REVIEW: HBO’s ‘The Outsider: The Complete First Season’ on Blu-ray and DVD
Photo: The Outsider stars, from left, Derek Cecil, Yul Vazquez, Cynthia Erivo and Ben Mendelsohn. Photo courtesy of HBO / Provided with permission.
One of the bright spots on the TV landscape in 2020 was The Outsider, a horror-filled adaptation of the best-selling Stephen King novel. The HBO series, starring Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Bill Camp, Jason Bateman, Mare Winningham, Paddy Considine and Julianne Nicholson, is a thoughtful, eerie and startling tale of death, mistaken identity (?) and the difficulty of dealing with loss.
The TV series, much like the book, begins with a shocking crime: the mutilated corpse of an 11-year-old boy found in the woods. Ralph Anderson (Mendelsohn) is a local police detective, and he’s on the case right away. It doesn’t take long for all fingers to point to Terry Maitland (Bateman), a high school teacher in town.
But not all is what it seems. After all, this is a King tale.
If Terry did the crime — and he’s easily apprehended in the first episode — then there’s really no reason to continue with a TV series. Yet, why, despite the seemingly incontrovertible evidence against Terry, are there lingering doubts?
The suspicion surrounding Terry is only the beginning of a Pandora’s box that will leave audience members eternally scratching their heads. Thankfully, as the plot continues to stew, the best addition to the story enters the investigation: Erivo’s Holly Gibney, a private investigator who takes a completely different approach to the case of this murdered child. It doesn’t take long for Holly and Ralph to butt heads, but soon enough they realize their investigation is better suited if they team up in order to find out what is going on in the local area and perhaps even the world itself.
Bateman, much like he did on Netflix’s Ozark, directed two of The Outsider’s episodes, and he also serves as executive producer with Mendelsohn. Each segment is cleverly and expertly written by Richard Price.
The acting is uniformly excellent, with extra plaudits for Mendelsohn and Winningham, who portray a married couple at the center of the drama. The lingering pain over their own lost son permeates their every line of dialogue; they still hold the hurt in their hearts, simultaneously evidenced by their sleepless nights, frequent outbursts and bouts of depression.
Erivo, a star of Broadway and film, offers a stunning performance as Holly. Nicholson is also excellent as Terry’s wife, a woman who believes her husband is innocent but doesn’t have the means or evidence to exonerate him.
The Outsider is a solid sordid tale that is dark and creepy. The scares are less gross or jump-out-of-one’s-seat scary and more unsettling and atmospheric. The series is quality television that engages and terrifies, exactly its intention.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Outsider, starring Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Jason Bateman, Julianne Nicholson, Mare Winningham, Paddy Considine and Bill Camp, is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Click here for more information.
