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Standing Wolf
01-29-2016, 10:39 AM
Wednesday night was the series premiere of Outsiders, a new series on WGN. It came to my attention because I was and am a huge fan of the late, lamented Sons of Anarchy, and several reviewers had written that this might be a show that would attract a similar fan base and be a big hit.

Ehh... Maybe not so much.

Set in rural Kentucky, the show stars veteran character actor David Morse (you know the face - he's been in a ton of stuff the past thirty years - though it might take you a minute to recognize it through the beard) as the patriarch-in-waiting (waiting for his half-crazy old mother to die) of a large clan of inbred but sturdy hillbillies living up in the mountains, making moonshine and the occasional ATV raid (for brewer's yeast and snacks) on a local convenience store. People get locked in cages, fingers are chopped off, there's a lot of shouting, but through it all - we are told - a sense of family loyalty pervades this centuries-old, insular community.

I guess what prompted the critical comparisons to Sons - aside from the presence of Ryan (Opie) Hurst as Morse's oldest son, who, at least in the first episode, is given little to do but glower in the background - is that family loyalty theme (which, honestly, is more talked about than displayed in the show) and the inevitable clashes that the clan experiences with local law enforcement and the townspeople...all of whom are pretty much scared s**tless of the hill-folk, and if it weren't for a large coal company pushing for the clan's eviction from the mountain would be happy to have nothing to do with them.

The show, particularly in the scenes up in the clan's mountain stronghold, has a sort of otherworldly, post-apocalyptic feel to it, and it would have been interesting to see what might have been added, in terms of graphic sex and violence, had it been produced by a cable network like Cinemax or Showtime. As it is, Outsiders is an invitation to voyeurism, to some degree, and something of a freak show, but the medium is bound to limit the horror. I'm going to keep watching for awhile, but so far I'm not seeing an SoA-type hit developing.

Cigar
01-29-2016, 10:52 AM
It's pipe-dream for a lot of people, who somehow believe they can fight forces that have Smart Weapons and Satellites :laugh:

Cletus
01-29-2016, 11:54 AM
It's pipe-dream for a lot of people, who somehow believe they can fight forces that have Smart Weapons and Satellites :laugh:

You can.