You know it’s a Serious Television Program when it gets real philosophical about time. What is time? What is a day? What, rancher Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin) wonders, does it even mean that God created Earth in six days?
That’s one question on his mind. Given that there’s a weird hole in his backyard that might be a portal through time, more questions are likely to follow.
Prime Video’s Outer Range returns next month for its second season of portal-induced pondering—and regular old mundane problems, like rival ranchers and mysterious drifters. Here’s the synopsis:
Outer Range centers on Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher fighting for his land and family, who discovers an unfathomable phenomenon at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness, in the form of a dark void. The mystery surrounding the enigmatic void on the west pasture of the Abbott family ranch deepens in Season Two, as Royal and his wife Cecelia (Lili Taylor) struggle to keep their family together in the aftermath of their granddaughter’s sudden disappearance. The stakes have never been higher for the Abbotts, who now face threats on multiple fronts. Outer Range’s second season propels its characters deeper into the void with profound and unforeseen circumstances that could shake the very foundations of time itself.
For its second season, Outer Range has a new showrunner, with Charles Murray taking over from creator Brian Watkins. Murray’s resume includes time as a writer on Luke Cage, Sons of Anarchy, and three Star Wars shows: Rebels, The Clone Wars, and Tales of the Jedi. The rest of the show’s cast includes Lili Taylor, Imogen Poots, Shawn Sipos, Tamara Podemski, Lewis Pullman, and Will Patton.
Royal Abbott’s musings wind up in a promising—or at least intriguing—place, narratively speaking: “Nobody understands that in the creation of man time had to be broken and nobody knows if God fixed that break or if he wanted see what we do with that particular problem.” What’s he going to do with that particular problem? Odds are good you can find out when Outer Range returns on May 16th.
