The Outsider · Season 1 · HBO
The Outsider Season 1
The Outsider Season 1 is a WORTH-IT, BollyMeter 7.8/10. 10 episodes on HBO from 12 January 2020.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
The Outsider premiered on HBO on January 12, 2020, adapting Stephen King's 2018 novel through Richard Price's screenplay with Jason Bateman directing the first two episodes and starring. Critics awarded it 91% on Rotten Tomatoes from 75 reviews, with the consensus acknowledging a slow burn not always satisfying but redeemed by excellent performances - particularly Cynthia Erivo's private investigator Holly Gibney, who became the season's critical favourite. The 68 Metacritic score and 7.6 IMDb rating captured a show that opened with genuine procedural confidence before the supernatural elements created division: critics who accepted the genre blend on King's terms found a genuinely unsettling 10-hour experience; those who wanted the police procedural maintained through the finale found the pivot frustrating. Ben Mendelsohn's controlled grief performance and Bateman's direction in the early episodes were cited without dissent.
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The Room
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Fish in a Barrel8.2
A cold procedural opener that makes evidence feel damning, then lets one photograph quietly poison the case.
The moment: The arrest of Terry Maitland at a little league game in front of the entire town - a scene of public humiliation whose violence is in the look on his face, not in what is being done to him.
Full review of E1 → - E2Roanoke7.7
A tense procedural hour where every new clue should clarify the case, then makes Ralph trust it less.
The moment: The discovery that Terry Maitland cannot be in two places at once - and that both of those impossibilities are documented.
Full review of E2 →