The Outlaws is a Dramedy Crime Thriller by Stephen Merchant (of The Office (UK) fame). It was released in the UK on the 25th of October 2021 and is a co-production between the BBC and Amazon. A second season aired in June 2022.
The series follows several strangers from different walks of life, who are forced together to complete Community sentences in Bristol. These strangers include Greg (Stephen Merchant), Frank (Christopher Walken), Gabby (Eleanor Tomlinson), John (Darren Boyd), Rani Rekowski (Rhianne Barreto), Christian (Gamba Cole) and Myrna (Clare Perkins). Over-seeing the events is the seemingly incompetent supervisor Diane (Jessica Gunning). The offender's luck changes when they discover a bag full of money, too bad it belongs to one of Bristol's most dangerous criminal gangs.
It is not to be confused with the 1930 semi-biographical novel of the same name nor the 2023 film The Out-Laws.
This show contains the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Something of a running theme:
- Rani's parents are overprotective to the point the don't let her engage in any social interactions without their supervision, constantly monitor her location on their phone, and her father threatens to disown her if she ever messes up again.
- Frank himself was a criminal who repeatedly broke his daughter's heart when she was a child by making promises he couldn't keep.
- It's implied Christian and Esme's mother suffered from a mental illness that made her unfit to care for her children, resulting in Christian becoming Esme's legal guardian. It is later revealed what made her unfit was the fact she is addicted to drugs.
- John is constantly living in the shadow of his overbearing father who treats him like an idiot and, despite retiring and not being involved in the hard work, still demands total control over their business and belittles everything his son tries to achieve. A throwaway line in the final episode about how he "can still beat the tar out of John" indicates that he was physically abusive as well. He sacks John in the Season 2 opener in order to force him to "pull himself up by his bootstraps.
- The Earl is incredibly cold and dismissive towards his daughter, Gabby, not even consoling her after mother's suicide and simply sending her away to boarding school so as to not have to deal with her when she was only seven. He later cancels all her credit cards as punishment for vandalising his lawn.
- Accents Aren't Hereditary: Margaret speaks with a strong Bristol accent. Frank, her father, speaks like Christopher Walken doing a Christopher Walken impression. Justified in that he was originally American but moved to Britain to avoid the draft to The Vietnam War.
- All Your Powers Combined: The premise of the show is that the main characters are deeply flawed and on their own they tend to screw up whatever they are doing. However, if they support each other and pool their skill sets, they become quite formidable. Rani is book smart, Christian is street smart and Gabby has media savvy. John has business experience, Greg has legal knowledge and Myrna has street-level political experience. Frank fills in the holes with his ability to talk people into doing stuff for him and extensive criminal experience.
- Amoral Attorney: Greg wasn't the most honest lawyer in the world at the start of the series, but he increasingly becomes involved in more and more serious criminal behaviour to help the others, including blackmailing cops, forging signatures, and laundering money.
- Angry White Man: John is the archetypical middle-class/upper middle-class white guy who consumes too much conservative news and talks everyone's ears off about his views such as complaining at length about how people who pay higher taxes have to support the nation and dismissing left-wing activists as looters.
- Asshole Victim: The guy whose car Rani steals in the final episode is deliberately shown to be a Jerkass who parks in a disabled spot and belittles his girlfriend when she calls him out for it.
- Auto Erotica: Greg was found by the police having sex with a woman in the front of a car in a car park.
- Bad Influencer: Gabby is a self-obsessed social media influencer who has become completely reliant on her followers to give her life meaning.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Gabby is extremely charming and friendly but also has severe anger management problems that destroyed her relationship with her girlfriend and got her in trouble with the law.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed with Gabby in that her kind and friendly nature is generally sincere but she is much more vindictive than she wants to appear, to say nothing of her explosive temper.
- Bittersweet Ending: Season 2 ends with the group safe, The Dean arrested, Diane finally joining the police like she's always dreamed, and Myrna, John, Gabby, and Greg are all slowly taking steps to improve themselves. Even Christian decides to get out of the drug dealing business after an awful few months in prison. However, Frank's daughter forces him to leave his family after his actions put them in danger again. And while it seems like Ben and Rani will settle down and run a food store on the beach together, Rani gets cold feet at the last second, leaving Ben at the train station to steal a car. The implication is that while Rani may be enjoying the excitement now, she will eventually wind up like Christian, Frank, or even The Dean.
- Cool Old Guy: Frank may be, even according to his own daughter, a dishonest, untrustworthy con artist but he's also immensely charming and tough not to like. He's also played by Christoper Walken which makes him cool by default.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the second series the Dean is briefly spending time with a daughter he clearly dotes on.
