THE OUTSIDER: Episode 8 Breakdown & Ending...

THE OUTSIDER: Episode 8 Breakdown & Ending Explained | Full Spoiler Talk Review

the outsider episode 8 breakdown ending explained spoiler talk review el cuco stephen king book spoilers holly gibney predictions 9 trailer


It’s time to break down The Outsider.

Episode 8 is finally here and the entry that I’m calling Jack Attack has a lot to unpack.

Everything is really coming together now and throughout this video we’re gonna be breaking down all of the ins and outs of the entry and it’s ending.

There will be heavy spoilers here so if you don’t want anything potentially ruined then I highly recommend that you turn off now. Make sure you subscribe to the channel as the finale is right around the corner and you don’t want to miss what happens in the last few episodes.

With that out the way, thanks again for clicking the video, now let’s get into our breakdown of The Outsider Episode 8.

The Outsider Episode 8 Recap


Episode 8 centers around getting Ralph on board with the investigation in order to help save Claude from being tied up into the disappearance of a child.

The Outsider has been laying low going through a transformation and due to its vulnerability, it has been using Jack to do its dirty work. However, this phase is now over and the creature is ready to claim it’s next victim.

Time is short and due to Ralphs disbelief of El Cuco the investigation has stalled, allowing the creature to put the pieces in place for the next part of its plan.

The episode opens with Jack getting the police away from his room by making a phone call and saying that one of their own has been shot. The place has been completely ransacked but they didn’t find the arsenal of weapons that would make the punisher blush stuffed in the drywall.

He’s got shotguns, rifles and even some Nightvision Goggles that had me realizing this guy could easily play Sam Fisher in a live-action version of Splinter Cell.

CaveStock


We then cut to a festival which is in the midst of being set up in the town named CaveStock. This isn’t a real festival but there is one called Cavefest…so yeah…if you’re looking for somewhere to go for the next 15 years then here’s the place.

There’s a sign for Tiger Claw Cave and I think this has a lot going on with it. In the episode we learn that El Cuco chooses to hide out in a cave and though it’s a bear one, this is a clear reference to that. Claw could be because he scratches people and Tiger could be because he’s an endangered animal annnnnnnd we’re already reaching.

However, the cave setting is similar to the book and this is where the monster ended up hiding out after the Maitland clothes were discovered at the Barn. We learn that El Cuco has been panicked by the unearthing of the CCTV that showed Terry in another place whilst the crimes that set off the show were carried out.

El Cuco in the episode makes sure it’s in the exact same place as Claude is to stop this from happening in the future and the entire episode is sort of a road trip.

Claude meets his brother at the location of the festival and due to the events last week he is pretty down on his luck.

He’s paranoid, worried that someone is stalking him and that something bad is about to happen.

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Claude


Holly has either been watching these videos…or she’s really smart and she has deduced that El Cuco is going to be the face that he wears next.

In order to stop it from framing another person the group intend to follow Claude to provide him with an alibi once the creature does inevitably attack.

She’s worked out that the creature is at it’s weakest whenever it’s been exposed and as it is already very vulnerable, if they expose it further then it could be lights out for the monster.

Ralph has finally gotten on board with the investigation and the metaphor of the beetle from last time has come full circle. Last week we saw one scrambling around on it’s back unable to get up and thus it was stuck in a position in which it would die. There were several examples of this in the episode such as Jack to did the same thing. We also cut immediately from it to Ralph lying in his bed and he sat up showing that he wasn’t doomed.

However he still hums and hars and Jeannie tells him not to go on the trip because she believes that if he does he will stall the investigation further.

El Cuco has managed to exist for so long purely because of policemen like Ralph who have disregarded the supernatural. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist and this is exemplified here.

Ralph says that he will be ok and though he doesn’t out and out say it’s clear that he’s coming around.

 

The Beetle could also have been applied to El Cuco who we learn was also in a very bad position.

Before they head down we see Howie and Ralph catch up and the former says Glory is going to be suing the department but that he will not be brought into it. He dodged a bullet because Glory thinks that Ralph is the only person who can clear Terry’s name.

Jack Attack


We cut to Jack who has an APB out on him and we learn about his backstory. We discover that he’s an expert marksman however he failed the psych evaluation at the army.

Jack’s dream was to be a sniper but at the last minute he was rejected and this has haunted him his entire life. We know El Cuco picks vulnerable people to be its slaves and he was clearly chosen because of this, coupled with the death of his mother and the fact that his wife left him.

The conversation slowly turns to El Cuco and Ralph hypothetically says that he’s been sold on it and we learn that its motives are merely to survive. As Holly says, it’s not a criminal, it’s not human, it’s something else.

The Outsider Metaphor


The book by Stephen King was supposed to take the idea of the serial killer and turn it into something supernatural. We exist in a world where people murder for absolutely no reason beyond the fact that they like to do it. What King wanted to put across with the work is that what if people like Jeffrey Dhama who used to kill and cannibalise, what if he really was a monster. A creature from another world, a vampire that could take on the face of someone that seemed like a normal person and wear it like a mask. This would allow them to blend in and hide deep and dark desires.

This metaphor is laced throughout the episode with masks making a big appearance towards the end with Claude.

