The Big Picture

• Season 2 of Outer Range delves deeper into intersecting timelines and the characters trapped in them.
• The first episode struggles with setting up the new storylines, but the rest of the season improves from there on.
• All the performances are great in Outer Range Season 2, but Tamara Podemski emerges as the standout.

In the strong first season of Outer Range, Prime Video’s Western sci-fi series starring Josh Brolin, a crisis of faith about the future of a family, the emergence of a giant time-traveling black hole, and a land dispute that turned violent, existed alongside the sweet songs of a modern cowboy. It was all a bit strange, frequently sinister, and, ultimately, a solid genre riff that wasn’t afraid to take some bigger swings. This is condensing a lot of information and events, but Outer Range is basically Stranger Things meets Yellowstone — which may sound a bit flippant, but that’s as good a description of the vibe as one could get. The series is silly though still plenty sincere, pulling us deeper and deeper into a vast world where characters can suddenly find themselves not where they’re supposed to be.

Now, in its second season, Outer Range dives even further down the rabbit hole with more intersecting timelines, plenty more masculine grunting from its grizzled patriarchs, and even some interesting reflections on the characters that weren’t given their moment in the sun this time around. At times flirting with going full hard sci-fi in the vein of something like the recent Dark Matter or the regrettably canceled Constellation, Outer Range still plays things a little closer to the vest. This doesn’t always work, with some clunky expository lines establishing the scope of what’s at play falling flat, but it still manages to be a fitting sophomore outing that carries along what worked while blazing its own new trail.

What Is 'Outer Range' Season 2 About?

We pick back up in the aftermath of Royal Abbott (Brolin) having rescued Autumn (Imogen Poots) from a stampede. Upon bringing her home to his wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor), someone who is looking for her granddaughter who recently disappeared after her long-lost mother returned, the trio settles into a messy rhythm. Some of this is the result of Autumn actually being this same granddaughter from the future, but an even greater dilemma involves the impending loss of the ranch itself. That’s right, that dang Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) is back in the picture and looking to mess with the Abbotts some more. This is all business as usual, however, even as both families are quite scattered, with Abbott sons Rhett (Lewis Pullman) and Perry (Tom Pelphrey) heading off in vastly different directions in time as well as place, while Tillerson sons Luke (Shaun Sipos) and Billy (Noah Reid) struggle with strife of their own. Oh, and Deputy Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski) has seemed to slip through time in a way we haven’t seen before.

If this sounds a bit unwieldy, you're damn right it is — and the first episode of the season struggles to gather its storylines all together to set up what’s to come. Much of this stems from Outer Range doing some rearranging, undoing, and on a broader scale, soul-searching for what it now wants to be about. The mystery of the enormous black hole, plus that whole cult Royal caught sight of, still looms large, but there is hardly any time for anyone to look into this amid the chaos of their day-to-day lives. Thankfully, once the first episode is over, the remainder of the seven-episode season is much stronger. As the small-town struggles of the characters are juxtaposed with the immense spectacle of the infinite flow of time that they are often getting swept up in, each member of the cast gets their moment in the spotlight before darkness inevitably falls on every one of them.

Brolin is as good as ever, expertly capturing a simmering sense of discontent that feels like it is always on the edge of brutality, but so too is everyone around him. Taylor is a voice of reason in a world gone awry, while Poots is a wildcard who is still figuring herself out, and Patton remains bizarrely ornery. However, even in this stacked cast, Podemski emerges as the standout, easily carrying a storyline that is more expansive than anything in the entire series. All of this reaches a peak in a great episode directed by Blackhorse Lowe, which focuses almost entirely on her, though she continues to hit the right notes in everything that follows. One riveting emotional conversation she has with a central character in the aftermath of her journey is not just great stuff on its own but also represents Outer Range at its best. More than the shootouts or sci-fi shenanigans, the series is about characters bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders just as time slips through their fingers.

'Outer Range' Season 2 Is Even Better Than the First

The bigger leaps that Outer Range takes and the more expansive story it tells are only part of what makes this second season even better than the already solid first. Sometimes, the best television is just about a bearded Josh Brolin on horseback looking into a black hole that has upended his character’s life and everyone in his orbit. As he glowers his way through the world that is crumbling around him, a new one may also be emerging. What that is can't be discussed just yet, though the way the season explicitly leaves open the door for more is as intriguing as it is unsettling.

There are still plenty of answers that Outer Range has yet to uncover, but that doesn’t mean the journey isn’t any less adept at sweeping us up in it. Darkness is looming on the horizon and all the characters will eventually have to confront the truths that lie buried under the ground. It might not be exactly in the way they had hoped or planned, though little in life is. For all the petty squabbles that dominate our lives, there is always something lurking. As Outer Range has shown once more, all you have to do is take that leap.

Outer Range Season 2 premieres May 16 on Prime Video in the U.S.

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