Season 1 Episode 2: The Outsider “Roanoke” Recap, Review, and Theories

Oh great a weird show, with an episode titled Roanoke. I am sure this one will make a ton of sense. Looks like Ralph is paying a visit to Terry. Lots of gates and locks stand in his way. Terry wants to know why Ralph is there. Ralph wants to know where Terry got the van. It had New York plates. Terry knows they haven’t been to New York. So where did the van come from. Terry again wants to know why he is there. Terry is recounting all of the contradictory evidence. Essentially he wants to know WTF. Ralph asks him if he killed that kid. He tells him no. Ralph prepares to leave and Terry asks him about the first comment Ralph made to him in the police car after he was arrested, about Ralph’s son. Terry then goes on to explain how Ralph’s son was a great drag bunter. How he was tough, not afraid to crowd the plate (giving me some baseball references. This show is hitting every angle for me). He also struck out a lot. They kids called him whiffer which is how he became such a good drag bunter. Terry taught him how to drag bunt so the kids would quit calling him names and to help him get on base. It all worked and the kids called him Push It. Terry noticed how proud he was. Terry takes pride in helping that little boy. So he touched him just not in the way Ralph was expecting. Dude this Terry guy kind of rocks.

There is a weird creepy redhead in a building full of mahogany furniture. Observation 1: This is a weird scene and almost feels gothic in nature.

The footage of Terry at the convention has been leaked to the media before his arraignment (atta boy Howie). The DA is not backing down. That seems like a really weird choice.Terry is not a popular dude. Lots of people are there to yell and scream at him. From out of the crowd someone with a gun shoots both police officers and shoots Terry in the neck. Ralph takes out his gun and returns fire killing the assassin. After the shooting Ralph goes towards the shooter. Its the redhead. I think it’s the older brother of Frankie Peterson. The same green hoodied dude is there watching. Terry’s wound looks nasty but a doctor is there to help.

At the hospital, Ralph is being checked out by a doctor. He is clearly in shock. His blood pressure is high…No friggin shit doc. Shit. Terry is dead I guess. As they tell Glory Maitland they are sorry for her loss. Well shit.

Someone is out hunting boar. He is about to shoot something when he gets a text message. “I need you back ASAP”. I am still reeling from Terry dying. Like I thought he was going to be the main guy. Ralph is sitting by a fire and drinking. I would to. Like a lot. The DA is there to check in. One of the officers who was shot in the ankle is ok but is also pregnant so the baby complicates things a bit. Both the DA and Ralph are second-guessing themselves. They found out that a car thief stole the van and switched in Ohio. Ralph mentions that Terry took a family vacation through Ohio.

At the strip club our Boar hunter beats the shit out of someone. He is clearly good at that and must be someone as the bouncers treat him pretty well and refuse to call the cops. Observation 2: Maybe because he is a cop?

Gloria Matlin is at home and her youngest daughter is again having a nightmare. She insists someone is there but also when she wakes up she is convinced he left.

Ralph is at home with his wife. They are sharing an old cigarette. There was a small piece of paper under the wiper of the white van. He mentions he wants to take a look at the evidence in the morning. She then tries to get him to go to bed. He says Naw. She says just lay with me then.

In a house a grown man sits in a room. He tears the bedsheets up. He is making a rope. He is clearly going to hang himself. Its Frankie’s dad. He is killing himself. In the periphery we get the dude in the green hoodie again. We know from the shooting at the courthouse his face is all messed up. A runner see’s the hanging and tries to get help.

Ralph despite being on leave is at the police station so he can examine the evidence he was worried about the night before. Hey our boar killer is actually another Detective. He has been called back in because of the disaster at the court house. The DA is here. He is still a dick. He has decided not to run for higher office. The lab has come back and Terry’s saliva is a direct match to bite marks found in Frankie. The DA thinks this will help them in a civil court case if Terry’s wife presses charges. The DA drops a “more heaven and earth Horatio quote”. The DA is now going through a series of mysteries including a lost fighter squadron and the titular Observation 2: It seems our DA is into conspiracy theories. Someone call Mel Gibson.

Ralph is back at home. He is examining a picture of a piece of evidence. It is the corner of a flier for Pig and the B. Ralph’s wife is helping him research by title. They find a restaurant in Dayton. Wait a minute. Terry took a vacation to Dayton. I mean with Terry’s death aren’t all the stakes removed from this investigation….Like who cares?

We are now back to Jessa. She is staring at the door. The nighlight shows a set of wet footprints. Please let this be a secret swamp thing show. I would subscribe to HBO forever if that happened.

Ralph is visiting the police officer who was shot. She had her baby. She is also really funny. The police chief is there and he is watching over Frank Peterson (The father who hung himself) who barely survived his hanging. He didn’t really. They are going to harvest his organs. They talk about the white van, and Dayton, and the car thief. The chief wants Ralph to go to a therapist in exchange for tracking down the car thief.

The therapist asks how Ralph is feeling. Ralph says sorrowful, angry and the therapist asks him if he is sleeping. Ralph mentions he is having some dreams. It’s mostly reliving the shooting as it happened. He is having dreams where the shooter is his son. The therapist says trauma may take a long time to surface. Ralph says he is a professional and he will be ok with time. He isn’t ok now but this therapy seems more like punishment. Ralph is weary of people trying to help.

Police Chief Wiggum (that’s not his name I know…) and Ralph are visiting the car thief. He is a young kid in foster kid. Like mid teens. They show him pictures of the restaurant. The kid looks at the photograph and mentions he was in the parking lot at the baseball card store next to the restaurant. Ralph is trying to pin down when and a time. The kid remembers it was Ash Wednesday. Pretty good time marker there. Terry was in Dayton during that day, but they flew both ways.

Ralph is at the Maitlands. He wants Gloria’s help. If Terry didn’t do it than he needs her help to figure out who did it. Glory wants to know how to tell her girls what happened. What does she do about this whole thing. Ralph says the only way to get her life back is to prove Terry didn’t do it. She ain’t having it. Her oldest daughter witnessed the whole conversation. That is some shit to process. Observation 3: If someone is looking for revenge it should be Glory

The next morning Ralph is bagging some leaves. I friggin hate leaves. Oh shit Howie is there and he is real mad. Howie says talking to Glory will not stop any kind of civil suit.

Everyone is at Maitland’s house including Ralph. He mentions the stolen vehicle. The van was in Dayton. He wants to know if or how there is any connection to the van. He mentions Dayton is strange place for a vacation. She mentions Terry’s father is there in an old folks home. He is senile and violent. One of the daughters mentions that her father got a cut. Ralph wants to know how he got it. She says Terry got the cut from a nurse in his father’s home.

Now we are at a sketchy farmhouse. A young man finds the pants of Terry’s including the big ass belt buckle. And that’s it for tonight.

Stray Thoughts

1. The show mentioned a squadron of lost fighter pilots and their planes. Please let this show be related to the Bermuda Triangle.
2. Remember the lost colony of Roanoke left the message Croatoan which references another island that is close. There were also a lot of clues using the letter M. There certainly are a plethora of M’s in The Outsider as well.
3. When Mr. Peterson killed himself it sure looked like maybe something or someone gave him a push.
4. How shitty do we feel for the Peterson family? Ultimate suffering.
5. There are a lot of discussions of the green hoodied guy having a melted face. The perception that some people have a melted face is a real disorder called Prosopometamorphopsia. It sounds terrifying.