Murray calls it a kind of Close Encounters problem, a desire for truth that turns into a punishing reality. Whether the truth brings Cecilia and Royal closer together or pushes them apart is one of many subtler dramas driving the season. While answers come more clearly and frequently this time around, there are still plenty of new wrinkles being introduced, many elements still dangling—ready to be plucked for a potential season three, as Murray hopes. “We bonded from the jump. We didn’t dance around each other—we went straight to the work,” Murray says of his relationship with Brolin. “Josh just said to me, ‘So I’ve got ideas about season three,’ and that means that I get to talk to him and hang out with him more.”
As the cast told me before the series premiere, Outer Range’s first-season shoot could be brutal. Freezing, long days. Tough conditions. “We were with people with a little lack of experience, so the idea of me running in the snow naked was super attractive to them—but for me, after 40 years, it was more like, Can I do this without dying [or] getting frostbitten?” Brolin says. “And [season two] was still difficult. We were out in the middle of nowhere. We were shooting a lot of nights.” But, he adds, coming back, figuring out the logistics of production and the story, it feels worth it—and then some. It reminds him of his other big 2024 project. “Even promoting Dune 2 right now, the first Dune was [released] during COVID and all that, and it did well—but not what it’s doing now,” Brolin says. “A lot of things that work like slow burns, they don’t necessarily hit right away.”
If there’s one thing to learn from Outer Range, there’s plenty of time left.