"I hope I'm wrong, but ... I feel a storm coming."
Hello everyone!
We are back for the second to last time before Droughtlander begins again, because this coming Saturday is the finale of season five - and it's promising to be one explosive episode, judging by the one preceding it.
Why do I say that, you ask?
Well, read on.
If you thought that things couldn't get any more dramatic on a show that basically takes the word drama and reinvents it a thousand different times, you were most definitely wrong. And because sprinkles of the book itself found their way into the script, you can rest assured it was one big chunk to bite through.
All season long, Outlander has had this thing where it gained momentum specifically when book scenes were included in the show proper, and nowhere does it show more clearly than in episode eleven.
Not only do we get a very brief glance back to season three and Claire in Edinburgh, but we get to see Jamie eat peanut butter. Our lives are now pretty much complete, so let's check out Journeycake, shall we?
This episode could be summed up as a goodbye episode, preparing us for the finale, but basically what we spend most of it doing is saying goodbye to characters, so let's jump right in.
There's a fast forward in this one as we need to move the action along, and the Frasers are just returning from a bit of a shopping trip, with Jamie wondering what on Earth Claire is going to do with so many peanuts. Well my lad, peanut butter is the word of the day, but first they stumble across a burned cabin with none of its inhabitants left alive, or at least none look it - Roger and Jamie find a poor alive soul out back, but there is virtually nothing they can do about it, save give them a send-off to end their misery.
This plays into what happens later on when a group of men armed to the teeth rides up to the Ridge, the Browns in the lead, saying that obviously the King and his Governors can't guarantee their safety anymore, so they've formed their own Committee, and Jamie should join it.
Uhhh, says our James Fraser, lemme think about it, k?
Claire notices one of the Browns (the moron who destroyed her syringe, natch) has a wound that needs tending to, and she helps him out, being the graceful healer she is, but it's obvious there's still bad blood between these two, although truth be told I think he's the kind of person only family could love ... and even that's a stretch.
Anyway, the Committee rides off, but they'll want an answer from Jamie eventually, which doesn't leave the Frasers in a really good mood, at that, not that they can do much about it. The group as a whole looks basically like a mob, and none of the Frasers like the look of THAT.
But moving on.
With this new Committee out and about, Jamie and Claire fear for the safety of Ulysses, who is currently in residence deep in the woods on their land after killing the lawyer Forbes in the last episode. As he's a man of colour, nobody will believe him he was just protecting Jocasta, so Jamie is trying to devise a plan to get him to safety. It won't be easy for a slave, after all.
Ah, says Ulysses, but I'm not a slave. He produces his papers, explaining that Jocasta had him freed right after the death of her husband, but he remained by her side of his own volition (also because he loves her, but at this moment in time that's moot point). So he's a freed man - but again, a person of colour, so that doesn't really help him all that much.
The solution to this particular problem presents itself in the form of one John Grey, who's come to say his farewells - he's returning to England, finally, because William's grandfather has died and he needs to prepare the estates and hold them in trust for when William comes of-age. He gifts Jamie with a portrait of his son, stating the boy looks more and more like Jamie himself with each passing day.
Thank God Jamie is safely in America, right?
But as stated above, Lord John's visit is pretty timely since he'll be able to take a new manservant with him to England, and when Ulysses steps on a British ship, he will be a free man. He explains all this to Bree when she comes to say her own farewells, because while everything else has been going on, the young ones have been making their own plans.
See in this episode, Jemmy reveals that the opal Ian and he are playing with feels hot to him, and the stone cracks in his hands, which alerts the other time travelers. Bree, Roger and Claire can all feel a difference in the stone's temperature, and this means that Jemmy can travel through the stones. Since Bree promised Roger they'd return to their own time (as he points out, both for their own safety considering the War of Independence is about to break out, and to live their lives the way they should have and be a family) they start their preparations for just that.
