There is a pattern to everything strange happening in Amelia County, Wyoming. With each passing episode of “Outer Range,” the pattern gets clearer and is slowly revealing the truth about time and a black substance that is running the show around here. What is this black mineral? And where did it come from? We don’t know yet. But it is certain that it is one of the mysteries of the world that man has yet to ponder. In times of confusion, a man looks towards heaven, seeking answers from an unknown entity he calls God. But he forgets that everything he is looking for is right there, right in front of him, sometimes right under his feet, but he is too ignorant to accept that anything out of the ordinary can ever live among the common lot.
In “Outer Range,” Episode 5, there are two opposite forces at work here. One is Royal Abbott, an ignorant man who has witnessed the impossible, yet he refuses to accept its existence. He lives in denial. The other one is a girl, Autumn Rivers, who probably doesn’t belong in these lands, and thus brings a new perspective to things. She believes in the mysteries of nature and is ardently seeking answers. Apart from the mysterious occurrences, the drama around the murder of Trevor Tillerson keeps the characters busy, and by the end of “Outer Range,” Episode 6, a major incident brings misery upon the Abbott family. Let’s continue further.
See More: ‘Outer Range’ Episode 4: Recap & Ending, Explained – Are The Mysterious Rocks From Outer Space?
‘Outer Range’ Episode 5: Recap And Ending
In the previous episode, Wayne Tillerson and Royal entered into a fight near the mysterious Pit on the west pastures of Abbott’s ranch. At the end of the episode, Wayne hit Royal with a geode rock and fled from there with a sense of fulfillment, believing that he will finally be able to unravel the mystery. At the beginning of “Outer Range,” Episode 5, a flashback sequence from Wayne’s childhood memories established the fact that it wasn’t his first encounter with the strange Pit. During his preteen years, he saw a young boy of his age coming out of the Pit, and in fear, the young Wayne ran out of there. This strange boy covered in black substance could be Royal Abbott, who arrived at a different time with the help of this black mineral, and is most likely the reason he has no recollection of his first ten years of life. But before Wayne could say anything else, he had a stroke and was rushed to the hospital.
Royal, on the other hand, woke up from a nightmare and walked toward his house. He left the house early the next morning to meet a geologist named Dr. Nia Bintu, whose business card Royal had picked up from Tillerson’s house. Bintu informed Royal that Wayne contacted her some six weeks ago because he was acquiring some land and wanted to get it surveyed. She was probably speaking about Royal’s west pasture. Out of curiosity, Royal showed her the stone on Autumn’s necklace, and while Bintu inspected it, Royal checked around her office and found a photograph where she was standing in front of a make-shift tent marked with the logo, “BY9.” This was the exact same logo that Royal saw during his visit to the future and thus quickly connected the dots and figured out that she was working or might work for the BY9 mining company that would exploit his lands in the future. Without any further ado, Royal took Autumn’s necklace from Bintu and left the place. He tried contacting the BY9 mining company but couldn’t get through the automated portal.
In the meantime, Autumn broke into Abbott’s family house to search for her necklace when Royal’s wife, Cecilia, caught her and asked her to leave immediately. Before leaving, Autumn highlighted Royal’s changed behavior to Cecilia, who over-thought it the whole time and lost her mental peace. She couldn’t concentrate on anything else. In the latter part of the episode, she finds a dead young bear outside her window (who was probably shot by the youngest Tillerson, Billy, while he was hunting in the woods). At first, Cecilia decided to bury the animal, but later dragged the creature’s body into the shed. In a flashback sequence, Wayne tells his son, Billy, that the earth often swallows up the souls of dead animals, but sometimes it spits them back out, and these souls roam around looking for vengeance if they died an unnatural death. Cecilia probably felt all alone after a tragedy hit her family, and thus she decided to keep the young dead bear to accompany her in her low times.
Deputy Sheriff Joy Hawk inquired of a Pit Bar employee, a dishwasher, who identified Perry Abbott and confirmed that he saw him fighting with Trevor in the parking lot on the night of Trevor’s disappearance and murder. For both emotional and political reasons, Joy didn’t want to rush into things and arrest Perry, and thus decided to just wait for the right moment before taking the huge step. She was running for Sheriff, and one mistake could have jeopardized her election.
