Here’s what you need to remember before we return to the Abbott family ranch.
The Big Picture
- A family feud and murder kick off
Outer Range
Season 1 with the Abbotts facing off against the Tillersons. - A mysterious black hole reveals time travel as the source of trouble on the Abbotts’ land.
- Shocking revelations about Royal’s past and Autumn’s identity lead to a dramatic Season 1 finale.
We’ve been anxiously awaiting a new season of Outer Range for almost two years now and with the second season on the horizon, it’s time to return to the Abbott family ranch to revisit the high strangeness of Season 1. In 2022, the series premiered on Amazon Prime Video and showed us that Josh Brolin is just as exceptional a neo-Western leading man as Kevin Costner. As ranching patriarch Royal Abbott, Brolin stretches some well-earned Western muscles as he uncovers the hidden secrets of the land, and as we learn more about Royal and his family, we almost end up with more questions than answers. But, to make things easy for you, we’re going to do the best we can to recount all the hidden secrets of Outer Range Season 1. Hopefully, we don’t get swallowed through time while doing so.
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
‘Outer Range’ Kicks off With a Family Feud and a Murder
When Outer Range begins, we’re introduced to the Abbott family. Royal (Brolin) and his wife Cecilia (Lili Taylor), their two sons, rancher Perry (Tom Pelphrey) and rodeo cowboy Rhett (Lewis Pullman), and Perry’s daughter and their granddaughter, Amy (Olive Abercrombie). Perry’s wife and Amy’s mother, Rebecca (Kristen Connolly), has been missing for months by the start of the show, and we don’t know much about her disappearance — though Cecilia has a dream that she will return to reunite with Perry and Amy from the shadows. Rhett isn’t married but has an on-again/off-again romance with a local woman, Maria Olivares (Isabel Arraiza), whom he knew from high school. Oh, and the Abbotts hate the Tillersons.
Neighboring ranchers, the Tillersons confront the Abbotts in the first episode about a plot of land that they believe they actually own. Royal is unwilling to give up this land, and that causes some tension between them. Tillerson patriarch Wayne (Will Patton) desperately wants the Abbott’s west pasture and is willing to do just about anything to get the prize he wants on it. But before we get to that, there’s another important plot point we can’t skip over. When Wayne’s son Trevor (Matt Lauria) harasses Perry about his missing wife, the elder Abbott loses his temper and beats the Tillerson boy to death. Before he can do anything about it, he and Rhett take the body home with them, and Royal helps them dispose of it. This puts an enormous amount of strain on Cecilia, whose Christian faith wavers as she struggles with the cover-up.
Even before Perry kills Trevor, there’s another important character who is introduced to the narrative around the same time that Royal begins to feel strange happenings rumbling around the ranch: Autumn. Imogen Poots plays this mysterious drifter who shows up at the Abbott Ranch and asks if she can spend the night. Royal lets her, but he knows that something just isn’t right about this woman, and he’s on to something. When Royal goes to dispose of Trevor’s body in the giant black hole in the ground, throwing it into the abyss, Autumn wastes no time shoving him right in — and here is where the mystery begins.
The Black Hole on the Abbott Land Becomes the Source of All Kinds of Trouble
That big hole in the ground in the west pasture does more than just look ominous. It turns out, this is a portal through time. When Outer Range starts, Royal narrates the scene by recounting the story of Chronos. While Royal himself isn’t likely Chronos in disguise, it is worth noting that the Greek god’s story often ends in bloodshed. But the Chronos prologue is important because it turns out that the black hole in the west pasture takes Royal to the future, particularly a future two years after his death where Autumn is there with a group of cultish followers, all dressed in strange uniforms as rigs dig for something in the background (seemingly oil, but more likely the supernatural ore that comes from the black hole). Royal’s family, Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk (Tamara Podemski), and a host of armed guards are also there.
The way Royal explains it, this is a “tear into the unknown,” and he doesn’t mess with it long. After being shot by Wayne’s eldest son, Luke Tillerson (Shaun Sipos), and nearly being captured, Royal jumps back in and returns to the past, err, the present. It quickly becomes evident why Wayne wants the west pasture, even if he doesn’t entirely understand its significance just yet. Royal continues to fight for ways to keep it out of his hands, but due to a mapping error, it seems like the Tillersons have a genuine case. But there’s more to the land than just the hole, there’s also the soil. In particular, the dust particles that make up the hole can also be dug out and can appear in both a solid and liquid state. When Royal comes in contact with some of the sediment from Autumn’s necklace, he has a vision of dying in his wife’s arms (with Autumn nearby), and when Autumn shows Billy Tillerson (Noah Reid) the hole later on, he ingests some of the dust and receives visions of his own.