- Everyone Has Standards: John, despite his right-leaning views, is shown to be uncomfortable with outright racism as expressed by his dad and the police in Myrna's past. He also agrees with Myrna after seeing the circumstances that Christian/Ben grew up in with a heroin addicted mother that no one has a chance in a situation like that, indicating a slight softening of his views.
- Evil Old Folks: To call Frank "evil" might be a stretch too far but he is an unrepentant criminal who uses his charm to hide the fact he lies, cheats, threatens and steals as naturally as breathing. His grandson, Tom, eventually wises up to it.
- Fiery Redhead: Gabby has red hair and is doing community service due to getting in trouble as a result of her serious anger issues.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Esme and Christian. Christian is the Responsible Sibling as Esme's legal guardian, trying to get her to take her exams seriously and protect her from the criminals living around them. Esme, however, would rather spend her time hanging out with gangsters and thinks the respect they get is "cool."
- Forced into Evil:
- Played straight with Christian, who only commits crimes to protect and provide for his little sister, and Greg, who is blackmailed into the majority of his worst crimes. The real Christian is also an example, only dealing drugs to look after his family after his dad got sick. Averted with Frank, Rani, John and Myrna who all choose to commit their crimes of their free will.
- In season 2 the group become drug dealers because it is the only way they can raise the money to pay off The Dean before he kills them and their loves ones.
- Gilded Cage: While Rani doesn't experience the luxury and wealth usually associated with this trope, her parents provide her with a comfortable and safe life far from the struggles they had to endure growing up. However, they also insist that she study constantly and prevent her going out and socializing unsupervised and generally extremely cold and harsh towards her, fully willing to disown her if she ever messes up again.
- Gone Horribly Right: Season 2 starts with The Dean giving Rani and Ben just eight weeks to repay him all of his stolen money from Season 1 with interest. They do this by revitalizing Christian's drug empire and make the money back. Unfortunately, The Dean is so impressed with their skills that he refuses to let them quit.
- Grail in the Garbage: An interesting variant: in the very last scene of the first season, Frank discovers a graffiti image of a rat, painted and signed by Banksy. He tries to draw Diane's attention to it, but she misunderstands and tells him to paint over it. Frank shrugs, and cheerfully slaps white paint over a piece that would be worth thousands in a gallery. Made extra amusing because it was an actual painting by Banksy, made specifically for the series, and it was genuinely painted over by Walken
. - Hair-Trigger Temper: Gabby can flip from being calm and considerate one moment to violently destroying property the next.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Big Bad of Season 1 - the real Christian Taylor - has to work together with the group in Season 2 otherwise his boss, The Dean, will kill all of them. His time in prison causes him to reflect on his life choices and he ends up giving Rani some genuine advice when he realizes her Thrill Seeker tendencies might cause her to end up in a similar situation to his. When he finally gets out of prison, he is shown dropping his phone with all his criminal contacts down a drain, implying he's going to live a more honest life from now on.
- Heel Realization: With some prompting from John, Myrna realizes that she is the "cancer" that is threatening her activist group. If her criminal activities are made public, it would destroy everything the group has worked for over the years and discredit a number of worthwhile causes. At the moment of her triumph, she publicly steps down and hands over the leadership role to her rival.
- Hypocrite: John is unsympathetic to criminals at the start, dismissing them as taking the easy way out and not caring about the circumstances, yet he has no issue stealing money to fund save his company.
- I Have No Son!: Rani's dad makes it clear that if she ever commits a crime again then he will disown her from the family and kick her out of the house. He later makes it clear he wasn't bluffing and is fully prepared to do just that, only letting her stay on strict conditions. By the second season, she's finally just left altogether by her own decision.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Frank, played by 78-year-old Christopher Walken, is decades older than the rest of the cast, old enough to be the father of most of them and to be Rani and Christian's grandfather, and becomes quite close to them.
- Kansas City Shuffle: The Dean is too smart to fall for any of the standard cons so the group instead exploit the fact that he is Properly Paranoid about other criminals stealing from him. They make him think that his drugs have been stolen so he goes back to his home base to regroup and plan retaliation. The drugs have actually been stealthily put into the trunk of his car where they are discovered by the police and The Dean is arrested.
- Knight of Cerebus: The Dean. It's made very clear that he is a brutal and ruthless criminal who has no issues whatsoever murdering people. Whenever he shows up, the show becomes deadly serious.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Among the offenders Gabby is the only one who remains completely clueless about the stolen money and in Season 2 the others decide not to tell her about them becoming drug dealers either. When she finally finds out she's not insulted that she's been unwittingly involved in a criminal conspiracy. Instead, she's outraged that they didn't involve her.
- Loser Protagonist: Greg is a truly pathetic and pitiable man whose wife has left him, is unsuccessful at his job, and ended up being arrested and made to do community service for frankly quite embarrassing reasons.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Gabby may seem shallow but she takes a hard stance against people bad-mouthing others, standing up to Greg's sleazy co-worker for insulting Greg, Christian and Rani.
