Father Son Holy Gore

Cinemax’s Outcast
Season 1, Episode 6: “From the Shadows It Watches”
Directed by Tricia Brock
Written by Joy Blake

* For a review of the previous episode, “The Road Before Us” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “The Damage Done” – click here

Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) watches the tape of an old exorcism. He flicks through and tries to see where he’s gone wrong in the past. The doubt he’s feeling now is what will become dangerous. Up to now it’s been easy. Without faith in himself, the Rev is not going down a good path. It’s like for all the powers Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit) holds, his presence back in Rome is more disruptive, for everyone, than it is helpful. Anderson goers through tape after tape after tape. The recurring face of Mildred (Grace Zabriskie) pops up from time to time. Not to mention there’s someone locked in the Rev’s basement at the church.
He’s juggling his life outside the church, the church itself, and all the exorcism stuff at once. That cannot be easy on his psyche. He gets a visit from Patricia (Melinda McGraw), who makes clear they’ve got a burgeoning relationship, but that all gets put to an end because Anderson can’t just be honest. Not that telling a woman about demons would be easy. However, he might do something to make sure she knows it isn’t him either not being interested or having someone else on the side.
“Come with me,” he tells Patricia. The Rev leads her back to the door. To show her “what‘s behind the curtain” and she willingly goes forward. Maybe she’s found a keeper after all.

Kyle is out doing community service on the highway, spreading tar and fixing up lengths of road. Is that just his job, or is it community service, as in court-ordered service? A job from the way it looks. Either way, it’s something to keep him rooted in the real world. Speaking of the real world, Officer Mark Holter (David Denman) has a woman in for a bit of questioning in relation to the DNA he found out in the camper. This lady’s got nothing for him, really. She went missing for a while the year prior, says it was a Disney trip. Not sure if it’s true, but she says it all had to do with escaping a crazy boyfriend. For now, Holter’s big cop routine doesn’t get far, as Chief Giles (Reg E. Cathey) watches in the wings.
But back to the demon fun. Anderson does some crazy shit, cutting his hand open thinking he can do what Kyle does. Not only that, he even says fuck Kyle. He doesn’t like the boy’s hubris. Yet it’s the Rev who’s got a big chip on his shoulder about being a holy man, doing God’s work, whatever.
Meanwhile, Kyle is trying to put his time in, pay child support, be normal. No matter if the memories and the thoughts are all still there. From what he put up with as a kid, you know Kyle’s mentally capable of dealing with a lot. Stepping outside a moment he sees a car parked outside his place. It’s Patricia. She wants him to go help Anderson, though that does nothing to sway Kyle. For his part, he isn’t ready to make things worse for anyone else. He’s seen what his power does, putting his mother and that little girl into a catatonic state. At the same time it bothers him to sit and do nothing at all.

Kyle: “Crazy Kyle Barnes. Rome‘s own Boo Radley, is that it?”

After Kyle goes out on his porch and sees a little trinket sitting there, eerily similar to one of the figurines we’ve seen at Mildred’s home, he gets hit in the head. He wakes up to – you guessed it – Mildred. She sucks a bit of that black essence out of him. Poor guy can’t catch a fucking break, can he?
Patricia’s own son does not like her being with Anderson. Although he is very crass to his own mother, the boy makes good points about how she lets men treat her badly. But still, that’s his mom. He could have tried to be diplomatic. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Patricia. She’s interesting, both attracted to the Rev and also interested in him as a man of God. There is some good stuff to be mined from this relationship.
When Kyle comes to again there’s no Mildred to be found. Next door, he comes across Sidney (Brent Spiner). He’s still pretending to have been an old friend of Norville, taking care of his estate, that stuff. Really, he only gets closer to Kyle. He’s also got Mildred hiding out in Norville’s old place. Two sketchy motherfuckers. They talk about the whole demon situation. We begin fleshing out, slightly, their world and how they operate, why they’re on Earth. Moreover, it’s the mystery I enjoy. The intrigue gradually stretched from episode to episode. Never too much exposition. Dig the writing, hugely.
Finally we’re seeing more of ole Ogden (Pete Burris), too. He has close relations with the woman from earlier that Holter interviewed. She lets Ogden know about the questioning, and further than that it appears Ogden’s wife has a watchful eye.

