'The Outsider' Episode 5 ending explained: 'Tear Drinker' makes cemeteries its home and Gibney finds out why
Contains spoilers
In this episode titled 'Tear-Drinker', we see that Officer Jack Hoskins (Marc Menchaca) may not be the only one suffering from a grotesque rash at the back of his neck. This episode starts with a shootout revealing another man who has a similar rash. We see this man go to late Heath Hofstadter's home and make his bed as an implied apology. The episode darkly reveals that this man may have been working with 'The Outsider' to kill people and help frame others for a crime.
Apparently, this creature needs someone to help it carry out the murders, and in the case of Hofstadter, a falsely convicted killer, it was this man that we see in the introduction. Hoskins seems to be the next victim to prey on humans under the orders of 'The Outsider' as he is currently losing his sanity.
From what we know of El Coco, the grief-eater or tear-drinker, we can try to understand how this 'outsider' seems to commit crimes of selfishness. It seems to take DNA from a person, match their appearance and commit the crime. They then frame another person for the crime and feed on the grief of the families that were involved in its calculated mess. In order to pull everything off in Flint City, Jack has been caught in the mix to horde supplies and build a resting home for the creature.
'The Outsider' has managed to build quite a reputation for itself and we can possibly get hints to confirm that it is able to transform into someone else. In Episode 3, 'Dark Uncle', Jessa, Terry Maitland's (Jason Bateman) daughter reveals that the man that she's been getting visits from "looked like Daddy, but wasn't" and the second time he looked "a bit" like her father but his face was blurry as though it was being "erased". Her explanation of the man implies that he's looking less like Maitland and more like Hoskins.
In Episode 5, 'Tear Drinker', it seems as though Detective Ralph Anderson's (Ben Mendelsohn) wife Jeannie Anderson (Mare Winningham) is also getting visits from this strange man. This is the second time Ralph has been warned. The first was when Jessa told him to "stop" and that "I think you’re the one who's supposed to be scared". Now, his wife asks him to stay away after she was warned by the stranger that her husband will be killed. Ralph's interest in rationalities refuses to believe this. Jeannie draws a picture of the man she saw and it is eerily similar to that of another sketch of a man that took the van involved in the Maitland's case.
In this episode, this creature aptly goes by the name of being the "tear-drinker" who according to PI Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo) possibly sits nears the graves of his victims to feed off the grief of their families. Where does he do that? The cemetery. When Gibney and Anderson go to Maitland's grave to click pictures, they notice that they are close to the barn where Maitland's clothes were found. So this may not be too much of a theory but more of a possibility.
It seems as though 'The Outsider' wants to continue its rampage and strike people with grief but the minute someone is caught up to his ideas, he warns them to stay away. With Hoskins as his new host and Flint City as the environment, Anderson may be in danger if he doesn't heed to the warnings.
'The Outsider' airs on Sundays at 9 pm EST on HBO.