It's how Bree comes to learn of William, as Jamie decides to show her the portrait and tell her about him, asking her to look the boy up since, as an Earl, he should be easy to find in history books, and explaining he wants her to know she had more family in the world. Lord John also shares that both William and Bree share similar personalities, inherited from their father Jamie. They might never be able to meet, but he wishes they could.
Alas, that this evil days should be ours, right?
More troubling is Ian's current frame of mind, as he goes to ask Jamie and Claire what the deal is with the opal, and the two of them explain about the time travel, which prompts Ian to grin about his auntie being a fairy, and share Otter Tooth's diary - you know, the guy Claire saw on one dark and stormy night. Claire realizes that it was written in ballpoint pen, indicating he was a time traveler, too, supported by the fact that the diary itself explains he knows he's landed back in time, but doesn't know exactly when.
Ian later asks if Bree and Roger couldn't stay, to help with the war and maybe prevent it, knowing what he does of Jamie and Claire's efforts with the Stuart cause, but as the situation's hopeless, that won't happen.
Neither will him traveling through the stones, as Claire explains that it's impossible since he's not one of them - but it's obvious that whatever the reason for him wanting to go back and change things between a man and his wife, it stems from his time with the Mohawk, and he won't talk about it just yet.
Roger and Bree begin their goodbye process, making sure to take leave of all that are near and dear to their heart by saying Roger got a position in Boston. As expected, people are incredibly sad about their leaving, but the wheels have now been set in motion, and nothing can stop them anymore.
Some Jamie-falling-asleep-before-he-can-do-anything and sexy times later, Claire shows Jamie what sperms look like under a microscope, which makes him blink, and blink again, but there's really no time for them to enjoy it.
The slimy Brown is back, asking for Jamie's answer, and bringing his wife to Claire to tend a broken wrist. Claire and Marsali deduce that the woman is abused by her husband (shocker!), but Brown deduces that Claire is Dr. Rawlings because of the name that's in her medicine chest, and you know there's going to be a problem with that later, especially since Jamie politely declines to join the Committee of Safety, saying he has to look after his family, not wander about the countryside looking for trouble.
To be fair, trouble usually finds him, anyway.
Thankfully it seems to wait just enough for him to try peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (though Jamie's response to that is that the butter could probably be used as glue, too) and to see Bree and Roger safely off with Ian to the stones. There, the young couple tie themselves together with rope, holding Jemmy in their hands, and touch the stone, disappearing in front of Ian's eyes, and leaving him with their lot of land to look after.
However, when they wake up, they're shocked about something - viewers don't really know what it is, so we'll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile on the Ridge, Claire and Jamie are adjusting to life without their immediate family, looking at the portraits Bree had drawn them and getting on with things, which includes but isn't limited to digging up a new privy, at that. They're interrupted by an explosion in the distance - the whisky still!
The men run off, and with that timely diversion, the Ridge is attacked, Marsali knocked out and Claire taken, screaming for Jamie with all her lungs. Germain relates all this to his father once the guys return to find him wandering about, and no one has ever made a bigger mistake than the morons who decided to take on the Ridge as Jamie runs to the highest point of his land with a torch in hand.
With it, he lights the cross he set there for times of danger - and there will be a world of hurt raining down on the heads of the abductors when the men gather and Jamie kilts himself for battle.
You don't take the laird's wife and expect to get away with it, not even in a new land!
This episode covered a lot of ground but equally managed some lovely character beats, and I was actually disappointed that Lord John had already sailed, because it would have been kind of fun watching him in the rescue party with the rest. Now the question remains just where (or when) Bree and Roger have ended up - because you know there's no question about the guys rescuing Claire.
Between Ian's war-paint and Jamie's kilted determination, not to mention the fact that Claire is a respected member and healer in her community too, valuable to the men simply for that, but more importantly the laird's wife and this is an insult to their honour, there will be hell to pay when the two groups clash.
Until next week, clan!
xx
*images and video not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment