Inside the Outsider: Episodes 1 & 2
What evil lurks in the heart of Jason Bateman?
Welcome to Inside the Outsider, a discussion about the HBO adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling novel The Outsider with horror aficionado Ryan Bradford. Each week the discussion will alternate between Message from the Underworld and Ryan’s newsletter, AwkwardSD. The Outsider kicked off with a double episode and we’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s get started.
The Outsider opens with the discovery of the body of a young boy who has been brutally murdered in a park in Cherokee City, Georgia. Detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) conducts the investigation, and as the evidence accumulates (fingerprints, eye witness accounts), all signs point to Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) as the perpetrator. What makes the crime so shocking is that Maitland is a well-known and beloved little league coach. In fact, Terry coached Anderson’s son, Derek, whom we learn toward the end of the episode was killed.
Maitland’s lawyer Howie Gold (Bill Camp) sends investigator Alex Pelley (Jeremy Bobb) to nearby Cap City where Maitland insists he was at a teacher’s conference on the day of the murder. Not only does Maitland’s story check out, Pelley turns up indisputable video evidence of Maitland at the conference when he’s recorded during a question and answer session with one of the speakers. The episode, titled “Fish in a Barrel,” ends with the detective befuddled as to how Maitland could be in two places at the same time.
In the following episode, “Roanoke,” the action ramps up considerably. When Maitland is brought to trial, Ollie Peterson (Joshua Whichard), the older brother of the Peterson kid Maitland allegedly murdered, breaks through the barricade and starts blasting away. Anderson takes Ollie out, but one of Peterson’s rounds fatally wounds Maitland, and he dies outside the courthouse professing his innocence.
Anderson is placed on administrative leave, the district attorney Bill Samuels (Michael Esper) decides not to run for reelection, and Fred Peterson, whose two children have been killed and whose wife has subsequently died from a heart attack (i.e. a broken heart), decides to hang himself. With the body count in this sleepy Georgia town running suspiciously high, Anderson begins to realize he made a mistake in arresting Maitland before he had all the facts, none of which add up. Although everyone tells Anderson to let the case die, that’s not something this haunted detective can do.
So, Ryan Bradford, what is your first impression of The Outsider?
RB: Even at two episodes in, HBO's adaptation of The Outsider might be the best King adaptation I've seen simply for the fact that it has smoothed out a lot of the bonkersness of King's written work. The show is bleak as hell, and more realistic than any other adaptation I've seen (although, I haven't seen any of Castle Rock, which seems to be in this vein). It's also classy and restrained—two characteristics not often used to describe King's books. For a story leaking with the supernatural, this world feels frighteningly like ours, unlike the funhouse, high-pitched horror of the IT film adaptations. The acting is great, too. Jason Bateman (who I didn't know also directed these episodes) is fantastic. Since Arrested Development, he's always played the straight-laced, kinda-peeved guy, but I felt real shivers when I saw him exiting the woods, dead-eyed and covered in blood.
JR: I thought Jason Bateman was outstanding as Terry Maitland. And that moment when he steps out of the woods is astonishing. The scene is couched in the witnesses' point of view, but it's unusual to see the alleged perpetrator so early in a detective story. And after two episodes it isa detective story. How do you think it stacks up against other savage murder/killer-at-large stories we've seen?
RB: The first reference that came to my mind is the first season of True Detective, not only because it’s another HBO-produced drama, but it’s also a detective story with supernatural (albeit peripheral) elements. The two shows share the same darkness/bleakness, and the cinematography feels similar. But we spent the entire season of True Detective wondering whodunit, whereas we know (allegedly) who killed the Peterson kid right away in The Outsider. I feel that that makes this a very external story, and by that I mean I don't think we're going to get the cosmic/philosophical introspection that defined True Detective, but rather an exploration of a community and society at large. I can't help but feel it's a very old-fashioned story, like "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" episode of Twilight Zone. I'm trying to think of this series in context with our current political era, and how the concept of outsiders has fueled a lot of regression. That is, Ralph's a great character, but I'm glad that he's not doing the navel gazing Matthew McConaughey was doing in True Detective.
