OUTCAST - Ep. 7 - The Damage Done - A TV Review

The pieces are moving into position as we head into the final trio of episodes for season one of 'Outcast'. Let's dive in, yeah?

Spoiler Warning - spoilers for the show and the comic, up in here, up in here.

Really, not much happened in "The Damage Done", and yet it was still a pretty compelling hour of TV. When you have a bunch of people you're actually interested in following, not every single week has to be fighting demons, and shrieking black masses of goo that try to strangle you. And while the subplots of the Reverend, Chief Giles, and Megan and Mark all moved forward, we didn't see much resolution. With the exception of the Allison storyline, this mostly played like an episode that needed to get folks into position for the season's final act. And I'm fine with that, because I like everyone involved (though, I'm bordering on pity for Anderson because that poor sonofabitch is just having a rough go of it lately)

Let's talk about Allison, Kyle, and Amber first, though, because damn...that business was rough. Sad, and poignant, but rough as hell.

Now that they've removed the tension of is-she-or-isn't-she-possessed from Allison's story, we can see that much clearer how badly she's struggling with life in her post-separation world. And before, when we might have been in the dark about how much Amber remembers about what happened, we're not anymore - and neither is Allison. The horror that washes over Kate Lyn Sheil's face when she remembers viciously strangling her own kid is both painful and disturbing (and great work as an actress). Amber remembers everything, and still harbors anger and fear toward her mother, and more importantly, doubt about which mother she's going to get on a day-to-day basis.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I said divorce is so traumatic that the side effects of its aftermath were being presented as similar enough to demonic possession to make a specialist like Kyle sit up and take notice? Well, Amber noticed, too. And as worried and scared as Kyle was, imagine feeling that when you're six years old. And as Allison, Sheil puts all that realization across her face in every scene. Even her love scene with Kyle isn't played as particularly sexy or gratuitous - it's the desperate act of a woman who is horribly sad, alone, and afraid. She knows everything bad that has happened is her fault (though only in the most technical sense of the word, since I'd hardly blame her for her actions under possession, and we don't know how much she knows about that - at this point, she may blame herself 100%), and as obviously painful as it is for her to leave, Allison can't bear the thought of both potentially endangering her child again and...just facing her daughter, knowing that she nearly killed her. It's hard and haunting and ugly, but definitely in keeping with what we've seen of how emotionally fragile Allison has been thus far. This didn't happen in the comics, so I'm hoping that Allison comes back. Both because I want Kyle to be happy, but also because I really dig KLS's performance.

As for the rest of our peeps, both Anderson and Giles seemed to have grown weary of fuckin' around, and they both went right after the bad guys they'd been eyeing. Anderson called Sydney out in public, labeling him The Devil (whether or not Sydney is the devil is still up for debate in both comic and TV show, but I think he definitely could be. and Brent Spiner is definitely giving off a sort of superior malevolence), but mostly looking like a deranged old man in the process. After the crowd sees pentagrams on both the defaced and carved into Anderson's chest, they may think he did both things himself. Even Patricia's douchebag son has to offer some snotty commentary.

Giles, on the other hand, plays it much cooler, and though he confirms Ogden isn't possessed, it raises the original question with even more fervor: what the hell was he doing out there the woods that he'd want to hide so bad, he'd light a fire? If we didn't already mistrust and dislike Ogden before, his whole "yeah, you should have died, too" aside to Kyle was pretty douchey. So I hope Giles gets his ass.

But Ogden IS human (or so we currently believe) and so is the demon haunting Megan and Mark. Once again, Wrenn Schmidt kills it in nearly every one of her scenes, whether pleading with her former rapist to take every cent she has in the world, or angrily admitting the full truth about her past to Mark, she plays it all with gut-wrenching sincerity. And, with Donny being the complete piece of shit he is, of course he'd take the money and still rat out Mark. Donny may not be possessed, but he's evil. And his sort of evil is just as frightening and unpredictable as the demonic kind. Except Kyle can't just lay hands on him to get rid of it, so I have to wonder...how much worse are M&M going to let Donny make their lives before one of them is compelled to drastic action?

So like I said, even though not much happened in the episode, it was still an instance of the stakes being raised considerably, which elevated what could have been a kinda boring episode into a pretty good one.

Only three more to go this season.



FINAL SCORE - 7.5/10

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