Outlander: A Practical Guide for Time-Travelers (7x07)

Dun dun dunnnn!

Cons:

I will say, I thought giving William a cheery, jokey bff in the army was a little transparent. The second this dude opened his mouth I was like "ah, he's about to die so William can learn the true horrors of war." I didn't dislike everything with William in this plot thread, but it's probably the least I've cared about adult William since we met him; he's more interesting to me as he relates to the interpersonal connections of Jamie, Claire, and Lord John. Big surprise there.

I feel like they made Rob Cameron just a little too pushy and sinister? In the books I think there was just a little more time to get to know him as a purely innocuous figure, so here it's like we barely know him and now he's pushing in for dinner invitations and asking questions about Roger's papers, like... it's pretty obvious pretty quickly that something's up. I don't know how I would have solved for this, but just thought I'd mention it. The pacing also kinda made the Buck thing a little less impactful, just because we go from "what the hell are you doing here" to "I forgive him, he's Cousin Buck" so immediately. It also made me miss Roger having a huge scar on his neck and difficulty speaking clearly. That's such an important character trait for him in the books, that he never fully recovers from his near death by hanging. I get why for practical reasons they cut it out, but I think it makes his relationship with his ancestor more compelling if the evidence of his close call is still there in every word he speaks.

Pros:

So, despite thinking William's friend was a bit of an obvious ploy, I do think it was really smart to have this whole interaction happening from William's perspective. We've been told that Jamie doesn't ever want to face his son on the battlefield, but then here we see Jamie go off to fight, and yet we see none of the actual fighting from his perspective. William doesn't know his secret father is on the other side of this conflict. I thought it was a cool way to change it up, to have everything be from the British perspective in the conflict itself, just to pan to the shot of Jamie lying, evidently injured, on the battlefield right there at the end. 

Jamie and Claire didn't have a ton to do in this episode, honestly, but I love that we're continuing the voice over bits being connected to the letters home to Bree and Roger. That works so well. And the scene where Jamie realizes Claire needs glasses because her eyesight isn't what it used to be? Adorable! One of those precious scenes from the book that I'm so glad they decided to keep in.

As has been my refrain this season so far, I'm finding the 20th century plot thread really compelling! I saw some people saying they didn't like the Bree and Roger sex scene, but I thought it was pretty good and steamy. And it worked as a sort of distraction, where you have Rob and Buck both in this story as potentially complicating factors. Do either of them mean Roger and Brianna harm? In what way? And then as Buck warns Roger that Rob seems interested in Brianna, and she brushes off that concern, we get this affirming moment of love and connection for them as a couple.

And then... bam, plot twist, Rob flirting with Brianna wasn't really the issue at hand. So even with me wishing the Rob thing had been less obviously telegraphed, I did think that was a clever way to obfuscate the exact nature of the conflict he was going to provide. Unless you've read the books, you genuinely wouldn't have any alarm bells going off when Rob talks about taking Jem to see the movies with him and his nephew. Pretty clever! Also, shout out to the little girl playing Mandy, she's doing a wonderful job, I really felt her fear and distress when she woke up after her nightmare about Jem.

So yeah, in all, I'm excited about where things are going! I remember a lot about the craziness of the rest of this book/season and I think the second half of season seven might be the most excited I've been about Outlander since the early days. A lot of scenes that I remember and adore from the books are likely to be coming up soon!

8/10