JR: Yeah, as soon as I saw that bleak, wintry drone shot of Cherokee City, I thought of True Detective. It feels like the show is acknowledging that we’ve seen a million episodes of Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Minds, and so on. The Outsiderdoesn’t superimpose titles whenever the scene changes locations and/or moves back in time. It just does it. It trusts the viewer has the tools to follow along.
But I think you're right about the exploration of a community versus the trope of the haunted detective. My favorite scene in Episode 1 takes place at the Peterson's house where the family is cleaning up after a service for their dead son. The mother, Joy Peterson (Clair Bronson) picks up her son's little league baseball bat and demolishes the remnants of the sad buffet. The scene is rendered in semi-slow motion and all we hear is the musical score. It's a powerful and moving tribute to a very specific type of grief that has become all too common during this epidemic of gun violence we find ourselves in.
RB: Oh yeah! Glad you mentioned the music because I love how the episode started out with that music played through Ralph Anderson's iPod (I thought it was cool that Ralph still uses an iPod and not an iPhone to play music) and ended with those discordant almost-alien strings. Of course, the classical song is played during the discovery of Frankie Peterson's mutilated body—a nice cinematic trick of pairing beauty and the grotesque. But I think in this case, it's an interesting way to express that the horrible crime scene is the last normal part of this story, and that from here on out will be increasingly alien, discordant, and unexplainable.
JR: It almost feels as if the show is trying to ease the audience into the unknowable. The closest we get to the supernatural in Episode 1 is when Maitland’s wife Glory Maitland (Julianne Nicholson) wakes her daughter Jessa from a dream and whatever it is that’s haunting her is still there, though only she can see it. Then in Episode 2, after another dream, we see some kind of residue on the floor. Dream or no dream, somethingwas there. This feels like a classic Stephen King move, no?
RB: For sure. Stephen King has a real knack for patiently doling out insanity/chaos. Everything feels logical in a King story. Some readers find it plodding, but I love knowing every little second-thought and nagging superstition that needles its way into the detective's brain. It's important to note that I'm a Stephen King fan first, and an apologist second. I cringe when "literary" people shit on him, because for me, he personifies a workmanlike writer that got better through sheer practice, and in an era when there’s so much focus on natural talent, King's success feels inspirational, everyman, and almost bygone.
That's not to say that he hasn't written clunkers, and the guy still can't seem to nail the landing, but I think that King deserves a lot credit for weirdifying popular fiction like no other author. And his books have, no doubt, gotten weirder as he's aged. Doctor Sleep? Bonkers. Under the Dome? Dayumn. His level of DGAF/throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks is why I love his later stuff. Especially The Outsider.
JR: At first I didn’t want to talk about King’s novel here but we kind of have to, don’t we? It’s astonishing to me that Richard Price’s teleplay compresses the entire first half of the novel into the first two episodes.
RB: Right? I had read half the book by the time those first two episodes premiered, and thought surely I was well enough ahead. But yeah, those episodes really cover the first half the book, which, at 500 pages, is nothing to sneeze at. I wouldn't say that's indicative of King's book being sloggy—because I've been captivated for those pages—but rather of a really good screenwriter. It also doesn't feel like there was a lot omitted for the screen, which is pretty amazing. In fact, they had enough wiggle room to add stuff, especially Terry's scenes in jail and the threats from the other inmates. The show's briskness could also be a testament to the focus of the novel (at least the first half). King loves giving his characters backstories, but we know very little about the characters in the adaptation outside of the murder.
JR: I’m going to have to disagree with you there. While, I really like Richard Price’s vision for the project, and I’m excited to see where he goes with it, I found the first half of King’s novel to be ponderous and slow, and baggy throughout the book. We’ve already gotten more glimpses of that weird hooded figure in two episodes than King gave us in 250 pages. But don’t worry, Ryan, you can be right next week!
