If the fifth episode of Outer rangeThe second season fails to offer the excitement of the fourth, it’s hard to get that angry. That fourth episode, after all, was really exciting. Its time-displaced saga of Joy Hawk and her kill-or-be-killed escape from white settlers blended human drama, time-travel genre hijinks, and riveting action for the show’s best outing yet. Episode five, on the other hand, is primarily a sequel. I certainly hoped we’d be off to the races, but it’s not necessarily a bad sign that we’re taking a breather.
Leaving the Tillersons and the Abbott brothers on the sidelines, this episode follows Royal and Joy as they race for medical help to save their lives and stay ahead of their own officers, who are following them. It also shows us a day in the life of Autumn and Cece, as they struggle to understand each other’s beliefs and act normally around each other, even if it’s for a split second.
Of the two stories, the first is definitely the winner. It’s notable how much more interest in Joy the last episode generated for me; Seeing her alongside Royal cements the idea that these are the two most attractive characters to watch on the show.
The use of real-world socio-political tensions to create suspense is also clever. Writers Douglas Petrie and Randy Redroad use the jurisdictional conflict between the white and Native police departments as the means by which Royal and Joy escape their deputies, who would have questions they would not be ready to answer in a conventional hospital. Joy trusts the one from the local reserve, patrolled by boys who are her family and friends. This almost backfires when they (reasonably) assume that Royal abused her and is asking her for help to cover her tracks, but it gives the couple the time they need to compare notes.
It’s here that Royal gives his most valuable advice: talk to someone you love about what you’ve been through, instead of bottling it up for fifty years until it rears its ugly head and eats up your entire family, like it did with him and the others. his. Joy’s subsequent phone call to his wife Martha, set to an aching soundtrack by songwriters (and pop legends) Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, is the episode’s emotional high point.
There is less to say in favor of the Cecilia/Autumn story. I think there are elements here that work well, like Autumn’s failed attempt to get Cecilia to see her pastor and her congregation as frauds. When Autumn predictably can’t get the pastor to pledge $500,000 to save Cecilia’s ranch, she turns to Cece and basically says, “Case closed.” Cecilia (reasonably) responds that it is Autumn, not the pastor or the parishioners, who is filthy rotten, filthy rich. Instead of trying to make them look bad, why not put up the money herself? But when she tries, she discovers that her entire family has changed numbers. It all says a lot about Autumn’s passion, her moral superiority, her sheltered life, and her current status as the black sheep of her adoptive family.
Cece then takes Autumn with her on a mission to apologize to Louis (William Belleau), a self-styled native shaman with a penchant for bikini-clad spiritual seekers whom he shook off with a shotgun in his search for Rebecca a couple of episodes ago. Louis pulls a gun on her this time, but her sincere apology moves him enough: “Just because I’m in pain doesn’t mean I can cause pain to other people!” – To connect Cece to her missing daughter-in-law and her missing granddaughter. However, the call goes wrong when Amy berates her grandmother for chasing Rebecca away and lying about it, and then hangs up.
The episode ends with a couple of revelations. Royal finally takes Cece to see the reopened hole, confirming everything she has told him; Autumn takes some minerals given to her by Luke Tillerson and looks like young Amy in the mirror, confirming that they are the same. However, it’s also not a big change for the audience, which is kind of a problem: real surprises, like the previous episode, are still a little hard to find in the Range.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about television forRolling Stone,Vulture,The New York TimesandAnywhere that has it, In fact. He and his family live on Long Island.