At night, Royal smashed the amber on Autumn’s necklace that contained a black mineral, the same substance that Royal found inside the Pit. As soon as the substance came into contact with Royal’s skin, Royal suddenly got another vision from the future in which he witnessed Royal Abbott of the future timeline lying dead on Cecilia’s lap, and beside the body, he saw Autumn dressed in all yellow, wearing the same necklace that he took from her and smashed into pieces. At this point, it wasn’t revealed how Autumn got her necklace back, or if it was another necklace that looked exactly like the previous one that was already broken into pieces. Maybe the Autumn whom Royal saw in this vision wasn’t the Autumn from the original timeline, but what was peculiar in this strange vision was Autumn’s bright yellow coveralls. The color has been highlighted from time to time and probably has some major part to play in the upcoming episodes. The vision disappeared as soon as the black substance on Royal’s palm evaporated or perished, which further serves the theory that it was this substance that assisted in time travel or these strange visions of the future. The screen blacked out as Royal lost his sanity while trying to give meaning to the impossible.
See More: ‘Outer Range’ Episode 3: Recap & Ending, Explained
Why Did Rebecca Leave Perry?
Rebecca has been missing for more than 9 months, and since the beginning of the series, the Abbott family has been trying to find her. While Perry believes that she left him and his family willingly, Autumn tries to give a different reason for her disappearance and believes that maybe she fell into the mysterious Pit on Royal’s ranch and disappeared soon after.
We don’t know yet with exact certainty what actually happened to Rebecca. However, in “Outer Range” Episode 5, Perry shared with Autumn that she always wanted to leave Amelia County and settle down in California (near Bakersfield). The couple argued about it often, and on the night of the disappearance, Perry and Rebecca entered into the same argument, after which she left the house and never came back.
Both Royal’s sons, Perry and Rhett, who grew up on the ranch, entertained the thought of leaving the ranch behind and settling down in the city or somewhere else, but the burden of their lineage and the family business held them back. Rhett was going through a similar conflict. He always wanted to leave the ranch and had been planning his way out since the age of 17, but his family and the responsibilities always pulled him back. Rhett had a crush on Maria Olivares and wanted to start a relationship with her, but Maria made it clear to him that no matter what she felt about him, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life on these lands. Rhett wouldn’t be able to leave Amelia County ever, probably because of his family. The sole conflict became the reason behind Rhett’s violent and sudden outburst, as he felt suffocated under the weight of his family responsibilities, and probably in upcoming episodes, he may decide to leave the ranch for good.
‘Outer Range’ Episode 6: Recap And Ending
Episode 6 opens with Royal, who quickly drives to the Pit and finds Autumn standing near it. He offered to give her a lift back to her camp, but Royal had some ulterior motives running at the back of his head, which were evidently influenced by the visions he witnessed at the end of “Outer Range” Episode 5.
As soon as Autumn sat on his bike, Royal tried to scare her by speeding the vehicle, and out of fear, Autumn jumped off the bike and injured her leg. While lying on the ground, she demanded her necklace back from him, and as soon as Royal revealed that he had crushed it, she went hysterical. She started speaking about time travel and black minerals on Royal’s farm while an ignorant Royal screamed in anger and asked her to shut up. He threatened to kill her if she ever dared to tell any of her stories about time travel to his family, and with that warning, he left Autumn in the middle of nowhere and quickly drove to her camp and burned it down.
The next morning, for some unknown reason, Royal attended the church services, which compelled Cecilia to recall Autumn’s word that there was indeed something strange going on with him. Cecilia tormented herself with an array of thoughts and was probably losing her faith, especially after how Joy and her partner were treated inside the church. She couldn’t witness Royal taking the Lord’s supper and immediately rushed out of the church.
Meanwhile, Autumn, who tried to walk towards her camp with an injured foot, suddenly encountered a bear in the woods, who was probably the parent of the dead young bear that Cecilia found near the house in “Outer Range,” Episode 5. The bear walked towards Autumn but didn’t attack her. Instead, she heard some voices at that moment and called out, “yellow.” For Autumn, the color yellow meant power, as she told the Royal at the end of “Outer Range,” Episode 2, who had seen Autumn dressed in the yellow uniform in the future timeline. The significance of the color wasn’t explicitly explained in the episode, but it motivated Autumn to take revenge on her adversary, Royal Abbott. She saw Billy Tillerson hunting in the woods, and out of the blue, she approached him and decided to show him the mysterious Pit. Until now, no Tillerson had any idea about the Pit, except for Wayne, but due to Autumn’s interference, now Billy knew the secret as well and was able to understand why his father wanted to buy the west patch of Abbott’s ranch. He even whispered the fact to Wayne, who was bedridden and couldn’t speak or move after his stroke.
