Insta-Reaction: Outlander, Season 4, Episode 13 (SEASON FINALE!)

Posted in Outlander by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Season 4 is here! My intention is to write an “Insta-Reaction” post for each episode soon after viewing, to share some initial thoughts, questions, reactions — you name it.

Warning:

I may be talking about events from this episode, other episodes, and/or the book series… so if you’d rather not know, now’s your chance to walk away!

Outlander, episode 413: “Man of Worth”

The official synopsis (via Starz):

Jamie, Claire and Young Ian’s attempt to rescue Roger from his Mohawk captors goes awry when a ghost from Claire’s past lays waste to their plan. Meanwhile, Brianna worries Claire, Jamie and Roger might not return.

My take:

Major plot points:

Jamie, Claire, and Ian find the Mohawk camp where Roger is being held. Negotiations for his release don’t go well.
Claire’s opal upsets the Mohawk. A woman from the tribe shares the story of Otter Tooth.
Rescue plans are foiled. Eventually, Ian agrees to stay with the tribe in exchange for Roger’s freedom.
Brianna gives birth to a son.
Murtagh and Jocasta get busy. Oh my.
Everyone gets reunited in the end.

Insta-reaction:

I don’t know exactly why, but I was left feeling a little let down by the season finale. Maybe it’s just knowing that it’s the end of the season, and I’m already going into Droughlander shock. In any case, here’s what happened this episode.

Claire, Jamie, and Ian find the Mohawk village and ask to trade (pots, pans, and whiskey) for Roger. They seem to be making progress until someone spots the opal around Claire’s neck, which freaks everyone out. The trio is ordered to leave. Later, a woman from the tribe tells them the story of Otter Tooth, the man whose skull Claire found earlier this season. He showed up a few decades earlier and tried to convince the tribe to go to war against the white people and kill them all, in order to prevent their tribes from being wiped out in the future. No one believed him, and eventually his ravings were too upsetting, so he was killed. The woman offers to help them rescue Roger in exchange for the stone.

The rescue does not go as planned, and they’re caught. The woman ends up being banished by the tribe, and Jamie, Claire, and Ian are ordered to leave. The Mohawk will not release Roger, as no trade was completed. Jamie offers himself in exchange for Roger — but then Ian jumps in and makes his own bargain. Ian (and Rollo!) will stay and become part of the tribe, and Jamie and Claire are free to leave with Roger. Lots of tears at the good-bye!

Roger is naturally extremely pissed at Jamie, when all is said and done, and once they’re away from the village, he gives Jamie a very one-sided beat-down, since Jamie decides to take it as his punishment for beating up Roger and selling him in the first place. Once all the beating stops, Claire tells Roger what’s happened with Brianna — that’s she safe, but that she was raped after he left her, and that she’s about to have a baby, which may or may not be his. It’s a lot to take in, and Roger wants time to think. Jamie starts to get angry with Roger over his need to take a minute, but Claire basically snaps at Jamie to back the hell off. I mean, poor Roger has been to hell and back. Give him a second to breathe. Even though he really shouldn’t be hesitating for a second, but okay, let’s give Roger this moment to clear his tortured brain.

Back at River Run, Brianna is sad a lot. Then she has a baby. Then all of a sudden, the baby is two months old and Claire and Jamie arrive, but Brianna is heartbroken to realize that Roger isn’t with them. They prepare to return to Fraser’s Ridge. At the last moment, Bree sees a rider approaching and realizes it’s Roger! She runs across the lawn to him and they have a big, dramatic embrace. Roger asks her to take him to see his son. Awwwww.

Meanwhile, earlier in the episode, Murtagh and Jocasta argued and argued, she threw her drink at him… and they ended up in bed. Murtagh is quite the silver fox, amiright? Yowza. Let’s see if these two crazy lovebirds can make it work.

Maybe not, because the episode ends with redcoats arriving with an order for Jamie from the Governor: Form a militia to put down the Regulators, and find and kill their leader, Murtagh Fitzgibbons.

