'Outcast' Recap: 'This Is How It Starts'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

You know as far as apocalyptic stories go involving a great evil taking over the world, we’ve been quite spoiled when it comes to Outcast. I say that, simply because the darkness and fear that should accompany the end of world, has never truly arrived on this television series. It’s always been a marathon, not a race and that’s always led me to believe that Kyle Barnes and his friends and family would have time to potentially prevent The Merge. But clearly, lulling the audience into a false sense of security was always part of the plan. Because last night’s episode, ‘This Is How It Starts’, ripped the security blanket clean off of all of us, making this particular tale an uncomfortable and terrifying affair.
 
Because in this story, death and darkness were everywhere and for the first time ever when it comes to this series, a true sense of dread that the apocalypse was nigh hung heavy over this story and well, I suppose we should discuss the worst parts of this tale first, starting with the fact that we said farewell to a pair of important characters in this one for both noble and vengeful reasons. The loss that outright broke my heart was the death of Rose Giles, because she simply couldn’t live with the possibility that someday soon, she might become the very thing she was fighting against and after a scare that the evil had finally come to take her soul, Rose took her own life to prevent that from ever happening, and I’m not sure that Chief Giles will ever be the same after losing his one and only.
 
But, the other death in this tale was one that was satisfying in its own right since it involved someone from the darkness, but it was also incredibly unexpected. Because this story saw a grand exit for Sidney was well, who succumbed to his injuries and the fury of Reverend Anderson and I call this unexpected, simply due to the fact that I always expected Sidney to be around for a lot longer on this series since he was such a fine and mysterious nemesis, but his death was a necessary evil, since it showed us how weak these hybrid creatures really are, and because his death and the eventual lead up to it also revealed the fact that the little group of survivors outside of town…are in fact hunkering down for the end of the world and well, they have good reason for that, because evil truly is winning.
 
After all, Blake was able to get his hands on Kyle with little to no effort when all is said and done and we did discover while Kyle was captive that it isn’t Kyle that the evil fears, it’s his daughter since she is about as pure of a Beacon as they get and to make matters worse, she and her mother and now missing because it would appear that someone made a point to scoop them up. But what’s truly terrifying, is that dealing with Kyle seemingly inspired Blake. Because he now believes that if it is possible for a pure beacon to be born on this earth, that it is equally as possible for a pure source of evil to be born here as well, and it would seem that Dr. Park and Blake have figured who may in fact be carrying such a child…Megan.
 
Yet, despite the cavalcade of surprises that this episode had to offer, there were a few more waiting in the wings, in that, Reverend Anderson is beloved once again since the people of Rome are terrified and need comfort and direction when it comes to how to defeat this evil and…Kyle’s father Simon is back in the picture and really, all of this sets the stage for one of hell of a season two finale next week. Because it really seems as though the Merge is right around the corner and man, I’m hoping Kyle can find his family and some kind of victory next week because this one…this one was bleak and downtrodden and powerful, and quite frankly…good. It’s always great when a horror series holds nothing back and takes risks and we found that in spades here and in the meantime, I’ll just be sitting here waiting to see whether or not Kyle and his father can save all of mankind from a fate from worse than death. Until next time.  

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