The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub speaks with
Outer Range
star Josh Brolin for Season 2 of the Prime Video series and the way the season ends.
Brolin discusses working with the new showrunner, Charles Murray, embracing more of the supernatural elements, time travel, and more in this spoiler interview.
Brolin also talks about his feature directorial debut and why he’s excited to work on Zach Cregger’s next horror,
Weapons
.

[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Outer Range Season 2]Outer Range Season 1 was full of twists and turns and revelations that left the Abbott family shaken over two years ago. In that time, audiences have been left with questions surrounding the west pasture where the mysterious black hole has become a central focus. Now, all seven episodes of Season 2 are available to binge on Prime Video, which means we’ve got even more questions. In this interview with star and director Josh Brolin, Collider’s Steve Weintraub has the opportunity to ask some of those burning questions including the ending of Season 2, if the ending sets up an alternate timeline, how the hole might branch timelines, and more.

At the end of Season 1, Brolin’s character, Royal Abbott, the patriarch of the family, made a jaw-dropping confession that changed the already-mysterious series drastically. During their conversation, Brolin talks about the “chaotic recalibration” this admission puts Outer Range Season 2 through, and how the success of sci-fi epics like Dune: Part Two make it possible for the creators and new showrunner Charles Murray (The Devil You Know) to take this Yellowstone-esque story and turn it on its head. We find out just how much Brolin and Murray have mapped out in regard to Season 3, what exactly Wayne Tillerson (Will Patton) may know, and the ultimate fate of certain characters.

You can check out the full conversation in the video above or in the transcript below for more about Outer Range Season 2, Brolin’s feature directorial debut, and what he has to say about Zach Cregger’s (Barbarian) next horror, Weapons.

Outer Range A rancher fighting for his land and family discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness.Release Date April 15, 2022 Creator Brian Watkins Seasons 2

How ‘Dune’ May Have Inspired More Sci-Fi in ‘Outer Range’

COLLIDER: I’ve seen all of Season 2 and it’s really good. I really enjoyed that you guys embraced more of the hole and more of the time travel and what the hole can offer.

JOSH BROLIN: Good. I’m glad to hear that. I’m glad that you’re intrigued. I’m glad that you’re jazzed by it. I think it’s funny because as an “algorithm,” the word that we all hate right now, as an algorithm, I think in the beginning, especially because of Yellowstone and Westerns coming around, the focus was, “Let’s stay in the family drama. We don’t want to scare people away by the sci-fi elements or the absurdist elements of what we’re creating here,” which I think has completely shifted and changed, a la Dune. That could be one of the reasons. It was the thing that intrigued me the most, the idea of the hole and the relationship to this thing. What does it represent? The thing that sucks you into confronting the thing that you want to confront the least. It creates colorful behavioral reactions. I was like, “Yeah! I don’t know what this is, but it sounds like we could create some really good shit out of it, so let’s start designing this.”

One of the things with Season 2 is Royal is now an open book where in Season 1 he was so guarded. Did you enjoy being able to explore that? Because Royal is just a different person.

BROLIN: In the first season, you go, “How do I dramatize the quiet?” People are holding things in, they’re keeping things to themselves, especially Royal who’s helming the whole thing. Then, he finally reveals his secrets. He finally gets honest. I think that he hopes that everybody’s reaction is gonna be more of a celebration and ease, and it’s quite the opposite. It throws people into this chaotic recalibration. I don’t know, it’s just a more extroverted series now. I think it was a very introverted series in the first season. I think it’s much more extroverted now.

Image via Prime Video

When Charles came in as the new showrunner for Season 2, how much were you guys figuring out, “Okay, where is it gonna go in Season 2 and then Season 3, if we get to do it?” And how much are you just figuring it out now, “Let’s just get this season done and we’ll think about Season 3 if we get to make it?”

BROLIN: I think we did. We focused on Season 2 and the things we felt really worked in Season 1, and things that we wanted to piggyback on, and things that needed figuring out. There was an elusiveness to the hole in the first Season that I think was intriguing but not sustainable, and we had to get more specific about what that meant to us and the architecture of that. Now we have timelines and an emotional reason for it.

And I love doing it with him, man. I don’t know what it was about Charles. I don’t know why I feel such a brotherhood with him, but it was instantaneous. We Zoomed for the first time, and we just started geeking out. I think it’s two guys in their mid-to-late fifties who just don’t give a fuck anymore and just want to geek out on storytelling.

Well, I’m gonna say you guys did a really good job.

Josh Brolin Confirms His Feature Directorial Debut Is in the Works
Image via Prime Video

So, how did you end up directing Episode 6? Was it almost going to be a different episode? How did you decide on that one?

BROLIN: I didn’t decide on that. I think that was a Charles thing, and I don’t know why it was necessarily Episode 6. If we go into another season, is it gonna be the first episode? Is it gonna be the first two episodes? I think [Episode] 6 felt like, “Let’s give this guy a shot, and let’s not make it an essential episode.” Even though it is an essential episode — it’s turned out to be that. But that was instigated by Charles. It’s something that I couldn’t get out of my own way to do. I think around the time that I was doing No Country [for Old Men] my head was going there, and then it kind of got waylaid by a lot of job offers and all that kind of stuff. I had more fun directing than I probably have doing anything else in my life, other than parenting.

That’s a big statement. Does this mean that a feature is in your future?