AND… fade to black! Bye-bye, season 4 of Outlander!

Insta-reaction wrap-up:

Jamie and Claire have been absent or underused during the last set of episodes this season, and while they do play a role in this final episode, it’s not much, and definitely not enough. Their screen time seems to be shortened lately to make room for Roger and Brianna, and I get that there needs to be a balance, but I think it’s tipped too far over to the non-Jamie and Claire side. Their moments this episode were powerful, but just too short. Jamie in particular only really had one truly strong emotional beat, in his good-bye to Ian (sob), but I didn’t care for his scene with Roger.

The Roger punching Jamie in the face bit wasn’t fun to watch, and didn’t feel true to the character. I get that Roger has a lot of rage and frustration to deal with, but by this point he’s heard the story of why Jamie did what he did. On top of that, Roger isn’t a fighter — he’s a history professor, for heaven’s sake, and isn’t someone who ever has had to use his fists to express his feelings. Roger is much more a man of peace and reason, so I just didn’t dig this scene at all.

Young Ian seems happy where he is, and seems to be excited about the new adventure ahead of him. In the book, one of the attractions for him was that he’d already fallen for a girl from the tribe and wanted a life with her. I wonder if we’ll see him at all in season 5? As far as I recall, Young Ian isn’t in book #5, but I suppose they could easily find a reason to have him show up for a visit if they wanted to.

I was really frustrated by the end of the episode. Why end with the Regulators business, the absolutely least interesting aspect of season 4? I get that they’re trying to set up the central conflict for the next season, but it just was not satisfying.

My preferred ending would have been Roger and Brianna holding the baby, with Roger naming the boy and claiming him as his own. It’s not enough that we see him telling Bree to take him to his son — after all the turbulence in their relationship and all the pain and suffering, we needed the pay-off of seeing the family together, with Brianna and Roger united and ready to start a new chapter. Wouldn’t that have been lovely?

And furthermore…

Overall, it’s been a good, strong season, despite the show moving the central storyline away from solely focusing on Jamie and Claire. There were some lovely moments along the way for the two of them, and it was nice to be able to spend time with Lord John and Murtagh again, as well as introducing teen Willie and Aunt Jocasta.

Now we start the waiting game again! Here’s hoping that season five comes along before the end of 2019!

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20Jan2019

Insta-Reaction: Outlander, Season 4, Episode 12

Posted in Outlander by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Season 4 is here! My intention is to write an “Insta-Reaction” post for each episode soon after viewing, to share some initial thoughts, questions, reactions — you name it.

Warning:

I may be talking about events from this episode, other episodes, and/or the book series… so if you’d rather not know, now’s your chance to walk away!

Outlander, episode 412: “Providence”

The official synopsis (via Starz):

Brianna confronts a violent figure from her past in an attempt to cope with her trauma. Roger befriends a fellow captive and endeavors to escape the Mohawk Village, while Fergus and Marsali plan a dangerous mission.

My take:

Major plot points:

Roger suffers. Poor Roger!
Seriously, this episode is about 90% Roger, and I’m not complaining.
Roger deals with life as a Mohawk prisoner, and tortures himself over all the idiotic ways he acted in pursuit of Brianna.
Brianna goes to see Stephen Bonnet in prison where he awaits execution.
The Regulators break Murtagh out of jail.

Insta-reaction:

Roger — actor Richard Rankin — owns this episode, and kills it. Yes, other stuff happens too, but at its heart, this episode is the Roger show. Breaking it all down:

Roger has arrived at the Mohawk village in New York (and wow, that’s a long way to walk from North Carolina!) Because he fails to make it all the way through the gauntlet before collapsing, he’s informed that he remains their captive. Would he have been freed otherwise? Unclear. In any case, Roger is wounded, with his arm in a sling and all sorts of cuts and bruises on his face, and is basically put to work as a servant in the camp.

