The Outsider Season 1 Episode 5 ‘Tear-Drinker’ Recap and Review

As the episode opens we hear the sounds of a shootout and then the screen opens on a dead man with a really messed up neck. We get a screen crawl that tells it’s it is three days before. The same dead man is meticulously cleaning his apartment.

Jack is dragging another deer (or maybe the same deer) out into the pit he has been putting stuff in. He is very angry that someone or something has destroyed the lamp he brought out there. He is big boy mad. He doesn’t want to make it mad but is a little overtaking orders from this thing.

There is an office waiting room and our hoodied monster is in it.

The four investigative horsemen are discussing what comes next. They are discussing Holly’s investigation. Essentially that there are a handful of these murderers who aren’t really murderers. They think Holly may be withholding information.

Back in the waiting room we are now in the Parole Officer office. The next appointment is with Eric Standard and our guy in the green hoodie is still hanging out.

Jack is in a truck now watching and waiting. He is surveiling the four guys who are doing the investigation.

The parole officer tells the guy in the green hoodie that he must put down the hoodie, so she can see his face. He refuses. Shit is getting real. He wasn’t ignoring her though he was just asleep.

The parole officer is Ralph’s wife. She tells him she had a weird day. He was busy investigating the other child murder crimes. She is clearly rattled from the day. She tells him to order take out while she takes a nap. He goes in a little later to tell her that the food is here. She is still sleeping. We get a flashback of when their son died. Ralph was drunk, and she wasn’t coping and was sleeping all day. The grief of losing a child was truly too much for both of them for a while.

Holly is in a bar. She asks the bartender who her boogeymen was. She then asks her to come up with a name for the boogeymen. After some back and forth they come up with “the tear-drinker”. They then brainstorm where a tear-drinker would hang out. Haunted House, Cemetery, Hospital. Holly offers to pay the bartender 200.00 to drive her around the next day. The bartender seems game.

The owner of the strip club is having a rough go of it while he tends over his business. Meanwhile, Ralph’s wife is doing some dishes in the dark. She hears a noise and sees the hoodied man. He tells her to sit, and she walks on glass to obey. He tells her to tell Ralph to stop, or he will die. The Hood then says something unintelligible but concerning to his wife. Ralph wakes up now and finds the glass that is broken on the floor. He also sees her trail of blood from where she walked on the glass. She has a pretty good size cut on her foot. He inspects her wound and then wakes her up. She doesn’t remember doing it, but he says they will need to get stitches. She remembers getting a glass of water and most have dropped it. She tells him she thinks he needs to drop the investigation. She tells him she has a bad feeling about it. He tells her bad stuff has already happened and he clearly wants to stop more of it.

Holly pulls up to the Hoffstadter house. Child Killer is spray-painted on the house. It’s all boarded up. Abandoned. She breaks in the back door and starts to walk around. It’s our shooter from the beginning of the episode. She is taking pictures of each room. She opens the closet in the bedroom and there is a breeze.

Ralph’s wife is talking to him about the intruder. She tells him exactly what the hoodied monster told her. He tells her that she is just repeating what Jessa told her. She tells him The Hood was very real. We learn that she has a history of sleepwalking. He is chalking all of this up to her grief. He thinks its just a very scary, very vivid dream. (Ben Mendelsohn deserves all the nominations. He is great).

Holly is at the gravestone of the child who was killed. She is taking pictures of everyone who was killed. She says “this is what you do, you take the whole family’. There is a run-down house and property behind the cemetery. Holly takes some photos of it. She says “it was here”. All that grief what a feast.

Ralph’s wife is now drawing what the hoodied monster looks like.

Later in the cemetery, Holly looks through the fence and takes some more photos of what looks like an entire town of abandoned buildings. She thinks abandoned stuff tends to circulate around cemeteries. Ralph is growing short in time and confidence with her. There is a young black man who is at the gravestone now. She talks to him. Asks who he is. He says “he fucked him over good”. She wants to know who did. He says he fucked me over too. He walks away and Holly takes a picture of the back of his head.

Ralph drops off his wife at the hospital to get her foot looked at. He tells her he is headed to the cemetery to take some photos. She gives him the drawing of the hoodied monster before getting out and heading in. It is the same semi-melted face monster we are acquainted with. Ralph calls someone to take a look at Claude (the guy who owns the strip club). He wants him run for the Peterson homicide.

Later Ralph is talking to Yunis Sablo. The strip club owner is clean. Ralph tells him about his wife’s dream. Sablo relates a dream his grandmother had. He thinks dreams are messages. I am getting this message loud and clear.

They are with Glory who is preparing the grave area. Ralph’s wife finds the temporary marker and it has a pentagram on it. She doesn’t tell anyone. They realize they can see the barn where they found the clothes from the cemetery. Jack and Ralph are at a party. Ralph is asking him about his trip to the barn. The party is the baby shower for the deputy who was shot. She comes in and wants Jack to hold the baby. He refuses and starts to leave. She runs after him. He tells her to back off but that he doesn’t want anything to happen to the baby. He leaves.

After the party. Holly and Ralph are talking. She tells him she doesn’t think any of them did it. She expected the barn to be close to the grave marker. They decide to meet in person. Andy is at the hotel and wants to have a drink with Holly. She invites him up. She points out that in Heath’s house his mattress was gone but someone made the bed on his box springs. She talks to him about a previous murder and a sign of remorse. She thinks the bed making is a sign of remorse. He tries to put the moves on her, and she tells him maybe they want to lay down for a little bit. She is nervous.

We are back at the deputy’s house. Man I hope something doesn’t happen to that baby. Woof. She senses something is amiss and pulls her gun. She moved into the babies room, and he does something to that baby. She wakes up the next day and the baby is gone. She is freaking out, we are freaking out….she leaves the house and finds that the father had the baby the entire time outside.

Holly leaves early in the morning. Jack shows up at Ralph’s to apologize. Jack mentions he is having a rough go of it lately. He is drinking a lot lately. He tells Ralph he wants to come on board his investigation. Ralph wants the opportunity to help…more like spy. Ralph says he wants to know more about the barn that night.

Meanwhile, back in Holly’s hotel, she has left a really nice note. The stranger Holly met at the grave is waiting in his car with a pistol. He gets out of the car and attacks some guy. It has turned into a hostage situation. Andy is searching for Holly’s hotel room. He is a BAD GUY. I didn’t see it coming. He clearly wants to find out what she was up to. The stranger pulls his gun on the cops, and they unload on him.

Andy is using some notes he found in the trash to trace Holly’s investigation. The gun the stranger had was unloaded. They focus on the huge sores on the back of the neck of our stranger. Holly’s car breaks down on her way to see Ralph. Ralph is in his dead son’s room now. He is looking at pictures of him and laying on his bed. None of this feels like it will end well for anyone involved. He falls asleep and his son wakes him up. He says, Dad…. Look at me. YIKES. His son tells him that he needs to let him go. Black Screen.

Stray thoughts.

1. Creepy Cemeteries. Lots of creepy cemeteries in this episode.
2. I am pretty sure this episode has every stage of grief in it.
3. Death by Cop is a brutal phenomenon that deserves more exploration.
4. THIS EPISODE HAD LAKE MUNGO WRITTEN ALL OVER IT. Go watch it on Tubi.
5. Check out all of our coverage of The Outsider.