The following content is part of the manuscript of the video commentary. The original video was originally posted on station B and Weibo account: Li Lixi on March 11, 2020. Original article, please indicate the original author for reprinting.
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The finale of "The Outsider" can be regarded as a horrible contemplation. It is the episode with the strongest horror atmosphere of the season, transforming the original restrained fear in the episode into a fear that can directly instinctively stimulate people.
Here we take a look at the plot analysis of the finale and the in-depth evaluation of the whole drama of "The Outsider". Finally, let's compare the content difference between "The Outsider" and the original novel.
The opening of the finale was a super fierce gun battle. Jack was completely insane under the control of the devil. He shot and killed the private detective first, then killed his brother bodyguard. Seeing that the situation was not right, Andy ran into the car in the chaos and planned to drive to a place where there was a signal to call for help, but was stunned by a shot from Jack and the car's fuel tank was leaked. The lawyer tried to rescue Andy from the car, but the car suddenly exploded, and both the lawyer and Andy went offline.
Seeing Andy being killed, the angry Holly shouted directly at Jack: "You go to hell!"
Jack suddenly woke up at the roar of Haoli and began to resist the devil. Being unable to harm himself under the control of the devil, Jack deliberately let the viper beside him bite himself. Then, he told Haoli and others that the devil was in the bear cave and must be killed. Then he blasted his head with one shot.
Therefore, Jack, who could not even commit suicide before, was yelled at by Haoli and immediately regained his consciousness. This turning point seems a bit abrupt to me. Either there is another foreshadowing behind this, or the plot layout is not reasonable enough--
Immediately afterwards, Holly and Ralph walked into the bear cave to find the devil, and along the way saw the remains of the animal leftover by the devil, and the 30 people who died in the bear cave in 1947 were carved on the rock wall. On the name.
The devil knew that he was inevitable, so he greeted him and directed Ralph and Holly to find him. The demon is now fully developed, and it has become exactly the same as the bodyguard. As soon as Haoli came up, she began to check the demon's household registration, and asked him: What the hell are you? What is your name and where are you from? How many demons like you are there? Why do you want to eat kids?
However, the devil does not seem to know the answer to these questions. He said: I don't remember how I came, and I don't know if there is any demon like me. I eat children simply because I think children are the best.
The devil's answer in this way was not trying to make a fuss. It really didn't understand itself very much. Richard Price, the producer of "The Outsider," said in an interview that what he arranged for the devil in the play is this kind of person who asks three questions. The devil has no identity, no name, it simply represents an evil force.
Afterwards, the devil screamed deliberately to show Hauli and Ralph that no loud noises should be made in this bear cave, otherwise the surrounding rocks would be shaken. The implication is: don't shoot me, or we will have to finish playing together.
But at this moment, the bodyguard himself suddenly came over and defeated the demon with a single shot regardless of dissuasion. The bear cave really began to collapse, Holly and Ralph hid in time, and the bodyguard, who reacted slowly, was injured by a rock.
The devil had been accidentally pierced by a piece of wood at this time, and it seemed to be completely dead. Holly stabbed the demon's body with a knife, planning to cut it apart for research. But Ralph reminded Holly: Let's ignore the demon's corpse. No matter what, people would never believe that the killing by the devil really exists. Even if part of his body is taken out for research, it will not prove the coach's innocence, but will make things more complicated.
Holly obeyed Ralph's suggestion, but asked a word that made people think about it. She said: Who is the coach?
How could Holly not know who the coach is? At the beginning, the lawyer called Haoli to ask her to investigate the coach's case!
This detail is tricky.
Immediately afterwards, Holly and Ralph supported the bodyguards together, preparing to leave the bear cave. However, halfway through, Ralph suddenly saw two ghosts. Of the two ghosts, one was Ralph's own dead son, and the other was the brother of the victim boy who shot and killed the coach for revenge. Ralph was not afraid when he saw the ghost. He understood that the ghost wanted to remind himself that the devil was not dead yet. So he returned to the devil's corpse, exposed the fact that it pretended to be dead, and said to it mockingly:
If I get you out, then you will be paraded without dignity, and your body will be cut by scientists for research. I don't want people outside to know about your existence, you'd better die here completely for me.
