The Outsider Episode 10 Must/Can’t Finale Recap and Review

This season of The Outsider has been a Signal Horizon favorite and a fan favorite as you all have returned week in and week out to catch up on what you might have missed. Its time for Episode 10 of the Outsider. The Finale is titled Must/Can’t and that is exactly how I feel. Catch up on all the coverage. Away we go!

Back to the shoot out at the El Coco Corrall. Jack is shooting lots of things and talking to himself. Clearly Alec is dead and everyone is trying to find cover. My guess is if Jack weren’t drunk things would be much worse. As the Scooby gang tries to get cover the red pickup arrives with the other half. Claude’s brother is the next to get it as he is shot in the chest trying to advance on Jack. Claude pulls his brother back. Yunis asks Holly if she remembers what they told the soldiers during D-day. It was something like “Push forward or die”. Andy makes a run for a vehicle as he is backing the vehicle out he is shot by Jack who then shoots the vehicle’s gas tank. Howie tries to save Andy but the two are blown up by the car exploding as Jack shoots the leaking gas. Holly then approaches Jack and damns him to hell. Despite pressure from El Cuco Jack stops shooting and allows a rattlesnake to bite him. Claude stays with his brother. Ralph is heading into the caves with Holly. Yunis is staying out with Claude. As the party starts to break up Jack comes out of the woods limping and swollen from the snake bite. He tells them that El Cuco is in the cave and then shoots himself in the head.

Holly and Ralph head into the caves. They see lots of animal carcasses and ectoplasm. They remark he has been feeding. With her black light just inside Bear Cave Holly sees hundreds of hand prints. Ralph calls her over, and they find the makeshift grave marker of the mine collapse. Ralph then calls her attention to a light they see down further in the cave.

Yunnis has pulled Andy’s body from the car.

El Cuco tells Ralph to stick to the walls that way he doesn’t slip. He doesn’t want him to slip and fall. After all he has come this far (thanks for the kind words El Cuco). Holly seems concerned. El Cuco is facing away from Holly and Ralph. He mentions he doesn’t know Holly’s last name because Claude doesn’t. She tells him its Gidney. He is very interested in her. She asks him who he was, what he was, what is his nature. She wants to know if there are more like him. That question gets a rise out of him. Ralph pulls his gun and El Cuco tells him to pull the trigger and kill them all. He then shouts will the real Claude Bolton please stand up. The cave starts to fall apart potentially triggering another cave-in. Holly asks why children. El Cuco says because they are the sweetest. Ralph almost shoots him but Holly reminds him that El Cuco is poison implying he will spread to Ralph if he kills him. El Cuco says he cannot let the duo leave. Holly tells him that it’s they who cannot let him leave.

Just as shit gets real the real Claude shows up and cocks his gun. Ralph tells him to put the gun away. Holly explains that if he shoots the whole chamber will come down. Holly is trying her best to talk him down. El Cuco takes a deep breath and Claude shoots him. The chamber starts to come down. Ralph and Holly try to get away and Claude stands over El Cuco.

The entire chamber did not collapse and Claude is stuck under a rock (I mean how are they sure it’s actually Claude). They remove the rock and then find another Claude with a big stalactite sticking out of his chest. Holly asks Ralph for a knife and then stabs the presumptive El Cuco in the chest. Ralph then tells her to leave him because no one will ever believe them and Terry’s name will never be clear. She asks him who Terry is?

Claude asks if he killed El Cuco. They said yes. They help Claude out of the cave. But Ralph sees two dead boys standing on the side of the cave (one of them for sure is his son). They look like centurions standing guard. Ralph goes back to El Cuco. He tells him he knows he is playing possum. He tells El Cuco he is going to invite tourists to take a look at what’s left of him. Or maybe it will be scientists who take bits and pieces of him to run experiments on him. Ralph says the best option is for no one to ever know he existed. El Cuco begins to take a ton of different faces and shapes. Transforming into all the people he had become, then to a young boy (probably Ralph’s son). Holly shows up to watch. Ralph takes a brick and slams in on El Cuco’s head.

The three leave the cave system. Yunis is waiting there. Claude checks on his dead brother. Holly looks out into the woods. Holly tells Ralph regarding Andy that he came out to protect her. Ralph says they need to get their stories straight before the cops arrive. We hear sirens.

Back home the district attorney seems to be reviewing footage of Terry Maitland. Yunis calls and informs the DA that Jack shot and killed four people. However, he had an accomplice someone who was pulling the strings. Ralph is in a detective’s office telling the story they have created to explain everything. Yunis continues to hound Claude to practice his story. Its Holly’s turn to tell her story. She mentions Andy who she found highly competent, and we see a super sweet moment between them in a hotel room. Ralph calls his wife and asks her to do something for him. Jeannie is over at Glory Maitland’s house. Jeannie is asking Glory not to talk about the supernatural stuff when people come asking. Jeannie then burns the chair El Cuco sat in when he visited her. Ralph leaves the police headquarters, and we see a pickup truck with sparklers on the back.

The D.A. is over at Glory’s house. He is explaining they are reopening the case and that the blood samples were tainted. He is going to formally drop charges against Terry Maitland. He wants to say he is sorry, but he cannot because of her lawsuit. She tells him she understands. He apologized (more or less). She accepted (more or less). Her daughters come down and give her a big hug. It got to me a bit.

Holly is leaving Ralph’s house. He says he is open to working together again. Holly reminds Ralph that El Cuco asked her how she believed so easy. She tells Ralph that an Outsider knows an Outsider and gives him a hug. He then asks her what else is out there. She smiles wryly and shrugs her shoulders before leaving.

Claude has moved into the family home. Andy’s service is going on. Holly lights candles. Ralph talks to Jeannie and tells her he saw their son. His son told him to let him go. Jeannie says fat chance. Ralph mentions the experience has cracked the world and that maybe the next time he sees Derek he might be real. Jeannie says maybe in a lot of years they will just go visit him. Derek is buried 20 feet or so from Frankie Peterson. That’s how the season ends.

Nahhh there is an after-credits scene. Holly sees Jack in the mirror and is immediately worried she has a sore on the back of her neck. She checks her neck, all clear. She then researches about Frankie Peterson. As she researches Washington Square comes on the radio. Her time with Ralph is not done and sure hope this show isn’t either!

Stray Thoughts

1. Cynthia Erivo stole this show. Without such a convincing performance her character becomes a pretty icky trope. She is incredible.
2. That being Ben Mendelsohn does this thing with his mouth in his last scene where he is trying not to cry that seems SO real it made me hurt.
3. The behind the scenes featurette will only make you love Erivo more.
4. We learn from that featurette that because of El Cuco’s discussion of falling that Holly knows he can be killed and it gave her confidence. BAD ASS!
5. Stalactites are on the ceiling (because they have to hold tight) and stalagmites are on the ground.
6. I was really worried that a show billed around Jason Bateman losing him at the end of the second episode would be rough on the series. I was VERY wrong.
7. They mention Baba Yaga. Now that would be a hell of a season 2.