The Outsider's melty-faced doppelgänger man/creature -- El Coco, if we want to settle on a name -- took a few malicious measures to try and put a stop to Holly and Ralph's meddling investigation this week in "Tear-Drinker," which was a stronger episode than last week's as it created a much better balance between Holly's road trip and Ralph's stay-at-home hauntings.
The Outsider is now walking a nice line between its main characters figuring things out and us as viewers not getting too far ahead of the tale. Holly's now fully on board with this entity being a supernatural predator, as we all were a few episodes back, so there wasn't much more for her to learn this week aside from discovering that it liked to remain close to the tragedy it creates so as to soak in the sorrow. The biggest strides, however, happened down in Georgia, with Ralph, as he started to buckle a bit under all of the uncertainties. From his wife Jeannie's nocturnal visitor to her drawing of the hooded man to the crime scene barn being right next to Terry's grave - it's all ganging up on his psyche, which isn't built to handle unexplained things.

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The Grief Eater
Last week, Ralph fiddled about with old video footage and didn't do much else. And on that front, he still wants to investigate Claude, the strip club owner, for reasons even he himself can't understand. Just a hunch. And Claude, as the new scratch victim, is acting out of sorts for sure.

In "Tear-Drinker" though, Ralph's doubts about the case and grief over his lost son became the focus. Not only did we get another quick flashback to the time Ralph was drinking heavily after young Derek's demise, but in the end he was visited by Derek, in a dream, and told to move on.

But...was that a dream? I still have a few questions about why El Coco isn't trying to contact Ralph directly, as his hooded form, like he did with Terry's daughter and Ralph's wife (hell, it even gave Hettienne Park's Tomika a good scare about her baby in a "dream"). Instead...did it come to Ralph in the form of his son?

Can it even do that? In both established cases, it came to the intended as itself, whether it was hooded or looking like Terry Maitland. It would be a completely new power if it could appear before Ralph in the form of someone it never even met or scratched. Regardless, Ralph is seeing a pattern emerge and he doesn't know how to cope with it. And Yunis isn't helping matters by telling him that dreams are more than just random cerebral happenings. Yes, Yunis thinks dreams mean something profound.

The story overall is also much better with Mare Winningham's Jeannie in it. She was absent last week but returned in "Tear-Drinker" for a handful of crucial scenes. Even before she was visited by El Coco, she thought (and we briefly thought) he was lurking in her counseling waiting room. Yunis and his belief in the supernatural might not get through to Ralph, but Jeannie might be the way he starts to buy into whatever explanation Holly's about to bring back to them from Ohio.

Also, with Jeannie, we basically got confirmation that El Coco is appearing "in person" and not inside the character's mind. She wasn't dreaming when she cut her foot on the glass and had that ominous conversation with him.

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Jack the Pawn

El Coco's shadow tactics against Ralph and his team of "concerned citizens" took a new form this week. Sure, the creature continued its nighttime cameos, laced with wicked warnings, but it also decided that Marc Menchaca's Jack should be used for more than just gathering supplies and carcasses. He should get himself on the inside of the investigation by apologizing to Ralph and trying to make amends. Which is kind of perverse twist since Jack is, of course, ripe for a redemption but here's he's forced to go through a (somewhat) fake one just to gain Ralph's trust.

Not that Jack doesn't feel bad about himself and his situation. Naturally, he hates being controlled by a monster, and all the pain it brings, but the entire crucible also seems to be making him take stock of his life. His refusal to hold Tomika's baby was out of concern for the child. The question here though is "Will Jack ever get to a point where he's forced to do something truly heinous?" And if so, will he be strong enough to refuse? For example, what if he's made to do what the poor bastard in Dayton had to do...

The Other Jack
So it turns out that what El Coco is doing to Jack right now isn't case-specific. It's part of the monster's M.O. In Dayton, it had a different Renfield: A young man who it drove into a "suicide by cop" situation right at the end. A man somehow connected to the Heath Hofstetter case. Holly spotted him at Heath's grave, while also noting nearby nest potentials for El Coco in the form of creepy dilapidated structures.

Was this man's hostage scenario at the end meant to somehow stop Holly? Was she supposed to get caught in the crossfire somehow but didn't because of her engine trouble, or was it all just to delay her? This dude went out the way he did because El Coco commanded it, but what was supposed to happen ultimately? Holly's car busted down while she was stuck in the traffic caused by the incident. Was that enough? That she now has to find a new way to get to Georgia? I guess I'm wondering...why not just have the guy kill her?

Maybe El Coco is trying to not kill anyone who might raise ultimate suspicion. Everyone else it kills off is swept under the rug because the deaths are technically accidents and/or suicides. Also, El Coco seems to be close to moving on. According to Holly's page of notes (the one Andy found) it might be ready to "do its business" in three or four days. Which would explain why Claude's feeling so unwell at the moment. Do all the victims of the copying feel out of it, like Claude, before they're duplicated? Did Terry feel like this?

Verdict

With Holly now, hopefully, on her way back to Georgia, "Tear-Drinker" was a much fuller episode than "Que Viene el Coco" in that it allowed her to discover a few more details about El Coco while returning more heavily and heartily to Ralph's story back home. Also, I enjoy Holly's relationship with swell fella Andy, who creates a nice supportive background for her (which also makes me worry for him). If she makes it to Ralph to report in, she's probably going to be met with a lot of angry skeptics so it's good that she has someone in her corner