Remember, this conversation will continue next week at AwkwardSD. We might even tackle King’s “interesting” take yesterday on diversity and art. Now would be a great time to subscribe.
Programming Notes
Before I get to my Lit Picks, a few things:
I’ll be appearing at The Book Catapult on Thursday, February 6 at 7:30pm for a conversation with J. Malcolm Garcia about his timely new book The Fruit of All My Grief: Lives in the Shadows of the American Dream. I’ll note this event in my Lit Picks next month, but for those of you who like to plan ahead, here you go.
Quiztune: Is anyone going to the San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, next month? I’ll be participating in Literary Death Match on February 14. If you’ve been to this festival in the past or have spent time in the city, I’d love to hear your recommendations.
If you’ve wondered why some Lit Picks don’t have links, it’s because I don’t link to events on Facebook. Facebook is not your friend. I encourage all of my readers to delete Facebook before it gets to the point where it’s just you and your racist uncles. Seriously, delete Facebook.
Lit Picks for January 16-22
Here are my recommendations for some exciting literary events in Southern California.
Thursday January 16 at 11:30am & 7:30pm (SD)
Debut author Crissy Van Meter will be the guest of honor at Warwick’s Author Luncheon at 11:30am, which will be followed by a reading at 7:30pm. Meter will discuss her beguiling new novel,Creatures. Call the Warwick's Book Dept. at
(858) 454-0347 for more details.
PLAN B (LA)
Tom Lutz will discuss his new novel, Born Slippy, at Skylight Books at 7:30pm with the incomparable Steph Cha.
Friday January 17 at 7:30pm (LA)
Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding will discuss their new nonfiction book Switched On Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters at Skylight Books. Sloan and Harding are the co-hosts of Switched on Pop and longtime musical collaborators. Sloan is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Southern California. Harding is Executive Producer of the show and a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter.
Saturday January 18 at 12pm (LA)
Noah Baumbach’s event at Book Soup sold out almost instantly. If you’ve ever been to Book Soup, you know how small the reading area is, but the term “sold out” is a bit of a misnomer here. The event was free and included a free copy of Marriage Story, which Baumbach will sign and discuss. Say what you want about the movie, I think that’s a really cool gesture on the part of both the author and the bookstore.
Sunday January 19 at 2pm (SD)
Novelist Kwei Quartey will launch a new mystery series with The Missing American (An Emma Djan Investigation) at Mysterious Galaxy’s new location at 3555 Rosecrans Street, Suite 107, on the corner of Rosecrans & Midway.
PLAN B (SD)
Come celebrate Verbatim’s Anniversary Sale and save 20% on all used books, which, according to the announcement, “is about 98% of the whole store!” Verbatim is open from 10am to 8pm.
Monday January 20 at 7pm (LA)
Political strategist? satirist? Rick Wilson will discuss his new book with the depressing title Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump—and Democrats from Themselves at Book Soup. I’ve enjoyed many of Wilson’s scathing rebukes of Trump and his administration, and maybe that’s part of the problem. What business do any of us have “enjoying” any part of this national nightmare? I don’t have an answer to that question, but maybe Wilson does.
Tuesday January 21
Chilean author Isabel Allende will celebrate the release of her new novel, A Long Petal of the Seatoday. Allende is coming to USD at the end of the month so plan accordingly.
Wednesday January 22 at 5pm (LA)
Rachel Kushner will join Diane Leslie’s Book Group to discuss her novel The Mars Room at Diesel Books in Brentwood. I’m going to try to make my way to L.A. for this one as The Mars Room was one of my favorite books of 2018. Contact diane@dieselbookstore.com for reservations.
Thanks for reading Message from the Underworld. Good luck this week in the above world. It’s kind of a mess.
