HBO’s The Outsider Ending Explained: Is El Cuco Still Alive?

Warning! Spoilers for The Outsider below.

HBO’s The Outsider came to an explosive finish as Ralph, Holly, and the team confronted El Cuco. The ending neatly tied the story together while leaving room for more supernatural possibilities in future seasons.

The Outsider finale, “Must/Can’t”, is a thrilling conclusion to a series that took its time developing strong characters and relationships. Ralph, Holly, and the team come face to face with El Cuco, beginning with the shootout between them and a miserable Jack Hoskins, who is being controlled by El Cuco and serves as its bodyguard.

The first part of the episode is shocking, with many characters dying all at once. From Jack’s position in the woods overlooking the road where the team has stopped, he is able to pick them off one by one. Although clearly very drunk at this point, Jack is still an excellent shot. The only thing that stops him is Holly’s bravery, as she steps out into the open, shouting at Jack and daring him to kill her. This gives Jack a moment for his conscience to take over, so he allows a rattlesnake to bite him before shooting himself in the head, adding himself to the finale’s total body count.

What Happens At The End Of The Outsider Finale?

After Jack commits suicide, Ralph and Holly enter Bear Cave to root out El Cuco. The caves, however, are unstable, being the place where Claude’s kin died in a cave-in in the 1940s. When they find El Cuco, it has nearly taken on Claude’s form. Ralph is ready to shoot El Cuco, but it warns him that the sound of the shot in the caves will likely result in another cave-in that could kill them all. After Holly asks El Cuco a bunch of questions that it doesn’t seem to know the answers to, like “What are you?” and “Are there more of you?”, Claude has followed them into the cave and shoots El Cuco, despite the risk of a cave-in.

The cave does indeed rumble and rocks fall, but Ralph, Holly, and Claude all survive and set out to leave the cave. As they’re doing so, Ralph sees an apparition of his son and, this time, instead of dismissing such things as impossible, he gets the message and returns to El Cuco’s body to find that the monster is only playing dead. After painting a picture of what it would be like for El Cuco if he turned it in to the authorities, Ralph picks up a rock and smashes its head in.

Who Died In The Outsider Finale?

Alec is the first to go down, as seen at the end of episode 9. From there, Claude’s brother Seale, while trying to find his bearings so he can shoot back, takes a bullet to the gut. Then, Andy makes a heroic move toward one of the vehicles. He gets in the car, starts it up, and tries to drive it down the road to get help, but Jack is able to shoot him through the windshield. This prompts attorney Howard Soloman to try to save Andy, but Jack hits the gas tank on the car and is able to light it up with a spark, killing him and ensuring Andy is dead too.

If it weren’t for Holly, there would be even more dead. Because of her bravery, Jack is the next to go after he commits suicide. The last to die in the finale is El Cuco itself when Ralph finishes it off with a rock. However, no one is really sure if El Cuco can be killed, or if this was just a temporary solution to a more long-term problem.

The Outsider: Is El Cuco Still Alive?

The big question is: is El Cuco really dead? Based on the events in the cave, it’s clear this supernatural entity can survive being shot. On top of that, when Ralph goes back to finish the job, it’s impaled on a rock, yet still only playing dead, which is why Ralph smashes its head into pulp with a rock. Can it survive such a wound?

If it can, it means that El Cuco, the true dark entity, is really some sort of spectral force. Its true form is never revealed, and there is evidence supporting the fact that it doesn’t need a physical body to get around; it visits people at night in their houses without leaving any signs of forced entry. Another clue is in an after-credits scene with Holly where she is alone and sees Jack Hoskins in the mirror behind her. She looks again and he’s gone. The camera then lingers on the back of Holly’s neck and reveals a scar on her arm. Although it’s unclear if this scratch is from El Cuco or the cave-in, might El Cuco be able to take Holly’s form or perhaps even control her as it did with Jack Hoskins? That particular mystery is left unanswered.

The Outsider Name Explained

Finally, near the end of the episode, Holly says something to Ralph that explains how the show gets its name. After Ralph has told Holly he wouldn’t mind teaming up again, she talks about how her father was a military man who often said, “a man knows a man.” She then tells Ralph that she has come to realize something: “an outsider knows an outsider.”

This is an interesting thing to say as it highlights the fact that Holly sees herself as an outsider because she is awkward socially and likely on the autism spectrum. She has always felt like an outsider, just like El Cuco, that works alone and does not seem to know if there are others in the world like it. The show’s name then refers to this idea as well as it relates to a mysterious monster.

The Real Meaning Of The Outsider’s Ending

Overall, The Outsider is about more than the discovery and hunt for the supernatural monster known as El Cuco. It’s about coming to grips with the unexplainable. Believing in the impossible is not an easy task. As Stephen King himself puts it in the post-show interview, “How does a person cope with the unbelievable?” Ralph, for instance, struggles with this idea for the entire season, before he finally must accept that El Cuco exists, while Holly is able to simply believe the evidence. They don’t, however, think the rest of the world will believe, so they find a way to close the case, exonerating Terry Maitland, without every telling others what really happened.

Another theme that runs through The Outsider is how people deal with loss. Ralph, at the center of the story, is still grieving over the loss of his son. Similarly, Glory Maitland has to deal with the more recent death of her husband. Throughout the show, many different characters are faced with the hard truth of pushing on despite their grief. Nevertheless, there is no solid answer here other than that life must go on.

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