The Outsider ending explained: Is the killer revealed in Richard Price's thriller-horror adaptation?

HBO's The Outsider, an American thriller and horror drama, concluded its first Season in 2020. This Stephen King adaptation followed Detective Ralph Anderson's investigation into the murder of Frankie Peterson.

Ralph suspects Terry Maitland, a baseball coach as the primary suspect but Holly, a private detective's discovery leads them to the chilling discovery of Frankie's killer.

Frankie's killer is finally revealed in The Outsider finale, as the supernatural monster, El Coco. The team manages to kill the creature (for now) after an intense showdown and exonerate Terry, but not without targeting Jack Hoskins, another police detective involved in the case.

The finale starts with a massacre at the hands of Jack, who is controlled by El Coco. It finally stops when Holly dares Jack to kill her and his soul is finally able to overpower the creature, and he dies by suicide, but not without telling the group to kill the creature.

Read on to know what happened to El Coco in The Outsider finale.

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Who is El Coco? Were Ralph and the team able to kill him in the The Outsider finale?

El Coco, the killer in The Outsider is a shape-shifting supernatural monster who feeds off of his victim's suffering. He takes the shape of his victim and their loved ones and controls them by playing on their feelings and sufferings.

After Holly's discovery and Jack's suicide, Ralph and the group are sure that El Coco is behind the murders and they finally decide to confront him in the Bear Cave, which seems to be the monster's home since the 1940s.

Claude, Ralph, and Holly go inside the cave to confront the monster and they finally try to solve the mystery of his existence but get no straight answers from the creature. Whether it is one of his tricks, or he is actually unknown to his existence is unclear.

When the trio does not get answers, the only way left to stop these killings is by killing the creature once and for all. Ralph could shoot the creature, but they know that the sound of the gun would trigger a cave-in and all three would be trapped inside the cave after El Coco lures them inside.

But Claude takes the shot anyway and shoots the creature, and the trio manages to escape. But Ralph is still not convinced that El Coco has died because he sees his dead son Derek's apparition. He is convinced that Derek's appearance means that El Coco is not dead and he is playing with Ralph's feelings by making him see Derek.

Turns out, he was right and El Coco was still alive. He picks up a piece of rock and smashes his head for good.

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Does The Outsider post-credits scene suggest El Coco cannot be killed?

If you thought The Outsider's mystery ended with Ralph smashing El Coco's head and exonerating Terry, then you are wrong as the post-credits scene suggests otherwise. In the brief scene, Holly experiences a vision of Jack Hoskins, who earlier died by suicide, after he fell under the influence of El Coco.

The camera then pans to show a scar on her arm and ends with focusing on a rash on her neck, the same which Jack had before he was taken under the influence by the creature. The rash suggests that El Coco is not dead and Holly might be her new victim.

The vision also suggests that while Ralph and the team were able to kill the creature for now, supernatural entities never leave their victims for good, and can return in new ways.

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