The Outlaws – Season 2 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Operation “Get the Money back”

Christian, Ben, and Rani discuss ways in which to get out of the Dean’s mess at the start of episode 2 for The Outlaws Season 2. They come up short of answers and Rani decide to call Detective Haines. While she is on the call, each of them receives a live video from Dean’s men, showing they are tracking their families. If they snitch, they kill all of them.

Haines receives a peculiar answer from Comms when she calls about the Dean. They say that the information is classified and that she doesn’t have the requisite security clearance.

Ben and Rani get the same answer from Myrna, John, and Frank: the money has been spent. It is gone. They hesitantly make fake promises that they will look to get the money back to put the duo off. Haines is reprimanded by her boss for calling Comms a dozen times. She has now been red-flagged.

She probes further and her boss reveals that Scotland Yard is tracking Dean. He is part of a large international syndicate and a smart operator. Somehow, they cannot get any evidence against him, hence the stonewalling.

Haines figures they have a way around it. She mentions Christian Taylor running the local Bristol Line for the Dean. Flip him, and they will have all the answers. The boss tells them to tread carefully but gives them the go-ahead.

John’s wife confronts him about walking off from the party the other night. He does not tell her that his father fired him; but only that he will land a new job. Lady Gabby is staying with Greg and desperately wants a job. Her agent though cites her anger issues, substance abuse problems, and toxicity after the advert as the main reasons she cannot get work.

Greg promises he will get her work within 24 hours to prevent Gabby from using cocaine again.

Myrna tries to go back to BJC to get the money but Bo is clear in saying that it has been spent. Frank is out of luck too as his daughter has already paid off the mortgage.

John’s unemployment means the banks cannot lend him any money. The next morning, the three go to Rani and discuss how they will implement her “plan” of selling drugs. While the other four are ready, Ben cannot get himself to agree. He has seen what drugs have done to his mother (in the finale of season one) and he will not allow the sale of drugs. But Rani convinces him.

They all go to Greg to convince him to launder the money for them from drugs. But he wriggles out of the job after Frank insinuates blackmail, saying he is already been blackmailed by Spencer.

Learning the ropes

Christian is apprehensive about handing over the operations but doesn’t have a choice as he is going to jail. He explains the operations to Rani and Ben. Use one phone to take the orders from the client; use the other to phone the closest runner, and never note anything down – keep it all in your head.

They meet the runner with John also joining the group as the business advisor. On the other side of things, Frank convinces Spencer that Greg is a mole for the FBI. He disguises himself as an agent and gets the incriminating paperwork from him.

Greg and Mary Anne hit it off but Greg decides not to pursue it after talking with HR. Christian visits Greg in his office and insults him when Greg says that pleading guilty will get him out in “months”. He is still undecided. Frank reveals in front of everyone that he has got the documents from Spencer to Greg.

The Plan

The lanky lawman is hardly convinced by the idea of doing the criminal act, again. But is persuaded when Frank says that Rani and Ben’s lives depend on it. The group, sans Gabby, discusses the way to boost sales in the given timeframe.

They bounce off of ideas each other, eventually landing on different ideas to collect mailing lists from Myrna’s BJC, Ben’s nightclub, Gabby’s phone, and Rani’s unfulfilled college promise. This way, they can directly advertise to potential customers. We start with Rani, who goes to the college disguised as a student. She is successfully able to get the list for a frat party. Ben is next.

Under the guise of getting Gabby employment, Greg goes along with Ben, who captures a video of the boss entering his password.

Gabby has stage fright; Christian hands over his Range Rover and drug line to Ben; and the Union’s head from college hits on Rani. But he suspects something is off and Rani does not know that. He goes to the security officer and asks the man to search her name in the student roll. She just about manages to escape them. John helps Myrna navigate the basics of computers at the BJC’s office.

Ben successfully gets the list from his boss’ office, as everyone pools in their contacts and Rani handles the rest. They come up with a codeword, while Haines and her partner begin their own operation to catch Dean. The phones start ringing and the outlaws are in business!

The Episode Review

The Outlaws continues to surprise us with its light-hearted attempts to project amateurish criminals. Each time the group has an idea, they manage to find the most hilarious way to pull it off. Full marks to the cast for originality and putting things into perspective.

Episode 2 starts a pivotal plan on two fronts – the group selling drugs, and the police, led by Haines, trying to solve Dean’s case. Both are important introductions and done with enough seriousness to deliciously stage the action. They should run parallelly and their paths are sure to cross.

This chapter was also about building deeper trust and bonds among the characters, especially Gabby and Greg. We did not get to see enough of this dynamic in the previous season.

The enhanced efforts to do so are a welcome change in season two. With this episode, we also see a change in the moral boundaries that characters set for themselves.

Everything was clean – to a fault – in season one. In both the episodes in season two, they have made a decisive action beyond their moral compass to do what needs to be done. It is a bold change that seems to be working well enough. It will also see some more pace in the storyline this time. The Outlaws is on the mend!