Season 2 is opening up countless possibilities.
Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Outer Range Season 2.
The Big Picture
- Lili Taylor shines in Season 2 of
Outer Range
as Cecilia, bringing depth and strength to her character and elevating her role. - Cecilia’s struggle with faith grounds the show, showcasing her journey back to spirituality amidst family turmoil.
- Through her dynamic development, Cecilia emerges as a breakout presence in the series, making us root for her and look forward to her future arc.
If you thought that the first season of Outer Range was insane, then you really need to jump into Season 2. This Weird Western takes everything you love about the genre and infuses it with a sci-fi twist that makes you wonder why we’ve never gotten a show like this before. But while Season 1 was still finding its footing, and learning how to best utilize its characters, the second season has pushed Lili Taylor into the spotlight for her role as Cecilia Abbott. If you thought that Cecilia didn’t have nearly as much going on last time the big, black hole in the ground appeared, then prepare yourself for more heading into the Outer Range Season 2.
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’ Gives Cecilia a Lot More to Do in Season 2
In Season 1, Cecilia and her husband Royal (Josh Brolin) struggled in just about every way. Emotionally, relationally, and financially, everything was a mess. Even spiritually, Cecilia wrestled with her own Christian faith, something she held most dear. But everything goes to hell when their son Perry (Tom Pelphrey) kills a man, forcing them to take more care of their granddaughter Amy (Olive Elise Abercrombie) than before. As this is happening, a mysterious drifter named Autumn (Imogen Poots) shows up on their land hoping to camp out for a while. Unsurprisingly, Autumn causes a plethora of problems for the Abbotts. All this happens on top of the possibility of losing their ranch after Perry skips town, and the disappearance of Amy in the Season 1 finale, which has turned Cecilia bitter. She’s seemingly forsaken God and wonders how they even got there. Season 2 explores this further, where Taylor gives a powerful performance that makes us wish she had been as well utilized in the beginning.
Between searching for Amy, babysitting Autumn, and trying to save their livelihood and her family’s legacy, Cecilia is brought to her wit’s end in Season 2. But what really turns things around, making her a much more important character in this sophomore season, is that Royal finally reveals to her the truth about when he comes from, what the hole is, and who he believes Autumn to be. Overall, she takes the news pretty well. After knowing each other since childhood, and having been married for decades, this secret tore their family apart—and could’ve done the same to their marriage had it been kept any longer. Instead, Outer Range Season 2 ends with Cecilia and Royal back on the same side, forgiving one another for their respective mistakes. After slowly separating them for much of Season 1, this season needed to showcase why Royal and Cecilia have remained married for so long, and it does just that.
Another great development concerning how Cecilia is used this season is through the introduction of her younger self. As Perry finds himself in 1984, a young Royal and Cecilia (played by Christian James and Megan West) are still seen working the Abbott Ranch decades prior. We see another side to Cecilia here, a more feisty and direct one that proves her mettle as the heir to the Abbott land and name. It’s true that past Royal is more of a focus than past Cecilia, but this strange look at the past sheds new light on where Cecilia’s been, helping us to better understand her in the present. We also learn that she and Wayne Tillerson (played by Will Patton in the present and Daniel Abeles in the past) were once a romantic item, which is both unsettling and fascinating. By the time the present Cecilia and Wayne meet to discuss the future of the Abbott land, it feels earned because of what we know of their history. It’s because of this that the whole Abbott/Tillerson feud makes so much more sense.
Cecilia’s Struggle With Faith Helps Ground ‘Outer Range’
After how much material Lili Taylor had to work with this season, it’s easy to wonder why Outer Range didn’t try to better utilize her before. Throughout Season 1, it’s easy to see Cecilia as a caricatured matriarch with a deep faith that gets shaken when her life and family implode around her. But Season 2 reveals that she’s so much more than that. In only seven episodes, we go from seeing Cecilia as more of a side character to being one of Outer Range‘s most important stars. From personal revelations to deep regrets and failures, she’s more rounded here than we initially gave her credit for, and that’s a testament to the show’s powerful writing and Taylor’s exceptional performance. There’s a lot going on in this season, but whenever Cecilia is on-screen, we know that something good is coming. Heck, she even wields a shotgun in the first few episodes, proving herself more than capable of being a genuine threat.