The devil did not speak, it directly performed a face change for Ralph, and his appearance changed in turn to the appearance of the victim he had selected, from bodyguard to coach, then to male nurse, and then to female bartender. Then it became the victim before the female bartender. Ralph directly smashed the devil's head.
However, if Ralph patiently watched the devil change his face, he would know who the devil had harmed. But it doesn't matter. Judging from the current situation, killing the devil is a top priority.
Afterwards, Ralph, Lao Yi, Holly, and the bodyguard unified their calibre. The bodyguard first clarified to the police that what I saw in the nightclub that day was not the coach himself, but just a person who looked more like him. People. Ralph and others also directly dumped the pot on Jack, falsely claiming that Jack had been cooperating with the real murderer and deceived everyone to the door of the bear cave to kill them together. This led to Andy, the lawyer, and the private detective. Was shot.
Everyone has to tell this lie, because no one will believe the truth. I think there are many loopholes in this lie, but the land inspector chose to believe it. It is estimated that the local inspector originally felt that the coach’s murder was a little strange, and he was very guilty of the coach’s wife. In addition, there was another child abuse case with the same characteristics in the past few days. The combination of all the circumstances was enough to make him aware The complexity of the incident. Therefore, the local inspection did not question Ralph's testimony. He directly approached the coach’s wife and told her that the DNA extracted from the victim boy was actually a mixture of the boy’s DNA and the criminal’s DNA, which was not pure. , Cannot be submitted to the court as valid evidence. In addition, the bodyguard also revised the testimony, so he will withdraw the lawsuit against the coach and declare the bodyguard's innocence to the media.
Jenny also found the coach's wife and asked her not to tell anyone about the devil. The coach's wife also agreed.
We are not sure whether the coach’s wife believes in the existence of the devil in the end, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone decided to forget everything about the devil, and Jenny also burned the chair where the devil had sat.
The investigation has been completed, and Holly is also preparing to return to her original place of residence: Chicago. Before leaving, Ralph said to Holly: I hope we have the opportunity to cooperate again. Holly also told Ralph: Remember in the bear cave, the devil asked me, why can I believe its existence so quickly? In fact, the answer is very simple, that is: only outsiders know outsiders best.
Holly calls herself an "outsider", perhaps just implying that she is a special individual who cannot be integrated into the society, or perhaps implying that she is not a human being at all. This interpretation space is big.
Finally, Ralph asked Haoli: What monsters are there in the outside world?
Holly just laughed without saying a word.
Ralph and Jennie visited their son in the cemetery. Ralph told about having seen his son before, and said jokingly with Jennie: "Maybe we will meet him again soon."
In fact, in the original novel of "The Outsider", Ralph's son is not dead. Therefore, perhaps Ralph's words are paving the way for the subsequent plot.
At the end of this episode, Holly suddenly saw a figure with a big nose at home, and she was scared to check the back of her neck for the same scars as the big nose and the cannon fodder man. Fortunately, there was not.
Later, Holly saw on the Internet that the coach had gained innocence. It is worth noting that there was a wound on Hauli's arm, but she herself did not seem to notice the existence of the wound.
Where did this wound come from? Based on the understanding of the plot, we can easily conclude that it was the devil who was in the bear cave while Haoli was not paying attention, and sneaked through her skin and ingested her DNA, just like he had ingested the coach’s DNA before. . In other words, the devil may not die. Now it has selected Holly as the next victim and continues to do evil.
