Episode 4, "Que Viene El Coco", of Stephen King's The Outsider on HBO introduces the idea that the boogeyman is real, so how can investigators chase down the mythical El Cuco?
The investigation into the mysterious child killings on The Outsider took a turn when both Holly (Cynthia Erivo) and Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) came upon some troubling evidence that further pushed them in the direction of having to admit that the killer they’re chasing is supernatural. Half of the episode was devoted to Ralph figuring out the mechanism through which the shape shifter, if it is indeed El Cuco, can become a doppelganger and the other half was Holly following a trail of eerily similar killings across the country. While tracking down the history of other people who were framed for committing murder by a lookalike, she meets a woman in prison who asks if she believes in things that can’t be explained. When Holly says yes, the woman tells her the tale of El Cuco.
Can El Cuco be real? Here’s what’s known about this folklore boogeyman.
The Outsider's Boogeyman (El Cuco) Explained
The woman asks Holly to consider that the stories that people traditionally tell children to get them to behave are unfortunate misinterpretations of real warnings from a forgotten time. Children are told El Cuco will come get them and take them away if they are bad, but they will be safe if they’re good. This is a myth, as El Cuco doesn’t care about such things. When it’s hungry, El Cuco takes what it wants. El Cuco may end up being the killer on The Outsider, according to the most recent episode, and while it's surrounded in numerous myths, the most disturbing thing about it is that simply killing isn't enough to satisfy it.
In the premier double episode of The Outsider, the entire Peterson family dies in the aftermath of Frankie Peterson’s murder at the hands, supposedly, of El Cuco. Suicide, murder, and misfortune befall them all. As Holly investigates these similar child murders, she learns the families of the victims also died afterwards in horrible occurrences. That’s because El Cuco also feeds on the grief of the families following the murder.
While Holly is putting this all together, Ralph is obsessing over the footage of Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) in the strip club after the Frankie Peterson murder. In a eureka moment, he remembers Terry talking about getting cut by a nurse while visiting his father in Ohio. That nurse was another doppelganger, framing someone for a murder. The cut is how it got Terry’s DNA. In the security footage, he sees Terry cut the owner of the strip club when they shake hands. Ralph races to the club to find out more. It looks like the next person to be impersonated will be him, but how does Jack fit into all this? Is he just under the creature’s control? Viewers will have to wait for more of The Outsider’s mystery to unfold.