'The Outsider' Episode 7 will see Jack finally open up about his demons, ask Holly 'why did it pick me?'
HBO’s ‘The Outsider’, based on Stephen King’s southern gothic novel, is at a crucial point right now. Episode 6 ended on an ominous note. Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo) and Jack Hoskins (Marc Menchaca) were driving down to the barn where Terry Maitland’s (Jason Bateman’s) clothes were found; the same barn where Jack was attacked by an unknown dark figure.
When Jack bends over to pick up wet wipes, Holly notices the boils on the back of his neck, the same ones she’d seen on Tracey Powell’s (Drez Ryan) neck a day before he died. She wanted to turn back, but Jack would not let her.
Episode 7 of ‘The Outsider’ is titled ‘In the Pines, In the Pines’, and that in itself is a sign of the episode’s grim possibilities. ‘In the Pines’ is a murder ballad from the turn of the twentieth century. One of the most famous versions of the song, of course, is by Kurt Cobain, titled ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me, tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun doesn’t shine and I shiver the whole night through.
In a conversation with Slate last year, Elizabeth DiSavino, a professor of music at Brea College in Kentucky, said: “I think the pines symbolize a wilderness. A place where a person has left to be by themselves to face what they are and what they have done.”
In that context, is Jack’s reckoning coming up? As the season has progressed, we’ve seen Jack being more and more consumed by his inner demons, whether it’s voices or the hallucinations of his dead mother, or seeing signs that command him to stop Holly.
The episode’s official synopsis says, “Holly makes a calculated move to help Jack, while their whereabouts are tracked by Ralph and Alec.”
In the promo for episode 7, we see Holly and Jack driving down the highway, as Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) calls her. When she doesn’t pick up the phone, a worried-sounding Ralph asks her to call him back when she gets the message.
We see Jack ask Holly, “Why me? Why did it pick me?” implying that he and Holly were no longer in the dark about his intentions to “stop her”. Holly tells him, “This thing, it’s drawn to pain.”
We further see Jack doubling down in pain in a wooded area. The entity -- whether it’s the bogeyman, baba yaga, el cuco or whatever -- seems to have gotten a grip over Jack, far stronger than one could have expected.
We see Ralph tell officer Tamika Collins (Hettienne Park) that Jack had “taken” Holly, even as we catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure and a split second of Jack pointing a gun to his own mouth, perhaps trying to find a way to rid himself of the voices and visions, once and for all.
‘The Outsider’ airs on Sundays at 9 pm EST on HBO.