‘Outer Range’ Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Mirror Image

If the fifth episode of Outer Range’s second season fails to deliver the thrills of the fourth, it’s hard to get that upset. That fourth episode, after all, was really freaking thrilling. Its saga of a time-displaced Joy Hawk and her kill-or-be-killed escape from white settlers blended human drama, time-travel genre shenanigans, and riveting action for the show’s best outing yet. Episode five, by contrast, is mostly aftermath. I certainly hoped we’d be off to the races, but it’s not necessarily a bad sign that we’re taking a breather.

Leaving the Tillersons and the Abbott brothers out of things, this ep follows Royal and Joy as they race for medical help to save her life — and stay ahead of her own officers, who are on their trail. It also shows us a day in the life of Autumn and Cece, as they struggle both to understand each other’s beliefs and to act normal around others for even a split second. 

Of the two storylines, the first one’s definitely the winner. It’s remarkable how much more interest in Joy that last episode generated for me; seeing her side by side with Royal cements the idea that these are the two most compelling characters to watch on the show.

The use of real-world sociopolitical tensions to create suspense is smart, too. Writers Douglas Petrie and Randy Redroad utilize the jurisdictional conflict between white and Native police departments as the means by which Royal and Joy escape her deputies, who’d have questions they’re not ready to answer in a mainstream hospital. Joy trusts the one on the local reservation, patrolled by guys who are her relatives and friends. This nearly backfires when they (reasonably) assume Royal abused her and is taking her for help to cover his tracks, but it gives the pair the time they need to compare notes. 

It’s here where Royal gives her his most valuable advice: Talk to someone you love about what the hell you’ve been through, instead of bottling it up for fifty years until it rears its ugly head and devours your entire family, like it did with him and his. Joy’s subsequent phone call to her wife Martha, achingly soundtracked by composers (and pop legends) Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, is the episode’s emotional high point.

There’s less to be said in favor of the Cecilia/Autumn storyline. There are elements here that work well, I think, such as Autumn’s failed quest to make Cecilia see her pastor and congregation as frauds. When Autumn predictably can’t get the pastor to pledge $500K to save Cecilia’s ranch, she turns to Cece and basically says “Case closed.” Cecilia (reasonably) responds that it’s Autumn, not the pastor nor the congregants, who’s dirty rotten filthy stinking rich. Instead of trying to make them look bad, why not pony up the money herself? But when she tries, she finds her family have all changed their numbers. It all says a lot about Autumn’s passion, her self-righteousness, her sheltered life, and her current status as her adopted family’s black sheep.

Cece then takes Autumn with her on a mission of apology to Louis (William Belleau), a Native self-styled shaman with a penchant for bikini-clad spiritual seekers whom she shook down with a shotgun on her search for Rebecca a couple episodes back. Louis pulls a gun on her this time, but he’s moved enough by her sincere apology — “Just because I’m in pain doesn’t mean I can cause other people pain!” — to connect Cece to her long lost daughter-in-law and missing granddaughter. The call goes poorly, though, when Amy calls her grandma out for chasing Rebecca away and lying about it, then hangs up. 

The episode ends with a pair of revelations. Royal finally takes Cece to see the reopened hole, confirming all he’s told her; Autumn takes some minerals given to her by Luke Tillerson and sees herself as young Amy in the mirror, confirming that they’re one and the same. Neither is that much of a game-changer for the viewing audience, though, which is kind of the problem: Real surprises, like the previous episode, remain a bit hard to come by out on the Range.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.