons for doing what he's doing. He learned his entire life, he learned everything and everyone that had made contact with Joe in order to try and decipher who's his follower or not. Also, because Ryan spent many years investigating Joe, he can easily determine and use his FBI skills on figuring out the meanings to many of the symbols Joe and his followers are giving at the murder scenes they leave behind. 

In the first episode of The Following, there’s a moment in which FBI investigator Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) stands in the middle of a horrid crime scene, looking at the word nevermore scrawled on the wall in blood. A lightbulb goes on. “The Raven!” Bacon blurts out. “Poe is symbolizing the finality of death!” That pretty much captures the show's approach to Edgar Allan Poe. 

Joe Carroll is a well-known literature professor who creates this cult of random people to initiate Poe-inspired kills. (For example, they cut out victims’ eyes because of “eye motifs” in “The Black Cat” and “The Telltale Heart.”) 

Poe was chosen to be the "go-to" connection for Joe because of his background that we know about. Poe lived a sorrowful life, many tragic events happened to him. Although some of the things Joe tells his students, or says about Poe to justify the reason to kill aren't exactly on point; they still have somewhat of a connection with they gruesome stories that Poe told, and the gruesome executions that were made.