There’s more to that hole than meets the eye.
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the ending of Outer Ranger Season 2.
The Big Picture
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Outer Range
‘s Season 2 finale raises questions about time-travel consequences and alternate timelines. - Perry’s time-travel actions may have altered past events and created new timelines within the series.
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Outer Range
explores the idea that changing the past can impact the present and future, leading to complex narrative twists.
There isn’t another show currently airing that’s quite like Outer Range. This Prime Video original combines the beautiful landscapes and Western culture of Yellowstone with the high-strangeness of shows like Lost to create a completely mind-bending tale that we have yet to fully understand. After an impressive opening season, Outer Range returns with a second season that offers us even more questions to digest. John Brolin leads this series, both as its main star and as an executive producer (and now director), playing time-traveling rancher Royal Abbott as he seeks to discover the secrets buried on his land. Frankly, it’s a wonder how anyone can keep all these timelines straight, but we’ll do our best here as we try to explain just what happened in that Season 2 finale, “The End of Innocence.”
Outer Range
A rancher fighting for his land and family discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness.
- Release Date
- April 15, 2022
- Creator
- Brian Watkins
- Cast
- Josh Brolin , Lili Taylor , Tamara Podemski
- Seasons
- 2
What the Heck Just Happened on ‘Outer Range’ Season 2?
Season 2 begins with Royal revealing the truth about himself and the west pasture to his wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor) before they begin their quest to find their missing granddaughter, Amy (Olive Elise Abercrombie), and save their land from the greedy hands of Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton). But what sounds like your traditional Yellowstone shenanigans turns into so much more than that. As Season 2 continues, we find that acting Sheriff Joy Hawk (Tamara Podemski) was transported to 1882, Perry Abbott (Tom Pelphrey) jumped back to 1984, and Amy was taken by her mother Rebecca (Monette Moio) out of spite against Perry and her in-laws. Rhett (Lewis Pullman) and Maria (Isabel Arraiza), who were about to leave Wabang forever, stuck around after learning about Amy’s disappearance, and Billy Tillerson (Noah Reid) was left in critical condition after being shot by Royal. Oh, and now Autumn (Imogen Poots), who Royal discovers is actually an older Amy, is living with the Abbotts following her previous conflict with Royal.
The season finale, “The End of Innocence,” sees Royal and Cecilia racing against Autumn and Luke Tillerson (Shaun Sipos) as they all try to retrieve Amy from her mother. Unfortunately, the Abbotts arrive too late, and Autumn and Luke abduct her before taking her back to the Abbott’s west pasture. Understanding that Autumn is going to throw Amy into the hole (thus ensuring her own existence), Royal calls Joy—who has returned from 1886—to intervene. Though she apprehends Luke, Joy’s unable to stop Autumn from dropping Amy into the hole and instead shoots Autumn, though it’s not fatal. Elsewhere, Rhett makes a deal with scientist Dr. Nia Bintu (Yrsa Daley-Ward) from the University of Wyoming, promising that he will talk to his father about her examining the west pasture (in exchange for a large sum, of course).
Before all of this, Luke accidentally kills Billy when they fight over their respective places at Autumn’s side, which results in a grief-stricken Wayne burning down his home and jumping into the hole. We have no idea where he went, but since he knows that Perry has been time-traveling himself, he’s likely gone back to fix something in the past. Speaking of Perry, after paling around with a younger Royal (played by Christian James), the younger version of his father sends him back into the hole. But instead of going home, Perry returns to the events of the first episode, “The Void,” where he stops his younger self from killing Trevor Tillerson (Matt Lauria). Unfortunately, this leaves his younger self off guard, and Trevor kills the younger Perry, leaving the older Perry to dispose of his own body in the hole. “The End of Innocence” ends with Royal (who nearly suffered a stroke) having a vision where everyone in his life chants, “Time is a river, Royal. This is your destiny.” When he wakes, he tells Cecilia that everything will be fine before having another quick vision of Autumn, who reassures him that this is only the beginning.
Did Perry Just Undo the Entire Series, or Is He in Another Timeline?
There are countless questions we have about that Outer Range finale. What does “time is a river” mean? When did Wayne go? Are we going to find out what happened to Amy? But there’s one big question that sits high above the rest, and that’s what the heck did Perry just do? Much of Outer Range‘s Season 2 finale is straightforward. Royal was unable to stop Amy from being thrown in the hole, Rhett is looking out for his future with Maria, and Wayne has lost some marbles, but one thing that’s still unclear is how Perry’s time-travelling exploits will affect the present. So far, we haven’t seen much of a change at all. Despite past Royal’s knowledge of the future, the present Royal is still the same man. The only time anyone even noticed that Perry was messing with the past was when Wayne, high on the time mineral, saw through the eyes of his younger 1984 self (played by Daniel Abeles).
