'Outcast' Recap: 'The Common Good'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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It’s always a beautiful thing to watch a television series find its stride, because when that happens, everything clicks. Suddenly the plot starts chugging along, our questions are consistently answered, and the stakes are raised, and wouldn’t you know it? That’s precisely where Outcast is at this point in time. This series has simply figured everything out and last night’s episode was proof of that, because ‘The Common Good’ was a tour de force of storytelling, one that left this reviewer uncomfortable on so many levels simply due to all the darkness that was present in this particular tale.
 
Because the evil in this story was amplified to the Nth degree last night, as we came to learn exactly why the Mayor and Sydney are working together. It’s not because there’s a deal in place that offers the Mayor protections and more power once Sydney’s plan comes to fruition. No, instead their deal exists because the Mayor is one of the possessed and oddly enough, he made quite the power play in this episode by making the attempt to hand Sydney over to both Kyle and Chief Giles and he was more than happy to explain a little bit about where his kind come from and the Merge that’s apparently on the horizon.
 
As it turns out, the place where these beings reside, is grossly overpopulated, and they’ve sent out ‘beacons’ to help guide them to this world so they can find new bodes to live in, and there’s concern that there might not be enough room on Earth for all of them. But what was truly fascinating about this revelation, was everything the Mayor had to say about Beacons. Because we’ve heard Kyle referred to as that before, but I wasn’t prepared to hear that term used in the plural and perhaps the only bright spot in this episode is that these other Beacons have managed to save a lot of lives and we now know this, thanks to the fact that this episode revealed that the religious group that’s operating in the woods outside of town is comprised of people who have had these Beacons remove the evil from their bodies.
 
However, the episode’s only bright spot, also helped to bring about its darkest moment. Because in a stunning turn of events, the Mayor wasn’t quite done with his power grab and he tried to remove Chief Giles from his position at a town meeting that he called to quell the fear growing in Rome, and in the midst of this meeting, a demon found the Chief, thanks to the power of a Beacon, and took him in front of everyone, leading to chaos and a costly fight for Kyle. Because the dark stranger that took Giles, plunged a knife into Kyle’s gut while Sydney made the Mayor pay for his treachery and well, this one ends in uncertainty. Because Rome is now without a leader, and Kyle Barnes is in bad shape and it would seem that no one is safe near a Beacon…
 
Yet, despite being an intense episode that moved at a mile a minute, it did find time to do a touch of character development, since Megan now understands she’s not at fault for what happened with Mark. Plus, this episode also did hint at something big on the horizon, in that, if the Beacons can be amplified, they can bring more beings to Earth for the Merge and really, when all is said and done, this episode was downright incredible. I still can’t shake the feeling of dread this one produced, because it truly feels as though an apocalypse is coming and with Kyle likely out of commission for a time, I’m sure Sydney will take full advantage of his absence and who knows what horrors he is planning to unleash. Until next time.

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