Like the many Stephen King series before this one, they never disappoint. And The Outsider is no different from the rest. This series makes its way into the HBO realm on the premises of the latest police investigation, led by detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn).
The investigation begins in none other than small town Georgia, following the gruesome discovery of a child’s body in the woods. The scene begins with a man walking his dog in the park. They pass the parking lot, seemingly on their way home, when they pass a white van smeared in blood. As the viewer we notice this right away, but the man takes no notice. His dog, on the other hand, senses a trail right away and leads his owner on a chase into the woods. When the man finally catches up to his K-9 friend, he’s standing over the horrifying scene of Frankie Peterson, or at least what’s left of his tiny body..
The show started out on a slower note, which meant that when the body of small Frankie Peterson was shown decapitated and in many bodily pieces, I was strangely fascinated and revolted at the same time. But what’s to expect from a King series, anyway? At the scene, Ralph began talking to the first man to have seen the body, as well as other witnesses from earlier in the day who might have seen the child when he was alive and flourishing only hours before.
Witnesses begin with their first hand accounts about an empty white van parked in a spot near the park as well as a woman, who earlier in the day, had seen Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman), picking up the Peterson boy in the town’s grocery store parking lot. This encounter wasn’t seen as strange at first thought since Terry Maitland was the coach of the boys baseball team and Frankie’s bike chain had been broken. So it seemed Maitland was giving him a friendly ride home. Another eyewitness account, a little girl walking home, who pinpointed Maitland emerging from the woods, covered in blood and quietly getting back into his white van. As for the last eye witness at the end of that day, Maitland was seen at the town’s strip club “Peach Crease”, the name is a whole other conversation in itself. Within the strip club Maitland had gone into the bathroom for a quick exchange with the club’s owner, Claude, and an even quicker clothing change in the bathroom.
With all of these strangely easy and convenient sightings of Terry Maitland happening around town, it seems the suspect isn’t really a suspect at all, but the main culprit. So, detective Ralph Anderson is quite sure of himself when he decides to make the arrest of Terry Maitland at a town baseball game. He wants to make sure this arrest is a big deal since this is such a big scandal within the town. But should it have really been that easy?
Back at the station, Maitland is in complete disbelief when the allegations are presented to him, considering he was apparently out of town the day everything had happened. His wife, Marcy, is also in dismay when the arrest happens out of nowhere and in front of their two daughters, leaving her upset and scared. Although no big scene was created by Terry at the baseball game, he calmly went with the officers back to the station but the crowd was in an uproar.
The moment the parade of police cars roll out of the parking lot, carrying Maitland inside, Marcy picks up her phone to call their lawyer without hesitation. As per usual, their lawyer was furious at the fact that conditional regulations such as questioning and longer investigations weren’t taken before the arrest was made. If they had sat Terry Maitland down before arresting him to get his side of the story, they would have found out that he was out of town, almost over seventy miles away. What makes his alibi even more convincing is the simple fact that not only was he out of town, but he was at a convention for english teachers around the country. Meaning, he was seen by multiple people that day and caught on camera.
Now that Terry has gotten his side of the story out and the police know he couldn’t be in two places at once, Anderson is questioning the entire arrest and investigation. Like I said in the earlier bits of this post, why was this arrest so easy? Anderson is one of the few to quickly realise that something about the actions ‘Terry’ made after the murder were practically made specifically so he could get caught. Why would someone leave such an easily traceable trail if they had just murdered a child?
In the mean time, Terry is being held in prison and Howie, their lawyer, is digging deep into more clues of Terry’s whereabouts on the day of the murder. With a lot of questioning and phone calls, Howie uncovers video footage of Terry Maitland standing up at the english teachers conference asking a question to the board. This evidence means that Terry would have to have been in two places at once if he were to commit the murder on the same day. Right? This doesn’t easily convince investigators, so they do more digging and find out that Terry had touched an extremely expensive book at the conference’s gift shop, which left a solid fingerprint at the scene for Terry Maitland.
Towards the end of the episode we have multiple loopholes, storylines, and bigger questions unfolding to the point of Anderson questioning his own personal choices as to whether or not he made a good decision arresting Maitland. While Maitland waits for his trial, he is threatened by cellmates for being a ‘child-killer’.
At first glance, the show seems to begin as your everyday normal police procedural show, which was a bit less engaging. But when questions of morality, simple bodily physics, and murders arise that’s when the pace picks up and I start to pay attention. King’s novels are usually eerie and dark, which this show captures almost perfectly. I’m hoping the rest of the show keeps the pace up and keeps me on my toes when it comes to predictable turns and scripts.