The Outsider Review: Fish In A Barrel (Season 1 Episode 1)

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt becomes a question of belief on The Outsider Season 1 Episode 1, “Fish In A Barrel,” as Detective Ralph Anderson finds himself the lead of an impossible investigation.

When it comes to mysteries, the Richard Price-scripted episode leaves a major head-scratching event at its center: how can what is ostensibly an upstanding member of the community be in two places at once, and be two people, one good and one made in the depths of evil?

It’s the kind of question that can leave one baffled, but Ralph looks to be a capable detective. He’s a curious character, driven by the truth but still one to work in the background. He gets uniforms to pick up Terry rather than do it himself, and he gets Yul Vazquez’s Yunis and Hettienne Park’s Tomika to collect evidence from Terry’s home.

On a typical crime drama, the lead detective is usually present for these moments, as involved as can be. But there’s this disconnection with Ralph, where he is hands-off with the more clinical parts of the job as he settles on the emotional side. There’s a separation of both on The Outsider, which is a fascinating angle to take.

The episode does a remarkable job of building and building, where emotion runs the operation. This is due to the facts never adding up, leaving a mystery that is instantly gripping. But it’s those emotions, the need to close the case and prove one’s point, where The Outsider makes a larger point.

Once the facts are laid out and opinions have formed, Ralph, his team, and the district attorney all have their minds made up: Terry is the killer. To be fair, it’s hard to fault them, as eyes are hard to deceive when the evidence is right there in front of them. But as more comes to light, there’s a resistance to change, a resistance to allowing facts steer them from their already-formed destination.

Emotions will not let the facts change.

There’s even a push from the district attorney to cover up, when he’s annoyed by Ralph’s entering of the gift shop book into evidence. It’s a small peek into their world, where the facts must line up a certain way and if there are pieces that do not work, they are to be ignored. But there’s just too much to ignore here, leaving a moral dilemma to unfold.

This is where The Outsider becomes fascinating, as it’s asking not only us but its characters to trust in an anomaly, to trust in something that can’t be possible.

Terry’s ideal life is slowly being corrupted by the eye witnesses and video surveillance, piece-by-piece, placing doubt on top of that initial frustration. Not only that, the episode manages to switch it back around and cause doubt on the piece-by-piece bricklaying of evidence, causing a split over whether you will believe Terry or the initial evidence presented to us throughout the hour.

Ralph, and by extension Ben Mendelsohn, proves to be the most imposing figure. Mendelsohn plays the part with weathered anger, the loss of his son tearing at him whenever this child dies. It’s bringing back those emotions, and while it’s still up for question whether it’s skewing his perspective on the case, it does provide a way to make the case personal for Ralph, something that he feels deep to his core.

The Outsider appears more interested in Ralph’s frame of reference than Terry, and for that, the episode peppers those hints of heartbreak potentially changing how Ralph views all of these events. He’s reliving his own pain while solving another family’s, and with the conflicting evidence, there’s this sense that Ralph wants to do the right thing, but may be caught between a rock and a hard place.

The episode does itself a service by never lingering on the murder scene and its brutality. There are several small flashes that are certainly gruesome, enough for the mind to decipher the image, but it smartly pulls back before revealing too much of the violence. There are even moments when more can be shown, like when Terry’s lawyer Howie is offered the case file, but again the episode pulls back.

One major loose end, which the camera holds on for quite some time, is the strange hooded figure in the crowd outside Terry’s home. The face is hard to make out, but this mysterious person does appear to be someone older. Perhaps they know something or hold a key to how Terry can be in two places at once; perhaps it’s even the killer, looking over the damage he caused.

The moment of realizing the Terry in the security footage is giving them the middle finger is such a fun little moment, as it’s again calling into question whether it’s Terry knowing he’s safe, or if something else is going on, and this person is toying with Ralph. It’s almost like this person, Terry or otherwise, is enjoying the hunt, knowing they are safe to play with the hunters.

The Peterson family losing not only the youngest son but also the matriarch through a heart attack is such a devastating moment. Loss now runs deep for that family, and it will be interesting to see how losing both a brother and a mother will affect the eldest Peterson son. He is mostly there for his mother throughout the episode, but his severe losses are sure to affect him in some way.

The episode ends with Terry threatened, his life now in the balance with how the arraignment goes. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for The Outsider to take out its main suspect (and a lead character) so soon, as it would complicate and leave open so many pieces that perhaps only Terry could solve. It remains to be seen if the show is willing to go that route, but it could be a fascinating direction.

Because in the end, The Outsider Season 1 Episode 1, “Fish In A Barrel,” has the feeling of frustration in its very bones. Every character finds themselves up against something they cannot comprehend, something that normal life cannot explain. That’s an exciting angle to take a crime drama, as the question of why is as pertinent as the question of how.

Some stray thoughts on the episode:

• The episode is directed by Jason Bateman, whose work on Ozark continues here with muted colors and a darker, more sinister atmosphere. This, combined with the unsettling scores, really helps build something impressive with the show as its intentions slowly creep up on you.
• The Outsider continues the trend of the younger generation noticing things that the parents do not. Here, it’s the youngest Maitland daughter, who is noticing a strange entity in the home that only she can see.

 

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The Outsider airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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