The Quarantine Stream: ‘The Outsider’ Is A Supernatural Stephen King Mystery That Is Best When Binged
By Jacob Hall/May 20, 2020 7:00 am EST
After the fireworks of its first two hours, the series begins to slow down. Rather than let a shocking event propel the plot into overdrive, it instead taps the brakes as everyone affected stands among the ruins and tries to make sense of it all. The Outsider is less of a procedural and more of an exploration of belief. How long does if take for you to believe in something impossible, even when there exists no credible solution whatsoever? Not many cop shows, supernatural or otherwise, allow their cast to wallow in the misery of an unsolved mystery quite like this.
Honestly, the pace change is what threw me off when I first started watching The Outsider week-t0-week when it debuted on HBO earlier this year. Unlike King’s novel, which is a potboiler in the purest form, the adaptation is quiet, more contemplative, and more interested in sordid detail. It makes sweeping changes to the source material, often to allow strange detours that add texture instead of plot development. I stopped watching, not because it was bad, but because each episode taken alone was proving a bit maddening.
And while I still think the 10-episode series could have been cut down to eight episodes in the script phase, there’s no denying that pacing issues become less of an issue when you binge the finished series. The show’s intentional withholding becomes bearable when the next episode is right around the corner and you’re allowed to better appreciate what it does so well, like the moody cinematography where virtually every frame suggests the characters are being watched or Mendelsohn’s astonishing lead performance. When you can settle in for an entire evening session with The Outsider, you can better appreciate its pacing choices and its deliberate use of time and misdirection.
I’m still a big believer in event television, in programs that demand your attention once a week for 60 minutes. But there’s nothing wrong with a show that plays better in a handful of sitting and The Outsider is a show best binged.
