Ode to Joy – The episode opens in 1886 with Levi Sumner (Brandon Stacy) escorting Young Royal Abbott (Teaguen Arbogast) into town to pick up a pair of dress shoes. It doesn’t take long before Levi’s overbearing personality leads to an argument with store owner, JB Stone (Christopher Kriesa). Things get slightly physical when Levi learns that JB has increased the price due to dwindling business. Levi orders Royal to stay put and storms off.

Deputy Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski) and Falling Star (Kimberly Guerrero) are enjoying a game of Go Fish when Star is overcome with a bout of coughing. She agrees to Joy’s insistence to speak with the Shoshone Elders (Karen R Dixon/Mark Parra), under the condition that Joy agrees to take her place. Although it’s revealed that Joy has no interest, they don’t get long to debate it thanks to the arrival of Carson Krum (Mark Siversten). After a very brief greeting, it’s revealed that Krum has arrived with Sullivan ‘Sully’ Cooper (Marc Comstock) to take a promotional photograph with the Shoshone Tribe in an attempt to smooth the desegregation of Indians and homesteaders.

Elsewhere, Flowers (Lily Joy Winder) is attacked from behind by Shelton Cape (John Ales) and taken hostage when she and Mountain Lion (River Novin) stray too far into his land while tracking a wounded bison. Mountain Lion manages to escape and arrives back at the Shoshone camp just as Joy and Falling Star are finishing with what appears to be a sweat lodge. As it turns out, the male Shoshone warriors are off on a hunt of their own, leaving only Joy to attempt the rescue. After retrieving her gun and a fast horse, Joy receives a blessing before going after Flowers.

It doesn’t take Joy long to pick up a trail that she follows to Shelton’s barn. Although there is a single settler (David Pinter) sharpening a knife by the fire, his line of sight is facing away from Joy, allowing her to easily sneak up and disable him. Flowers is putting up such a fight in the barn that neither Abel Grubs (Casey Adams) nor Shelton notices Joy approaching. After refusing her offer to surrender peacefully, a shootout ensues. Abel is immediately shot down but Shelton manages to escape on foot. Despite being shot in the leg, Joy and Flower manage to escape on horseback.

Levi and Young Royal are tending to the livestock at the farm when Harrison Faber (Jim Beaver) shows up looking for collateral for Royal’s shoes. A nearby Alice Sumner (Sarah Minnich) immediately intervenes and orders Izzie Sumner (Anna Nicole Silverstone) inside once she realizes Harrison’s intent. She defies Levi’s warning to stay out of his business and goes to the porch to retrieve the shotgun. This only leads to him striking her and taking the gun.

At nearly the same time Shelton comes rushing up on horseback with the tale that two savages raided his land, killed two of his hands, and took off into the woods. He offers Levi the prospects of future work on his farm if he helps track them. Royal is ordered to go get his gun while Harrison prepares to ride back into town and alert the Sheriff.

The following day in town, tempers are flaring in town at what appears to be a small gathering. Despite the Sheriff’s presence, the citizen’s outrage only gets worse when the stage is turned over to Krum. His promises that Congress will be relocating the Shoshone come spring and redrawing the borders in their favor do even less to settle the crowd. The disputing goes on for a while until the Sheriff gets the people to realize that the fight is with the Indians.

Joy’s trip doesn’t appear to be going any better when she and Flowers are forced to make an unplanned stop to clot the bleeding. While they are stopped, Flowers blames herself for what happened. This inspires Joy to share her story about the time she was attacked when she was Flowers’ age. Although it takes some convincing, Joy persuades Flower to leave her behind while she goes for help.

By the time Flowers returns to camp, Levi, Young Royal, and Shelton have split up to cover more ground. After Flowers gets the tribe caught up on Joy’s situation, Falling Star orders Mountain Lion to retrieve the men from the hunt and bring them back to camp. Joy slowly proceeds through the woods when she encounters the majestic beast that started this whole incident. Seeing the wounded beast pushing forward provides the inspiration she needs to push forward. Shelton eventually catches her but she manages to shoot him in the head.

Although Levi and Royal witness the shooting, they split up but do not abandon their pursuit. It is Royal who first approaches Joy. She attempts to use her connection with him in the future and what she knows of Levi to convince Royal that he can be a different man, a better man. Royal doesn’t get much time to consider things because Levi soon interrupts them. It’s likely he has not heard what Joy was saying because he approached from afar. Joy and Levi argue back and forth for several minutes before Levi orders Levi to kill Joy. Instead, he turns the gun on Levi, shoots him, and runs off. Joy goes after him the best she can, which eventually leads to them both falling through a black hole.

While this takes place, a group of settlers raid the Shoshone camp, only to discover that the tribe was anticipating their approach. The small group is now surrounded by Indians with bows and arrows.

The episode ends right where episode 3 ended, with Joy coming through the hole to be greeted by Royal.

 

Outer Range Review

Although the episode had some major flaws, I would completely discount it. There were a few questionable things, starting with what happened to young Royal. I also thought the scene with Falling Star and Joy playing Go Fish while talking about Michael Jackson, Led Zepplin, and The Beatles was in poor taste. The action scenes were absolutely dismal as Joy’s movements looked robotic. Every time she fired her weapon, it looked like she was being awkwardly kicked by a mule. I know this was probably a much more technical/realistic approach as compared to a lot of action scenes today, but those scenes should have never been allowed to pass into production.

Other than this, I felt the episode did an excellent job of tying Royal and Joy stories together very thoroughly. For that, I would give the episode a 5.1 out of 10.

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