While you wait for Outcast season 2, let the cast and writer explain how messed up this show can be!
Weeks before Halloween, Robert Kirkman along with Patrick Fugit (Kyle Barnes), Wrenn Schmidt (Megan Holter), Reg E. Cathey (Chief Giles), and Brent Spiner (Sidney) gathered at New York Comic Con to spell out why Outcastis one of the greatest horror shows on TV. Outcastseason 2 is currently filming so now is the perfect time to get caught up with why Outcastis a can’t miss fright fest.
Seriously now, Robert Kirkman, the co-creator of The Walking Dead, also co-created Outcast. The Walking Dead redefined the zombie horror genre and created a cultural phenomenon, just think about what he can do with demonic possession and exorcisms. So straight from the folks behind the show here are the 6 (6 6) reasons you need to be watching Outcast.
1. It's scarier than The Walking Dead.
Robert Kirkman contrasted Outcastwith The Walking Dead, “It’s a very different type of monster. When you see a zombie coming after you, you can prepare…you can learn the rules. Everything in Outcastis so internal which makes it so much more scary. There’s a threat around every corner, a threat in every nook and cranny. Everyone you run into you can potentially be the threat.”
Yeah man, in Outcastthere’s no warning over who might be possessed. The show has featured possessed kids and possessed Hummel collecting old ladies. They’re like Cylons but with more goo and damnation.
2. Demonic conspiracies!
As for the demonic conspiracy surrounding protagonist Kyle Barnes, Kirkman promised an overarching reveal to the mystery as the seasons move forward.
For those not watching Outcast(and seriously, it’s awesome, what’s wrong with you?), Outcastcenters on Barnes, a tortured man who has the power to expel demons from their hosts. When Barnes was a child, his mother was possessed and when Barnes was an adult, his wife was possessed. Barnes’ wife tried to kill their child, and to protect his wife, Barnes took the blame for a severe beating his demonic wife inflicted on their little girl. Now, Barnes has returned home and has become the exorcism assistant of one Reverend Anderson. Together, Barnes and Anderson must free a small town of a demon infestation while protecting their loved ones and not losing their humanity in the process. Yeah, it is pretty dark, glad you noticed.
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3. Speaking of the good Reverend Anderson, when season one ended, Anderson had a pentagram carved into his chest by Sidney (played by Brent Spiner, yes folks, Data has gone full Satan). After that little demonic body modification, things just got darker for the good Reverend.
Well, in New York, Robert Kirkman promised that Outcastseason 2 would be about, “Digging Anderson out of this dark hole… a tale of redemption.” Now, we’ve all watched The Walking Dead, and we know from that epic that when a character needs to find redemption things can get pretty intense. And what can be more intense than the slow carving of a pentagram into a reverend’s chest? I don’t know, but I suspect we’ll find out in Outcast season 2.
4. Outcast features one of the most noble protagonists on genre TV.
Barnes has lost his mom to demons (she is in a comatose state in an assisted living facility), he lost his family, and he has sacrificed his standing in town because everyone thinks he once beat his little girl.
During season one, fans had to endure Barnes get beaten by possessed kids and old ladies. It seems every episode that Barnes is constantly being attacked, beaten, and scarred. But as Fugit said in New York, the appeal of Barnes is that, “He keeps getting the shit kicked out of him, but he keeps getting up.” Listen, not every TV protagonist has to take an ass kicking from an old lady, so props to Barnes, the most durable character on genre TV. “The more he learns about the rules, the more he can expose these things,” Fugit teases about the future of his character’s struggle.
5. Nobody is safe from possession.
One of the most startling moments of the first season was the possession of the very innocent and gentle Wrenn Schmidt’s Megan Holter. During the end of the season, Holter was possessed and murders her husband. In New York, Holter described this character journey, “I think I initially viewed her as the person that is the most helpful person you know… I was really attracted to her relationship to Kyle. As the season played out… as she got possessed… I thought of it as a rebirth.”
Holter then described her character as a deadly bird who can gut a person. So yeah, husband-killing rabid bird demons. That’s why we love Outcast.
6. Brent Spiner is the devil.
Data, one of the most beloved characters on sci-fi TV is cast as Satan on Outcast. Spiner’s devil, named Sidney, has arrived in town and is the big string puller of the series. This isn’t a Lucifer type devil, oh hell no, this is a nasty, vicious, manipulating horror and Spiner pulls it all off with aplomb.
“I’ve played villains before,” Spiner told the demon hungry New York crowd. “But this is a very dark character… when you’re playing it you begin to empathize with the character…I don’t see him as a villain, I see him as a man with a job”
Yeah, a job to carve Satan stars into priests and kill children while tainting an entire town.
Outcastseason 2 will arrive in 2017. Meanwhile, you can catch up on Outcaston Amazon Prime.