4 out of 5

Created by: Robert Kirkman

Outcast is an odd example of a show that id say is occasionally a challenge to watch – it’s very moody, and very oblique – but uses that construction to work its way down some incredibly interesting avenues.

It also makes it a bit challenging to describe.

Outcast’s main focus is Kyle (Patrick Fugit), who, when we meet him, is living in absolute squalor, his sister dropping by on occasion to try to force food and the most minute traces of civilization on him.  From the outset – after a stunningly creepy cold open on the first episode and then the wonderfully unsettling title sequence has passed – Outcast distances itself from the stylized, slicked-back hair of fellow comic-book-show-of-the-season Preacher: Kyle’s squalor is indeed squalor, and his isolation is not played as cute or desirable.  This is a person disturbed by his past, and as we get obscure glimpses of that past, we’re brought to empathize, as much as we’re able.  Not that Kyle’s doing much to earn that empathy, with his tight-lipped, furrow-browed study of the world around him, and his semi-stalking of his ex-wife, and his brash interactions with the local Reverend (Philip Glenister), who’s taken an odd interest.

I mean, who are we watching?  Just what is going on?

The show reveals its dealings with demons; that Kyle has the power, it seems, to draw them out.  Of course the pastor wants in.  And so I kept waiting for the show to turn into the hunt the demon-of-the-week adventure series I knew had to be around the corner.  …Only… Kyle wants none of that.  And the process is anything but heroic or pretty, Kyle often resorting to violently beating the possessed.  Our Pastor’s motives become questionable.  Possessions are happening left and right and no one is getting involved.  A mysterious, somewhat devilish man (Brent Spiner) moves to town and doesn’t act out any particular TV cliches.  If I may make the comparison to Preacher again, but shows took their time in their first season to even hint at what they may be about; a valuable difference l, though, is that while Preacher filled this gap with attitude (all its characters are badass; its shooting style is “edgy”), Outcast fills it with characters.  They all spiral out from Kyle – friends, detractors, family – but they all have important hands in the game, and get the script and screen time to show it.  Outcast is about denying what we are, or dealing with the implications of accepting our inner beasts; its theme is wound around and stuck through every aspect of the show.  This is why you can keep watching, despite maybe being unable to give an adequate plot rundown; there’s something compelling and unnerving about the world which the show inhabits (certainly nibbling at our own fears and concerns regarding the “face” we present to the public).

It’s still some steps away from being as affecting as its themes suggest.  In part this is due to the long-way-around structure I’m praising, but also the good / evil debate has such varying levels of threat in the show that it takes Kyle having stakes in the game – his wife, his daughter – to make certain moments “matter.”  This, I suspect, will always be something the show has trouble with, but if that’s the sacrifice for keeping the overall narrative on its toes, then absolutely so be it.

(An interesting side-note: according to wiki, Kirkman developed the show before the comic.)