WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Outer Range season 2.
Outer Range season 2, episode 7’s massive Perry twist changes the entire show in retrospect and perfectly sets up season 3. After introducing more mysteries and possibilities, Outer Range season 2’s ending was far from being a conclusive finale for the show. The episode included more than enough setups for a potential Outer Range season 3, which can explore different types of time travel within the show’s rules and even feature alternate universes – all because of what Perry did at the end.
Perry is one of the most interesting Outer Range characters. When viewers first meet him, Perry is struggling with the disappearance of his wife, Rebecca, who might have abandoned him and their daughter. In Outer Range season 1, episode 1, Perry kills Trevor Tillerson during a bar fight after the latter mentions Rebecca. Now, Outer Range brings Trevor back, potentially rewriting the show’s entire timeline or even creating a new universe.
Perry jumped through the Hole at the end of Outer Range season 1, hoping it would take him to Rebecca. Instead, Perry was sent a couple of decades into the past, before Royal and Cecilia were even a couple. In Outer Range season 2, episode 7, young Royal pushed Perry through the Hole and told him to stop messing with something that dangerous. Perry was ready to return home, but instead of showing up at the exact moment when he first left, he appeared a few weeks earlier. More specifically, Perry was back on the night he killed Trevor.
As soon as Perry realized this was the night he killed Trevor, he went back to his car and tried to stop himself from doing so. Killing Trevor took a huge toll on Perry, so it made sense for him to try to undo this moment with the help of time travel. However, while Perry did stop his younger self from killing Trevor, “season 1 Perry” was killed in the fight instead. Trevor ran away, and “season 2 Perry” had to disappear with his younger self’s body. After throwing the other Perry’s body down the Hole, “season 2 Perry” returned home.
By going back in time and changing history, Perry may have just created a new universe at the end of Outer Range season 2. Trevor’s death in the first episode of the series is what set the events of Outer Range in motion, meaning everything that happened on the show so far is a direct consequence of that bar fight. Now that the past has been changed, there will be a butterfly effect caused by Trevor going home safe and Perry dying instead. Additionally, “season 2 Perry,” who knows the future, has replaced “season 1 Perry.”
Outer Range’s time travel rules are still confusing, and there have been at least two different forms of it on the show. It is unclear whether Outer Range’s Hole is more of a science fiction element or a supernatural one, as the series has combined aspects of horror and sci-fi since episode 1. Regardless, there is now a timeline in which Trevor never died, and Perry went back home to tell Amy a bedtime story. Neither of those things happened in Outer Range’s original timeline, meaning an entirely different universe might have been created.
Another possible outcome for Perry changing the past is that, instead of creating a new timeline, his actions rewrote the show’s only timeline. If Outer Range establishes that there can only be one timeline, which might be the case since the finale introduced the idea that “time is a river,” Perry’s actions are causing a butterfly effect without creating a new universe. In other words, history is being rewritten, and none of the characters are realizing that the timeline is changing. This would explain why Josh Brolin’s Outer Range character, who is connected to the Hole, almost had a stroke.
Royal’s memory might be confused now that Perry’s changes to the timeline are catching up to him. This would also explain why Autumn, who was dead at the hospital, came back to life and opened her eyes. Regardless of whether Perry switching places with his younger self created a new timeline, Outer Range season 3 can show a different version of the events of seasons 1 and 2. The show could alternate between the original and the changed timeline, with Royal serving as a connection between them.
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