A nice Mohawk woman offers him some herbs to ease his pain, but no one else seems to want to interact with him except to yell or push him around. Eventually, he does something to piss people off (pointing and interrupting, apparently), and gets put in a leafy shack that seems to be the Mohawk equivalent of a jail cell. There, he meets Father Ferigault, a Catholic priest who the Mohawk welcomed — but he fell in love with a woman from the tribe and had a baby with her, and now he refuses to baptize the baby as the tribe wishes. He won’t baptize the baby because he considers himself a sinner, but the Mohawk see this as an insult to the tribe and have threatened to kill him unless he performs the sacrament. Roger tries to convince him to give them what they want in order to save his own life, but he refuses.

Roger finds a way to escape and starts running off through the wood, but his damned sense of honor won’t let him run when he can hear the screams of the priest, who’s being held over a fire, where he’ll slowly burn to death. He runs back to the village and hurls a cask of alcohol on the pyre, setting the priest fully on fire so he can die more quickly. The priest’s lover kisses her baby good-bye and then walks into the fire to die with him.

That’s the bulk of the episode, but additionally, we spend some time with Brianna, Lord John, Fergus and Marsali.

Fergus and the Regulators have decided to bust Murtagh out. Not really worth going into the details. Suffice to say, the jail break works, and Marsali drives the getaway horse and cart, with Murtagh hidden in the back, headed for Fraser’s Ridge.

Brianna asks Lord John to take her to WIlmington to see Stephen Bonnet. She reads Jamie’s letter to her, encouraging her to seek forgiveness rather than vengeance, for her own well-being. For Brianna, this means going to see Bonnet in prison, chained up, on the eve of his execution. She tells him about the baby, saying that her way of forgiving him is to give him the peace of knowing that some part of him will live on after his death — although she also stresses that this is HER baby, and he’ll never know a thing about Bonnet. Okay, Bree, so your point is??? I’m not a big fan of this scene, either in the book or the show. Surely there are better ways for Brianna to heal than to go and talk with her rapist, who is not the least bit repentant. And why give this man a piece of information that may come back to haunt her? Brianna believes it’s safe to tell Bonnet about the baby because he’s about to die, but this is a man who’s escaped death sentences before — and as we see at the end of the jail break, it would appear that he got away yet again.

No Jamie and Claire this episode! We get just the briefest bit of Jamie as Brianna reads his letter to her, but that’s it.

Insta-reaction wrap-up:

Any episode without Jamie and Claire feels incomplete to me. Let’s face it — they’re the true reasons we watch this show, and their story is always the most compelling. As in the books, as the story progresses, Roger and Brianna become much more prominent, but particularly on TV, losing Jamie and Claire screen time does not feel like a satisfying trade-off.

Lord John is always a delight. He’s such an upright, honest, and devoted man. I love how his feelings for Jamie and Claire have translated so easily into caring for and protecting Brianna. He’s the perfect gentleman, truly. And I suppose it’s a plus that his status as a Lord helps open doors for Brianna that might have otherwise been closed. Still, it feels like a needless move on Brianna’s part to travel (pregnant!) to Wilmington to confront Bonnet. Why not just practice forgiveness from a distance?

The Regulators storyline continues to be my least favorite part of the season. Just not engaging at all — give me the human drama any day. That said, here’s hoping that the jailbreak will result in Marsali, Fergus, and Murtagh settling at Fraser’s Ridge. It would be nice to see the whole family together again… but first (next week), Jamie and Claire need to find Roger!

And furthermore…

It was good to get more of a view into the Mohawk village’s life, beyond Roger getting beaten up all the time. I liked the little glimpses of children playing and families gathering. If the show is trying to break away from the stereotypes of fierce Native warriors acting inscrutably, they need to give us more of this — opportunities to understand their customs, their values, and their way of life, and not just viewing them as the mean people doing bad things to Roger.

Next week is the season finale! It’s all gone by so quickly. I know what’s coming (according to the book), but can’t wait to see the drama and excitement on the screen.