Megan (Wrenn Schmidt) goes to see her brother at work. They eat sandwiches together. Unfortunately, she brings back the envelopes of money Kyle’s been sending to Allison (Kate Lyn Sheil). He also brings up the possibility of the supernatural. Only for a brief moment before they finish up. The chemistry between Schmidt and Fugit is awesome, as is the writing of the characters together, their story.
Oh, and Megan gets a call from a mysterious number. Is there trouble rearing its head with the Donnie situation? Or something else altogether?
Over at the church, Giles goes for a talk with Anderson. They talk about Mildred’s exorcism. I dig this relationship, as well. These guys are close friends. Giles even “hushed things up” over the years because he believed in what the Reverend has been doing, or at least convinced himself it was in the best interest of their little town. Things are falling apart now.
In a hospital, Megan finds Donnie laid up in bed, beaten to pieces and recovering. He wants to talk about Mark. And she’s got no idea about what her husband did. Apparently there’s a possibility of brain damage for the rest of his life. That doesn’t sit well, certainly. So blackmail is on the table at this point.

The other side is always calling Kyle. He hallucinates a bucket of tar bubbling over, rising up at him. Without much explanation he walks off the job and heads out of there. Simultaneously, Rev. Anderson is in the throes of a crisis of faith. He speaks candidly with God, wondering exactly where is his place. He admits to failure and agrees to any punishment he’s given.
He doesn’t know that Kyle is headed back to him hoping to work things out, or at the very least explore things a little further. From the basement come the screams of a possessed soul. In the church, Anderson pushes Kyle around, yelling. All the while the demon downstairs breaks out. It’s the handyman, Caleb (Abraham Benrubi). When things get out of hand Kyle touches him. Then the black essence worms its way from out of Caleb and into the air before evaporating. Afterwards, the exorcist duo strike a tenuous deal. Being that Kyle is in charge when it comes to the exorcisms while on Sunday the Rev can have his flock. As for Caleb he’s unaffected, not comatose or anything else. That’s a step up from their last job. Though what Caleb tells the Reverend is disturbing. The possession didn’t come with fear. It came with warmth. Almost scarier than pure evil. Their conversation clearly affects Anderson. Out of nowhere, the foundation of his faith seems to have been shaken over the course of the past couple episodes.

Kyle goes to Mildred’s place and confronts her.
Except she’s catatonic. Just like the girl, Kyle’s mom. He calls 911 to have her brought in, but we know what happened: Sidney has his hand in this one. When Giles comes across Kyle, he gets a bit of the truth out of him. Most of all he begins to find out more to make him understand the Rev hasn’t been helping Rome enough. In the house, Giles finds a photograph, an old one. Of a younger Sidney and Mildred outside a camper, like the one in the woods that Ogden conveniently burned to the ground. A bigger fire’s lit now under the Chief, as he tries piecing it all together in his head.
The Holter house is not well. Megan’s freezing her husband out, as the knowledge of what he did to Donnie, how that can affect their future, rattles around in her head.


Anderson finds Sidney in his church office. The unsettling man starts revealing more of himself. Is he a big time demon, like somebody with a title – Leviathan? One of those big baddies? Or just a renegade bad ass demon from hell? He carves Anderson up savagely, though doesn’t realise Patricia’s kid – likely heading there for vandalism purposes – watches through the window.
Left alone, a bleeding pentagram carved into his breast, the Rev has more of a crisis of faith on his hands this time.

What an amazing episode! I say this every time, but it’s true. The series gets better each chapter. I thought this was a solid addition leading into the second half of the first season. Next episode is titled “The Damage Done” and I am PUMPED.