Ben Watches Television : The Outsider - "Fish in a Barrel"/"Roanoke"
* This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes. *
This Sunday, HBO aired the first two episodes of their new miniseries The Outsider, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.
Interestingly enough, Richard Price was chosen to spearhead the project. The same Richard Price who wrote seminal crime novel Clockers and who’s been involved with interesting HBO projects for over fifteen years. Given that HBO’s been pretty successful with gritty crime thrillers over the last couple years, I was excited to learn they were adapting one which incorporated horror elements. I have no idea who’s taking creative decisions over there, but that person clearly enjoys stepping out of her comfort zone for our collective enjoyment.
If you’re not familiar with the novel and don’t feel like reading my review, here’s what it’s about: Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) is arrested by local authorities for the vicious murder of 11 year-old Frankie Peterson (Duncan E. Clarke) *. Witnesses have seen him covered in blood nearby. His prints are all over the crime scene. It’s a slam dunk, open-and-shut case, right? That’s what arresting officer Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) thought. Only problem is that Maitland was in a different city when Frankie was killed and has the hard evidence to prove it.
Dead Trees and yellow grass
So, does The Outsider live up to Stephen King’s novel? Yes and no.
Visually, the show plays it safe. It has a strong contemporary southern Gothic vibe, like True Detective and Sharp Objects. Two successful HBO series that came before. Dead trees, yellow grass and vacant lots symbolize the metaphorical death of the city after the horrendous death of Frankie Peterson. It’s an old trick that’s used quite energetically in The Outsider, but an old trick nonetheless. It look so much like an HBO show that it almost feels like a parody. The colors are muted, desaturated and drowned in shades of brown and grey. You’ve seen it all before.
The Outsider doesn’t have much of a visual identity, but it goes hard at its southern Gothic themes and symbols anyway. There’s a fun scene in episode two after the court fiasco where Ralph is drinking whiskey in front of the fireplace, trying to forget he just killed a man. He’s really trying to rekindle the fire within, even putting his hand into to it at some point. Fire has these borderline magical, cleansing priorities in southern Gothic and it enables Ralph to try to do right by Marcy Maitland (Julianne Nicholson). It’s fun and brought up more cleverly than in the novel.
At least three directors are involved in The Outsider and it might explain why it has such a boilerplate visual identity. The two episodes that aired on Sunday were directed by Jason Batman and God bless him for being a terrific Terry Maitland, he’s not exactly a proven stylist behind the camera. Not all the director names have been revealed, but Karyn Kusama is directing episode six. Her movie The Invitation showed the kind of flair and bravado that would help The Outsider develop its own thing. If Cary Fukunaga would get involved, he could also help out.
American Boogeyman
What The Outsider does very well is exploring boogeyman themes. Historically, the boogeyman is a creature that punishes kids for their bad behavior and scares the others straight. He has no particular appearance and its myth varies in every culture. The show does a really good job at toeing the extremely thin line between the metaphorical and the supernatural interpretations of the concept. Fish in a Barrel and Roanoke are not outwardly supernatural, but offers tantalizing glances into the unknown and the inexplicable.
At first, Terry Maitland is perceived to be the embodiment of the boogeyman. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. The adult you shouldn’t have trusted, but did anyway. That’s why casting Jason Bateman was so smart. He looks harmless. He’s rail thin and has that trustworthy accountant vibe to him. But early into Roanoke, Maitland become utterly terrifying without doing anything because of conflicting video evidence putting him in two cities at once. Director Bateman illustrates thing inherent, but growing feeling of terror almost entirely through video surveillance footage.
A pretty damn smart decision, because grainy black and white footage is both hard evidence and not. Ralph Anderson sees Terry Maitland in two places at once, but can’t reconcile the conflicting information in his mind and starts rationalizing by telling himself that one of these men isn’t Maitland. That it is a case of mistaken identity albeit witnesses swear it was Maitland in both cases. The great thing about Fish in a Barrel and Roanoke is that is conveys a sense that reality is slowly slipping away. That the metaphorical boogeyman is becoming a real one.
And that’s genuinely scary.
The jury is still out on The Outsider. The first two episodes were promising, yet lacked a little bit of its own identity. I’ll be reviewing the show episode by episode, so keep coming back for my thoughts next week.
* By the way, you see his mangled body in episode one. It’s not a nice sight. You have been warned.
