Talon and Garrett have to make an awful choice if they are to save Gwyn. Jarris’ brutal reign continues at The Outpost.

I have to hand it to The Outpost – it’s mostly awful, but there are moments when you just can’t help but be carried along by it. Sure, they’re few and far between, and in this case wait until the very end of the episode, but still.

For the most part, this is another clunker, filled with characters making absolutely terrible decisions on the fly for no reason whatsoever. Highlights on the Garrett/Talon/Zed side of things include literally wasting the one weapon that might be useful to cause a distraction, making a bargain with exactly the last person you should ever make a bargain with and then keeping to that bargain for no good reason whatsoever. Oh, and it throws in a bit of casual ableism as well, with a person being deemed basically expendable because they have become mentally infirm in their old age. Pleasant…

Back at The Outpost itself, Jarris continues to be exactly the sort of two-dimensional cackling villain the show thrives on. Gleefully eating his fill while leaving everyone else to starve as he watches Blackbloods forced to fight one on one to the death for his own amusement, he may as well just have a flashing neon sign above his head saying ‘I’m a really, really bad boy’. As he continues to be that, Janzo wrings his hands a lot and looks terribly upset because food is running out and people are starving, and you sense it’s only a matter of time before Wren catches Jarris’ attention given he’s already taken to making Munt’s girlfriend sit on his lap for kicks.

As a subplot to all this of course, you have Yavalla’s drone wandering around The Outpost trying to infect Wren for reasons that still honestly escape me. This leads to a particularly nonsensical incident where, overcome by the need to pass on her Kinj, the drone passes it to one of Jarris’ men, which is apparently a bad thing, even though said man would have much easier access to Wren but then this is The Outpost, where logic is rarely a factor.

Oh, and Tobin’s wife also rocks up at The Outpost as well, mostly one suspects so that issues can arise later for Tobin but meanwhile so that she can also wring her hands ineffectually at Jarris’ behaviour. It feels like the writers’ room is trying to make her quickly sympathetic so they can set up some tension in an otherwise fairly bland love triangle (they do love those).

It all barrels along rather aimlessly and a bit blandly until the final scene, in which genuine emotions are stirred and we get a decent action scene with a bit of catharsis. For a few moments, I almost forgot I was watching The Outpost as it felt like I was watching a much better, more engaging show. And then something a bit dumb happened and ruined it all again.

Verdict: Mostly dull, lightened by one genuinely decent scene that immediately got undercut moments later. Ah well. 5/10

Greg D. Smith