As a woman of faith, Cecilia could easily have come across as preachy, irritating, or even unrealistic if portrayed a certain way. In Season 1, we’re only introduced to her Christian background, but here we get the full range of what Cecilia is going through. “God is gone,” she screams after Amy goes missing in “The West,” but by the Season 2 finale, “The End of Innocence,” she’s singing a very different tune. Being paired with Imogen Poots’ Autumn for much of the season, Taylor is given some interesting scenes and dialogue to work through. Her performance speaks for itself, but this unlikely pairing ended up being one of the most compelling aspects of the second season. These two come to blows a few times, yet every time they’re on-screen together, we can’t help but want more. Autumn challenges Cecilia, who is left broken after her family has up and gone in the blink of an eye, and it’s that challenge that ultimately inspires her to return to her faith and trust in God.
What could’ve been a sappy moment turns out to be something else entirely, and develops over the course of the season. After first threatening Lewis Mays (William Belleau) at gunpoint for his involvement with Rebecca (Monette Moio) in kidnapping Amy, Cecilia later takes the high road and returns to ask for his forgiveness. Even when he’s pointing a gun of his own at her head, she shows enough strength and courage to see her apology through, and it speaks volumes as to Cecilia’s character. She does the same with Rhett’s (Lewis Pullman) girlfriend, Maria (Isabel Arraiza). It’s also worth noting that the moment Cecilia begins to trust God again, Pastor Ken (Johnny Sneed) comes through and convinces a fellow rancher to help save the Abbott Ranch. Sure, this happens partially because Autumn confronts him about doing more to help the Abbotts, but there’s a clear juxtaposition with Cecilia’s own faith that makes this moment feel like divine providence. Even the way she warms up to and loves Autumn (as she does Amy) is something that develops as Cecilia begins to re-embrace the tenets of her Christian belief, which rings true even when Autumn abducts her younger self.
Lili Taylor Is the Star of ‘Outer Range’ Season 2
For a show that thrives in the esoteric and metaphysical nature of time travel, plotlines like Cecilia’s journey back to faith ground the show in reality and give it a distinct character. Cecilia feels like a real Christian woman who has slowly lost her way and is trying desperately to find it again. This proves an interesting parallel to her husband, who likewise struggles with what his “way” even is. As characters like Royal and Autumn wonder what their place in the universe is, Cecilia is comforted by the notion that she doesn’t have to know all of those answers. All she needs to do is try her best to live a life worthy of what she believes. Now that Cecilia’s faith is restored, she’ll be stronger going forward. Yes, Amy is still gone, but now Cecilia will be able to weather these trials.
In general, Cecilia is a much more dynamic character this season who goes through some understandable highs and lows as the narrative progresses. She shows herself as capable, trustworthy, and experienced, which are all traits and qualities we didn’t understand about her before. Chalk it up to the acting, the writing, or whatever you’d like, but it’s clear that Outer Range broke new ground here with the Abbott matriarch, developing her into a woman we can honestly root for and admire. Of course, there’s still a lot about Cecilia’s past we don’t know or understand. How did she and Royal end up getting together? What was it that she said to Rebecca that drove her away? Will Perry’s time-traveling exploits mess with reality as we know it? Hopefully, we’ll get a Season 3 confirmation soon so we won’t have to wait as long to find out.
There’s no doubt that Taylor is the star of this season, and while Josh Brolin is still very much the lead, Taylor gives us hope that, if Royal were to die sometime in the future (as previous episodes have shown), she could easily hold her own as the Abbott family’s head. Given all the mechanics of time travel and the dozens of unanswered questions we still have about all of this, it seems like a real possibility that Taylor could one day be the star of the show, especially if Royal’s fate really is sealed. However, Perry stopped himself from killing Trevor Tillerson (Matt Lauria), which led to the accidental death of his younger self, so anything feels possible at this point. Either way, Cecilia Abbott has proven herself one of Outer Range‘s most valuable characters, and that gives us a lot of hope for her growing arc in the future.
Outer Range Season 2 is currently streaming on Prime Video.
Watch on Prime Video
This article was originally published on collider.com