Outlander: Written in My Own Heart's Blood (7x15)

A pretty solid and exciting installment!

Cons:

Obviously this show hovers on the edge of being cheesy a lot of the time, and honestly I wish that we'd be trusted as viewers a bit more to feel the love and connection between Jamie and Claire, without the weird flashbacks where they're stargazing? It just felt a little hammy to me, like maybe they could have gone a little more subtle with some of the conversations about life and death and war and whatnot. I know a lot of this is material listed from the book, but even so, it took me out of the emotions a little bit. These performers are strong enough for me to feel the depth of what's happening just looking at their faces, we don't need to gild the lily here!

In the books, there's a hidden compartment in the desk drawer at Lallybroch that Brianna and Roger both know about, and Roger hides his letter to Bree there. The way they did it here was just to have him lay it in an empty drawer, which I thought was a little silly? Like, the idea is that it's ambiguous. That letter was already there when Bree and Roger bought Lallybroch in the 20th century, or at least it could have been, and they were just destined never to find it until the circumstances tracked.

Pros:

Starting in subplot news, I really like the relationship between Buck and Roger. It's so sweet that Buck is willing to help Roger, that he considers him, even through all the strangeness of the situation, to be his family. And it makes sense that he'd be alarmed and upset when learning that he actually came face to face with his parents and Roger didn't tell him, but Roger's reasoning makes sense too. They don't have a lot of information about how this time travel stuff works, and what if they mess something up? It was so sweet that Buck wrote a note to Geillis, even though obviously that's not a mother-son relationship destined to happen for real.

Then you've got John and Ian going off to save William. This was a fun team-up, and the action sequence was appropriately intense. It was funny to watch John get off two perfect head shots in a row, but I guess we can say that he's just that bad-ass. And the tension here between father and son is delicious, where you have William (understandably) grateful that John is here to save him from being killed, but the second they're somewhere free and safe, he's back to being furious and heartbroken that John lied to him his whole life about his parentage. There was something so horrifyingly funny about John going on about what a good and brave man Jamie Fraser is, all while still wearing the eye-patch that Jamie necessitated with his violence! Oof. John's got it bad, and it's so very twisted.

Ian, in other news, doubles back to murder the man who had captured William, after at first showing him mercy. We obviously know that he wanted to spare his life for Rachel's sake, but that he decided he'd regret letting a man with malicious intentions go free. I feel for Ian in this situation, but he is who he is, and this is war. Rachel earlier talking to Claire was worried that Ian would hesitate for her sake and be killed, and that she'd be left alone with her principles. The last thing this young couple needs is another vengeful man coming after them...

And then in the main plot, we've got a lot of portentous buildup to Jamie potentially getting hurt as he goes off to fight in this great battle! Claire is at a field hospital helping the wounded, and gets into a conflict with the male doctor overseeing things there. He is at first dismissive and hostile of Claire's expertise, but by the end, after seeing her save a man's life who he would have been forced to leave for dead, he gains a respect and admiration for her. I like that this dude was full of himself and kind of an ass, but he also wasn't cartoonishly evil. He was put off by something he didn't expect or understand, but he did actually allow himself to come around.

The buildup to Claire being shot was a bit heavy-handed, and I thought the cheesy flashbacks to the stargazing could have been handled with more finesse, as I mentioned above. But, I still thought this was wonderfully suspenseful and dramatic! Lots of incredible acting from these performers, with Jamie in such a profound terror over losing Claire. The writing his resignation on the orderly's back with Claire's blood thing is SO DRAMATIQUE but I'm kind of obsessed with it. A similar thing does happen in the books, although I can't remember if he wrote it actually on a dude's back like that?

I feel like I don't have a ton to say here because it's all going to come down to the fallout of this event in the next episode. But we see Claire in immense pain and also aware of her condition and her bad chances, we see Denzel steel himself for a nearly impossible task, and we see Jamie about as terrified as we've ever seen him. The finale is going to be juicy in all sorts of ways!

8/10