The fight for the land becomes a massive plot point throughout the first season of Outer Range, but unlike on Paramount’s Yellowstone where opposing forces just want the Dutton land for condos and airports, the Tillersons want the power that the land holds within. They want to control time itself. Other events of high strangeness occur around the town of Wabang, Wyoming, as entire mountains appear and disappear, an arrow-pierced bison wanders the fields, and even people begin to slip through time’s cracks. Whatever is going on stems directly from the Abbotts’ land, and it’s worth noting that the mountain that disappears does so as Royal and Autumn shake hands while the latter is wearing her strange necklace. As the season continues, this pair dance around the meaning behind the black hole (with Autumn believing time is fixed and predestined), all while the Abbott patriarch tries to keep it a secret from his family. But that doesn’t quite work out.
Royal Abbott’s Messy Past Goes Back Further Than We Thought
Things get a bit messy, though, when Wayne Tillerson finally discovers the black hole, which results in a fight with Royal. Wayne knocks Royal out but has a stroke upon returning home. Just as he goes down, he has a vision of two boys beside the supernatural hole in the ground. Around the time that Autumn explains to Royal that her necklace — and the black rocks around the ranch — are physical manifestations of time itself, Deputy Sheriff Joy begins to put two-and-two together about Perry. After Trevor’s body appears suddenly on the Abbotts’ land, Perry believes there’s no way out of this but through. He writes his confession, and Joy arrives to arrest him, but not before Royal breaks up a fight between Perry and Rhett. This fight ends with Royal pushing Perry into a fixture, which breaks and cuts Amy in the head.
After Royal and Cecilia get Perry out on bail, the Abbott heir spends time with his daughter, telling her that if Rebecca ever returns, they should leave the ranch together. This decision ultimately stems from his growing distrust of his father due to Autumn’s slow influence on his life. For some reason, Perry feels drawn to the drifter, though not romantically, and because of this, he takes her words to heart. In the penultimate episode, “The Unknown,” Perry forces Royal to tell him the truth about what he knows about Rebecca’s disappearance. Though Royal doesn’t know exactly what happened to his daughter-in-law, Royal reveals that he is a time traveler himself. This shocking truth changes Outer Range entirely, as we now understand why Royal has been so secretive about the west pasture and why he was willing to jump back into the hole in the first place.
As it turns out, Royal escaped from the year 1886 at only nine years old after accidentally shooting and killing his own father. He came out the other end in 1968, pulling himself out of the hole in front of a young Wayne Tillerson. Eventually, Royal met the Abbott family, who adopted him as their own, and he married Cecilia later in life. It’s because of Royal’s experience with murder, time travel, and the like that he’s become disillusioned with God, and why he continues to struggle with concepts of faith and destiny despite his wife’s strong belief. Hearing this proves too much for Perry though. Impulsively, Perry jumps into the back hole to escape his impending murder conviction, and Royal is powerless to stop him as the hole closes immediately.
‘Outer Range’ Season 1 Ended With Some More Shocking Revelations
In the Season 1 finale, “The West,” things get more heated than ever. As Autumn continues to mentally spiral, even calling herself “the mother of undying time,” she takes matters into her own hands concerning whatever plot she has devised. By now, we understand that Autumn is a cult leader from the future, and her presence here is to ensure that things go according to plan, whatever that may be. To do so, she conscripts Billy Tillerson to her cause and the two of them plot to kill Royal, who has interfered with her plans far too many times. Royal manages to kill Billy but discovers that Autumn is his granddaughter Amy from the future after seeing the scar on her forehead. Unfortunately, because Luke Tillerson dug a hole in the west pasture, hundreds of time-traveling bison arrive in Wabang, and nearly trample Autumn to death as she faces Royal.
As this is happening, Rhett wins his latest rodeo competition, though none of his family see it as they’re all too concerned with either Autumn or Amy, the latter of whom suddenly goes missing. This proves the final straw, and Rhett seemingly decides to leave the ranch with Maria. But where did Amy go? Well, Rebecca returned and took Amy away from her grandparents, with Cecilia distraught and unable to find her. Oh, and Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk’s investigations into the high strangeness in the area eventually led her to a plot of land covered with a herd of bison and a tribe of Native Americans. Whether she traveled to the past unwittingly or the past found its way to the present is currently unknown.
Outer Range Season 1 ends with Royal bringing Autumn home to rest and confronting his wife. Cecilia is broken after all that’s happened. Losing her children, her granddaughter, and seemingly her faith in god has been too much to handle. Royal finally reveals his past to his wife, noting that he just wants his family back. She doesn’t believe that’s possible, but Royal still does. How this will continue in the upcoming Season 2 remains to be seen, but if it’s anything like the first season, it’s going to be a highly bingeable adventure.
Outer Range Season 2 premieres May 16th on Amazon Prime Video.
Watch on Prime Video
This article was originally published on collider.com