Outlander: A Hundredweight of Stones (7x11)

It really is the best shit in the whole series, no joke...

Cons:

The one bigger thing I was noticing in this episode was that it was lacking a sense of time passing - it was unclear to me how long it had been since news of Jamie's death reached them - how many days between then and the wedding, how many days later are they going to that dinner party, how many days later does Jamie show up? Because it kind of feels like it happens within a week, but I remember it was a bit longer in the book. This also contributed to some strangeness of pacing in that big final scene, where Jamie shows up and clumsily explains that his luggage was on the Euturpe but he himself was not. So much of that final scene was lifted from the book entirely, and it's a great scene, don't get me wrong, but it all happened kind of choppy and strange. I think we get some time in Jamie's POV in the books or something, so we have a bit more context for why he's being chased by soldiers? But maybe I'm misremembering.

Last week they did this thing where when Claire hears the news that Jamie's dead they have her kind of dissociate and hear things repeated in her mind and out of order/choppy. It was... kind of cheesy but the strength of the acting carried it through. They repeated that technique during the John/Claire scene in a way that I did not enjoy... I didn't think seeing John on the floor embracing Claire and then cutting to him standing up saying "I will not mourn him alone tonight" was very effective. I could have used a bit more variety and less repetition and out-of-order editing in the little snippets that followed. I think you could still have captured the drunken despair without leaning so heavily on the editing tricks like that.

Small note, but it's hilarious to me that Brianna actually knocked Robert Cameron out cold with that hit. It didn't look like she connected hard enough for him to be down for the count. Also in Roger's plot thread, I feel like he and Buck should be putting together by now that maybe the reason they came to this time is because of the older Jeremiah, and that means Jem isn't here. But that doesn't seem to have occurred to Roger at all, which is strange.

Pros:

Ian and Rachel get another good outing this week. I love that Ian explains about Emily and there's a moment where of course Rachel is alarmed to learn that Ian had a wife and that she's still living, but she accepts Ian's truth with an open mind and tells him she loves him and kisses him at the end of the conversation. I loved it, very sweet!

I also just thought Ian overall was so perfect this episode, the poor guy mourning two fathers at once, basically. That scene where he goes to Claire and basically says goodbye in case she wants to go back to the future now, really made me tear up!

We get to see Brianna at last, and we get to see her realize a horrible truth: Roger is gone, and Jem isn't in the past after all. Dun dun dunn!!! I'm excited for Bree to be reunited with her son, and for her to deal with the Robert Cameron situation once and for all. Not much more to report here, but I'm glad we're seeing movement on this story. Same as with Roger and Buck, we see them getting closer to Roger's father as they track down the provenance, so to speak, of the military ID tags. It's so cool seeing Roger on a scavenger hunt, even though we know he's not getting any closer to his original goal.

Obviously saved the juiciest stuff for last - I just think both David Berry and Caitriona Balfe deserve all the awards for this episode, they both play abject despair SO well. There are too many good moments to count, from the wedding ceremony where John rushes through the part about "love and cherish" because he doesn't know how to say those words like they're the truth, to Claire taking a big pause to stare at William before she finishes her vows. To William and John's conversation, where William laments that John would sacrifice his happiness and his reputation for the widow of a "groom" who betrayed the King. John stares at his son, the son he raised, who is of Jamie's blood, and even as his face is etched in grief, tells him that he has all the happiness he could ever need. Then they hug! And it's so sweet!

We have Claire contemplate suicide and then just lie in her room positively wailing out her grief, which is so hard to watch and listen to, while downstairs John gets completely wasted and cries staring at a chessboard and the empty chair across from it, his face wet with tears... and then we get the two of them embracing in a sort of deranged drunken passion, with John burying his head in Claire's lap and then Claire thumping him on the back even as she pulls him closer...

The morning after scene was exactly what I wanted it to be. So much of this is lifted straight from the scene in the book, and they really just linger on the two of them, nothing fancy in the edit, and let them have this strangely intimate while also awkward conversation. John's speech about the deer, and his relationship to his lover, is so lovely. And the way he says "think about the deer, my dear" as he leaves her in bed is just like... okay, I know Claire is grieving Jamie and I know John is super gay, but still. If I were her I would have swooned just a lil' bit.

I also really liked the romance-framing of Claire descending the stairs in that gown, and the moment when John takes her hand and finds she's put her wedding ring back on, so that the one from Jamie and the one from John are side by side. (Point of order, in the books I think she wears Frank's ring on her left hand in Jamie's on her right, but whatever.) In a romance novel if these were the two leads, this would be a swoon-y moment where she accepts him and decides to present a united front. Here, it's so much more fraught - what must John be thinking, seeing his ring beside Jamie's, on the finger of a woman the have both married and now shared a bed with? Talk about a mind fuck.

The Richardson stuff was never my favorite story-line in the books but I do love the indulgent trope-i-ness of Claire and Richardson discussing treason during a dance, and Claire's parting line of saying she won't betray his secret because they are on the same side... even while she also affirms she will not spy on her husband's family. You go, Claire. I'm sure this won't come back to bite you at all. I also loved William and Claire getting a bit of bonding time at the party, as well. Fun fact, in the book William calls her "Mother Claire" after her marriage to John, and it's very sweet.

So that ending scene: you've got the great moment when Jamie's voice calls out "Claire!" and John and Claire turn their heads in unison towards the noise, disbelieving - you've got Claire running into his arms, you've got the look of resplendent joy and shock on John's face. One adaptive change I really loved was that John says "your son is due here any minute" and William overhears it and that's what triggers the big reveal. In the book, it's simply that the physical resemblance between them is so striking that once an adult William Ransom is staring James Fraser in the face, there's simply no way for him to doubt the truth. Since they can't actually pull that off here, having John say "your son" was a wonderful alternative. Because it makes sense that John would be indulgent in that moment, that he would look at Jamie and forget to be circumspect. That he would take the rare moment of calling William "your son", almost as a way of saying "our son." I mean, that's my head-canon anyway. John's not really in his right mind in that moment, and it costs him big time.

Big kudos for the William performance here too, the hushed way he says "god damn you, sir" and then the look on both their faces when he shoves the rosary into Jamie's hands... oof. William feels, for understandable reasons, like his entire life is effectively over now, and I got the sense of how huge a problem this is for everyone just in those scant few moments.

I could go on... this half of the season is pushing me closer towards doing a whole big Outlander series re-read, which I totally do not have time to do... but this is the good stuff, it's so juicy! I'm so pleased with the amount of time we're spending on this portion of the story, I feel like getting the full sixteen episodes this season has really helped out the pacing issues that had been happening in some other recent seasons.

8.5/10