The first season of “The Outsider” ended with a tease that a second season could be coming and now Stephen King says it’s happening…
“The Outsider” may live again.
According to author Stephen King, a second season of the breakout hit series for HBO is currently in the works with production expected to start once there’s a clear path through the COVID-19 pandemic.
HBO has never announced “The Outsider” coming back for season 2, but it was heavily hinted at the end of the first season, which came to a close with a teaser that could only lead viewers to believe the story would continue. Initially, “The Outsider” was touted as a limited event series but the show ended up receiving critical and commercial praise, which then led to rumors that a second season was possible.
“The Outsider” was based on King’s book of the same name, which follows Detective Ralph Anderson as he investigates the horrific murder of a child in Georgia and the subsequent arrest of a local kid’s baseball coach, who is indicted for the crime. Unfortunately as evidence begins to pile up that the beloved coach was out of town at the exact moment the boy was murdered, Detective Anderson begins questioning his own air tight investigation. Along the way he’s assisted by a private detective named Holly Gibney (played by the brilliant Cynthia Erivo) as they try to find out how exactly their murder suspect could be in two places at the same time and it leads them down a haunting supernatural path.
King initially dropped the information about “The Outsider” season 2 when discussing another show based on his work titled “Mr. Mercedes,” which featured another version of that same Holly Gibney character from his books.
“Cynthia may get that time [to revisit Holly Gibney], because there’s going to be a second season of The Outsider as soon as they can get the production going,” King told EW. “And she’s terrific, but she’s more someone who is kind of almost on the spectrum; a little bit of a savant with the memory of license plates and cars and baseball.
“One of the funniest things is she knows who’s won all these baseball games going back to the ’50s, but she never watches.”
Richard Price, who acted as the showrunner for “The Outsider,” has apparently already been hard at work on scripts for season 2 that King has been able to read. The first season of “The Outsider” covered King’s entire book from start to finish and he’s never written a direct sequel, although both Holly Gibney and Detective Ralph Anderson appear in his latest book “If It Bleeds.”
“I know exactly where it’s going because I have seen some of the scripts,” King said about ‘The Outsider’ season 2. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.
“I’ll just say that it’s really great and a real spooky paranormal element.”
Obviously until HBO makes an official announcement nothing is certain but King definitely sounds like he’s counting on “The Outsider” season 2 to happen sooner rather than later.
