Outlander: Blood of My Blood (4x06)

I AM BLESSED. THIS WAS SO MUCH MORE THAN I HAD EVER HOPED FOR.

Cons:

I've been trying to be nice about the wigs, but I really noticed Claire's wig this week. It just does not look like her real hair. It's distracting.

I understand that this is a love story between Jamie and Claire, but their sex scenes have always been pretty uninteresting to me. That's a personal preference thing, and not an actual fault with the show or the books either. I just find myself uninterested whenever things get steamy. It feels like a narrative waste of time when there are so many characters and moments I want to see.

Pros:

That said, I do like the detail of the ring that Jamie gives to Claire. Obviously they're deviating from the books, but I like that we're getting back to something important from the books, but in a different way. The ring is gorgeous!

The scenes where John and William come to Fraser's Ridge are some of my favorites in all of the books. I was thrilled to see that we were going to explore that here, but undeniably nervous that we weren't going to do it justice. There were some things that were cut out, like I think Fergus and Ian are both at the Ridge at this part of the books, and Murtagh certainly isn't, but actually I like that some of the moments are absent here, like Willie falling into a ditch with a snake. It allows us to put more focus on the things that matter the most, at least to me.

The kid playing William actually does a pretty good job. He's playing William as this slightly petulant yet well-mannered young kid. He's acting his age, and it's done pretty well. He plays distraught very well, and I like that his obvious fear for his father shines out throughout the camping scenes. The moment when Jamie and Willie encounter the Cherokee was extremely well done. This was actually one of the few moments so far that I've thought the portrayal of the Native characters was done well. They demand blood justice for William's transgression, which sounds really harsh and alien and "savage." But instead they just cut Willie slightly on the hand, and consider the debt paid, because they honor William's honesty in trying to protect Jamie.

Jamie is so clearly thrilled to see his son, but there's the obvious tension of being unable to be honest with him about their relationship. The moment when Willie says "Mac" was just so satisfying in its heartbreak. Of course, Jamie later tells the Cherokee that he's William's father, to protect him from punishment. William logically thinks that Jamie is lying in order to protect him, and sets the matter straight. Jamie would of course do anything to protect a child in need, but his desperation to save William is obviously particularly strong because of their relationship. The best material with William comes when he asks Jamie why he failed to turn around to look at William one last time when he left Helwater all those years ago. Jamie says he didn't want to give William false hope. Now, as John and William ride away from Fraser's Ridge, William intentionally turns to look back at Jamie, giving him hope.

I talked about this last week, but I do want to mention that Murtagh's inclusion in the story is a really smart idea. Having him around to be a face for the regulators adds personal stakes in an interesting way. It also felt appropriate to have someone at Fraser's Ridge who sees John Grey as the Red Coat that he is, and remembers him strictly in the context of Ardsmuir. Obviously I love John, and Jamie clearly respects him a great deal, but Murtagh is not wrong to remember their past together. It's obviously sweet that Jamie refuses to consider pumping John for information about Governor Tryon, though.

Okay. John. Just. Every little moment. I want to sit here and do a frame-by-frame breakdown of all the stuff with John that I loved, but I'll try and restrain myself. His scenes with Jamie are so great. I love that he calls him "Jamie" in the show, because in the books he almost never does. He is quite open with how pleased he is to see Jamie, and the two of them even share a little joke when John tries to make it sound like he's just swinging by on his way to Virginia, and Jamie points out that he's making quite the large detour. Jamie and John are just so comfortable and genuinely friendly and affectionate with one another. We get to see the chess game, where John asks Jamie if he's content with his life, and Jamie replies that he is, listing among his reasons for happiness that he has good friends. When John falls ill, we see that Jamie is genuinely concerned, not just for Willie but for John as well.

And then there's the stuff with Claire and John. I'm so pleased that they kept this stuff in. It would have been easy to reduce this material or even cut it out altogether, but instead we got pretty much the entire book scene, if not more. Claire and John have this incredibly interesting dynamic. There's respect, there's wariness, there's envy, and there's even some real affection and understanding. John and Claire both know what it is to raise Jamie's child, even if neither of them was able to do so with Jamie by their side.

John getting delirious and saying things he shouldn't be saying out loud really got to me. I love his assessment of Claire as being devastatingly straight-forward. Claire says: "Well it's not by choice. I was born that way." That seemed a very pointed thing for Claire to say, maybe even intentional, and it seems that John picks up on it when he responds: "So was I." For obvious reasons, these characters aren't going to have a particularly progressive view on homosexuality, but I feel like the subject matter is being treated with the right amount of delicacy here. John thinks of his feelings for Jamie as a character flaw, but he doesn't blame himself for it. Not exactly an enlightened take, but it's one that makes sense for the time. I like that Claire treats John as a human being with complex emotions, and doesn't seem disgusted by John's feelings for Jamie. She's obviously uncomfortable with them, which makes sense in the context of watching someone pine after your husband.

I could go on and on. John gifts Jamie with his chess set, which is cute, and then John and William ride off, leaving the story just as quickly as they entered it. In adapting these enormous books into a television show, there is by necessity going to be a lot that gets cut. I'm always nervous that my favorite characters or moments will be the ones to get the short end of the stick, so I was enormously pleased to have a whole episode devoted to some of my favorite book material!

I'm excited to see Brianna's journey next episode!

9.5/10