So what gives? How can Perry tell his father all about his future before returning to the start of the series and rewriting it without any ripple effects on the main story? Well, so far, folks have come up with a few theories. On one hand, we could be in a Back to the Future situation where the effects of messing with the past aren’t fully realized until said character returns to the present. This could be why Royal didn’t remember saving Joy’s life as a boy until she confronted him about it (more on that in a minute). It could also be that Perry’s adventures have yet to catch up with the present. Since Joy went further back in time, maybe that too affects how quickly history/time is re-written (if it’s re-written at all). Of course, there’s another major possibility: Perry could be in an alternate timeline.
Plenty of stories deal with the concept of time travel and how it can produce alternate timelines. Perry could be prancing around in a timeline entirely independent of where the main story takes place, something more akin to the various branches seen in Marvel’s Loki. Only time will tell if this is the case, but given the ominous “time is a river” chant that Royal has picked up, it might be more likely that time is actually fluid. Maybe changing things in the past will catch up with the present downstream.
Can the Past Be Changed, or Did Things Always Happen This Way?
While technically not a part of the finale, Joy’s own time-travelling experience may have a part to play in better understanding the end of Season 2. Although she was only gone for a few days in the present, Joy lived among the 1880s Shoshone people for four years. While in Wyoming 140 years ago, she changed the past only in small ways, but they ended up contributing to an even bigger idea. A photograph taken with Joy in it can be seen in the present and implies that changing the past does, in fact, change the present and future. How it all works is still a mystery, and how long it takes to occur is also, but this was the case even before Joy officially returned home.
Of course, the biggest change is that Joy is the reason that a nine-year-old Royal (played then by Teaguen Arbogast) killed his father. In Season 1, Royal reveals to Perry that he killed his father, Levi Sumner (Brandon Stacy), in a hunting accident when he had been trying to shoot a deer. We even see flashes of Royal’s memory throughout Season 1 to confirm this. But according to “Ode to Joy,” that isn’t what happened at all. Joy was on the run after killing a man who tried to rape a Shoshone girl, and that put her in the sights of Levi and young Royal. Royal opted to spare her life, but when Levi arrived and demanded that his son shoot the Native warrior, the boy shot his father instead. Overcome with grief, Royal ran into the fields where he jumped into the hole in time, and Joy soon followed him.
While Royal ended up on the Abbott ranch in 1968, Joy returned to her own time only a few days after she went missing. What’s fascinating about this is that it’s debatable whether this is an official retcon meant to re-write the past via time travel or if this is always how it has been. The way Outer Range deals with its time-travelling characters, they’re not always the most reliable witnesses. Autumn, who’s an older Amy, traveled through time and couldn’t remember anything before the age of nine. Royal was also nine when he jumped in the hole but retained his memory. But is Royal’s memory reliable? Was Joy actually there the whole time, and Royal could only remember that when confronted by the reality in front of him? He still points his gun at a deer in “Ode to Joy,” and still shoots his father while technically “hunting.” Could he have altered his memory because of the trauma associated with patricide? It’s entirely possible. If Royal’s memory was just off, maybe the reason Perry’s changes to the timeline haven’t been felt (unlike Joy’s) is because he’s in a new timeline entirely.
Amy Is Destined to Become Autumn — but Maybe She Doesn’t Have To Be
It might be hard to speculate about where Wayne Tillerson ended up, but we know that Amy was found sometime in the past with no memory of who she is. Whether this is the last we see of young Amy or not remains to be seen, but it seems that her path toward becoming Autumn has been set. But, if Perry can go back and change the past (and keep Rebecca or Autumn from taking Amy in the first place), it’s possible that Autumn, as we know her, might cease to exist. Well, not physically, since Perry didn’t vanish when his younger self was killed, but it could save Amy as we knew her, thus reversing the “End of Innocence.” Hopefully, Wayne doesn’t show up in the past as the mysterious benefactor of Autumn’s, because that would be messy…
Outer Range Season 2 ultimately leaves us with a lot more questions than answers. Time being likened to a river makes all of this more confusing since now it’s unclear if time is fixed or fluid. But one thing is certain: no matter if the Abbotts save their granddaughter or not, the mystery of time is the key to all this. Whatever that hole is in the west pasture, and whatever is buried under there, Royal and Cecilia need to deal with it before things get even more out of hand.
Outer Range Season 2 is streaming on Prime Video.
Watch on Prime Video
This article was originally published on collider.com