Cinemax had a demon problem in the summer of 2016, and it went by the name of Kyle Barnes. Outcast, created by Robert Kirkman and based on the comic he wrote with artist Paul Azaceta, debuted on the network on June 3, 2016, with a ten-episode first season. It is a supernatural horror story about people caught up in demonic possession, and it follows a man who has been thrown out of his own town.
That town is Rome, West Virginia. Kyle Barnes grew up there, and the people there want nothing to do with him. They believe he hurt his wife and daughter. He says otherwise, or he says nothing at all, and the show makes you sit in that gap for a long while before it starts handing out answers.
Trailer, via Cinemax.
Kyle Barnes and the Town That Cast Him Out
Patrick Fugit plays Kyle. He is a man who has been plagued by possession since he was a child, and as an adult he sets out on a spiritual journey to find out what is actually happening to him. What he uncovers, per the show’s own framing, could mean the end of life on Earth as we know it.
That is a lot of weight to put on one quiet man in a small town, and the first season spends most of its time making the weight feel earned rather than announced. Kyle is not a hero in the usual sense. He is a person with a history, and the history is the horror.
The show’s central mechanic is possession, and it treats possession as a fact of the world rather than a metaphor. People in Rome get taken. Kyle can see it, and he can do something about it, and that ability is exactly why the town fears him.
Reverend Anderson and the Company Kyle Keeps
Philip Glenister plays Reverend Anderson, a preacher who becomes Kyle’s ally in the fight against what is happening in Rome. Glenister gives the show its loudest notes, and the show needs them, because Fugit plays Kyle at a near whisper.
Wrenn Schmidt plays Megan Holter, Kyle’s sister, and she is the person who keeps him tethered to ordinary life. Reg E. Cathey plays Chief Giles, the town’s law, and Cathey brings a steadiness to a role that could have been a stock small-town cop. Brent Spiner plays Sidney, and the less said about Sidney’s function in the story the better for anyone who has not watched, except that Spiner is having a very good time.
Madeleine McGraw plays Amber Barnes, Kyle’s daughter, and the show’s treatment of her is one of its smartest choices. She is not a prop. She is a person the story keeps returning to, and the dread around her is built from what might happen rather than what does.
The cast list is the show’s strongest asset. It is a group of actors who can hold a scene without much dialogue, and Outcast asks them to do that constantly.
A Ten-Episode First Season That Moves Slowly
The first season ran ten episodes. That is a modest order by the standards of the era, and Outcast uses the room to build atmosphere rather than to race through plot. Some viewers will find that patience rewarding. Others will find it frustrating, and both reactions are reasonable.
The show is a mystery, a drama, and a piece of sci-fi and fantasy, and it wears those genres comfortably. It is not trying to be a possession movie stretched to ten hours. It is trying to be a story about a man and a community, with possession as the thing that exposes what the community already was.
Rome, West Virginia, is not a real place as far as the show is concerned, but it functions like one. It has a church, a police chief, a family that has been torn apart, and a set of people who have decided who is guilty and who is not. Kyle is guilty as far as they are concerned. The show’s question is whether they are right.
Renewed Before It Premiered
On March 14, 2016, before the first episode had aired, Cinemax renewed Outcast for a second season. That is a vote of confidence, and it is also a bet on Kirkman’s name. The Walking Dead was at its commercial peak around then, and Cinemax clearly wanted a piece of that audience.
The second season premiered on Fox in the UK on April 3, 2017, and concluded there on June 5, 2017. It did not reach the United States until July 20, 2018, and it finished its run stateside on September 28, 2018.
That gap is the story of the show’s decline. A series that was renewed before it premiered ended up waiting more than a year between its UK and US airings, and by the time American viewers caught up, the momentum was gone. On October 2, 2018, Cinemax cancelled Outcast. Two seasons, twenty episodes, and a quiet ending.
What Outcast Gets Right
The show understands that horror works best when the audience cares about the people in the room. Kyle’s relationship with Megan is the clearest example. She is his sister, she has her own life, and she keeps showing up for him even when the town tells her not to. That is the emotional engine of the series.
The possession sequences are effective, but they are not the reason to watch. The reason to watch is the way the show handles Kyle’s isolation. He is a man who has been accused of something monstrous, and the show never lets him off the hook entirely, even when it becomes clear that something else is at work.
Reverend Anderson is the second-best thing in the show. Glenister plays him as a man whose faith is doing real work in his life, and the show does not mock that faith. It tests it. That is a more interesting approach than the usual one.
Where the Show Loses Its Footing
The pacing is the problem. Ten episodes is not a lot, and Outcast still finds ways to stall. There are stretches in the first season where the show is building toward something that does not arrive, and the second season inherits that habit.
The show also struggles with its own scale. The premise promises the end of life on Earth as we know it. The execution is a man walking around a small town, talking to a preacher, and looking at people who might be possessed. That gap between the cosmic and the local is not always bridged.
Some of the supporting characters get less to do than their actors deserve. Cathey is a strong presence, and Chief Giles sometimes feels like a role the show has not figured out. The same is true of a few other figures in Rome who exist mainly to react to Kyle.
The Second Season and the Long Wait
The second season is where the show’s structural problems become hardest to ignore. It aired in the UK in the spring of 2017 and did not reach the US until the summer of 2018. That is not a creative decision. It is a scheduling one, and it hurt the show badly.
By the time American viewers got the second season, the conversation had moved on. Outcast was never a ratings monster, and a year-long delay is not something a show like this recovers from. The cancellation in October 2018 was not a surprise. It was a formality.
That is a shame, because the second season does have things worth watching. The show continues to develop Sidney, and Spiner’s performance is one of the more memorable parts of the series. But a show cannot build an audience if the audience cannot find it.
The Score
Outcast earns a 7.0 out of 10. That matches the published critical score of 7.0/10, with a Metacritic rating of 70/100, and it is the right number for a show that is better than its reputation and worse than its premise.
Here is what the score reflects:
- Patrick Fugit’s performance as Kyle Barnes, which anchors the series without overselling it.
- Philip Glenister as Reverend Anderson, the show’s most reliable source of energy.
- The Rome, West Virginia, setting, which gives the horror a specific place to happen.
- The possession mechanic, which the show treats as a real part of its world.
- The pacing, which keeps the show from reaching the level of its best ideas.
- The scheduling, which put a year between the UK and US airings of season two.
The show’s biggest problem is that it was made for an era of television that was already ending. Cinemax was not a place where a slow, atmospheric horror drama could find a large audience, and the delay between markets made it worse. Outcast was renewed before it premiered and cancelled two years after its last episode aired in the US. That arc says more about the business than about the show.
What is left is twenty episodes and a clear sense of what Kirkman and Azaceta were reaching for. The comic is a story about a man who is hated for something he did not do, and the show understands that. It understands that the horror is not the demon. The horror is the town.
That is worth watching, even if the show never quite gets where it is going. A 7.0 is a recommendation with a warning attached. Watch the first season. Know that the second one takes a long time to arrive, and that it ends without a proper conclusion. Then decide for yourself whether Rome, West Virginia, was worth the trip.
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