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13Jan2019

Insta-Reaction: Outlander, Season 4, Episode 11

Posted in Outlander by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Season 4 is here! My intention is to write an “Insta-Reaction” post for each episode soon after viewing, to share some initial thoughts, questions, reactions — you name it.

Warning:

I may be talking about events from this episode, other episodes, and/or the book series… so if you’d rather not know, now’s your chance to walk away!

Outlander, episode 411: “If Not For Hope”

The official synopsis (via Starz):

Jamie, Claire and Young Ian embark on a long uncertain journey to rescue Roger, while Brianna forges a friendship with one of Jamie’s old friends as she fends off Aunt Jocasta’s attempts to secure a husband.

My take:

Major plot points:

Brianna is staying at River Run with Aunt Jocasta while Claire and Jamie search for Roger.
Jocasta is trying to find a suitable husband for Brianna.
Lord John visits River Run and begins a friendship with Brianna.
Claire, Jamie, and Young Ian continue to follow Roger’s trail.
Claire and Jamie soothe their hurt feelings and end the distance between them.
Roger is still captive, and finally arrives at the Mohawk village.

Insta-reaction:

Gotta admit it — I didn’t love this episode. I didn’t hate it either. I guess this is more of a move-the-story-along episode, where events proceed but there’s not a huge impact.

Okay, so what happened?

The bulk of the episode is spent on Brianna. She’s settled in at River Run, drawing portraits and worrying about poor Roger. Aunt Jocasta is not one to just let things be. She’s aware that Brianna is pregnant, and having an illegitimate child is not something she wants for her niece. So, she takes it upon herself to round up a bunch of eligible bachelors and invite them to a dinner party, hoping one of the gentlemen will be a suitable match for Brianna. Brianna, obviously, wants nothing to do with her scheming aunt’s matchmaking.

Lord John is one of the guests, and is most chivalrous toward Brianna. Later that night, she stumbles upon John in an intimate encounter with another of the male guests. (Dude, why are you doing it in the pantry? Couldn’t you at least have found a hidden place outside the house or something?) The next morning, Phaedre informs Brianna that her aunt wants her downstairs because Mr. Forbes, yet another of the party guests, is going to ask her to marry him. Brianna slips outside, asks John to join her, and basically tries to blackmail him into marrying her.

Although John’s not willing to marry her, his heart melts a bit when Brianna tells him about Stephen Bonnet, the rape, and that she doesn’t know who the baby’s father is. She wants to wait for Roger to return, but she can’t be sure he’ll still want her when he learns that she may be carrying another man’s baby. (Clearly, Brianna doesn’t know Roger as well as she should!) Lord John talks to Brianna about his feelings for Jamie, and also about his admiration for Claire. Ultimately, he saves her from Jocasta and Forbes’s plans by announcing that he and Brianna are engaged.

Let’s see, what else? There are some random scenes of Marsali, Fergus, and Murtagh, and I’m sorry, but the Regulator business is too boring for words. Murtagh and Fergus do manage to track down Stephen Bonnet, but Murtagh himself is arrested before they can get away with Bonnet.

Maybe this was only a “meh” episode for me because of the limited Claire and Jamie time. Yes, Brianna’s story is the most dramatic at the moment, but there’s only so much time I want to spend with her at the expense of our true power couple. Claire and Jamie are at odds, each carrying around a ton of hurt and guilt. Ian tries to get them to patch things up, and eventually, they do. Claire reassures Jamie that he is a good father, that he is a good man, and that she loves him. They both are blaming themselves for the mistakes they’ve made that led to this point, but at least they’ve reestablished their bond and will continue on their hunt for Roger together.

Roger only gets a couple of scenes at the beginning and end of the episode. He ends up at the Mohawk’s village after weeks (months?) of travel, and is immediately put through some sort of gauntlet where everyone gets to take a swing at him. Welcome to your new home, Roger!