However, there are a few points worth noting:
1 Haoli did not have close physical contact with the devil in the bear cave, and the devil should have no chance to cut her arm. It may also be that the bodyguard took the opportunity to get scratched while holding the bodyguard out of the bear cave. But overall it seems that this possibility is relatively small. 2 Holly wears long-sleeved clothes during her stay in the bear cave, and she is not easily cut. 3 Holly’s wound is a new wound, but Holly once said when she bid farewell to Ralph that she had to drive back to Chicago and had to pass several places to work on the way. This shows that several days have passed since Haoli left the bear cave at this time. If the arm was cut in the bear cave, the wound cannot be new.
There is one more thing, which is very scary to think more carefully:
When Holly inquired about the coach's case information on the Internet, a song called "Washington Square" was playing on the radio. Don’t forget, when rushing to Tennessee to find a bodyguard, Ralph once told Holly that his mother liked to listen to this song "Washington Square" very much during her lifetime. He also heard it once during the time of his mother’s death. The first song, but I haven't listened to it again since. Until the day of his son's birth, he heard "Washington Square" for the second time. Is this just a coincidence, or is there some kind of supernatural power at work?
At that time, Holly simply replied: It was probably just a coincidence.
And at this moment, Hao Li, what she was listening to was this "Washington Square".
In addition, Holly once said that she doesn't like listening to music, so why does she still listen to the radio now? Just listen to the radio. Why didn't she react at all when she heard the song "Washington Square"? Did she not know the song herself, or did she forget what Ralph said to herself?
Besides, Holly always felt a little awkward when playing with her hair. After all, Haoli in the whole play has never made this habitual action. So, is it possible that the Holly in the last shot is not the Holly we have always seen? Even when she was in the bear cave, Holly was no longer the original Holly. Otherwise, how could she not remember who the coach was?
Recall that Holly once said when she first appeared on the scene, "It is said that everyone has a clone." I was still wondering that after the stalk of this clone was thrown out, there was no response in the subsequent plot. After watching the finale, I feel that using the avatar to explain the irrationality of Holly’s body just makes sense.
Think again about Holly and Ralph saying that "only outsiders understand outsiders", and when Ralph asked her if there are other demons outside, Holly smiled without saying a word. Maybe it has another profound meaning.
Remember that time when Big Jack took Holly to the barn and killed it? Although Holly managed to get away, she still had a nightmare afterwards, dreaming that she was killed by Jack. Perhaps since then, the clone has appeared, and the truth and the false run through the plot behind it.
There is also a very important detail: The clothes Holly wore when she had a nightmare that day was the same as the clothes she wore when she played with her hair at the end.
Of course, these are free guesses. For these speculations, I think it should not be regarded as over-exploitation. Because the rhythm of "The Outsider" has always been slow, and the narrative density is also very low. If you did not add sufficient hints and foreshadowing to this slowness, then this drama would be a bit off-standard.
In any case, it is always good to leave brain-opening space for the audience. And Hao Li's plot also clearly stated: If you want to fight against the real evil, you must pay a huge price.
It is still uncertain whether the second season will be renewed. However, Ricahrd Price, the producer of "The Outsider," confided in an interview in January this year: As long as HBO thinks it works, we will continue to produce the second season. And HBO also marked the last episode of the first season of "The Outsider" on its website as "End of Season" instead of "The Final Episode of the Series", so it can basically be determined that there will be a second season of "The Outsider". After all, a lot of foreshadowing and foreshadowing have already been actively given in the plot of the first season. For example:
Before Holly left, Ralph said, "I look forward to working with you again." This means that the two people will definitely continue to cooperate in the investigation.
Also, the local prosecutor just learned that another child torture with the same characteristics occurred in the local area. Is this behind-the-scenes murderer another demon? Has the demon in the bear cave completely died? All are unknown. Although I think that demon may not be dead.
Furthermore, when Holly and Holly went into the bear cave to do the devil together, Ralph had a coat on his shoulder. But when he left, he threw his jacket in the bear cave. This detail makes me feel very unlucky.
The above content is part of the manuscript of the video commentary. The original video was originally posted on station B and Weibo account: Li Lixi on March 11, 2020. Original article, please indicate the original author for reprinting.
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