Outlander: If Not For Hope (4x11)

Lord John! My love!

Cons:

I actually really super-duper loved this episode. I liked both of the subplots, and of course I loved the Lord John and Brianna stuff. However, there are a couple of substantive complaints that I must talk about first, and then we're going to get in to the "nitpick corner" where I discuss a detail from the books that was altered very strangely.

Okay. First for the more significant problem. We're back at River Run with Brianna, which means we have to grapple with the fact that Jocasta Cameron owns slaves, and that Bree is benefiting from that. How is the question handled here? Brianna treats Phaedra like an equal while still letting her serve her, and glares at people who say racist stuff. That's pretty much it. I don't know how this issue is supposed to be treated in a narrative like this, and I'm not saying I envy the writers who have to work it out. But here, the fact that Phaedra and Ulysses are slaves, and that there are countless other slaves on the plantation, is treated as window dressing to a more interesting and relevant story, and that rubs me the wrong way.

I'm going to talk quite a bit about Lord John in this review, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, but first I want to discuss one change that was made from the source material that just kind of... confused me. It seemed to detract from the scene between Bree and John in a way that I don't understand. There were other changes from the book that I enjoyed, which I'll mention later, but there's just this one thing that felt odd to me. Brianna threatens that she'll tell everyone that John is a homosexual, and when John impresses upon her the seriousness of the punishment for that crime, Bree backs down slightly by saying "then I'll tell Jamie!" John gets this odd look on his face and then says "well, that's assuming that he doesn't already know," and he then points out that Jamie is far away so the threat is moot anyway. This moment reads like Lord John is bluffing Brianna, but we know that Jamie does know. In fact, it's a pretty significant aspect of their complicated relationship. In the book, John tells Brianna that Jamie knows, Bree is briefly confused, they talk some more about it, and Bree realizes just how much Jamie and John value each other as friends. It feels very odd to change virtually nothing else about the way this conversation goes down, but add this element that obfuscates an important piece of information. Maybe there's another conversation about it later? Who knows. It just felt very strange to me.

Pros:

Before gushing about John, I want to turn to the two subplots in this episode.

First, we have a couple of book-ending scenes showing us Roger, along with scenes showing Jamie, Claire, and Ian trying to track him down. Roger gets taken to the Mohawk camp and is immediately thrown into some sort of fight. Meanwhile, the Frasers follow his tracks and get help from the Cherokee in discovering his likely destination. Claire and Jamie are distant from one another, Jamie drowning in guilt while Claire holds on to her anger. In the end, Claire and Jamie talk and have a reconciliation, reunited in their quest to save Roger's life and Brianna's future.

There are a lot of things I love about this. For one, I love that Ian is tracking what's going on with his aunt and uncle, and wants to help smooth the way for them. Ian obviously feels a great deal of guilt as well, and hates to see his loved ones suffering. I also love that Jamie's contrition and guilt is so genuine and motivates him to such great lengths. There's this moment when Jamie reminds Claire that the two of them have suffered in the past, not knowing if the other is alive or dead. Now, Brianna suffers that same pain. This might seem like a small point, but I loved this moment of Jamie acknowledging that Brianna and Roger's relationship is as important and precious as Claire and Jamie's is. Jamie hasn't ever spoken to Roger, but his loyalty to his family will extend to Roger without question.

Then, you've got the Wilmington plot. Basically, Fergus and Murtagh are hunting for Stephen Bonnet. Also, Marsali wants to boost Fergus' confidence by having Murtagh invite him to join the Regulators. This material is very different from the books, of course, mainly because Murtagh is still around.

I love the relationship between Murtagh, Fergus, and Marsali, and all of the loyalties and interplay that we see between these three. The whole thing with Marsali asking Murtagh for a favor in order to help Fergus' confidence is actually lifted straight from the books, only in Dragonfly in Amber, it's a setup between Jenny, Jamie, and Ian. Jenny asks Jamie to take Ian with him to fight in the Jacobite uprising. Ian says no, his place is with his family. It's an element from the books that I quite liked, and it was fun to see it re-purposed here.

Also, Fergus is such a darling. I love seeing his loyalty to Murtagh, and to his family. Watching him coo over little Germain is honestly so precious. And Marsali is coming more and more into her own as a character. She's headstrong and knows what she wants, but she's also considerate and understanding. She's a great wife and mother! Murtagh protects Fergus in the end by letting himself get taken captive, which is the bad news. The good news is that at least they succeed in getting Stephen Bonnet arrested too. Again, because Murtagh's involvement is so different from the books, I'm really excited to see how it plays out over the last two episodes.