Insta-reaction wrap-up:

Like I said, I was fairly underwhelmed. I didn’t appreciate the attempted fake-out at the beginning, as the episode opens with Roger in a hot shower. Aha, he went back to the 20th century after all! Like anyone would really think that — not at all convincing. Of course, the shower is just a fantasy, and he didn’t go anywhere. I’m a little annoyed that the show didn’t let us know whether he walked away from the stones himself or was captured before he could attempt to time-travel. I hope they make this clear later on — it’s an important distinction that shows Roger’s frame of mind, and I believe it should not have been left so ambiguous.

I’m not clear on why Jocasta felt such a need to marry Brianna off. If they need a suitable cover story for the sake of her social position (and that of the baby), why not just say she’s a widow? Or that her husband was lost on a perilous voyage, so if he shows up later, it’s all good. Bree doesn’t need a husband to care for her — she has her parents, and for that matter, she could have a home at River Run for as long as needed. Why the rush, Auntie?

And ugh, that dinner party “game” Brianna invents, invoking psychology and the interpretation of dreams. I mean, what the hell was that? I was afraid for a moment that they would actually go around the table and make us listen to each individual person’s response to Bree’s question, which could have taken up the rest of the episode and then some. So weird. So unnecessary.

Ah, Lord John. Always a lovely man. It’s fun to see him with Brianna. As I mentioned before, he was being AWFULLY indiscreet, which is tremendously out of character for him. BUT, at least this is an improvement over the presentation in the book, where Brianna catches him sneaking back to the house from the plantation slave quarters where, it is implied, he had a tryst with one of Jocasta’s slaves. Thank goodness the show didn’t go down that problematic path.

It’s nice to see Fergus and Marsali, but I wish they had something to actually do.

The Jamie/Claire reconciliation was sweet and emotional (oh, the tears in Jamie’s eyes!), but there just wasn’t enough of them to satisfy me. They’re still the main characters of this show, and episodes that are light on Jamie and Claire feel like a cheat.

And furthermore…

I do like how Young Ian’s attire keeps getting little bits of ornamentation that show how much he’s been interacting with the Cherokee and becoming comfortable with them. Between the armband, the fringed boots, and the hanging knife sheath around his neck, he’s really picking up bits and pieces, which I think show that he’s developed a friendship with the Cherokee near Fraser’s Ridge. And now we learn that he speaks some Mohawk too. That’s not going to be important down the road, is it?

Only two episodes left! Here’s hoping the remaining too have a little more oomph that this one.

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7Jan2019

Insta-Reaction: Outlander, Season 4, Episode 10

Posted in Outlander by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Season 4 is here! My intention is to write an “Insta-Reaction” post for each episode soon after viewing, to share some initial thoughts, questions, reactions — you name it.

Warning:

I may be talking about events from this episode, other episodes, and/or the book series… so if you’d rather not know, now’s your chance to walk away!

Outlander, episode 410: “The Deep Heart’s Core”

The official synopsis (via Starz):

Jamie and Claire keep secrets from one another as they try to help Brianna process her recent trauma. But the secrets they keep cause a bigger familial rift once they are revealed.

My take:

Major plot points:

Brianna and Jamie develop a deeper understanding of one another.
Claire offers Brianna a choice about whether to keep or end the pregnancy.
POOR ROGER is dragged around for the entire episode by a group of Mohawk.
The truth comes out — Brianna finds out what Jamie did to Roger, and is PISSED.
Jamie, Claire, and Ian set out to find Roger.
Brianna tells Claire that she’s keeping the baby and staying in the 18th century.
Murtagh takes Brianna to River Run to stay with Aunt Jocasta while the rest of the family searches for Roger.

Insta-reaction:

Kudos to Sophie Skelton, who gives a powerful performance as Brianna, really selling Bree’s emotional reactions as they run the gamut from despair to the first hint of healing, then rage and a step into the unknown.