A short scene depicted an unusual car accident where county assessor Karl P. Cleaver, driving, suddenly spotted a bison in the middle of the road and lost control of his car. His fate wasn’t revealed as the screen quickly blacked out, but it could be surmised that it was the same mysterious bison (from the past) who appeared from time to time to influence the lives around it.
Autumn finally reached her camp and found out that someone had burnt it already. However, what worried her was that she lost her lamotrigine medication in the fire and thus immediately visited a drug store to get the medicine or an alternative to it. She called the person who had been managing her trust fund (as she told Royal about it) and demanded money so that she could buy new medicines and get a motel room to stay the night. Inside the motel room, she inscribed an occult symbol that looked exactly like the Abbott family brand, below her neck with a pocket knife. She was slowly turning into a maniac, seeking vengeance from her enemy, and thus finally decided to inform Perry about how his father tried to kill her, and that he was probably the one who murdered Trevor.
Perry, who knew the truth about Trevor’s murder, tried to handle the situation, but Autumn was totally out of control. She threatened him to go to the Sheriff and reveal to her how Royal tried to dispose of the body, and if he wouldn’t do it, then she would do it herself. At this point, Perry knew that things had gone really out of control, and he couldn’t hide the truth any longer, or his family would have to suffer the consequences of his crimes. He decided to give himself in and wrote a confession letter that he left at the Sheriff’s office and, later that night, informed his family about the same when he returned home.
As soon as the revelations hit the family, it incited an argument between the brothers. Rhett lost his cool and tried to attack Perry because he felt that Perry wouldn’t go down alone as it was Rhett and Royal who helped him to bury Trevor’s body, and his self-centered decision would bring misery upon the entire family. At this point, Rhett brought Rebecca into the conversation, which further complicated the affairs, and finally, Perry revealed that Autumn was going to tell the Sheriff that Royal tried to dispose of Trevor’s body, which was why he confessed his crimes to save his father. Royal had earlier told both his sons to stay away from Autumn, but they didn’t listen, and he lost control and attacked Perry, breaking a glass off the shelf that hit Amy’s forehead, and she started bleeding. She ran out of the house and saw a police vehicle approaching their house, and it was probably Joy who was coming to arrest Perry.
See More: ‘Outer Range’ Episode 1 & 2: Recap & Ending, Explained – What Did Royal See Inside The Pit?
Is Billy Tillerson Going To Inherit His Father’s Property?
After Wayne suffered a stroke, his eldest son, Luke Tillerson, found out from his lawyer that Wayne had created a will according to which, in the event of his death, all his business holdings and land would go to his youngest son, Billy Tillerson. However, both Luke and his mother, Patricia, believed that Billy was unfit to manage the family business, and they still had time to alter the will as Wayne was still alive. Patricia immediately left Amelia County to convince Wayne’s lawyer to make changes to the will, while in the meantime, Wayne’s favorite son, Billy, found out the secret that his father had been hiding from everyone for a long time.
If Wayne dies suddenly in the upcoming episodes before Patricia can change the will, then in the course of events, Billy will inherit the Tillerson property and probably employ his power and resources to get the west patch of Abbott land. The ending of “Outer Range” Episode 6 also hinted at the possibility that Autumn was strengthening her ties with Billy because she already knew that he was going to inherit the property and would probably help her to get control of the west pasture, along with the mysterious Pit on it.
However, there is another force at work here that is trying to protect Royal and his land, and it is probably the same force that conspired against corrupt county assessor Karl P. Cleaver and got him into a car crash that might not kill him but probably delay the hearing of the legal dispute between the two rivals. The third player is the BY9 mining company, which has just entered the arena, but it is probably going to influence the story and the characters in the upcoming episodes. Royal has incited a war with Autumn, after which she joined his rival, Wayne’s son, Billy, to fight back, so let’s see what she does next to strike back.
