Binge-r #284: Outer Range + Anatomy of a Scandal
Wild Wild West: Josh Brolin (Royal Abbott) in Outer Range
OUTER RANGE S1
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
Availability: All eight episodes now streaming
At the centre of this metaphysical drama – which in shorthand terms plays like Sam Shepard rewrote Lost – is an unknown abyss, which appears in the pasture of a Wyoming ranch and could be a portal to another dimension, a symbol of God’s absence, or existential fear writ large. In not altogether unrelated news: I like this show. Outer Range brings a strand of uneasy, mind-bending European mystery to America’s west, series such as Netflix’s masterful Dark [full review here] or Black Spot [full review here]. It is knotty, segmented tale about people who are not readily expressive having to confront the inexplicable – in some instances it’s that abyss, but it can also be a terrible crime or an unspoken love. It’s a slow burn narrative, but the smoke is promising.
With a greying beard and back on a horse, Josh Brolin is Royal Abbott, the rancher who finds the otherworldly hole but suspects that other may sense it, whether it’s his screw loose ailing neighbour, Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton), who schemes for the Abbott land, or a counterculture camper, Autumn (Imogen Poots), who pitches her tent in a pasture and her questions in Royal’s already churning mind. “I’m a poet,” Autumn claims, but per Close Encounters of the Third Kind her notebook has multiple depictions of a symbol that dots the property, and her probing exchanges with Abbott quickly escalate once he gets caught between the abyss and trying to help his adult sons, the already grieving Perry (Tom Pelphrey) and Rhett (Lewis Pullman), when their night out in town goes very wrong.
Outer Range was created by the American playwright Brian Watkins, a television neophyte who brings a sparse poetry to the hardy myths of America’s modern-day west; don’t confuse this production with Yellowstone. Watkins writes terse, pithy exchanges and some juicy monologues (yes, that is a Nan Goldin shout out). The initial episodes get multiple arcs underway, although I can’t guarantee that in addressing the central mystery the show will somehow limit itself by fixing the meaning. But in deploying vast themes and personal stakes the storytelling acquires an elemental understanding that seeps into how you watch it – if you’re receiving its signal, you sense what the characters do, especially in nocturnal encounters expertly framed by a bittersweet blue light. Be patient, fall in.
London Calling: Rupert Friend (James) and Sienna Miller (Sophie) in Anatomy of a Scandal
ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL S1
Streaming Service: Netflix
Availability: All six episodes now streaming
The first season of this anthology series about the crimes of the British ruling class does for Westminster what Emily in Paris did for France: dumb down a culture to readymade cliches for an American audience. Co-creator David E. Kelley, whose female protagonist thriller are starting to be suspect thanks to The Undoing and now this, indulges a tawdry perspective in the fictional story of Tory government minister James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend), who has to tell his wife, Sophie (Sienna Miller), about an affair with an aide, Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott), before the tabloids splash it, only for the bad publicity to become a criminal prosecution when Olivia accuse him of raping her – in a Parliament elevator – after they ended their dalliance.
The early episodes feel like a checklist of British exotica: question time, barristers’ chambers, Oxbridge flashbacks, and the PM as James’ old pal. That could happily be a tacky, glossy melodrama, but adding a sexual crime puts the narrative in territory it’s ill-equipped to traverse. Michelle Dockery is quite good as the prosecutor pursuing James who has her own secret – everyone on this show does – but the storytelling ignores Olivia, while being over-edited and prone to excess. The blurry flashbacks and fantasies, meant to convey unreliable narrators, suggests the Harry Potter movies were an influence.
>> Old Show/New Streaming Service: One of my favourite series of 2020, the metaphysical mystery Devs, is now available on Disney+. I wrote about Alex Garland’s cerebral exploration of self-determinism and Silicon Valley overreach for The Age upon release [full review here]. It’s a wild ride.
>> Last Issue: Click here to read about Amazon’s ambitious British comic-drama The Outlaws and Disney+’s terrific new mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary.
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