'The Outsider' Episode 2 gets more supernatural with Terry seemingly in 2 places at once and faceless man
The following story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of ‘The Outsider’
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Shakespeare’s celebrated quote from ‘Hamlet’ sets the tone for episode 2 of HBO’s Stephen King adaptation, ‘The Outsider’.
Through prince Hamlet, the great bard attempted to establish that there is a lot more to the world than what is conceivable in the confines of our limited minds. To understand more, one must broaden their horizons.
To see more, one must admit that their philosophies, their ideas are arbitrary and only hinder one’s vision of the grander reality. In the second episode of ‘The Outsider’, quite aptly titled ‘Roanoke’, one -- especially Detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) -- has to dream much bigger than their philosophy to make sense of what is going on.
A little background on what happened so far in the two episodes that premiered together: In the sleepy town of Cherokee Creek, Georgia, a horrible rape-murder takes place. 11-year-old Frankie Peterson’s mauled body is found in the woods.
The main suspect is the little league coach, Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman), who is arrested in broad daylight in front of hundreds. There are several credible witnesses that put Terry and Frankie in the same place near the time of death. But something strange happens.
Terry not only has an alibi but also has video evidence of being in a different city to back his innocence up. But everything goes completely haywire when Terry is being taken to court for his arraignment.
Frankie’s brother Ollie (Joshua Whichard) steps up and shoots Terry -- he manages to injure one and kill two other cops in the process. Ultimately Ralphs shoots and kills Ollie.
It is only after this that both characters in the show and the viewers are forced to dream beyond the limits of their philosophies. Terry’s final words before dying were not to his wife but to Ralph.
Even as he bled on, struggling to breathe, he stuck to his innocence. If that were not enough, there was now ample evidence to suggest that Terry was somehow present at two different places at once -- in Cherokee Creek and out of town for a conference -- on the day, at the time of the murder.
And not just any evidence; DNA evidence, fingerprints, witnesses, video footage and more. How would that have been possible? Ralph who now has two deaths and a possible wrongful accusation on his conscience tries hard to make sense of what was going on.
But further investigation only makes matters more confusing for all. The nondescript white van that was used to take Frankie to the woods for his murder and rape, the van that Terry claimed he had no idea about, seemed to find a small but unignorable connection into the story.
A 12-year-old troubled child from a broken home had driven the van only to dump it in Dayton, Ohio, at the very same time when Terry and his family were there. Not only did the dates coincide for them, but the location also did as well.
But how could have Terry taken the van if he had flown back from Dayton? When Ralph reached out to Terry’s wife Marcy (Julianne Nicholson), who reluctantly agreed to meet with him, he discovered yet another piece of puzzling information.
While it may mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, Terry’s daughter Jessa (Scarlett Blum) volunteered that when at Dayton, Terry had had a small accident. He had managed to get a cut on his hand from a strange encounter with a male nurse in the nursing home where his mentally ill father (who suffers from dementia) was admitted.
There is also the question of the strange, seemingly-faceless man who was present when various deaths (mostly the Pattersons) took place. We saw a hooded figure when Ollie died.
The same hooded figure was present in the vicinity when their father Fred (Frank Deal) attempts to kill himself. This faceless figure may also be the same one that Terry’s younger daughter keeps seeing at night.
It would seem that unlike the first episode, the second episode is steadily more full of Stephen King-esque supernatural (or at least, so far unexplainable) phenomenons. The only thing that remains to be seen in the further episodes is if our protagonist Ralph can follow Hamlet’s words and broaden his horizons to a reality he may be unaware of.
‘The Outsider’ airs Sundays, 9 p.m. EST (8 p.m. CST) on HBO.