The Outsider

HBO’s newest show, The Outsider, fizzles out like an old balloon after only two episodes of solid tension. Thankfully, the episodes are not padded down with jump scares to keep the audience at the edge of their seats, yet it strangely does not offer any alternative scares either. For a horror thriller mini-series, the scariest part was hearing that they might make a second season.

The one thing a TV show should not do is show its winning card in the first half of the season. This show is a mystery story without the mystery—we are given all the information within three episodes, meanwhile the central characters need four more episodes to catch up with us. At the end of the third episode, I said out loud “Oh it’s just the Boogeyman, well that’s not scary at all!” The show goes out of its way to explain the monster as “The Boogeyman.” Even when they have a cooler name the characters automatically relate it to “The Boogeyman,” which immediately releases any tension within the scene. The worst part is that the show creators try to get away with having a guy in a hoodie walk around the background of scenes to be scary. In the first two episodes it works, but then it becomes the only scary moments of every episode and it becomes incredibly repetitive and boring. I was baffled at how non-scary this show was; after 10 hours, I would expect to be at least creeped out by something on screen. I turned off the lights in my room and watched late at night to give it the benefit of the doubt, but in the end I really just wanted to go to bed and forget what I just watched.

HBO keeps its prestige in the high production value of their shows, but somehow, this script slipped through the cracks and landed on their laps rather than being sent to Netflix. It is glaringly cheap compared to the heavy hitters of Game of Thrones, Westworld, Watchmen, and Euphoria. The camerawork gives the façade of an HBO show, but the writing and lack of set pieces are glaringly cheap. What does the antagonist look like? A man in a hoodie. Is he human? Nope, that would have been way scarier. Instead of harrowing scenes hiding around the next corner, we are given long and tiresome speeches about what this thing has done in the past and what it might do in hopefully the next episode. There is nothing satisfying or iconic to grab onto. At one point we are shown that it lives in an abandoned barn. Ok, so let’s set up the barn as a symbol of the thing since the show creators will never really reveal what it looks like. By the next episode, the barn has been forgotten and now all the characters have driven up to Tennessee. What? Why? The writing somehow offers little to digest yet gives no time to breathe on any of it. It wanders around, pretending to connect dots and build up to a cataclysmic event that ends in a gunshot and a rock slide—a disappointing payoff after spending 10 hours of my time.

To give the show credit, the cast is great. Ben Mendelsohn is always a blast to watch, and he has the best arc over the 10 episodes. Cynthia Erivo does a solid job at a purposefully-awkward character, giving small hints at how her mind works with subtle gestures and fidgeting through her scenes. Julianne Nicholson as the wife of the main suspect was fantastic in her small scenes; her character slowly cracks more and more after each episode, and her desperate need to stay in control is the real show-stopper of this series. Every time she was on screen, I started paying attention again to see how she would try to return to a normal life after so much ostracizing from her town and friends. The other actors have their small moments, but in reality many of their characters either pad out the runtime for certain episodes or merely come along the ride just to get killed. One of the episodes is entirely a collection of these supporting characters giving small soliloquies in cars about what they believe, and they all boil down to the realization that they need this moment for their deaths to feel somewhat important when they eventually happen.

Overall, this show is not worth your time. The first two episodes build up a tense and dark atmosphere that I wish it passionately explored. If you want to see the hype the show is getting, watch the first two episodes and then stop watching. Any questions raised are only answered with “It’s The Boogeyman.” There are plenty of thrilling shows on Netflix that are far scarier than this one—even Stranger Things has better horror elements than this Stephen King adaptation. Whatever this show tried to be, it missed the mark and seemed to give up halfway through.

Story Rating: 5/10

Character Rating: 4/10

Entertainment Rating: 3/10