TV Review: OUTCAST: Season 2, Episode 6: Fireflies [Cinemax]

Outcast: Fireflies Review

Cinemax’s Outcast, season 2, episode 6, ‘Fireflies,’ should have taken the events of the last episode & run with it. Instead, it just found more cracks to try to slip the moment into. We’re back to Kyle (Patrick Fugit) getting spirited away (figuratively & literally) to serve as Sidney’s (Brent Spiner) personal whatever, for whatever the Merge is; more women of Team Bad Touch hand-wringing; and more Creepy Kid acting out.

Still, we did get some progress, regarding the usefulness of one creepy kid; a possible final solution, to another; and one TBT wife finally stepping out, stepping up, and stepping over her perceived problem. We also got Kyle finally getting his hands on Sidney, but that was just a taste. Kyle had other pains to initially worry about – starting with his own death.

What started as a have-some-quality-alone-time-with-your-spirit-of-choice out of body trope turned into a pretty bad case guilting mother (happy Mothers Day, BTW). This could’ve been a full episode’s worth of guilting; but other characters needed their recrimination time.

There was plenty of guilt to go around, too. Giles (Reg E. Cathey) retreated to within himself; Allison (Kate Lyn Sheil) regressed on the whole secularist denial thing; and Megan (Wrenn Schmidt) opened up about what she did, while Occupied, in an effort to get through to Allison.

Of course, with only the word of not-so-good Doctor Park (Hoon Lee) for it, the report of Kyle’s passing did telegraph Sidney’s playbook. Shame on Anderson for not asking for more (or any) details; but the guy does have a tunnel vision problem.

At least this time around I could appreciate where he was fixating. A place is definitely being set for the Lighthouse crowd – Dakota (Madelyn Deutch), specifically – and the prospects of a small army of Liberated expanding the conflict gets the hopes up, some.

I kind of need that, seeing as how there’s been no interest in giving Aaron (C.J. Hoff) anything to do, other than just be despicable. I was half-hoping Sidney’s new pet Creepy Kid would just silently stab him with something only semi-rigid – say, a carrot to the eye – during their introductory face-to-face; but that ship sailed away pretty quick (kid really should’ve gone for that carrot). What the kid lacked in carrot, Sidney might’ve made up for, in stick. I’m not getting my hopes up, though – that kind of wish fulfillment makes for easy bait.

Even if Sidney’s handling of Aaron turns out to be a fake-out, there was no mistaking Rose (Charmin Lee) going red. Of all the women of Outcast, Rose has been the boldest. She deserves to step forward in the ranks. If a little vigilante action gets her there (and the conflict escalated), then so be it. Otherwise, we’d be stuck waiting for the Creepy Kids to grow into lead roles.

As if Amber’s (Madeleine McGraw) precociousness wasn’t borderline troublesome enough, she declared a desire to be addressed by adults in adult fashion. Careful with that Grown-up Gas, Amber – it is Cinemax, after all. It didn’t take long for Amber to petition for Kyle’s spot on Team Bad Touch, though; so maybe the Gas is strong within her.

So’s the need to wander off. This week’s Amber Alert came after the post-oopsie confrontation with Dr. Park. Clearly synced to Plot Time, Amber (eventually) led the others down to the Lazarus moment (anybody know what happened to the guy chasing Kyle?), outed the Doc, and dropped the titular line of the hour. Kyle should be put on notice, at this point, as to who’s story this is shaping up to be.

Barring a few perk-up moments, it looks like I’ll have to wait to see if no-more-mister-nice-guy Sidney actually gets a grip on his Starscream problem (it was a plot armor thing for us cartoon fans, back in my day). If not, and we wind up dwelling on guilting, denial, and picking dodge-ball team members s’more, Rose might prove more inspirational, than encouraging.

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