- Misery Poker: Greg and Gabby vie for the title of biggest loser as he drives her home from the police station. Greg cheerfully concedes the game after Gabby points out that she only had him to call for help.
- My Greatest Failure: In her youth, Myrna firebombed a police station resulting in the death of an officer. She keeps newspaper clippings about the incident and frequently visits his grave.
- Noble Bigot: John is quite conservative and holds many opinions his fellow community service workers find offensive. However, the worst of his behaviour seems to be for the sake of his overbearing father. And in the end he uses his reputation to make himself look like a racist so his earlier witness testimony against Christian/Ben will be thrown out, allowing the young man to escape taking the blame for a crime he didn't commit.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: John uses his part of the loot to secretly save his father's business from bankruptcy. A few days later, his father fires him. The others also use their share for good causes which means that they can no longer return the money to The Dean and risk getting murdered.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging:
- While John is planning to call the cops on Christian once they find him, of course every person he questions for his location goes on about what a good person Ben is and how he's always looking after his sister and treats everyone kindly.
- When Frank is about to leave the country and abandon his family again, Gabby accidentally makes him reconsider by rhetorically asking "Who leaves his own daughter high and dry at one in the morning?".
- Odd Couple: Hilariously, the offenders who end up working together most frequently are usually polar opposites.
- Wealthy conservative John and liberal activist Myrna bicker constantly due to their difference in political opinion but usually wind up stuck together.
- Greg is an unsuccessful lawyer whose wife left him, is constantly being put down by his co-workers and is painfully aware of how pathetic he is. Gabby is a young, wealthy social influencer with millions of followers and an inflated sense of ego. They end up being the most supportive friend either of them have in their lives.
- One Degree of Separation: Spider - who is part of the gang threatening Christian and his sister - is also Gabby's drug dealer.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: John has a lot of contempt for Liberals and thinks they're too politically correct. He's also one of the protagonists.
- Properly Paranoid: Gabby has a Hair-Trigger Temper and is taking drugs that seem make her paranoid, causing her to be convinced her girlfriend is cheating on her... she's right.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The premise of the series is that a group of people who have committed a crime have been brought together to do community service.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Soulja tells the Dean that Rani and Ben robbed him, the Dean tells him he hates snitches and breaks his leg.
- Shipper on Deck: Esme learns to enjoy teasing her brother and Rani about their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Diane acts as if she's in charge of a group of violent convicts rather than supervising some low-level offenders.
- Soapbox Sadie: Myrna is a rare spin on this trope. While she advocates loudly and aggressively for worthy causes, she isn't as young and idealistic as most examples. Also, since she finds her political views make it hard to socialize with people who tire quickly of her being outraged by everything, this leaves her a lonely old woman who only really has her sister and activist group (the latter of which tries to cut her out for being too radical).
- Sticky Fingers:
- Rani has a tendency to shoplift, which finally catches up with her when she is caught.
- Frank pilfers a heatgun from the work site to help his daughter strip paint off some doors.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Detective Sergeant Lucy Haines is diligently doing her job and trying to bring down The Dean - a ruthless drug kingpin - however, her investigations always threaten to put the group behind bars as they get increasingly embroiled in Bristol's criminal underworld.
- Taking the Heat: Christian is worryingly willing to do this.
- On the first day he claims Gabby's spliff is his so Rani won't be pressured into snitching.
- It turns out the entire reason he's on community service in the first place is because the real Christian Taylor is paying him to do his time for him.
- In the end he is willing to take the blame for shooting Spider to protect his sister, Esme, the real perpatrator. Fortunately, the others concoct a plan that leaves the police with no credible witnesses or evidence left with which to convict him.
- The Dog Bites Back: After his father constantly undermines/outright insults him and later fires him from the company he brought him into, John and his wife decide to sue him for wrongful firing and workplace bullying.
- Thrill Seeker: Rani started shoplifting to feel some sense of excitement in her otherwise strictly regulated and controlled life. This gets turned up to eleven in Season 2 as she gets addicted to the excitement of running a drug empire. In the end it causes her to abandon a safe but monotonous life with Ben running a food store on the beach and instead run off to pursue an exciting life of crime.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Season 2, the group is forced to work with Season 1's Big Bad the real Christian Taylor after his boss, The Dean shows up looking for his stolen moeny.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The Dean is an incredibly dark and serious villain who you'd expect to see on something like Luther rather than a light-hearted comedy series.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What became of John being sued for racially aggravated assault is not made clear, as it never comes up in Season 2.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: John is absolutely desperate for his dad's approval and to be seen as capable after a lifetime of being dismissed as useless by him.
