I know that I need to talk about this week's episode, but I'm already just so pumped to see John Grey next week. I'm predictable like that. Also, this episode was really not my favorite, and I've got a lot of things to say about it, so buckle in.
Cons:
I always admire stories where everyone is a little bit wrong and a little bit right, where you can see and sympathize with all sides of the story even if you know that various people should have handled things differently. I think that's what this episode is going for - Jamie is wrong, but his motivations are understandable. Brianna should have been more honest, but her reticence also makes sense. I want to like this story - I want to believe they did justice to this bizarre scenario, but I think there are a lot of things here that just fall flat.
For one, let's look at Jamie's story here. He is the survivor if a truly horrific rape, and that is discussed at the start of this episode with a great amount of candor. And yet when Bree and Claire realize that Jamie beat Roger, the man he believed raped his daughter, they both condemn his actions full-force. Let's take a second and think about how things would have been different if Jamie had beat up Stephen Bonnet. Claire and Brianna might have been a bit horrified at the brutality, and concerned that Jamie would go off the handle like that, but I doubt they would have turned on him for it. Sure, maybe Jamie shouldn't have trusted Lizzie's word, but are we supposed to blame Jamie for being a little bit irrational when it comes to the subject of rape? He just found his daughter, he's just forming a relationship with her, and now he's confronted with the fact that she has suffered through something enormously traumatic - an experience he can relate to first hand - and we're supposed to be pissed off that he's not acting rationally?
But then there's the flip side of this - Jamie forces Brianna to confront her own weakness in order to realize that she is not to blame for being unable to fight off her attacker. On the one hand, this seems like just the sort of wrong-footed yet well-meaning thing that Jamie might do, in the same way that he takes physical punishment between parents and children completely in stride. He doesn't see anything wrong with putting Brianna through something traumatic in order to shock her into a realization that he believes will help her in the long-run. That could be an interesting thing to explore. But... in this scene, Bree is furious that Jamie is doubting her about being raped. The conceit of the scene is that we know Jamie wouldn't really think Bree was lying - he's just trying to force her to confront reality. But later in the episode, Jamie does doubt Brianna about her experience, so it kind of undercuts the point of the earlier scene. Also, we don't get to see what Brianna thinks of Jamie's methods. Is she cool with her father physically restraining her and terrifying her? We don't really get to explore that.
On the flip side of the flip side, though, you've got to confront the fact that the plot contrivance of what happens to Brianna is pretty confusing, and you can hardly blame Jamie for being turned around. Brianna says she was raped. Jamie attacks a man he believes to be the rapist. Brianna then says that she did have sex with that man, but that it was consensual. Jamie is, understandably, horrified that he attacked an innocent man based on inaccurate information. Can we really blame him for not immediately jumping to the conclusion that Brianna had consensual sex and then was immediately raped by a different guy on the same night? That's... pretty unlikely. Sure, Jamie shouldn't have accused Brianna of being untruthful, I guess, but he's pretty shaken up! Jamie is a fair and honest man, and he's probably utterly devastated that he has wronged an innocent man, and one who his daughter has apparently wronged in some way by accusing him of rape. Obviously that's not what Brianna has done, but I'm having a hard time being too angry at Jamie for his overwrought reaction in this moment. Especially since, as the episode had already established at an earlier point, Jamie was raped, and it still haunts him and is very traumatic for him. The expectation that he would be completely rational given the circumstances is honestly pretty unfair.
Okay. Sorry, I guess I had more to say about that than I realized. There were also a few other smaller things that I didn't love about this episode. For one, I really wish they'd cut out that whole thing about Young Ian being enamored with Brianna. It adds nothing and doesn't really go anywhere. I wish Ian could just be a family member and ally to Brianna, without adding in the part where he has a crush.
The scenes with Roger stumbling around with the Mohawk were a little too long and repetitive, and they also made me go back to one of my oft-repeated complaints about this season, that the native characters don't feel like humans. The narrative has once again positioned them as villains, so in a way it makes sense that they are scary and unapproachable from the perspective of Roger, our viewpoint character. But why haven't we seen evidence of native characters just... smiling? Being themselves? Having normal conversations and interactions? I'm sure we'll get that moving forward, as I do know where the story is going, but honestly it just feels really icky to me that our only visual for most of the native characters so far is this really stoic-faced, serious, intimidating warrior image.
I'm going to discuss in a moment the fact that Claire was really the best part of this episode, but I do have to remark that her scenes with Brianna are sometimes a little awkward and stilted. Last week I was digging their vibe. I liked the way there seemed to be some separation between them, even though they clearly love each other. But this week... gosh. Both actresses are really acting their hearts out, but I honestly think there's just a fundamental lack of chemistry between them. When Bree says she's sorry for making Claire leave her, Claire says "oh, Bree!" and pulls her into a hug, and I just found myself rolling my eyes. This show has a lot of cheesiness and a lot of love in it, but usually the great acting and chemistry can pull it off. Here, I just don't know if I buy it.
