Just call me Angel/ of the morning, Angel…
Outer Range is a paranormal western mystery drama series created by Brian Watkins and executive produced by Watkins, Josh Brolin, and Brad Pitt. It premiered on Prime Video on April 15, 2022. A second season is in development.
Brolin stars as Royal Abbot, a rancher and family man living a peaceful life in Wyoming. His life is altered, however when a mysterious woman named Autumn (Imogen Poots) arrives on his ranch, triggering a string of supernatural occurances.
Also starring are Lili Taylor, Lewis Pullman, and Noah Reid.
Previews: Official trailer
Outer Range includes examples of:
- Abnormal Allergy: Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk is offered banana bread by the Abbotts and she replies that she is allergic to bananas, to the point of anaphylactic shock.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Rhett ends up drunkenly urinating on a deputy's cruiser which gets him thrown in jail.
- And I Must Scream: Wayne has a stroke and ends up bed confined and unable to speak, which prompts Luke to try to smother him with a pillow.
- Animal Stampede: A gigantic herd of buffalo play an important role in the last episode of season one.
- Arc Symbol: The Abbott ranch brand appears in multiple places, albeit rotated, such as on a rock formation on the property.
- Bears Are Bad News: Autumn has a brief encounter with a grizzly bear, she lays down on the floor playing dead, and when its head is right above her, she says “Yellow” and it seemingly talks to her and leaves and Cecilia finds a dead bear cub that she weirdly keeps around in a shed until the mother bear comes searching for it.
- Bitch Alert: When Patricia Tillerson first arrives via helicopter for her son's funeral she's framed like this.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Billy Tillerson gets dispatched at the end of session one. We don't see the actual wound, just a large spray of blood.
- Bottomless Pits: One appears out of nowhere on Royal's West plot, then grows wider. What goes in the hole doesn't come out... at the same time it left.
- Central Theme: Running from your problems. The main plot of season concerns the Abbott family trying to cover up the murder of Trevor Tillerson and in the past Royal jumped into the time hole (and possibly created it) out of guilt for accidentally killing his father.
- Chekhov's Gun: The first episode opens with Royal talking about the Titan Cronus from Classical Mythology and how he overthrew his father and became the God of Time. Royal himself killed his father (albeit accidentally) and possibly created the time hole out of his desire to run away.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Royal was found wandering in the wilderness and was taken in by the Abbott family. He accidentally killed his father back in 1886, and his mother and sister are definitely dead in the present day (short of more time travel shenanigans).
- Equestrian Sports: The rodeo's considered a very big deal, and the Abbots are considered local legends in the sport.
- Every Scar Has a Story: Amy ends up with a scar on her forehead after being hit with a piece of flying glass after Rhett and Perry get into a fight after Perry announces he's turned himself in. This become pivotal in the last episode of season one when Autumn having an identical scar tells Royal that she's the future version of Amy.
- Expy: The Tillersons appear to be an Expy of the Duttons from Yellowstone, with their huge amount of land, use of legal loopholes to gain more land and power, liberal use of political corruption, and overall toxicity. The only difference seems to be that the Tillersons don’t ride horses like the Duttons, and obviously,
aren’t the protagonists here. Even their house looks very similar. - Feuding Families: The Abbots and the Tillersons have run neighboring ranches since the 1800s. They have never gotten along.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Royal jumped into the hole in 1886 and emerged in 1969. And Autumn is actually Amy from the future. And Joy Hawk ends up in the past with a large Native American tribe and huge herd of buffalo.
- Flipping the Table: Cecilia does this in the last episode of season 1 as she tells Royal their family is gone. The fact that she says that her family always ate together is an important part of the symbolism.
- Harmful to Minors: Amy's mother is missing at the start of the show, and she witnesses her father, uncle and grandfather get into a knock down, drag out fight that leaves her physically scarred. This may explain how she ends up becoming the violently psychotic and self harming Autumn.
- Hide Your Lesbians: An in universe version when Joy and her wife and their daughter attend the community church as part of her election campaign. The speaker pointedly calls her wife Joy's "friend" and gives a speech about marriage between being one man and one woman. Joy's wife is furious with her for making her come along.
- Irony: Billy sings "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel at Trevor's funeral and the song is about a man who had to leave his home behind and start a new life, but the Tillerson boys have pointedly never left their home. To the chagrin of their mother Patricia who wanted to take them with her. Even more ironically, the song actually describes the history of Royal Abbott.
- Makeout Kids: Billy and Autumn have very public sloppy makeouts, to the visible disgust of Maria.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Autumn takes lamotrigine, a medicine used to treat bipolar disorder, and acts noticeably more manic as the series goes on.
- Missing Mom: Perry Abbot's wife Rebecca has been missing for nine months when the series begins. She appears at the very end of season 1 to take Amy away with her.
- Mysterious Stranger: Autumn is presented as this, wandering onto the ranch from seemingly nowhere and taking an interest in mysterious symbols appearing in the rock formations.
- New Old West: It's a Western set in the modern day, with elements of sci-fi and horror.
- Papa Bear: Royal Abbot. He warns his youngest granddaughter to stay away from Autumn, clearly not trusting the woman, and is willing to cover up Perry's accidental murder of Trevor.
- Patricide: An accidental case. The young Royal accidentally shot his father. Also attempted by Luke, but portrayed as more of an attempted Mercy Kill after Wayne's stroke.
- Sanity Slippage: Autumn and Billy undergo this increasingly as the series goes on.
- Self-Harm: Autumn carves the Abbott brand into her own skin.
- Time Travel: A buffalo sporting Native American arrows in its hide mysteriously appears on the Abbot ranch; strongly implied to be from the past. When Royal falls in the Time Hole, he falls out more than two years later and gets shot in the leg, before returning to his own time.
- Took the Wife's Name: Abbott is Cecilia's family name. Royal took it because he didn't have any family in this time period at least.
- Twofer Token Minority: Joy Hawk is a threefer, being a Native American, a lesbian and a woman in a male dominated field. She's acutely aware of this leading up to her election as sheriff.
- Stylistic Suck: Billy Tillerson's singing isn't bad on a technical level, but he takes himself far too seriously so it falls into this.
- Vorpal Pillow: Luke attempts this on his father, but is interrupted by Billy.
- Weird West: The Abbotts are ranchers in rural America confronted by unknown symbols and mysterious holes in the middle of the plains.