And we're back to my darling Lord John. I'm going to try and be brief and just list a few of the things that I found really compelling about the plot at River Run.

- Brianna's interest in drawing. Yeah, I wish the issue of slavery was being treated a bit more delicately here, but I did still like the moment when Bree draws Phaedra.

- Billy Boyd as Mr. Forbes. It was smart to make this character genuinely likable, if a bit clownish. I genuinely felt a bit sorry for him at the end. Also, it's always fun to see familiar faces appear in Outlander.

- One change I really liked from the source material is that Brianna discovers Lord John's sexuality because Lord John and another of Bree's suitors are having a dalliance. In the books, Bree catches Lord John on his way back from the slave's quarters, I believe. The plot significance remains the same - Brianna finds out something about Lord John that she can use to blackmail him into marriage. But the way it is in the books, it comes with a lot of icky implications surrounding slaves and consent and all that. Not exactly something I want to watch this show grapple with. Also, I liked the acting moment when the other guy got up from the table and we just watch Lord John follow him with his eyes. We know what's up.

- Another more complex change that I enjoyed was Brianna's specific motivations for asking Lord John to marry her. There's a conversation with Jocasta that really nails it home for her - if her child is born a bastard, it's going to make Brianna's life, and the life of her child, significantly more challenging, given the time period. Bree is also worried a bit about Roger, given that he might not want to marry her when she's not sure if the child is his or not. In the book, I recall Brianna being worried that Roger would feel obligated to marry her, and that she doesn't want to put him in that position. It worked out fine in the book, but I like how they've sort of streamlined the situation in the show.

More broadly, let's just talk about how amazing Lord John is. He's so earnest, and kind. I love how he reacts when he realizes that Bree is pregnant. He rushes to assure her: "your father didn't tell me about this," and then listens without judgment as Brianna explains the situation. One of my favorite moments is when Brianna asks John, point blank: "will you marry me?" John has this smile of amusement on his face, as he waits for the punchline of the joke, and then you can just see his expression fade to one of disbelief and horror: "Oh, dear God in Heaven." I love it. So much. Also, I love that even though Brianna is blackmailing John here, he doesn't freak out or slip up. You can tell that he's very good at obfuscation, and that he's always managed to deflect suspicion in the past. When he realizes that this isn't going to work on Brianna, he immediately switches to a tightly controlled anger, as he asks if Brianna would really tell his secret and condemn him. 

Of course, I love that Lord John's love for Jamie is still on display in such a big way. He refers to him by his first name and says that Jamie is one of the people he holds most dear. Although Jamie's affection for John isn't a focus of the episode, we also get hints of Jamie's regard. He sent John a note and asked him to go out of his way to check on Brianna. He didn't reveal any specifics of the situation, but trusted John to look after his daughter. That's cute.

One of the overarching themes in the entire Outlander series is one of parent/child relationships. We see this with Jamie a lot, obviously, as he has to grapple with meeting his daughter, and the fact that his son doesn't know the truth of his parentage, but also with his relationships with his foster or stepchildren, like with Fergus and Marsali. Brianna is now grappling with the fact that the child she is carrying may be Rogers, or may be the product of rape. I love the fact that Brianna trusts John with this information, and John finds the perfect way to comfort her. He talks about his son, about how he loves him more than life itself, and about how there's no blood relation between them. I love that Brianna tries to compliment Lord John by telling him he's kind to raise another person's son, but John shuts that down. He loves William for his own self. He's not raising someone else's kid, he's raising his own. This would have been a perfectly logical moment for John to ruminate on the fact that William is Jamie's son, but it's not about that. It's about William as his own person, as John's amazing son. I love that.

So now we have Lord John pretending to be Brianna's fiance, to help shield her from other offers. I love it. It's one of the weirdest but best things that happens in these stories, to have these paths cross in such an odd way. I love how Jocasta is just so thrilled that Brianna managed to bag a Lord. It's hilarious. And I'm so excited to see how things play out in the next two weeks. I know I'm supposed to be worried about Roger, and I am, in an abstract sort of way. But I find myself way more interested in Brianna 's story, as well as the Wilmington plot. Here's hoping for lots more Lord John next week!

8.5/10