The Outsider Season 1 Episode 9 Review: Tigers and Bears
Paul Dailly
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Seale is the worst.
On The Outsider Season 1 Episode 9, the heroes enacted a plan to locate El Cuco and take it down. Given the severity of the situation at hand, you would think Seale would have kept quiet about the plan to his brother.
Just when it seemed like things were going in the right direction, he had to screw the whole operation by opening his mouth.
His incessant need to save his brother was a natural instinct, especially given that they've both lived a life in which they've never trusted the law.
It was understandably a shock to the system to have all of these law officials fighting their corner, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the story Seale fed everyone about the kids in the cave was riddled with falsehoods.
He could have said anything, and everyone would have believed it. By the time the story about the boys became meaningful, everyone else was grasping at straws to figure out how to take down El Cuco.
El Cuco and Jack biding their time at the cave was just par for the course. There's more to this whole thing than meets the eye, and something is telling me Seale and Claude know more about this than they're leading us to believe.
Ralph: Is there anything more that you can tell us about this man?
Man: Weird eyes.
That being said, the flashbacks helped set the tone for what was to come. The kids running into the cave through another entrance was scary, but everyone getting trapped when it caved in was bananas.
Technology has improved significantly, so if emergency services tried to help in this day and age, they would have had a much higher shot at success.
Assuming anyone makes it into the cave in the current timeline, they stand a better shot at surviving if it caves in. But with El Cuco floating around, there's no telling who might survive.
After the shots rang out during the final scene, it's obvious The Outsider Season 1 Episode 10 -- the series finale -- is going to pick up with multiple characters dead.
Andy: He's hungry.
Ralph: And now hungrier still.
Of the deceased, Alec is a slam dunk given that Jack went straight for the head, but there were several more shots after the screen cut to black. It was a typical cliffhanger to get people excited for the finale.
Andy is another likely contender to be dead. He tried several times to get through to Holly throughout "Tigers and Bears," but she was too consumed in the case to take much notice. Yes, they shared a tender moment in the car.
Holly's curiosity about the case at hand has been one of the highlights of The Outsider Season 1. Her conclusions have been difficult for the others to understand, but she is consistently proven right.
She thinks about things more analytically than the others, and while that doesn't make her their favorite person, they can't deny that she's right.
Ralph has been so against agreeing with her since she first arrived on the scene, but now he's getting the proof he never thought he would have, his stance on the matter has changed.
It's a breath of fresh air that he's coming to terms with something unexplained being the cause of the murder that changed his small-town community forever. I appreciated the way he was told to deal with it one chunk at a time.
This is stuff you would never hear of on the news because there is generally a trail which leads directly to the killer -- the human killer. The weight of Stephen King's source material continues to shine through this series.
But that's not to say the episode was perfect -- far from it. The beauty of a slow burn series is when the storylines start to pay off, and the slow path to answers feels worthwhile.
Over the last few episodes, the pace has stalled to the point that it feels like we're watching endless scenes of people talking. Now, that would be all fine and dandy if we were getting much-deserved payoff.
Do you people know anything about stopping this thing? Because it's going to come for my brother next.
Seale
But it feels like we're getting exposition-heavy conversations. On TV, it's always best for the characters to say what they want to say through actions as opposed to dialog. It's more powerful and more appealing for viewers.
The Outsider Season 1 Episode 8 and The Outsider Season 1 Episode 9 should have been merged, and the needless exposition should have been left on the cutting room floor.
In order to rule The Outsider Season 1 a success or a failure, it will hinge on the execution of the finale. We need a worthwhile conclusion so that these character arcs are brought to an endpoint.
There have been rumblings that a second season could materialize, but HBO have yet to comment on that. So, for now, the next episode is the series finale.
What did you think of the way Seale told Claude the truth? Do you think Seale was leaving things out of the tall tale he spun for everyone?
Who do you think is dead?
Hit the comments below with your thoughts.
The Outsider airs Sundays at 9 pm on HBO.
Paul Dailly was an Associate Editor for TV Fanatic.Follow him on X.
