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‘Outsiders’ cast reacts to Season 2 premiere shocker
The Farrells are back, as the battle for Shay Mountain rages on. After far too long away, “Outsiders” has returned — and with it many questions have been answered.
Big Foster (David Morse) is alive, the bloody showdown between the police and the Farrells never actually happened, and G’winveer (Gillian Alexy) is officially the clan’s Bren’in. Beyond all of that, though, the big takeaway from the “Outsiders” Season 2 premiere was the death of Asa Farrell (Joe Anderson).
Asa was by far the most conflicted member of the clan, returning in Season 1 after a decade away experiencing the world. Now, after being accepted back and then banished from the family once again, he’s met his end after being attacked and devoured by a pack of dogs.
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The departure marks a major change for “Outsiders” but it’s one the cast if ready to face head-on.
“You’re now not seeing everybody else’s life through this guy’s eyes,” Kyle Gallner (Hasil) says. “Now everybody really gets their own storyline, and you get to really follow these people more in depth, and much closer, than having that one guy lead you around to tell the story. I personally do think it’s a benefit to the show in terms of storytelling.”
For Christina Jackson, who plays Sally-Ann, the loss of Asa will make the family proactive in learning about the world off Shay Mountain.
“In Season 1, the Farrells depend a lot on cousin Asa. Because everything they don’t understand that’s of the world, cousin Asa knows,” she explains. “Now what you’ll begin to see in Season 2 is that without that main person, it opens everything up to everyone… You see this family at a disadvantage, because they don’t have cousin Asa.”
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In the opinion of Ryan Hurst (Lil’ Foster), losing a main character isn’t as much as a shock as it might have been in years past. And if anyone were to know anything about that, it’s certainly a former “Sons of Anarchy” cast member…
“We’d heard grumblings that that was the choice they were going to make, and we were sad it couldn’t work out — but at the end of the day [in this] landscape… Losing main characters on shows is obviously not taboo,” he says. “It’s sort of commonplace at this point. But I think the way we did it was great. It’s one of those things that really lets you know that the ground this show stands on, you never know what to expect.”
As for Big Foster himself, David Morse, he likens the death of Asa to the Season 1 death of Sean Bean’s character on “Game of Thrones.”
“He’s the lead of the show, you can’t kill him! I love that character, and he’s gone,” Morse says. “That’s good storytelling. You don’t know what’s going to happen. If he can go, anybody can go.”
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In fact, at one point it was Big Foster that was going to meet his end: “Originally my character was not going to survive, and they decided he would survive,” Morse reveals. “So it can happen in reverse.”
Regardless, the world is going to miss Asa Farrell. Then again, given how spiritual “Outsiders” tends to be, there’s no telling if he’ll return in some form down the line.
“Outsiders” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on WGN.