Pros:
This isn't a bad episode, actually. The fact that I wrote so much in the "cons" section is more an indication of how seriously I take this show, how much I trust it, and how much I want to hold it to a high standard. My complaints about Outlander are usually not black and white. It takes me quite a bit of time to work my way to what I'm really feeling about something, and this episode is a prime example of that. I had concerns about the way that Jamie and Brianna's relationship and their characterizations were being treated, and I had to talk about it. I imagine that a lot of people will disagree with me, and I can see how this episode might be a bit polarizing. All of that to say: there was plenty here that I quite liked.
I know I just said that Claire and Brianna's chemistry is off, but I actually did really love the scene where they discuss abortion. It's a complicated question, but Brianna holds on to the hope that the child might be Roger's. Even if it isn't, she'll still love it, she's sure. This situation puts Brianna to the test, as she needs to make a difficult choice. If she chooses to keep the baby, and if she wants to go back to her own time, she needs to make that choice immediately. They don't know what would happen if Brianna tries to cross over with a babe in arms, but they do know that it's possible to cross through pregnant, since Claire did so. Of course, this is all while Brianna and Claire mistakenly believe that Roger is back in the 20th century. When they find out otherwise, it changes Brianna's options significantly. She wants to keep the baby, but she can't leave without Roger. See, this is the kind of plot contrivance that leads to good storytelling, because it puts Brianna at the center of her own story and forces her to confront some difficult realities and make some complicated choices. I loved watching her grapple with all of these moving pieces.
I also liked the way Claire was positioned in this episode. She loves Jamie more than her own life and soul, and we've seen that time and again. But her loyalty to Brianna has to supersede that, in some way. When Brianna is calling Jamie a savage, Claire can chastise her a bit, but she also can't take her arms from around her daughter and go to comfort her husband. In some ways, Claire's choice here is obvious, but in other ways, how can it be? The situation is so muddled, and despite my complaints about the way it was portrayed, I liked the way Claire had to balance different loyalties and conflicting perspectives. I liked the moment when Jamie tries to appeal to Claire, and Claire remarks that he lied and said that his hand injury was from hitting a tree. Jamie tries to defend himself, but Claire is clearly furious. However, unlike with Brianna and Jamie, her fury is not potentially relationship-ending, and neither Claire nor Jamie think that it is, even if in this moment Claire needs to be on Brianna's side, 100%.
Murtagh continues to be a delight. There have been moments here and there when I've worried that the story wouldn't be able to accommodate him, but for the most part it's working really well. One thing that this season has cut back on significantly is the sense of the people in Jamie's vicinity. Fergus and Marsali are in Wilmington, and we're not spending time with other settlers yet. Having Murtagh there as a representative of the Scots community is a smart thing to do. I particularly like the scene of Murtagh and Jocasta reuniting, because it adds flavor to the reality of these characters, and to the past that we know about only through little passing moments. Jocasta and Murtagh talk about Ellen, the grandmother that Brianna will never know, and then Jocasta feels Bree's face and smiles, because she feels the familiarity of it. That's good storytelling and world-building, and gives a sense of the inner lives of these various people. Of course, I'm still worried about how Outlander is handling the slavery issue. We'll have to see how it's addressed in next week's episode, once Brianna has had a chance to orient herself to River Run.
A couple of little things to praise before I sign off on this over-long review: I liked the montage scenes where we see the happiness in this odd little family. We see that despite Brianna's difficult situation, she is enjoying being here with her mother and father, with Ian, Rollo, and Murtagh, with Lizzie. It's really cute. I also liked the moment when Brianna assures Jamie that she doesn't resent him for taking Claire away from her... she didn't come back in time just to find Claire, but to find Jamie too. That's adorable. Finally, despite my continuing problems with the way that rape is used as a storytelling device, I thought that Brianna's dream about Roger and Stephen was excellently performed, and it showed quite vividly the difficulty of Brianna's choice. Obviously it's not Brianna's unborn child's fault that he or she might be the product of a rape, but Brianna's revulsion when she thinks about Stephen being the biological father of her child should not be discounted. We might be able to say rationally that it doesn't matter, but the human mind doesn't work that way, and Brianna has been through something awful. Of course it would be a factor in her decision-making and the way she's thinking about this whole messy situation.
Whew. That was a long review. Next week, we'll get to see what Roger decided to do about that magic-stone-back-to-the-future that he conveniently discovered. And we'll also get to see John Grey at River Run, and perhaps Fergus in Wilmington? All my faves in one episode? Yes please!
6.5/10
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