Posted: Apr 05, 2021 6:57 pm
arugula2 wrote:The Outsider (2020)
(HBO) A lot of strong characters. Some not so strong: the DA is minor, the 2nd PI isn't... I like her half the time, I just think she hasn't had a chance to develop a believable affect. (It's too bad she's the only major character who's 'black', and extra-token bc that character isn't, in the book.) Pretty much the rest of the cast is consistently excellent, in particular Julianne Nicholson and Mare Winningham as the "wives". They're so much better than this script, and it's not a horrible script. They're just stunning. Also, Scarlet Blum, as the requisite creepy little girl, has her moments.
I'm in episode 6 of 10. Before this, there'd be a smattering of lazy exposition, cushioned by good pacing & expert direction, and a mostly great cast. But now, in ep6 (and a bit in ep5), people are being dumb. And so of course, the shit they say to each other, to justify their being dumb, takes up more of the script. So less enjoyment of the atmosphere & the great cast (and the tantalizing mystery)... and more eye-rolling at dumb words in the mouths of erstwhile smart people suddenly being dumb. Writers dropping the ball... hope it's just some corner-cutting to set up the rest of the show in original form.
ETA: A special request to showrunners who add loud, foregrounded foley effects to simulate "beeping" button presses (on a smartphone) or want us to believe a wifi connection stands in the way of an email reply (in the age of smartphones), and some other gadgety stuff that might've been believable when they were young: Stop it.
I hated, hated, hated this series. It's boring. It's anti-climactic.