First off, the early scene between Jamie and Bree is lovely. Jamie lets Bree know that he knows about the rape. She blames herself for not fighting harder, and despite Jamie stating over and over that it’s not her fault, she really can’t let go of her guilt — until Jamie physically restrains her to show her that she could not have prevented what happened, no matter how hard she struggled, and that she likely could have ended up dead if she’d tried to fight. Bree then surprises Jamie by asking him about the aftermath of his rape. Claire had told Brianna about all that happened at Wentworth. Bree wants to know if killing his rapist helped Jamie heal. He assures her that time, not revenge, is the key.

Life seems to be settling down to normal at the Ridge, with the family spending time together and enjoying the beauty of living there. Claire offers Brianna a choice — she can terminate the pregnancy by surgical abortion if that’s Bree’s wish. She doesn’t want Brianna to be forced into anything, but lets her know that if she wants to end the pregnancy, they need to do it soon. On the other hand, if Bree wants to go back to her own time, she can do that as well — but again, would have to leave now. Claire knows that it’s possible to travel through time while pregnant, but they don’t know if it’s possible to go with a baby. What if Brianna tried to travel but the baby got left behind, or even worse, got lost somewhere in time? If Brianna hopes to go back, it’s got to be now.

The truth about Roger finally comes out, when Lizzie tells Brianna that she knows what happened, and Brianna, horrified, realizes that Lizzie believes Roger is the man who raped her. When she learns that Jamie beat the man he believed to be her rapist, all hell breaks loose. Brianna is righteously furious. Jamie is upset by his anxious, but upset as well that Claire knew that Bonnet was the rapist and didn’t tell him. After Jamie beat Roger, Ian sold him to the Mohawk. They were just traveling through, probably headed back to their lands in upstate New York. Who knows where Roger could be by then, after a week has already gone by?

POOR ROGER. He spends most of this episode being dragged behind a horse, walking all day, every day, at first alongside another prisoner who eventually dies on the road. Roger’s face looks awful. Oh, Jamie, you are a scary man when you’re angry. Roger eventually gets a chance to escape his captors, and runs right into a buzzing circle of stones. At the episode’s end, we see him holding the gems he got from Stephen Bonnet, debating whether to go through the stones, or stay and try to find his way back to Brianna.

Meanwhile, back on the Ridge, Jamie and Ian vow to find Roger for Brianna. Brianna insists that Claire go with them, which makes sense. If he saw Jamie and Ian coming, he’d probably run and never look back! Claire is a familiar face, and what’s more, there’s a good chance he’ll need a doctor. Claire doesn’t want to leave Bree. It may be months before they return. She may not be back in time to deliver the baby. Bree is determined, so they come up with a different plan: Murtagh will take Brianna to River Run, to stay with Aunt Jocasta, who’ll care for her and keep her safe.

Jamie vows to Brianna that he won’t return without Roger. Yikes. That’s a big promise to make.

Insta-reaction wrap-up:

A really powerful episode. The father-daughter scene between Jamie and Claire, in which they discuss her rape and Jamie helps her in a very Jamie way, is just full of beauty and emotion. You really feel that these two have a connection, that there’s a growing trust and love between them… which makes it all the harder later on when Bree, in her fury over Roger’s treatment, basically tells Jamie that her REAL father (Frank) was a good man, and Jamie is just a brute. Ouch.

I mean, yes, he did do something terrible to the man she loves, but in Jamie’s defense, he really had no idea. A sucky situation all around, fed by terrible communication (which is a recurring theme in this particular book in the Outlander series.)

Every one was just so good in this episode. Claire didn’t have as many flashy moments, but I did love how we got to see Claire’s determination to give Brianna a choice, and how she presented her with the option to go back to her own time, even though it would break Claire’s heart.

And furthermore…

The scene between Aunt Jocasta and Murtagh made me wonder if all the fan speculation about the two of them ending up together might really be correct! Either that, or the show is just playing with us all.

And how adorable was Ian getting down on one knee to offer to marry Brianna? Gotta love Young Ian.

Claire and Brianna reciting a list of 20th century foods and conveniences they miss was pretty great too. Peanut butter and jelly! And of course, aspirin per the doctor’s orders.

ARGH. Only three episodes left this season! Where did the time go?

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