Outer Range Review: The Void / The Land (Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2)
If you’re confused, have no idea what’s happening on the Abbott Ranch, and are wondering if murder is kind of okay now, I have good news for you: you’re not alone.
On Outer Range Season 1 Episode 1, “The Void,” we meet the Abbott family and the Tillerson family, a regular Hatfield-and-McCoy situation, on their neighboring ranches in Wyoming.
It’s a hard life out there for an independent rancher, so one might expect the typical troubles: land battles, missing cattle, a little bit of murder, a giant gaping hole that leads to an alternate dimension…
You know, the usual.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we’re all supposed to be confused. After all, if we’ve got questions, we’re going to keep watching until we get our answers, right?
I, for one, have plenty of questions. Why is Wayne Tillerson in bed with all that machinery, but not apparently hooked up to any of it? Why does Billy Tillerson sing constantly, sometimes in his underwear as he stares into the mirror?
Why did Billy and Luke Tillerson just assume so quickly that Royal and Rhett Abbott killed their brother? Why was the Abbott family so good at covering up that murder?
But perhaps my most important question is this: How much of what we’re seeing can we really believe?
“The Void” brings us its namesake, the apparent focal point of the show. There’s a pretty big void, a hole, smack dab in the middle of the Abbott Ranch, and no one’s entirely sure what it is. Royal Abbott sticks his arm into it and apparently gets a glimpse into the future, but later when he’s pushed into the void, he wakes up again back on solid ground.
Royal also chooses to dump the body of Trevor Tillerson, killed by Perry Abbott, into the void. Trevor’s body seems to stay in the hole, so whatever happened with Trevor isn’t the same as what’s happened with Royal.
Maybe the void has rules.
We move onto Outer Range Season 1 Episode 2, “The Land,” in hopes of finding some of these answers. But however confused we are by the first episode, we’re only doubling down on that now.
Royal doesn’t seem to be giving much time or thought to what happened when he got shoved in the void, so we might just assume he doesn’t know any more than we do.
Except that we see this isn’t true. When Autumn pushes Royal into the void, we see what happens to him now. He falls into what might be an alternate timeline, or a glimpse into the future, or something else entirely.
Inside the void, Royal’s wife explains that he died in her arms two years before. There are armed militants all around. Everyone is dressed in yellow. And then his wife tells him to run, and he does. Right into the void, which seems to send him back to reality.
Even after seeing it with my own eyes, I still don’t know what happened.
The thing is, though, that I don’t really need to know. What’s working well so far in this series is the theme of reality versus fiction and how we can’t always be sure which is which.
For example, the six hundred acres that the Tillersons say rightly belong to them even though they’re on the Abbott’s land is nothing more than a legal technicality. It turns out that the land doesn’t legally belong to the Tillersons, but because the original maps were drawn by hand, human error and indistinguishable ink lines make it appear to belong to the Tillersons.
Maybe it’s a stretch, but this land squabble seems to me to be a metaphor for the entire plot. We might be asking ourselves if what we’re seeing is the truth, or if it’s something that’s been marred by human error or our own assumptions.
Did Perry’s wife abandon him and their child as Trevor Tillerson says? Or was she abducted or killed as Perry seems to believe? Is there some reality where both are true? Or neither?
Autumn is just passing through, but is she really? Or does she have a purpose and agenda like everyone else appears to have? Why is she asking Royal about selling his land when there’s no evidence she has a good reason to buy it?
It’s pretty clear we aren’t going to know the answers any time soon.
In the meantime, though, what we’re getting from Outer Range is a mystery-thriller-SciFi-supernateral crime drama.
We’re getting a cast where each actor is taking their given role to heart and fighting for their character to be understood. We’re getting something that’s unlike anything we’ve had on TV recently. And while it may not be everyone’s cup of clamato, it’s worth the ride to see where it’s going.
What did you think of these episodes of Outer Range? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Outer Range airs Fridays in two-episode increments on Prime Video.
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