TV Review – Outer Range Season Two

Outer Range Season Two (2024)
Written by Cameron Litvack, Glenise Mullins, Dagny Atencio Looper, Jenna Westover, Doug Petrie, Marilyn Thomas, Aïda Mashaka Croal, and Randy Redroad
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Deborah Kampmeier, Blackhorse Lowe, Josh Brolin, and Catriona McKenzie

Outer Range was one of my most pleasant streaming TV surprises in 2022. This Amazon series was different from what I expected after seeing the promotional images of Josh Brolin in a cowboy hat standing in a field. My assumption was that this was some Yellowstone copycat. I could not have been more wrong. Instead, I found a complex and bizarre show about a man displaced in time & space and the odd ripples that seemed to have in his personal life and community. The end of season one dropped a significant twist (which I may have to talk about in this review, so beware if spoilers are a thing for you) that excited me to see where the show went next. Then news of strife behind the scenes came out, and I wondered if we would ever see season two. We have now, but not without dramatic changes, which have altered the original tone.

Outer Range was initially conceived by playwright Brian Watkins, his first foray into television. Josh Brolin is also an executive producer on the show and expressed frustration with Watkins’s penchant for writing additions to the script at the last minute, saying that production had many delays due to inexperience. It seems Watkins agreed, and both sides claim he parted ways with the show on amicable terms. The new showrunner, Charles Murray, previously worked on Netflix’s Luke Cage, Criminal Minds, Sons of Anarchy, and other programs, so he has a television background. While Outer Range season two felt more cohesive, I think it lost some of the weird aimless magic of the first season, which lured me in the first place.

What I enjoyed about season one was the unexpected and often bizarre behavior of its characters. I never found these unrealistic but as signs that some force of nature was affecting people. At the center of this is the strange disappearing/reappearing hole in Royal Abbot’s west pasture, the same portal he emerged from as a boy decades ago. Several other characters discovered it at the end of the first season. Royal’s eldest son Perry (Tom Pelphrey) leaped into it when it became clear he was going to be found guilty of murder. 

Perry’s absence creates major problems as Royal and his wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor) put the land up as collateral for Perry’s bond. Now, their land is going to be taken. Neighbor Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) is quite pleased with that and plans to scoop up the property as soon as the judge decides. Meanwhile, Perry meets a younger Royal before Perry was born and sees that his father and mother were not always deeply in love. Perry’s season-long displacement coincides with Pelphrey’s increase in demand on other projects, so we begin to see how delays between seasons can significantly affect the direction of plots. Pelphrey doesn’t appear in the same shot with any of his season one co-stars until the end of these episodes. 

The greatest crime of season two is sidelining Will Patton’s Tillerson and making him somewhat normal until the last couple of episodes. Now, “normal” in Outer Range is a relative term compared to other media, but Tillerson was definitely a much bigger weirdo in season one. Noah Reid’s Billy Tillerson, the younger of two sons, was left for dead after a bison stampede last season but survived. His throat is punctured, so we don’t get any of his bursts into song, though there is a dream montage that is short but memorable. And it’s Luke (Shaun Sipps), the other Tillerson boy, who gets more of the spotlight and steals Billy’s girl as he hurtles toward a future fraught with peril.

Tamara Podemski’s Deputy Sheriff Joy gets a far bigger spotlight in the second season. She’s gone through her own strange odyssey that intertwines her and Royal’s past, present, and future in ways the show will still need to unpack. In this way, she becomes a welcome confidant to our protagonist. They both know something about the world that few others do, which marks them. The end of season two has a drop of that season one weirdness regarding Joy with her witnessing an omen open to interpretation. 

The standout from season one and again in season two is Imogen Poots as the enigmatic Autumn. The shocking season one ending reveal had me hyped to see where the show went with this outsider next. From a plot perspective, I didn’t see anything that followed an unexpected path. Royal witnessed a moment from the near future last season that clearly points to where Autumn will end up. Season two is laying the pieces to get her there. It’s Poots’s often aggressive, unhinged performance that keeps me so fascinated with her. Autumn is clearly the most dangerous character in the story, and I don’t think she fully comprehends that. We see how far she is willing to go to make her future a reality, but there are some questions if she is proactively making it happen or if some external entity is guiding her hand. I tend to believe more in the latter.

Overall, Outer Range season two didn’t surprise me as much as the first. I still have vivid images from season one front and center in my brain. There was a sense of slow, bleak, corruptive horror in our first batch of these episodes, while season two feels a bit more traditional science fiction. It’s like an excellent show you might come across on SyFy. A moment in the season finale made my jaw drop as it seemed to defy the rules of time travel set out in popular media. It’s not an error, but it is purposeful and opens the show to even more questions about the time hole and where it sends people. I’m still hoping for a third season because this is still a great show; I’m just wondering where the original showrunner would have taken things had he been left in charge.