Outlander: Perpetual Adoration (5x05)

Honestly, this episode felt kind of disjointed to me. Several of the pieces were good, but the picture they made in the end was less than it should have been.

Cons:

I enjoyed, in theory, the flashbacks to Claire back in the twentieth century. We see a story of her losing a patient, Graham Menzies, because of an allergic reaction to penicillin. His death shakes her bad enough that she decides to go on a trip to London with Brianna, which leads to her crossing paths with Roger, and ultimately finding her way back to Jamie. The main issue I had here was the strange way the scenes were arranged. In the "behind the scenes" section of the episode they talk about how they had filmed the scenes in order but ended up rearranging them in editing, and honestly that doesn't surprise me to hear. We see Claire attending the Perpetual Adoration and talking to the priest, before we hear Graham explain what it means to him. I'm not sure why they did this - not only is it unnecessarily complicated from a narrative standpoint, but the scene with the priest is stronger, with the overt message of people never being lost if they are not forgotten. It should have come later anyway.

Also, while I liked the flashbacks, or at least parts of them, I was annoyed at how much focus they pulled from the story proper. Sure, it's fun to see Joe Abernathy again, etc. But the scene with Joe and Kezzie having surgery, Claire and Marsali discovering the penicillin... those are moments I wanted to linger on much more, and it's a bummer they were so brief.

I'll talk in a minute about Jamie's plot thread, which I thought was quite strong, but I did feel like the opening part, where Fergus and Jamie walk in and Knox is there, was kind of odd. Last week there was such a sense of the militia as this unit of people, and this week they were all but absent, with Jamie and Knox getting all the screen time. I could have used a bit more of a sense of the group of men, their dynamics, how they're feeling after everything that went down in Brownsville.

I try so hard to care about Roger and Brianna. Sometimes I manage it, but their fight about Bonnet was really just - disheartening to watch. It's not even that I don't care at all, it's more just that it's dour and unpleasant and it sucks. Roger being upset with Brianna for telling her rapist that her baby is his... like, who am I meant to feel sympathy for in this scene? Because I certainly don't feel it for Roger. Then there's Roger saying that because Bonnet's not dead, they'll need to go through the stones right away, and Brianna gets this conflicted look on her face, like she's still not sure that's what she wants. I'm already exhausted with this dynamic, and I didn't think I would be. I think part of the problem is that I know from the books that they don't leave yet. Who knows, maybe they change things wildly from book canon, but I kind of doubt it.

Pros:

So, while I had my problems with the flashbacks, ultimately I enjoyed seeing Claire in this twentieth century setting, and her voice-over worked really, really well here. Outlander's use of voice-over has been inconsistent, but it's best employed when it's being used to convey a theme or philosophy instead of simply narrating events. Here, we have Claire ruminating on the nature of time, and how that relates to God. It's an excellent theme. We see how in the sterile, "safe" environment of the 1960's, a patient dies senselessly because of an undetected allergy. Meanwhile in the past, Claire is playing God by creating penicillin far before its time, and she uses it to perform successful surgery. Her foreknowledge and skill can and will create a ripple effect, and it's definitely one of the core themes I love to see Outlander explore.

Plus, the actor playing Graham Menzies was genuinely charming, and it was nice to see Claire have a chance to grieve Jamie in a more conventional sense. It's heartbreaking to think about how her original grief for Jamie was subsumed as she tried to be a wife to Frank and a mother to Bree. But decades later, with Frank dead and Brianna grown, she can start to process some of her feelings. She also ends up on the path that leads her back to him, so it all ends up for the best. Also, they brought in the romance novel thing! That's one of my favorite details from the book. Fun to see Joe again!

While Roger and Brianna's scenes left me feeling a little cold, I don't fundamentally dislike these characters. Roger shines brightest when he's focusing on his fish-out-of-water status. He's self-conscious about failing Jamie as a captain, and I really feel for him there. Also, I liked Roger and Claire's scene. They have a more natural chemistry as scene partners than he has with Brianna, and I think that's because Caitriona Balfe is a stronger actress. He compares his situation with Jemmy's unclear paternity, to Claire's decision to hide the truth of Brianna's parentage from her, and I thought that was really interesting, and made for a much better exploration of the situation than we got between Brianna and Roger.

Once again we're seeing how Murtagh continuing to exist in this timeline is changing things for Jamie. I really do go back and forth on whether I like his continued presence, but this week it really worked. Jamie's loyalty, and his decision about when to create a clear line in the sand, is one of the driving forces of this whole story-line. And having Murtagh there, having him be the specific source of Knox's search, adds a personal stake here that I think was definitely missing from the book. I like how in the book, Jamie is basically just trying to play the middle and wait for the right moment to declare himself a rebel, to ensure that he and his family end up on the winning side. It's interesting to watch him navigate that aspect of it. But here, his principles are more directly tangled up in things. His loyalty to Murtagh obviously outweighs his coerced loyalty to the crown!

I also like how Knox seems to really admire Jamie and feel a real sense of kinship with him. Jamie is more reserved, saying what he thinks Knox wants to hear, but I also think Jamie is somewhat genuinely moved by Knox's admiration for him. It was obviously pretty brutal watching Jamie kill him, especially after Knox's horrified realization of Jamie's relationship to Murtagh. Knox isn't a character I necessarily sympathize with, but it was hard not to wince when I saw his life come to end. For Jamie's sake, if nothing else.

So, with evidence of Jamie's true allegiance burned, and Knox dead, Jamie returns to the Ridge with a new friend for Claire - a tiny fuzzy kitten named Adso! This is a different way for the cat to make his entrance than what happens in the books, but hey. I'm still thrilled to see him!

At the end of the day, I'm not sure how to grade this episode. There were things about it I truly enjoyed, but others that frustrated me. We are five episodes in now, and these seasons aren't exactly very long. How am I going to feel about the shape of season five as a whole, when all is said and done? That remains to be seen!

7/10