Almost every Stephen King novel (or novella) is a page-turner. The author has experimented with varying styles over the years: sometimes, horror has taken a backseat, operating like an ominous shadow lurking amid the pages, and at other times, his stories have felt akin to peering into the abyss. Then there are works centered on crime, notably the Bill Hodges trilogy, which includes the brilliant, engrossing “Finders Keepers.” And then there are masterful entries that defy neat genres, like “Revival.” When it comes to King’s “The Outsider,” the basic beats of the grisly tale already feel like a compelling crime saga with the author’s signature flourishes. Once the police stumble upon the heavily mutilated corpse of young Frankie Peterson in Flint City, Oklahoma, it prompts the arrest of baseball youth coach Terry Maitland — publicly known as an easygoing family man — whom the town turns against overnight.
What makes “The Outsider” engrossing from an authorial perspective is the inclusion of official police transcripts that present contrarian evidence, placing us in the shoes of the investigators who are bamboozled by the intrusion of the elusive supernatural. When an adaptation of this crime novel premiered on HBO in 2020, the miniseries boasted a cast with stellar performances from the likes of Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Paddy Considine, and Jason Bateman, with the gripping story brought to life. Unfortunately, HBO’s “The Outsider” was surprisingly canceled after one season despite rave reviews and audience ratings, and even King took to Twitter to express a brief, but firm statement about the show deserving a second season.Â
This begs the question: what exactly went wrong with “The Outsider” to not warrant a renewal for a second season?
The Outsider shines as a bleak, gritty procedural
While the stacked cast continued to be the greatest strength of the HBO miniseries, its core value lies in the bleak atmosphere evoked in the first two episodes, which lean heavily into the visceral fear that comes with an inexplicable murder and subsequent public arrest in a small town. The tone, although unbearably dark and intense, complimented the messed-up nature of the narrative: the opening itself, where local detective Ralph Anderson (Mendelsohn) finds the corpse of a young boy covered in human bite marks is the stuff of nightmares. Moreover, an incredible amount of dread is suffused with hooded figures and ominous visions connected to the murder.
Like in King’s novel, the series steers into the confounding supernatural aspects of the narrative, which is where it falters, as the raw terror of an otherworldly entity struggles to translate to the small screen. Some of the impetus gathered by the suffocating pace of the procedural structure is lost over time, but it still makes for great television and a very good adaptation.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, HBO/HBO Max chief Casey Bloys explained why “The Outsider” was not renewed for a second season:
“[…]It’s always a challenge when you have something that is based on a book and obviously with ‘The Outsider’ you’ve got a great roadmap. So if you’re going to go and do more without that, you got to make really sure there’s a story to tell. We just didn’t feel like we landed on a story that would live up to the first season.”
Although this reasoning makes perfect sense, it is a bummer nonetheless, as “The Outsider” could have reached a narrative breakthrough in a potential second season, while haunting our waking dreams for just a little longer.
