Everything You Need to Know Before Watching ‘Outer Range’ Season 2
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To make a popular sci-fi or true-crime drama on TV nowadays, you need to send viewers down a rabbit hole. True Detective: Night Country had more fan theories than even Reddit could handle—and the armchair detectives watching Netflix's Baby Reindeer are investigating the show's real-life counterparts so much that the streamer might have a lawsuit on its hands. Then there's Prime Video's sci-fi series, Outer Range, which sends viewers down a literal rabbit hole.
Starring Josh Brolin, Outer Range follows a Wyoming ranch family that discovers a giant hole on their property. The show combines Yellowstone aesthetics with the intricate puzzles of Lost, hooking viewers with the mystery behind the massive hole. The catch? The hole sends you to another moment in time—but its laws and reason for existing in the first place are not quite clear. In Outer Range, every answered mystery leads to another 40 questions... and every new episode adds another 40 mysteries. With Outer Range season 2 set to premiere Thursday, May 16, it's time for a primer on what to pay attention to moving forward.
What's Up (or Down) With the Hole?
In episode 7, Royal Abbott (Brolin) reveals that he's hiding an insane secret. He's from the year 1886, when he jumped into the hole as a child and was transported to 1968. According to Royal, he accidentally shot his father while hunting and ran away into the hole. Adopted by the Abbott family in 1968, he's since grown to become the leading patriarch in a new century.
Not everyone who goes into the hole comes out roughly 80 years later. There's no rhyme or reason as to where or when the hole will spit you back out. In Outer Range's debut episode, Royal's son, Perry (Tom Pelphrey), accidentally kills a neighboring rancher named Trevor Tillerson (Matt Lauria) during a drunken bar fight. Royal decides to cover up the murder by throwing Trevor into the hole. Trevor's body shows up days later on a mountain trail not far from the Abbott ranch, baffling the police and local coroners.
In another incident, a strange young woman named Autumn (Imogen Poots) pushes Royal into the hole, and he emerges two years in the future. An organization called BY9 is in possession of his land—and a big rig is mining something by the hole's perimeter. Royal's wife, Cecilia (Lili Taylor), informs him that he's dead in the future—right before he jumps back into the hole to avoid gunfire from Trevor's brother Luke (Shaun Sipos). However, Royal somehow lands right back in the present day. When he reveals his secrets to Perry, his son jumps into the hole and it disappears completely.
What's the Deal with Autumn?
Throughout the first season of Outer Range, Royal allows a young woman to stay on his land and inspect the area. She's interested in the hole, so Royal is interested in her. She quickly forms an antagonistic relationship with Royal, refusing to reveal who she is or what she knows about the hole. After Royal unsuccessfully attempts to kill her to protect the secret of the hole, her demeanor changes rapidly.
She seduces another Tillerson son, Billy, to protect her and go on the offensive. Calling herself the "Mother of Undying Time," she challenges Royal to a shootout in the center of town. The fight turns into a car chase. Royal kills Billy and flips their vehicle, with Autumn barely surviving the crash. In the shocking season finale, Royal spots a scar on her head that reveals she's actually his granddaughter, Amy. What could this possibly mean? Amy is still a child in our present timeline. Is Autumn a version of Amy from the future?
20 More Questions for Outer Range season 2:
Why didn't Autumn tell Royal she was his granddaughter before they tried to kill each other? Does she not know?
How do the laws of time travel work in the hole?
What else is Royal hiding?
At one point, Autumn telepathically communicates with a bear. She says, "Yellow," and the bear responds, "Tell him." What the hell happened there?
Why did Cecilia keep a dead bear instead of burying it immediately?
Where did Perry go when he jumped into the hole?
Perry's missing wife, Rebecca, turns up in the finale. Where did she go?
How is Rebecca back now—and where is she taking Amy?
What do the Abbotts think happened to Amy when she disappeared?
How did Luke dig and find a new hole?
Why do the rocks from the hole act like hallucinogens?
What does Wayne Tillerson know about the hole?
Will Royal's son, Rhett, stay in Wyoming?
What is BY9?
Are all those bison still running around Wyoming?
Will the Abbotts ever answer for Travis Tillerson's death?
Is the Abbott ranch still under takeover from the Tillersons?
What is the strange symbol that Autumn carved into her chest? Why is the symbol also on mountains around Wyoming?
How did that one mountain disappear and come back?
Are there more holes?! (My money's on two holes in season 2.)
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