OUTCAST - Ep. 1 - A Darkness Surrounds Him - A TV Review

Spoilers - I'll be discussing spoilers from the pilot episode of Cinemax's new supernatural thriller, 'Outcast' as well as the comic that spawned it. Be warned...spoilers are coming for you...

It's been a few weeks since the pilot episode of AMC's 'Preacher' was released, and it's an interesting comparison to draw between that and this. Not that 'Outcast' has anything to do with 'Preacher', other than they are both sourced from comic books. But while 'Preacher' is about as loose an adaptation as is possible while still holding true to the mythos that spawned it, 'Outcast' is as faithful to the source material as one can get. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that Robert Kirkman, the comic writer (and also creator of "The Walking Dead") wrote the script for this episode and is acting as the showrunner. And so far, he's doing a pretty bang-up job.

Immediately, 'Outcast' sets itself up as a supernatural thriller. A young boy stares hypnotically at a cockroach before crushing it and eating it. Then potato chips. Then the flesh off his fingers. Something untoward is clearly happening. And it has something to do with our main character.

Kyle Barnes (played by 'Almost Famous' teenage star Patrick Fugit) has returned to his childhood home in Rome, WV. He lives in seclusion and squalor, barely eating, and interacting only with his adopted sister, Megan (played by Wrenn Schmidt). Megan forces her way into Kyle's life, despite his vocal pleas to be left alone.

Megan's repeated attempts to drag Kyle out of his self-imposed exile reveal plenty of Kyle's backstory, including his connection to the town reverend, a middle-aged man named Anderson. Flashbacks flesh out more of Kyle's history, including the abuse he endured at the hands of his allegedly possessed mother, and some catastrophic incident which has estranged him from his wife and daughter. And while they serve to tell Kyle's story, they also point out a sinister pattern throughout Kyle's life. The mystery of Kyle's life is what drives not only the first episode, but likely the entire series.

Kirkman does not want you to misunderstand - these people are possessed. There is something evil haunting them. Things happen that are not physically possible otherwise. And Kirkman and co. aren't interested in making you wonder if possession is real. In their world, demons exist, and they have a plan.

Fugit's portrayal of Kyle is spot-on. Not only does he physically look like his comic counterpart, he comes just as tortured by his own guilt. Fugit plays Kyle as a man who isn't at fault for the catastrophes that have followed him all his life, but blames himself nonetheless. And when various townsfolk see fit to treat him like a criminal, his self-loathing is such that he doesn't bother to correct them. Kyle keeps his head down most of the time, apologizes for being...well, anywhere besides home, but when he's confronted by the entity which may or may not have been the one to possess his mother, he morphs into a person almost vengefully violent. And Fugit's quiet delivery of the final line is perfectly ambiguous - "come and get me." Is he wanting to defeat this evil, or is he wanting to be destroyed by it? His depression throughout the episode forces us to consider the latter, even if it may be unlikely.

Like Fugit, Philip Glenister is a physical match for his comic inspiration, Reverend Anderson. He's introduced sitting at a card game that would make you think he's just one of the guys, and maybe even not all that faithful. But when he's pulled out of it and sent to deal with a possessed child, he becomes a man of most devout faith, and ardent desire to rescue the members of his flock. And he's not going to take any of the demon's shit.

Wrenn Schmidt does a solid job as Megan, creating a sister who loves her brother no matter how much of a fuck-up she may think he is. She won't let him be ostracized, and she won't let him wither away to nothing on his own. I wouldn't say she's a sunny optimist, but you can see that she clearly believes in the good inside her brother, even if her husband and young daughter don't.

And there's plenty to love aside from the story and the performances. Visually, Rome, WV comes across as a fairly lower middle class area of the country. Director Adam Wingard and Cinematographer David Tattersall create a cool color palette that makes Rome seem like an ordinary, boring small town. But when it's contrasted by the elongated and discordant notes of Atticus Ross's score (who partnered with Trent Reznor to win an Oscar for scoring 'The Social Network') Rome becomes something haunted and eerie. As if the town itself was complicit in the maleficent goings-on. All around, this is an exceptionally well-constructed TV show.

Good pilots need to really succeed on multiple fronts to draw you in. They need to establish their characters - who they are, and if not what they explicitly want (to get off the island, to be a more emotionally stable mob boss) then to figure out what they need. They need to establish their location in a way that feels unique and vibrant - Deadwood, New Jersey, Albuquerque, Baltimore. And in the case of these  types of serial dramas, they have to establish plot threads that are going to run throughout the series (what is the island? who will survive? will the Strike Team ever get caught?).

'Outcast' succeeds on all fronts. It tells a self-contained story about a group of people who come together to save a possessed boy, but it also creates a larger mythos - why is Kyle the focal point for demonic activity, what do they want, and why do they call him "outcast"? Kirkman's comic is only through it's third major story arc, so the TV series may catch up to it sooner than later. But I'm damn sure going to keep watching AND reading. This one pulled me in immediately.


FINAL SCORE - 9/10

Outcast airs on Cinemax, Friday Nights at 10/9c