‘Outer Range’ Season 1 Ending, Explained

Warning: This article contains major Outer Range Season 1 spoilers. Read it at your own risk.

Amazon’s Prime Video has been a heavy-hitter in recent years when it comes to producing a diverse range of compelling original content. One such original title that has pushed the limits of the boundaries of genre and provided engaging, gripping action from start to finish is Outer Range. The series encompasses everything from sci-fi to neo-Western to mystery to thriller, making for a fascinating, unique story unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Outer Range premiered on Prime Video on April 15, and just aired its seventh and eighth episodes on May 6th, marking the end of the show’s unpredictable and dramatic first season. How did Outer Range end? What is the series even about? Will there be a season 2? Keep reading to get the answers to all of your burning questions!

WHAT IS OUTER RANGE ABOUT? OUTER RANGE SEASON 1 PLOT:

Outer Range revolves around Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher who becomes embroiled in a mind-bending mystery in his hometown of Wabang, Wyoming. The first season begins with Royal trying to fight for both his land and his family in the midst of his daughter-in-law’s (Kristen Connolly) disappearance. In the midst of it all, his life is further complicated by the arrival of a strange drifter named Autumn (Imogen Poots) who asks to camp out on Royal’s land, along with the appearance of an inexplicable black void in his pasture.

The first episode alone has murder, prophetic visions, and high tension and stakes between the neighboring Abbott and Tillerson families, which is more than enough to set up the rest of the season for twisting and compelling action galore.

WHAT IS THE OUTER RANGE SEASON 1 ENDING, EXPLAINED?

Throughout the first season, Royal, himself, has proven to be quite the mystery. He doesn’t seem to remember his childhood at all, and one day just basically spawned on the Abbott ranch, where he was taken in by the family that would become his future in-laws after falling in love with the land owners’ daughter, Cecilia (Lily Taylor). Then in the penultimate episode, Royal tells his eldest son, Perry (Tom Pelphrey) that he is in fact not from this time, and was just a 9 year-old in 1886 who was unable to drag his father home after accidentally shooting him whilst hunting. Struck by despair, young Royal wished to disappear and that was when the void appeared to him, prompting him to hop in. That landed him on the Abbott ranch 80 years later, where the first person he encounters is Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton), the patriarch of the Tillerson family who, at the time, was Royal’s own age, and who has been haunted by images of Royal covered in darkness as he emerged from the portal ever since.

Royal’s tale inspires Perry to search for Rebecca by jumping into the void, himself, but after he does, it closes up, leaving Royal no way to find him. This plunges the patriarch into trouble as his only other son, Rhett (Lewis Pullman), seems poised to abandon the family ranch and legacy after being crowned bull riding champ and planning to run away with his lover, bank teller Maria (Isabel Arraiza).

Royal turns to hunting down Autumn, who has been manipulating everyone around her and causing trouble since the moment she popped up on the Abbott Ranch. He has already tried to kill her before, but is about to get rid of her once and for all when, after Autumn and Billy Tillerson’s (Noah Reid) car turns over and crashes (killing Billy), Royal finds that Autumn has a very familiar scar on her forehead… one that is exactly the same as the one Amy Abbott (Olive Abercrombie), Perry’s 9 year-old daughter, got last week. Cue the dramatic gasps and music.

That’s right, Autumn is Amy from the future. When Royal realizes he’s about to kill his granddaughter, he lets her go, a decision that might make the cultish future where Luke Tillerson (Shaun Sipos) has taken over and ravaged the Abbott land become a sure thing. Things continue to be mystifying as 9 year-old Amy reconnects with her mother, a very much alive Rebecca, and they depart unseen, perhaps in search of Perry, perhaps in efforts to go back to wherever Rebecca had been hiding (or stuck?) in the time she’d been missing.

The season’s finale brought about answers that only led to more questions, and we hope that there will be a season two coming soon so that we’re not left out to dry with these incredible cliffhangers.

WILL THERE BE AN OUTER RANGE SEASON 2?

As of right now, there is no confirmation about whether or not Prime Video has renewed Outer Range for a second season. We’ll let you know as soon as the news breaks, but for now, let’s just keep our fingers crossed and hope that this isn’t the last we’re seeing of the Abbotts, Tillersons, and mysterious void.