Summary
“There Will Be A Reckoning” had all the hallmarks of an unfortunate filler episode, but hopefully sets up better things to come.
This recap of The Outpost Season 2, Episode 9, “There Will Be A Reckoning”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Having missed The Outpost last week, I tuned in to “There Will Be A Reckoning” this morning happily expecting some payoff to the realm’s various on-going issues. And what I found was… mostly a run-of-the-mill filler episode, if I’m being honest, though not an entirely detestable one. There were some fun moments and an instantly-hilarious visual beat of Munt (Adam Johnson) riding a donkey, so I’ll take what I’m given. But one can’t help but get the sense that the best of this much-improved second season is to come in the final few episodes.
Talon (Jessica Green) and Zed (Reece Ritchie) spent much of “There Will Be A Reckoning” on an eventful road trip, during which they saved a baby from the gaping maws of a CGI beastie, discussed their shared Blackblood identities — props to the commenter in our previous recap who pointed out how silly it is that they refer to themselves as Blackbloods — and eventually did the no-pants-dance in a woodland. There was also an obligatory action sequence that was actually quite alright; notably different choreography between Talon and Zed helped to set them apart as individuals, even if the Prime Order being tipped off by the father of the baby they saved just because he saw Zed’s pointy ears led to the unfortunate line, “Humans! You can save their baby and they still hate you.” Luckily we don’t score these episodes for their subtlety.
Most of “There Will Be A Reckoning” concerns the current political turmoil in the Outpost, since Gwynn (Imogen Waterhouse) left Tobin (Aaron Fontaine) stranded at the altar on their wedding day so she could obliviously abscond with the brainwashed Blade of the Three. Milus (Jarren Dalmeda) is fuming about not having received his promised land as part of the deal, so he lines his men up outside for a good old-fashioned siege. Neither force has enough men to scare away the other, so it’s a stand-off; the difference-maker might be the Mistress (Robyn Malcolm) using her connections to sneak drugs onto the frontlines.
And then there’s Garret (Jake Stormoen). Still imprisoned under the intermittently watchful eye of Janzo (Anand Desai-Barochia), he tries every trick in the book during “There Will Be A Reckoning”, including leaning on his corrupt Prime Order guardsman, pretending to have beaten his brainwashing so he can choke a visiting Gwynn, and finally making a daring escape. But with Janzo having figured out the cause of his behavior and destroyed his final vial of magic ketchup, it’s presumably only a matter of time until Garret returns to normal. But how much damage can he do in the meantime? And how readily will people accept him after what he has done already? With Gwynn and Tobin currently in the midst of an earned romance, Garret’s role, especially if he recovers his senses, seems a bit redundant now. Is he on his way to heroic self-sacrifice? Time will tell, folks. See you next week.