Speaking of Claude, he ends up staying at the family home with his brother.

The Jigsaw


His brother is putting together a jigsaw without knowing what the image actually looks like and to me, this is a comment on Ralph’s investigation thus far. Ralph has been trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together without accepting the bigger picture, however, he will eventually get there through sheer will power.

Holly later figures it out and says that she doesn’t like Elephants, possibly because like her they never forget.

We cut to Yunis and Andy in the car and Yunis jokingly tells him that Holly can sense when people are going to die. To me, this kinda shows how myth and folklore and be developed and though we know El Cuco is real, it does also show why people have such a hard time believing things when they can be made up so easily and gullible people can jump on board even if deep down they know it’s not true.

Back in the other car, Ralph tells Holly that he was a respected policeman but that he’s now chasing the Boogeyman. Holly appreciates him calling her out and questioning her and she says that this is challenging. This is a callback to the jigsaw puzzle which too is difficult but worth doing for the mental strain it will provide that will help us grow in the long run.

The two confide in one another on the ride and Ralph tells a story about when his son was born in which he heard the same song that he tried to get play his mother on the day she died.

She mentioned it as she was dying and Ralph ran down to get it and then came up to find her dead. He still played it to her and said that he never heard it again until the time he was talking to his mother in his head about how he wishes that she could see her grandchild.

That song was Washington Square which yeah, go listen to it, tonnes of comments on there about how The Outsider brought us there.

Had me crying and everything after this story and it’s a really emotional moment.

I think it was a joke but there may have been some truth to it so let me know your thoughts on the conversation below and what it represented. She begins to embrace the other side and visits a church later in the episode to show.

We learn that Claude’s brother is taking anger management classes and I have a theory that El Cuco may choose him as the next slave now that Jack has been rumbled. He’s clearly caught up in narcotics, close to the victim like Tracey and his cousin and he lives an isolated life.

Claude is stopped by Police and taken to jail and it doesn’t take too long before his brother is in the cell with him after starting a fight at the department.

El Cuco’s New Face


Elsewhere Jack is now hunting the most dangerous game…man and he snipes a fisherman. We then hear the sound of El Cuco feasting for the first time.

Jack has had to ditch his car because of the APB but there’s no reason El Cuco can’t eat either.

The animal noises are mixed in with human breathing and though we don’t see anything it’s completely disgusting. El Cuco and Jack and making a road trip like the other characters but this one doesn’t look like it will be as fun.

El Cuco has taken Claude’s voice, his tattoos and the creature says that he needs to eat because the fisherman was full of cancer.

This explains why he chooses young targets I think as children are far less likely to have cancer than adults.

He also feeds son the grief of families so he takes a cube from the front mirror that has pictures of them on it. We can actually see from its hands that it isn’t fully transformed yet and we learn that the reason it adopts a mask later is to hide the fact that its face is still a bit mushed.

It still has Claude’s DNA so that is enough to frame him but the investigation has clearly made it uproot.

We then join a family making their own road trip to some caves and as mentioned earlier this becomes El Cuco’s new base. It eats there too and seems displeased with the meals that Jack has been bringing it.

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El Cuco Hunts


It’s revealed that Ralph and co are the ones that had Claude arrested and it was for his own safety. They give him the 411 and Ralph stills struggling. He is slowly getting there but it is frustrating to see him doing a Dana Scully when Mulder has already shown her Aliens for 200 episodes

The outsider becomes fixated on the child from the family at the festival and he promises to show the boy to the Cave.

His sister also has some predators around her too, boys, why I oughta.

Luckily the boys point out El Cuco and his sister screams and stops him from being taken away. A crowd gather and the father manages to pull his mask off. We don’t see the face but again as there is a shock it does show that the beast is not fully Claude yet.

Another deal with Claudes’ brother almost goes down but Ralph stops it, why doesn’t this guy just buy a big one instead of three trips damn.

The church scene happens and we cut to the police station namely the investigation of the attempted kidnapping. We then jump to the crew at Claude’s family home and Ralph is awoken by Claude in the night going through the paranoia that he talked about earlier.

The next day Howie and Alex arrive due to the guilt of feeling like they’d abandoned Holly. Similar to everyone else in the episodes Alex had a sign that something was going to happen on this trip because of the taste of copper in his mouth. This used to happen before his tours in Iraq and thus he knows this is an important trip.

The police show up to question Claude and they have cellphone footage of the character attempting to kidnap a child. Ralph can’t deny it and Holly says ‘he is here.’

Episode 9 Predictions


We end with El Cuco eating a deer and next week it looks like everyone is finally on the hunt for it. El Cuco is hungrier than ever before and they know where it is, in the cave.

Everyone arms up and goes on the hunt for it but it looks like it won’t be easy. Jack similar to the book is set up in a snipers position and ready to shoot anyone who comes into contact with it.

It also looks like there is a cave collapse and personally I think that this is how the episode will end with us potentially getting a cliffhanger just before the finale.

Either way it looks great and the promo really got my blood pumping for next week.

Your Thoughts

Now obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on Episode 7 and what you’ve thought of the season so far. Comment below and let me know!

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