Ben Watches Television : The Outsider - "Must/Can't"
* This review contains spoilers *
In the finale of The Outsider, the investigation team finally makes it to Bear Cave, where El Cuco is hiding. Literally half of them get taken out by Jack Hoskins (Marc Mencacha) before even getting in, but it doesn’t matter because Holly (Cynthia Erivo), Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) and Claude (Paddy Considine) manage to outlive Jack and break in. That’s about all there is to it, but Must/Can’t manages to deliver one of the most meaningful moments in the series anyway. Because that show was just meant to be frustrating. Even when it isn’t dumb.
*
Evil has a small dick.
Television can either be entertaining or interesting. Either crazy shit happens or unusual, thought-provoking ideas are explored. A great show does both, but The Outsider is not a great show. It is merely competent at the finish line. I didn’t think it would pull it off after putting us through three milquetoast episodes leading up to the finale, but it did. The Outsider got over the line by claiming loudly and boldly that evil has a small dick. It was almost too little, too late, but the sheer force and originality of that statement in a horror context made it work.
Evil is usually a formidable foe to defeat in horror. A primordial, cosmic force that you can temporarily tame, but never destroy. Evil creatures are always badass. But not in The Outsider. The finale Must/Can’t reveals that if El Cuco was hiding all along, it’s because he was fucking weak and that a confrontation with Ralph and Holly was a tangible threat to him. That’s why he took refuge in an old, crumbling cave that threatens to collapse every time someone is being loud.. It was a way to neutralize any armed attack against him. He was not in an advantageous position.
I would’ve loved to hate Must/Can’t, but that undercooked final confrontation was too much fun to ignore. It was tinged with a hint of realism that made it completely original. Evil is not a superpower. People who do evil shit in real life aren’t driven by some primordial force, but merely looking for easy victims to satisfy their lowest urges on. Stripping El Cuco (or the boogeyman, whatever) of his supernatural mystique explained by he was so scarcely seen in the series and how he used people’s fear of the unknown to survive.
Of course, it didn’t NEED to be a big reveal. The Outsider would’ve been much cooler if evil-as-a-weakness would’ve been a theme hammered on in each episode. It’s a mere forty minutes at the end of many, many frustrating hours where you watch way too much of Ben Mendelsohn sighing and rolling his eyes. The finale itself was uneven at best. There’s a dialogue between Ralph and Holly at the end that made me howl. Ralph is like: “what else is out there?” and Holly just smiles and leaves like they were Mulder and Scully in the X-Files. What the fuck was that?
Do I recommend watching The Outsider? Eh. I guess, but for the love of everything beautiful: BINGE IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN. It’s a show that has too many episodes for its own good and that culminates at very specific moments and it doesn’t make sense until you get there. It could’ve been 6 episodes-long or comfortably cut down to 8. It’s a show you can watch while folding laundry or doing school work without skipping a beat because of its pompous length. But it gets a passing grade anyway because of its bigger picture statement. I love a show that makes sense.
6.1/10
