Monday, July 18, 2016

Outcast, Season 1, Episode 6: From the Shadows It Watches



Plot line #1 we have Kyle beginning to put his life back together after he dramatically left Anderson last week, chewing him out for his beliefs and not really doing any good

Kyle now has a job and is sending money to Allison and generally looking to be on the up and up. His sister Megan is certainly happy about this. She’s also dispensing the excellent wisdom she normally does when Allison sends that money back: commenting that she gets that he’s showing he’s responsible and capable but the world doesn’t run on his time line

This is an excellent line and scene. Just because you’re doing something or trying to make amends/rebuild something doesn’t mean everyone else has to co-operate with you and let you play that out the way you want it to.

Unfortunately the demons aren’t letting that happen, old demon Mildred tries to knock Kyle out and suck his magical breath for him. She mentions, cryptically, that he’s meant for everyone – so at some point everyone is going to be sucking on Kyle. Lucky for him, Ominous Man Sidney intervenes and Mildred ends up dead.

Still this drags Kyle back into Anderson’s little campaign

And Anderson is having a major crisis of... conscience? Competence? He looks through his gazillion of home videos of exorcisms he’s performed (and can there be any more proof of how much this is all about his ego than the fact he has kept fanvids?) and seeing no real proof of the fact he’s actually achieving anything. This news definitely annoys Chief Giles who has been covering up for him in the belief he was actually achieving anything…


Anderson gets more and more outraged and pouty as he begs god in a very demanding and self-absorbed way to give him shiny exorcism powers which he doesn’t have. His ego screams out as he tries to use his own blood to perform an exorcism (to try and prove he’s as special as Kyle – who doesn’t even use blood any more) and he kidnaps a possessed person to prove her an de-possess them. And yells at Kyle who arrives (summoned by Patricia – more on her lately) to do the exorcism for him. Because Kyle actually has powers, unlike Anderson.

For some reason, Ominous Sidney also feels the need to threaten Anderson so he and Kyle will stop their exorcisms (well Kyle anyway. It’s not like Anderson is actually achieving anything). Sidney carves a pentacle into Anderson’s chest to warn him off from his ineffective campaign of uselessness

To rub salt in the wound, the de-possessed guy won’t even feed Anderson’s ego in church because he didn’t find possession to be all that fearful or bad: which conflicts with Anderson’s whole fire and brimstone rhetoric.

Oh and we have Patricia who still wants to play house (or something similar) with Anderson but apparently has a terrible taste in men – so revealed by her son who slut shames and attacks her horrendously meaning just about every man in her life is terrible including blood relatives. She insists on championing Anderson to Kyle despite Kyle continuing to think Anderson is pretty useless. In the end Kyle will work with Anderson – but he insists, adamantly, that he be in charge now. Not Anderson.


Side plots – Mark Halter is continuing to investigate the serial killer trailer with Ogden getting more and more nervous about some kind of guilty secret. Mark is also in trouble with Alison, his wife (and awesome purveyor of wisdom) who is now being blackmailed by rapist Donnie who Mark decided to beat into brain damage. She is justly furious about this.