BROLIN: We’re developing a feature right now that I’m directing. I can’t not do it because everybody says that. “Oh, I have a passion project.” I don’t have any passion projects. I just want to continue doing. We have a play that we wrote that we’re doing a reading of that we might do at Ojai; we have this book that’s out, obviously; we’re directing. It’s almost like saying, “Look, you have a lot to say. Get out of your own way and just fucking say it. Just do it now.” I think Charles picked up on that and said, “You need to direct an episode,” and I was very happy to do it.

Josh Brolin Says ‘Outer Range’ Season 2 Is Like an Opera
“Anything can happen at this point.”

What do you want to tell people about the finale and how you got there and what you’re excited about?

BROLIN: To me, again, it’s almost like opera at the end. Do you know what I mean? He gets put back, Perry’s back, you have this hole, you’ve had this suicide. It does. It feels like a kind of big, overdramatic opera to me. It sets it up for a third season, I think, really well in the fact that anything can happen at this point. Noah [Reid] dies, but nobody has to die forever in this show.

That’s the thing I want to ask you. I think one of the most interesting things is that in Season 2 you have minor things that can happen to a character, where, like, their nose gets adjusted based on getting punched, but then you have Perry, who is now back to before the son gets killed. Is he in an alternate timeline or is he about to create the biggest ripple of them all that’s gonna go forward?

BROLIN: Which I love. Everything that you just said, I love. That’s what Charles and I would sit down, and we would literally illustrate and go through, is: “Where is this person here? Where can they end up? Where can we crosshatch? What does it mean behaviorally? Does it actually work? Does it make sense?” I think that a Season 3 could be extremely compelling in that way.

Image via Prime Video 

Did you guys talk about the fact that the hole can branch timelines and that Perry might be permanently over here?

BROLIN: Not initially, but as you go on it’s like, “Are you getting into Season 3? Dude, there’s so much going on in Season 2 that why would you worry yourself with Season 3?” The thing that I told Charles in the beginning is, I said, “Look, I would love everything written by the time we start Season 2. I would like to know where we’re going throughout Season 2.” He was like, “Oh, yeah,” I think knowing very well that that was never gonna happen. [Laughs] Once we maybe had three or four episodes written, thank god, because it would dictate to us more where it wanted to go and what the possibilities were. Had we figured it out earlier, I think it would have been way less compelling.

One of the cool shots is when Wayne realizes that Perry is time-traveling. Do you think Wayne is figuring all this shit out as it’s going, or do you think Wayne has figured out more about the hole than the audience has realized?

BROLIN: Also, he has this thing, and I don’t know what it suggests to the norm, but he’s on the dust when it happens. In this day and age of ayahuasca and micro-dosing and mushrooms [laughs], I don’t know. Do people feel like, “Oh, this is something I’m making up in my head, or is this tapping me into a part of myself and a knowledge that we don’t know until we tap into it,” which is obviously what hallucinogens have been utilized for as far back as it goes? So, I don’t know if he’s piecing it together. I think if there’s one character that’s smart enough, as insane as he comes across, that could piece it together early on, it’s him.

I’m very curious if he’s ahead of the audience.

2:44 Related We Need More Weird Westerns Like Prime Video’s ‘Outer Range’ This neo-Western series should be the tip of the iceberg.

Did you guys discuss anything that you just realized wouldn’t fit in the season but you have it written down and maybe it’ll be used in the future?

BROLIN: Yes.

[Laughs] Is it a lot?

BROLIN: Yeah. There was a lot that was put aside. Yes. There was tons of stuff that was talked about.

One of the other things that I loved was how the show takes place one-hundred-something years ago on a Native American reservation. I love that you guys did that. Talk a little bit about adding that to Season 2.

BROLIN: You have Tamara [Podemski] in the show who is indigenous, we’re in this setting, you have access to timelines. Why would you not go back and explore? A whole demographic of people that we’ve been incredibly disrespectful to in the worst, most torturous ways, and not go back and explore their cultures? First and foremost. We talked about that with Heather Rae, who’s an executive producer on the show, we talked about it with Charles being African American. It’s just something that’s an obviousness that you can’t deny that you can’t begin to explore. So, I’m glad that we got into it. When I did The Young Riders in my early twenties, I was deeply into the local indigenous community there. That was something that I always wanted to be able to bring back into my life, especially in my professional life, and I was very happy to be able to do so.

Josh Brolin says Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’ Has a Brilliant Script
Image by Jefferson Chacon

So, you’re going to do Zach Cregger’s Weapons. [Producer] Roy Lee told me you guys are filming in June and July-ish. What was it about that project that said, “Oh, I need to do this?”

BROLIN: The truth of the matter is that I struggled through that decision for just obvious reasons. I really liked his first movie, but it’s still new for him and all that. Then I met him a couple of times and we talked through what he was thinking. It’s a really good script, first of all. He’s put together a really good cast, especially now — Julia Garner, who I love, and Alden [Ehrenreich], who’s great, who I did Hail, Caesar! with. There’s a lot of really good people involved. This was one of the few times when I finally went, “Okay, let’s do this,” — and I think I was avoiding work anyway, just generally — when I said, “Yes, let’s do this,” my choice just felt better and better and better and better with each following day. I’m super excited about doing this. We are doing it in May, June, July, and I just talked with him yesterday. I’m serious when I say I think it’s a really brilliant design of a script. Brilliant.

All seven episodes of Outer Range Season 2 is available to stream on Prime Video.

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